Three Things Remain With Us

If The Present World Go Astray, The Cause Is In You, In You It Is To Be Sought.

Those Ancients Who In Poetry Presented The Golden Age, Who Sang Its Happy State, Perhaps, In Their Parnassus, Dreamt This Place. Here, Mankind's Root Was Innocent; And Here Were Every Fruit And Never-ending Spring; These Streams--the Nectar Of Which Poets Sing.

I, Answering In The End, Began: 'alas, How Many Yearning Thoughts, What Great Desire, Have Lead Them Through Such Sorrow To Their Fate?

Oh Foolish Desires Of Mortals! How Weak Are The Reasons That Lead Us To Not Take Off Our Flight From The Ground.

I Affirm That Gain Is Precisely That Which Comes Oftener To The Bad Man Than To The Good; For Illegitimate Gains Never Come To The Good At All, Because They Reject Them. And Lawful Gains Rarely Come To The Good, Because, Since Much Anxious Care Is Needful Thereto, And The Anxious Care Of The Good Man Is Directed To Weightier Matters, Rarely Does The Good Man Give Sufficient Attention Thereto. Wherefore It Is Clear That In Every Way The Advent Of These Riches Is Iniquitous.