Let hopes and sorrows, fears and angers be, And think each day that dawns the last you'll see; For so the hour that greets you unforeseen Will bring … - John Conington

A critical sense of style and of poetic form is not easy to attain, nor is it of first importance for the younger, or, indeed, for any student of Virgil. Wide open to anyone who is willing to learn is the richer knowledge of Virgil as a poet who loved his country and who loved also that humanity which existed before Rome, exists today within ourselves, and will exist long after our own civilization, like that of Virgil's Rome, has become a matter of "ancient history." It is true that the longer one has lived the better one can appreciate a poem which is concerned with life. But the gain that comes to us with the years depends, partly at least, upon the riches we have been willing to extract from literature, which is the experience of other men and women written out. In youth's search for this treasure the Aeneid will be at once a fair haven and a port of departure.

In the moment of our talking, envious time has ebb'd away.
Seize the present; trust to-morrow e'en as little as you may.

Too cruel, lady, is the pain,
You bid me thus revive again.