Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Ars Longa, Vita Brevis
William Congreve (1670-1729), Verses to the Memory of Grace Lady Gethin, Occasioned by reading her Book, intitled Reliquiae Gethinianae, lines 1-8:
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After a painful life in study spent,
The learn'd themselves their ignorance lament;
And aged men, whose lives exceed the space,
Which seems the bound prescrib'd to mortal race,
With hoary heads, their short experience grieve,
As doom'd to die before they've learn'd to live.
So hard it is true knowledge to attain,
So frail is life, and fruitless human pain!
