Fair Flora! Now attend thy sportful feast,
Of which some days I with design have past;
A part in April and a part in May
Thou claim'st, and both command my tuneful lay;
And as the confines of two months are thine
To sing of both the double task be mine.
Thou fool, what is sleep but the image of death? Fate will give an eternal rest.
[Lat., Stulte, quid est somnus, gelidae nisi mortis imago?
Longa quiescendi tempora fata dabunt.]
Beneath the sun's rays our shadow is our comrade;
When clouds obscure the sun our shadow flees.
So Fortune's smiles the fickle crowd pursues,
But swift is gone whenever she veils her face.
Ovid lies here, the poet, skilled in love's gentle sport;
By his own talents he worked his undoing.
Oh, you who pass by, if ever you have loved,
Think it not a burden to wish him calm repose.