He contendeth not with the noble; he lingereth no long space + 

In bringing a work to fulfilment;⁠—for Opportunity stays + 

By a man but a fleeting moment: well is it marked of him still + 

How it waiteth on him as a helper, not as the slave of his will. + 

Of all gifts this is the saddest, to know what is best for man, + 

And yet that Fate the tyrant thy winning thereto should ban. + 

Ay, Atlas still stands straining beneath heaven’s crushing load, + 

From all his possessions exiled, from his ancestral abode. + 

Yet by Zeus ever-living the Titans were unchained; and as on time fleets, + 

With the lulling and veering of breezes may the shipmen shift the sheets. + 