Fragment LXIII: Simonides ! If with my learning’s store

Simonides ! If with my learning’s store
I still retain’d my riches as before,
I should not shrink from joining as a guest
In converse with the wisest and the best.
But now, with idle shame opprest and weak,
I sit dejected, and forbear to speak :
Feeble, forgetful, melancholy, slow,
My former pride of learning I forgo,
My former knowledge I no longer know.
Such is our state ! in a tempestuous sea,
With all the crew raging in mutiny!
No duty follow’d, none to reef a sail,
To work the vessel, or to pump or bale ;
All is abandon’d, and without a check
The mighty sea comes sweeping o’er the deck.
Our steersman, hitherto so bold and steady,
‘Active and able, is deposed already.
No discipline, no sense of order felt ;
The daily messes are unduly dealt.
The goods are plunder’d, those that ought to keep
Strict watch are idly skulking or asleep ;
All that is left of order or command,
Committed wholly to the basest hand.
In such a case, my friend! I needs must think,
It were no marvel though the vessel sink.
This riddle to my worthy friends I tell,
But a shrewd knave will understand it well.