iii. forty intervenes, remembers horace

Not half bad, friends, is this sensation

Of having got this far along

Without getting it too badly wrong,

And finding now that one’s situation

Is reasonably comfortable, not bad,

Married to one who’ll plainly do,

Looked after, smiled at, there are few

Who’ll not proclaim that husband, dad,

Are roles that bring a certain joy

At this particular stage of life,

No stomach is needed for the strife

You haven’t experienced since a boy.

Remember, then, the poet Horace,

Whose simple life, with wine, brought solace.

Horace, of course, would be an advocate of staying put. If he were to contemplate our modern life he might say: why are you so keen to travel?