Excerpt from Saint Augustine, Vol. 1 of 8: A Poem in Eight Books Ife! Human life! So bitter and so sweet! So sweet to fools, so bitter to the wise Life! Tedious oft, but oftener far too fleet, Thy close here longed for, there a rude surprise Life! Which none sane presumes to cast away, Though some, in pain, for thy departure pray. Life! Thou enigma few can understand, And fewer fashion to a noble end Life! Whose brief glories all men, mean and grand, Condemn at heart, although their tongues commend, Which art so poor yet rich, so false yet fair, And worth scant praise from true lips anywhere. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.