Late in life have I discovered Horace, the most amiable of Romans.

But blessedly, not too late.

Here is the poet, gently warning a friend about the perils of ambition:

The lofty pine is oftenest shaken by the winds; 

High towers fall with a heavier crash; 

And the lightning strikes the highest mountain.

Dawn over Lethe.

And because even I can't live in perpetual gloom:

Lady, when your lovely head 
Droops to sink among the Dead, 
And the quiet places keep 
You that so divinely sleep; 
Then the dead shall blessed be 
With a new solemnity, 
For such Beauty, so descending, 
Pledges them that Death is ending. 
Sleep your fill—but when you wake 
Dawn shall over Lethe break.

--Hilaire Belloc, "On a Sleeping Friend."

 

Eyeing the horizon.

I to my perils
Of cheat and charmer
Came clad in armour
By stars benign.
Hope lies to mortals
And most believe her,
But man's deceiver
Was never mine.

The thoughts of others
Were light and fleeting,
Of lovers' meeting
Or luck or fame.
Mine were of trouble,
And mine were steady;
So I was ready
When trouble came. 

-- A.E. Housman