When others sat them down to fear He did not so, but in the dewy night When the great wain was turning round the pole He sought his kinsman Cato's humble home.
Him sleepless did he find, not for himself Fearing, but pondering the fates of Rome, And deep in public cares.

And thus he spake: "O thou in whom that virtue, which of yore Took flight from earth, now finds its only home, Outcast to all besides, but safe with thee: Vouchsafe thy counsel to my wavering soul And make my weakness strength.

While Caesar some, Pompeius others, follow in the fight, Cato is Brutus' guide.

Art thou for peace, Holding thy footsteps in a tottering world Unshaken?
Or wilt thou with the leaders' crimes And with the people's fury take thy part, And by thy presence purge the war of guilt?
In impious battles men unsheath the sword; But each by cause impelled: the household crime; Laws feared in peace; want by the sword removed; And broken credit, that its ruin hides In general ruin.

Drawn by hope of gain, And not by thirst for blood, they seek the camp.
Shall Cato for war's sake make war alone?
What profits it through all these wicked years That thou hast lived untainted?
This were all Thy meed of virtue, that the wars which find Guilt in all else, shall make thee guilty too.
Ye gods, permit not that this fatal strife Should stir those hands to action! When the clouds Of flying javelins hiss upon the air, Let not a dart be thine; nor spent in vain Such virtue! All the fury of the war Shall launch itself on thee, for who, when faint And wounded, would not rush upon thy sword, Take thence his death, and make the murder thine?
Do thou live on thy peaceful life apart As on their paths the stars unshaken roll.
The lower air that verges on the earth Gives flame and fury to the levin bolt; The deeps below the world engulph the winds And tracts of flaming fire.