But the Greek mind, as expressed by the old epigraphy in the cemeteries, not less than by the teaching of Mimnermus, took exactly the opposite view.

"O children of men, it is because beauty and pleasure and love and light can last only for a little while, it is exactly because of this that you should love them.

Why refuse to enjoy the present because it can not last for ever ?" And at a much later day the Persian poet Omar took, you will remember, precisely the same view.

You need not think that it would be wise to accept such teaching for a rule of life, but it has a certain value as a balance to the other extreme view, that we should make ourselves miserable in this world with the idea of being rewarded in another, concerning which we have no positive knowledge.

The lines with which the poem concludes at least deserve to be thought about-- But oh, the very reason why I clasp them, is because they die.
We shall later on take some of the purely Greek work of Cory for study, but I want now to interest you in the more modern part of it.