Gateway to the Classics: Display Item
John Greenleaf Whittier

Oriental Maxims: Laying Up Treasure

From the Mahàbhárata

Before the Ender comes, whose charioteer

Is swift or slow Disease, lay up each year

Thy harvests of well-doing, wealth that kings

Nor thieves can take away. When all the things

Thou callest thine, goods, pleasures, honors fall,

Thou in thy virtue shalt survive them all.