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Horace, Montaigne and Azad

“So are we drawn, as wood is shoved,
By others’ sinews each way moved.”
Montaigne remarks on the above lines of Horace:–
“We go not, but we are carried, as things that float, now gliding gently, now hulling violently, according as the water is either stormy or calm.”
While reading this passage in Montaigne I was put in mind of a verse by our late and lamented poet “Azad” who has given an expression to this idea much more beautifully than either Horace or Montaigne. Says he:
جہاز عمر رواں پر سوار بیٹھے ہیں
سوار خاک ہیں بے اختیار بیٹھے ہیں