Snows in thy hair and wrinkles on thy brow,
The years have strewn the ashes on thy face;
Of all things wretched, wanting most in grace,
Of all things sad, the saddest thing art thou.
Now has thy boyish smile become a leer,
Thy lips are swollen and thy vision blinks,
And in thy heart, more ancient than the Sphinx,
Abide alone the memory and the tear.

O lovely lad reborn in many a land,
Of Shakespeare loved and Michelangelo!
Not thine this age's crown of sorrow, and
Thou shouldst have died these many years ago,
Not grown into a spectre of the past,
To be a thing of horror at the last.