Classic Poem

“T IME'S frost shall touch thy temples in the morn,
Ere evening comes thy day shall ended be,
Cheated of hope thy thoughts shall die with thee,
Near ways shall lead thee to thy farthest bourn.

“Thy songs, that move me not, shall wither, shorn
Of youth's fresh bloom; and when for love of me
Thy death has proved my fated mastery,
Posterity shall laugh thy sighs to scorn.

“Thy fame shall be a by-word in the land,
Thy work prove built on quickly-shifting sand,
Thy pictures vainly painted in the skies.”

So prophesied the Nymph I dote upon;
When Heaven for witness to her malison
With lightning from the right struck blind mine eyes.