Surely in no benignant mood The gods have fashioned us, but craftily To send us homing to the sod Wise only in our own futility. With hyancinthine brows of youth, We enter life as to a festival; But, ere the feast is spread, the gods Snatch back the wine, the song, the coronal. And, lusterless, we turn, afraid, Turn to the sole vouchsafed heritage, And in the shaken darkness clutch The disenchanted ledges of old age. |