ELEGY UPON ANACREON.
87
It grieves me when I see what fate
Does on the best of mankind wait.
Poets or lovers let them be,
'T is neither love nor poesy
Can arm, against death's smallest dart,
The poet's head or lover's heart;
But when their life, in its decline,
Touches th' inevitable line,
All the world's mortal to them then,
And wine is aconite to men;
Nay, in death's hand, the grape-stone proves
As strong as thunder is in Jove's.
Does on the best of mankind wait.
Poets or lovers let them be,
'T is neither love nor poesy
Can arm, against death's smallest dart,
The poet's head or lover's heart;
But when their life, in its decline,
Touches th' inevitable line,
All the world's mortal to them then,
And wine is aconite to men;
Nay, in death's hand, the grape-stone proves
As strong as thunder is in Jove's.
