Where gold and snow in purple pomp are met,
All give a warning man should not forget,
When one brief day can darken things so bright.
'Tis but to wither that the roses bloom--
'Tis to grow old they bear their beauteous flowers,
One crimson bud their cradle and their tomb.
Such are man's fortunes in this world of ours;
They live, they die; one day doth end their doom,
For ages past but seem to us like hours.
The warning which Zenobia gives her captor in his hour of triumph to beware of sudden reverses of fortune is finely conceived: