To the hard task of this degrading hour?
Where now, in what profound abyss of shame,
Dost thou conspire with Fate to sink my name?
Whence are my hopes? What voice can age supply
To charm the ear, what grace to please the eye?
Where is the active energy and art,
The look that guides its passion to the heart?
Age creeps like ivy o’er my withered trunk,
Its bloom all blasted and its vigour shrunk;
A tomb, where nothing but a name remains