As they loiter their time by some hedge-alehouse door;
Whilst the harness sore galls, and the spurs his sides goad,
The high-mettled racer’s a hack on the road.
At length, old and feeble, trudging early and late,
Bow’d down by diseases, he bends to his fate;
Blind, old, lean, and feeble, he tugs round a mill,
Or draws sand, till the sand of his hour-glass stands still;
And now, cold and lifeless, exposed to the view
In the very same cart which he yesterday drew;
Whilst a pitying crowd his sad relics surrounds