Classic Poem

Necessity—the current of whose sway
Many would stem, but few can find the way,—
To what abasement has she made me bend,
Now when life's pulse is ebbing to its end!
Whom no ambitious aim, no sordid bait,
Fear, force, nor influence of the grave and great.
Nor meed of praise, nor any lure beside,
Could move, when youthful, from my place of pride
Lo in mine age how easily I fall!
One honied speech from Cæsar's tongue was all;
For how might I resist his sovereign will,
Whose every wish the Gods themselves fulfil?
Twice thirty years without a blemish spent,
Forth from my home this morn a knight I went,
And thither I return—as what? a mime!
Oh, I have lived one day beyond my time!
Fortune—still wayward both in bad and good,
If 't was thy pleasure in thy changeful mood,
To tear the wreath of honour from my brow,
Why was I not far earlier taught to bow,
When with such aid as youth and strength afford,
I might have won the crowd and pleased their lord?
Now, why thus humbled in the frost of age?
What scenic virtues bring I to the stage?
What fire of soul, what dignity of mien,
What powers of voice to grace the mimic scene?
As creeping ivy kills the strangled tree,
So the long clasp of years has dealt with me.
Naught left, alas! of all my former fame,
Save the poor legend of a tomb—my name!