her pants
For lack of breath, the third his eyesight wants;
Nay, some so feeble are, and full of pain,
That infant-like they must be fed again.
These faint too at their meals; their wine they spill,
And like young birds, that wait the mother's bill,
They gape for meat; but sadder far than this
Their senseless ignorance and dotage is;
For neither they, their friends, nor servants know,
Nay, those themselves begot, and bred up too,
No longer now they'll own; for madly they
Proscribe them all, and what, on the last day,
The misers cannot carry to the grave
For their past sins, their prostitutes must have.
But grant age lack'd these plagues: yet must they see
As great, as many: frail mortality,
In such a length of years, hath many falls,
And deads a life with frequent funerals.
The nimblest hour in all the span can steal
A friend, or brother from's; there's no repeal
In death, or time; this day a wife we mourn,
To-morrow's tears a son; and the next urn
A sister fills. Long-livers have assign'd
These curses still, that with a restless mind,
An age of fresh renewing cares they buy,
And in a tide of tears grow old and die.
Nestor,--if we great Homer may believe--
In his full strength three hundred years did live:
Happy--thou'lt say--that for so long a time
Enjoy'd free nature, with the grape and wine
Of many autumns; but, I prithee thee, hear
What Nestor says himself, when he his dear
Antilochus had lost; how he complains
Of life's too large extent, and copious pains?
Of all he meets, he asks what is the cause
He liv'd thus long; for what breach of their laws
The gods thus punish'd him? what sin had he
Done worthy of a long life's misery.
Thus Peleus his Achilles mourned, and he
Thus wept that his Ulysses lost at sea.
Had Priam died before Phereclus' fleet
Was built, or Paris stole the fatal Greek,
Troy had yet stood, and he perhaps had gone
In peace unto the lower shades; his son
Sav'd with his plenteous offspring, and the rest
In solemn pomp bearing his fun'ral chest.
But long life hinder'd this: unhappy he,
Kept for a public ruin, liv'd to see
All Asia lost, and ere he could aspire,
In his own house saw both the sword and fire;
All white with age and cares, his feeble arm
Had now forgot the war; but this a