Had quaffed the cup of pleasure to its dregs,

And now, grown old, must pay the penalty

In wrinkles and uncourted loneliness;

The widow, who, but newly desolate,

Would grasp a hand, then start to find it gone;

The spendthrift and the sordid usurer,

Who knew no sentiment save lust for gold;

The bloated drunkard, sinking 'neath the weight

Of wassail inclination dissolute;

The youth, who, following his baleful steps,

Reeled for the first time from intemperance;

And she who had forgot her covenant,

In brazen infamy and unwept shame;—

The good, the bad, the impious and unjust,

The energetic and the indolent,

The adolescent and the venerable,

Passed by, pursuant of their various ways.

The aged and decrepit plodded by,

Whom one would think were ripe for any tomb,

Yet quailed at dissolution's very thought;

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