When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind!

Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit, The power of beauty I remember yet, Which once inflam'd my soul, and still inspires my wit.

Beauty, like ice, our footing does betray; Who can tread sure on the smooth, slippery way: Pleased with the surface, we glide swiftly on, And see the dangers that we cannot shun.

And love's the noblest frailty of the mind.

When rattling bones together fly, / From the four corners of the sky.

And all to leave, what with this toil he won, / To that unfeathered, two-legged thing, a son.