It grieves me when I see what fate
Does on the best of mankind wait.
Poets or lovers let them be,
'Tis neither love nor poesy
Can arm against death's smallest dart
The poet's head, or lover's heart.
For when their life in its decline
Touches th' inevitable line,
All the world's mortal to 'em then,
And wine is aconite to men.
Nay, in death's hand the grape-stone proves
Fatal as thunder is in Jove's.
Anacreon