I gazed upon my country's walls,
So powerful once, now a withered ruin. Weary
with the passage of the years,
Their valor now by age outworn.

I went into the fields, to see the sun
Had drunk of the streams relinquished by the ice,
And across the querulous cows the hill
Cast shade that robbed their day of light

I went into my house, to see, decrepit,
It was an aged dwelling's mere remains,
My staff less strong now, and more bent.

Vanquished by the years I felt my sword,
And found no thing on which to rest my eyes
That was not a reminder now of death.