If I had the world and time,
ample wine and leisure,
then I might be well content
to give myself to pleasure.
Oh what fun indolence is
with all the world my treasure.
But infinity is not the cloth
of which I'm cut and measured.
The Fates that cut say time is short,
I cannot bide forever.
I preserve my time
in bits of rhyme
so posterity thinks me clever.
A prophet in his own home town
appreciated never.