Lithum Recitation

stanza 1

This thing you see, a bright-colored deceit

displaying all the many charms of art,

with false syllogisms of tint and hue,

is a cunning deception of the eye;

stanza 2

this thing in which sheer flattery has tried

to evade the stark horrors of the years

and, vanquishing the cruelties of time,

to triumph over age and oblivion,

stanza 3

is vanity, contrivance, artifice,

a delicate blossom stranded in the wind,

a failed defense against our common fate;

stanza 4

a fruitless enterprise, a great mistake,

a decrepit frenzy, and rightly viewed,

a corpse, some dust, a shadow, mere nothingness.