The King and the Sage

I thought it was enough I loved them all. Yet love may rise, whilst lives about one fall. In myriad hopes conceiving were I tasked, Yet all the while, on balconies I basked. For glory’s garlands shall it ne’er suffice, To virtue honor and inhabit vice. Till by degrees my kingdom fell to ruin, And all its merits, by the winds were strewn. I spoke when dreams were broke from Fortune’s stings. “Let gloomy courtiers speak of gloomy things, And here proclaim the Corronach of Kings; For this shall be the measure of my sorrow: That I shall live today, and not tomorrow.” Thy wits didst fail, yet heart were well. It is a greater grief I tell. I found much folly on life’s stage, And in the embers of our age, I found myself a bitter sage. Of those whose lives I could address, I little thought, and cared still less. My heart was on a distant shore, And so their blood beat as before. Though called by gods, I did not rise! And where the honor I were wise? Time pauses not for idle grief, Of humble men, nor high sharif: The past a current, life a leaf. Time passes not for fools alone, And wiser men, they must atone, Before their wits decay to bone. Decay is not the only thing That Time’s companions ever bring: And winters fall that summers spring.