Decadence

The sunken eye, the hollow cheek
the broken bones and snapped sinews
the fingers that once beauty fondled
waste away now to barren amuse
The fire of the eye, the edge of the mind
quenched and blunted by the killing blight
of name, fame and shame

For dotage is not the draught that drinks
the light from the living candle,
but the stench of the long burnt wick
that seeps through the still air,
with its cursed half life
living after the flame is dead...