The colors of your youth will one day fade

And mark the abdication of your power;

Those pompous gestures that your courtiers bade

Shall here no more indulge each waking hour—

All this shall pass—cheap perfume on the wind,

A cigarette of time—and then it’s gone

With naught but memories of boudoir sins

To haunt the mind and render pride forlorn.

How many consort princes have bowed down

And found their grandest wishes rubbled quite?

The fondest hopes of love, razed by a frown—

Bright dreams of rapture lost in neon nights;

Yet when the final light of beauty dies…

A simple mirror daily shall chastise.