“I am no deity,” replied the dame, + 

“But mortal, and religious rites disclaim, + 

Yet had avoided death’s tyrannic sway, + 

Had I consented to the god of day. + 

With promises he sought my love, and said: + 

‘Have all you wish, my fair Cumaean maid.’ + 

I paused: then pointing to a heap of sand, + 

‘For every grain, to live a year demand.’ + 

But, ah! unmindful of the effect of time, + 

Forgot to covenant for youth and prime. + 

The smiling bloom I boasted once is gone + 

And feeble age with lagging limbs creeps on. + 

Seven centuries have I lived; three more fulfil + 

The period of the years to finish still. + 

Who’ll think that Phoebus, dress’d in youth divine, + 

Had once believed his lustre less than mine? + 

This wither’d frame (so fates have will’d) shall waste + 

To nothing but prophetic words at last.” + 

The sibyl mounting now from nether skies, + 

And the famed Ilian prince at Cuma rise. + 

He sail’d, and near the place to anchor came, + 

Since call’d Cajeta from his nurse’s name; + 

Here did the luckless Macareus, a friend + 

To wise Ulysses, his long labours end; + 

Here, wandering, Achaemenides he meets, + 

And, sudden, thus his late associate greets: + 

“Whence came you here, oh friend, and whither bound? + 

All gave you lost on fair cyclopean ground; + 

A Greek’s at last aboard a Trojan found.” + 