The Riddle of the Sphinx
From age to age the haggard human train
Creeps wearily across Time’s burning sands
To look into her face, and lift weak hands
In supplication to the calm disdain
That crowns her stony brow.... But all in vain
The riddle of mortality they try:
Doom speaks still from her unrelenting eye—
Doom deep as passion, infinite as pain.
From age to age the voice of Love is heard
Pleading above the tumult of the throng,
But evermore the inexorable word
Comes like the tragic burden of a song.
“The answer is the same,” the stern voice saith:
“Death yesterday, today and still tomorrow—Death!”