Giacomo Leopardi

“ When men have finished half of their long way,
Then death itself with great terrors fraught;
The worst of ills and the extreme of woe,
Old age was found by an unswerving doom,
Wherein desire doth glow,
Hope wanes and pales and dwindles down to nought,
The fountains of delight are frozen and quelled,
The sorrows greater, and all bliss withheld. ”