Tithonus

The woods in the forests grow old and their leaves fall to the ground. Man is born, works the earth, and then dies and is buried underground. Yet the speaker, Tithonus, is cursed to live forever. Tithonus tells Aurora, goddess of the dawn, that he grows old slowly in her arms like a "white-hair'd shadow" roaming in the east.

Tithonus laments that while he is now a "gray shadow" he was once a beautiful man chosen as Aurora's lover. He remembers that he long ago asked Aurora to grant him eternal life: "Give me immortality!" Aurora granted his wish generously, like a rich philanthropist who has so much money that he gives charity without thinking twice. However, the Hours, the goddesses who accompany Aurora, were angry that Tithonus was able to resist death, so they took their revenge by battering him until he grew old and withered. Now, though he cannot die, he remains forever old; and he must dwell in the presence of Aurora, who renews herself each morning and is thus forever young. Tithonus appeals to Aurora to take back the gift of immortality while the "silver star" of Venus rises in the morning. He now realizes the ruin in desiring to be different from all the rest of mankind and in living beyond the "goal of ordinance," the normal human lifespan.

Just before the sun rises, Tithonus catches sight of the "dark world" where he was born a mortal. He witnesses the coming of Aurora, the dawn: her cheek begins to turn red and her eyes grow so bright that they overpower the light of the stars. Aurora's team of horses awakes and converts the twilight into fire. The poet now addresses Aurora, telling her that she always grows beautiful and then leaves before she can answer his request. He questions why she must "scare" him with her tearful look of silent regret; her look makes him fear that an old saying might be true--that "The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts."