Read "Lais When Young" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Lais when young, and all her charms in flower, / Lais, whose beauty was the fateful light / That led great ships to anchor in the night / And bring their priceless cargoes to her bower, / Lais yet found her cup of sweet turned sour. / Great Plato's pupil, from his lofty height, / Zenocrates, unmoved, had seen the white / Sweet wonder of her, and defied her power.
She snared the world in nets of subtle wiles: / The proud, the famed, all clamoured at her gate; / Dictators plead, inside her portico; / Wisdom sought madness, in her favouring smiles; / Now was she made the laughing-stock of fate: / One loosed her clinging arms, and bade her go.