You give your cheks a rosy stain, <br />With washes dye your hair; <br />But paint and washes both are vain <br />To give a youthful air. <br /> <br />Those wrinkles mock your daily toil, <br />No labor will efface 'em, <br />You wear a mask of smoothest oil, <br />Yet still with ease we trace 'em. <br /> <br />An art so fruitless then forsake, <br />Which though you much excel in, <br />You never can contrive to make <br />Old Hecuba young Helen.<br /><br />William Cowper<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-a-similar-character-from-the-greek/
