Oft on the vilest riches are bestow'd,
To show their meanness in the sight of God.
High from a dunghill see a Dives rise,
And, Titan-like, insult the avenging skies:
The crowd in adulation calls him lord,
By thousands courted, flatter'd, and adored:
In riot plunged, and drunk with earthly joys,
No higher thought his grovelling soul employs;
The poor he scourges with an iron rod,
And from his bosom banishes his God.
But oft, in height of wealth and beauty's bloom,
Deluded man is fated to the tomb!
For lo, he sickens, swift his colour flies,
And rising mists obscure his swimming eyes:
Around his bed his weeping friends bemoan,
Extort the unwilling tear, and wish him gone;
His sorrowing heir augments the tender shower,
Deplores his death--yet hails the dying hour.
Ah, bitter comfort! sad relief to die!
Though sunk in down, beneath a canopy!
His eyes no more shall see the cheerful light,
Weigh'd down by death in everlasting night:
And now the great, the rich, the proud, the gay,
Lies breathless, cold--unanimated clay!
He that just now, was flatter'd by the crowd
With high applause and acclamation loud;
That steel'd his bosom to the orphan's cries,
And drew down torrents from the widow's eyes;
Whom, like a God, the rabble did adore--
Regard him now--and lo! he is no more.