As is the fragrant flower in the field,
Which in the spring a pleasant smell doth yield,
And lovely sight, but soon is withered;
So’s Man: to-day alive, to-morrow dead.
And as the silver dew-bespangled grass,
Which in the morn bedecks its mother’s face,
But ere the scorching summer’s passed looks brown,
Or by the scythe is suddenly cut down.
Just such is Man, who vaunts himself to-day,
Decking himself in all his best array;
But in the midst of all his bravery
Death rounds him in the ear, “Friend, thou must die.”
Or like a shadow in a sunny day,
Which in a moment vanishes away;
Or like a smile or spark,—such is the span
Of life allowed this microcosm, Man.
Cease then vain man to boast; for this is true,
Thy brightest glory’s as the morning dew,
Which disappears when first the rising sun
Displays his beams above the horizon.
As the consideration of the uncertainty of human life drew the foregoing
lines from me, so the sense I had of the folly of mankind, in misspending
the little time allowed them in evil ways and vain sports, led me more
particularly to trace the several courses wherein the generality of men
run unprofitably at best, if not to their hurt and ruin, which I
introduced with that axiom of the Preacher (Eccles. i. 2):