| |
| DELUDING 1 world, which hath so long amus’d, | |
| And with false shapes my dreaming soule abus’d: | |
| Tyrannick court, where simple mortals buy | |
| With life and fortune splendid slavery; | |
| Henceforth adieu; my goodly stock of years | 5 |
| Laid out for that, I now lament with teares. | |
| Monarchs, who with amazing splendour glare, | |
| And favourites, who their reflections are, | |
| Both shine, ’tis true, but ’tis like glass they do, | |
| Brittle as that, and made of ashes too. | 10 |
| The houre is set wherein they must disown | |
| The royal pomp, the treasure, and the throne; | |
| The dazzling lustre of majestic state | |
| Shall be extinguished by the hand of fate: | |
| Highness must stoop into the hollow grave, | 15 |
| And keep sad court in a cold dampish grave. | |
| Beauty and jovial youth decayes apace; | |
| Age still and sickness oft doth both deface: | |
| The favourite whom all adore and fear, | |
| Whose strength doth so unshakeable appear, | 20 |
| Is but a towre built on flitting sands, | |
| No longer than the tempest sleepeth, stands: | |
| Nor can the calm of fortune long insure, | |
| Or monarch’s favour crazy man secure. | |
| We moulder of ourselves, and soone or late | 25 |
| We must resign beloved life to fate. | |
| From stately palaces we must remoue, | |
| The narrow lodging of a grave to proue: | |
| Leave the faire train and the light-guilded room, | |
| To lye alone, benighted in the tomb. | 30 |
| God only is immortal: man not so: | |
| Life to be paid upon demand, we owe. | |
| The rigid lawe of fate with none dispence, | |
| From the least beggar to the greatest prince; | |
| The crooked scythe that no distinction knows, | 35 |
| Monarchs and slaves indifferently mows. | |
| One day we ’d pity those we now admire, | |
| When after all the glory they acquire, | |
| When after all the conquests they have made, | |
| Fierce death their laurels in the dust hath laid. | 40 |
