| |
| GO, empty joys, | |
| With all your noise, | |
| And leave me here alone, | |
| In sweet sad silence to bemoan | |
| The fickle worldly height, | 5 |
| Whose danger none can see aright, | |
| Whilst your false splendors dim his sight. | |
| |
| Go, and ensnare | |
| With your trim ware | |
| Some other easy wight, | 10 |
| And cheat him with your flattering light; | |
| Rain on his head a shower | |
| Of honors, favor, wealth, and power; | |
| Then snatch it from him in an hour. | |
| |
| Fill his big mind | 15 |
| With gallant wind | |
| Of insolent applause; | |
| Let him not fear all-curbing laws, | |
| Nor king, nor people’s frown; | |
| But dream of something like a crown, | 20 |
| Then, climbing towards it, tumble down. | |
| |
| Let him appear | |
| In his bright sphere | |
| Like Cynthia in her pride, | |
| With starlike troops on every side; | 25 |
| For number and clear light | |
| Such as may soon o’erwhelm him quite, | |
| And blend them both in one dead night. | |
| |
| Welcome, sad night, | |
| Grief’s sole delight, | 30 |
| Thy mourning best agrees | |
| With honor’s funeral obsequies! | |
| In Thetis’ lap he lies, | |
| Mantled with soft securities, | |
| Whose too much sunshine dims his eyes. | 35 |
| |
| Was he too bold, | |
| Who needs would hold | |
| With curbing reins the Day, | |
| And make Sol’s fiery steeds obey? | |
| Then, sure, as rash was I, | 40 |
| Who with ambitious wings did fly | |
| In Charles’s Wain too loftily. | |
| |
| I fall, I fall! | |
| Whom shall I call? | |
| Alas! can he be heard, | 45 |
| Who now is neither loved nor feared? | |
| You who have vowed the ground | |
| To kiss, where my blest steps were found, | |
| Come, catch me at my last rebound. | |
| |
| How each admires | 50 |
| Heaven’s twinkling fires, | |
| Whilst from their glorious seat | |
| Their influence gives light and heat; | |
| But O, how few there are, | |
| Though danger from the act be far, | 55 |
| Will run to catch a falling star. | |
| |
| Now ’t is too late | |
| To imitate | |
| Those lights whose pallidness | |
| Argues no inward guiltiness; | 60 |
| Their course one way is bent; | |
| Which is the cause there ’s no dissent | |
| In Heaven’s High Court of Parliament. | |
| |
