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| FAREWELL, you gilded follies, pleasing troubles! | |
| Farewell, you honour’d rags, you crystal bubbles! | |
| Fame’s but a hollow echo; gold pure clay; | |
| Honour is but the darling of one day; | |
| Beauty, the eyes’ idol, but a damask skin; | 5 |
| State but a golden prison to keep in | |
| And torture freeborn minds; embroider’d trains | |
| But goodly pageants, proudly-swelling veins; | |
| Fame, riches, honour, state, trains, beauties, birth, | |
| Are but the fading blessings of the earth. | 10 |
| I would be great, but see the sun doth still | |
| Level his beams against the rising hill; | |
| I would be rich, but see men too unkind | |
| Dip in the bowels of the richest minds; | |
| I would be fair, but see the champion proud, | 15 |
| The world’s fair eye, off setting in a cloud; | |
| I would be wise, but that the fox I see | |
| Suspected guilty when the ass is free; | |
| I would be poor, but see the humble grass | |
| Is trampled on by each unworthy ass. | 20 |
| Rich hated, wise suspected, scorn’d if poor; | |
| Great fear’d, fair tempted, and high envied more. | |
| Would the world now adopt me for his heir; | |
| Would Beauty’s Queen entitle me the fair; | |
| Fame speak me Honour’s minion; could I vie | 25 |
| The bliss of angels; with a speaking eye | |
| Command bare heads, bow’d knees, strike Justice dumb | |
| As well as blind and lame; and give a tongue | |
| To stones by epitaphs; be called Master | |
| In the loose lines of every poetaster. | 30 |
| Could I be more than any man that lives, | |
| Rich, wise, great, fair, all in superlatives; | |
| I count one minute of my holy leisure | |
| Beyond too much of all this empty pleasure. | |
| Welcome, pure thoughts! welcome, ye careless groans! | 35 |
| These are my guests, this is that courtage tones. | |
| Ye winged people of the skies shall sing | |
| Mine anthems; be my cellar, gentle spring. | |
| Here dwells no hopeless loves, no palsy fears, | |
| No short joys purchased with eternal tears; | 40 |
| Here will I sit, and sigh my hot youth’s folly, | |
| And learn to affect a holy melancholy; | |
| And if contentment be a stranger, then | |
| I’ll never look for ’t but in Heaven again. | |
| And when I die I’ll turn my cave | 45 |
| Even from a chamber to a silent grave; | |
| The falling spring upon the rock shall wear | |
| Mine epitaph, and cause a briny tear | |
| From him who asks who in this tomb doth lie. | |
| The doleful Echo answers: It is I. | 50 |
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