English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 195. Life |
| | | William Drummond (1585–1649) |
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| THIS Life, which seems so fair, | |
| Is like a bubble blown up in the air | |
| By sporting children’s breath, | |
| Who chase it everywhere | |
| And strive who can most motion it bequeath. | 5 |
| And though it sometimes seem of its own might | |
| Like to an eye of gold to be fix’d there, | |
| And firm to hover in that empty height, | |
| That only is because it is so light. | |
| —But in that pomp it doth not long appear; | 10 |
| For when ’tis most admired, in a thought, | |
| Because it erst was nought, it turns to nought. | |
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