CCCXVI VANITAS VANITATUM ALL the flowers of the spring Who seek by trophies and dead things And weave but nets to catch the wind. J. Webster. CCCXVII IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY MORTALITY, behold and fear! Sleep beneath this heap of stones! DEATH'S EMISSARIES Here they lie had realms and lands, Who now want strength to stir their hands: With the richest, royall'st seed That the earth did e'er suck in Since the first man died for sin : Here the bones of birth have cried, 285 'Though gods they were, as men they died!' Here are sands, ignoble things, Dropt from the ruin'd sides of kings; Here's a world of pomp and state, Buried in dust, once dead by fate. CCCXVIII Francis Beaumont. DEATH'S EMISSARIES VICTORIOUS Men of earth, no more Proclaim how wide your empires are ; Though you bind on every shore And your triumphs reach as far As night or day, Yet you, proud monarchs, must obey And mingle with forgotten ashes, when Death calls ye to the crowd of common men. Devouring Famine, Plague, and War, More quaint and subtle ways to kill; CCCXIX DEATH THE LEVELLER THE glories of our blood and state Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade. Some men with swords may reap the field, They stoop to fate, And must give up their murmuring breath THE WIDOW The garlands wither on your brow; Then boast no more your mighty deeds; See where the victor-victim bleeds. To the cold tomb: Only the actions of the just Smell sweet and blossom in the dust. CCCXX 287 James Shirley. THE WIDOW How near me came the hand of Death, How helpless am I thereby made! -Alas! how I am left alone! The voice which I did more esteem Those now by me, as they have been But what I once enjoy'd in them 1 Companion. Lord! keep me faithful to the trust For though our being man and wife Yet neither life nor death shall end Geo. Wither. CCCXXI THE MOURNING DOVE LIKE as the Culver1 on the bared bough So I alone now left disconsolate Mourn to myself the absence of my love : And wand'ring here and there all desolate Seek with my plaints to match that mournful dove Ne joy of aught that under heaven doth hove Dark is my day whiles her fair light I miss, Spenser. 1 Dove. |