1.
What if a day, or a month, or a year
Crown thy delights with a thousand sweet contentings;
Cannot a chance of a night or an hour
Cross thy desires with as many sad tormentings?
Fortune, honour, beauty, youth
Are but blossoms dying;
Wanton pleasure, doting love
Are but shadows flying.
All our joys
Are but toys,
Idle thoughts deceiving.
None have power
Of an hour
In their lives bereaving.
2.
Earth’s but a point to the world; and a man
Is but a point to the world’s compared centre.
Shall then a point of a point be so vain
As to triumph in a seely point’s adventure?
All is hazard that we have,
There is nothing biding;
Days of pleasure are like streams
Through fair meadows gliding.
Weal and woe,
Time doth go,
Time is never turning.
Secret fates
Guide our states
Both in mirth and mourning.