ALEXANDRINES

Knowing the weariness of dreams, and days, and nights,

The great and grievous vanity of joy and pain;

Frail loves that pass, where languors infinite remain;

Fervours, and long despairs, and desperate, brief delights;

Knowing how in the witless brains of them that were,

The drowsy, wiving worm hath prospered and hath died;

Knowing that, evermore, by moon and sun abide

The standing glooms made stagnant in the sepulchre;

Knowing the vacillant leaves that tremble, flame, and fall,