Life's idle all is vain:

Vain, in its course, life's murmuring stream;

Did not its course offend,

But murmur cease; life, then, would seem

Still vainer, from its end.

How wretched! who, through cruel fate,

Have nothing to lament!

With the poor alms this world affords

Deplorably content!

Had not the Greek his world mistook,