And bade me mark his words, and nothing fear:
LXXI.
“And seest thou not (said he) these vary’d flow’rs,
Contending still for beauty or for sway?
Such are the contests which employ man’s hours,
In life’s short, busy, transitory day.
LXXII.
For what is gaudy beauty’s short-liv’d bloom,
The pomp of pow’r, of riches, or of pride;
Soon bury’d in the undistinguish’d tomb,