As, by an hour-glass, the span of time
Doth waste us to our graves; and we look on it.
An age of pleasures, revell’d out, comes home
At last, and ends in sorrow: but the life,
Weary of riot, numbers every sand,
Wailing in sighs, until the last drop down;
So to conclude calamity in rest: numbering wasted life.
How cleverly the old dramatist, Shirley, illustrates this philosopher in glass:
Let princes gather
My dust into a glass, and learn to spend