While on the stage, he plays a vain romance;
And while he dances, swift his moments fly!
O, trifler, pause! for even now, perchance,
With dart in hand, grim Death stands waiting by;
For those who thus have lived, ’tis awful work—to die!
IX.
But sweet the dying chamber, where the saint
A farewell bids to his mortality;
What tongue can tell—what master hand can paint
The radiant glories of the upper sky,