When youth had led me half the race,
That Cupid's scourge me caus'd to run,
I looked back to meet the place
From whence my weary course begun.
(Earl of Surrey: Description of the restless state of a lover. ab. 1545.)
Weep with me, all you that read
This little story;
And know, for whom a tear you shed
Death's self is sorry.
(Ben Jonson: Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy. 1616.)
And now the weary world's great medicine, Sleep,
This learned host dispensed to every guest,
Which shuts those wounds where injured lovers weep,
And flies oppressors to relieve the opprest.
(Sir William Davenant: Gondibert, Bk. i. Canto 6. 1651)
Now like a maiden queen she will behold
From her high turrets hourly suitors come;
The East with incense and the West with gold
Will stand like suppliants to receive her doom.
(Dryden: Annus Mirabilis, stanza 297. 1667.)
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
(Gray: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. 1751.)