Often I said to myself: “What means this wealthy condition?
What does it claim, this swift great store of my gain?”—
Woe to myself! for faith and confidence perish;
Even my property teaches how I have heaped it in vain!
Lightly the wing sweeps men and the things that they cherish,
And from the highest station ruin pours down to the plain.
What you possess to-day, perchance you will lose by to-morrow,
Or, indeed, as you speak, it ceases perhaps to be yours.
These are the tricks of our fate; and haughtiest kings to their sorrow,
And humblest slaves shall find that no future endures.