While we live here, we must provision make.
A Dooms-Day Thought.] This, the last of Flatman's three poems on the Novissima, is perhaps not the worst; except for those who hate 'conceits'. It has a curious genuineness, though in manner it slightly resembles his friend Cotton's 'New Year' poem so highly and rightly praised by Lamb.
Virtus sola manet, caetera mortis erunt.
I.
Nunquam sitivi, quae vehit aureo
Pactolus alveo flumina; quo magis
Potatur Hermus, tanto avarae
Mentis Hydrops sitibundus ardet.