Yet all these stars which deck this beauteous sky
By force of th'inward sun both shine and move;
Throned in her heart sits love's high majesty;
In highest majesty the highest love.
As when a taper shines in glassy frame,
The sparkling crystal burns in glittering flame,
So does that brightest love brighten this lovely dame.
INSTABILITY OF HUMAN GREATNESS.
Fond man, that looks on earth for happiness,
And here long seeks what here is never found!
For all our good we hold from Heaven by lease,
With many forfeits and conditions bound;
Nor can we pay the fine and rentage due:
Though now but writ and seal'd, and given anew,
Yet daily we it break, then daily must renew.
Why shouldst thou here look for perpetual good,
At every loss against Heaven's face repining?
Do but behold where glorious cities stood,
With gilded tops, and silver turrets shining;
Where now the hart fearless of greyhound feeds,
And loving pelican in safety breeds;
Where screeching satyrs fill the people's empty steads.
Where is the Assyrian lion's golden hide,
That all the East once grasp'd in lordly paw?
Where that great Persian bear, whose swelling pride
The lion's self tore out with ravenous jaw?
Or he which, 'twixt a lion and a pard,
Through all the world with nimble pinions fared,
And to his greedy whelps his conquer'd kingdoms shared?
Hardly the place of such antiquity,
Or note of these great monarchies we find:
Only a fading verbal memory,
An empty name in writ is left behind:
But when this second life and glory fades,
And sinks at length in time's obscurer shades,
A second fall succeeds, and double death invades.
That monstrous Beast, which nursed in Tiber's fen,
Did all the world with hideous shape affray;
That fill'd with costly spoil his gaping den,
And trod down all the rest to dust and clay:
His battering horns pull'd out by civil hands,
And iron teeth lie scatter'd on the sands;
Backed, bridled by a monk, with seven heads yoked stands.
And that black Vulture,[1] which with deathful wing
O'ershadows half the earth, whose dismal sight
Frighten'd the Muses from their native spring,
Already stoops, and flags with weary flight:
Who then shall look for happiness beneath?
Where each new day proclaims chance, change, and death,
And life itself's as fleet as is the air we breathe.
[1] 'Black Vulture:' the Turk.