On crimes of youth and days of lawless sport,

Blessings abus’d, and time profusely squander’d;

Th’ Almighty’s image in the human breast

Polluted, and false deities ador’d;

What solid satisfaction can the joys,

The glittering trifles of this life afford?

—Not regal splendour, nor enormous heaps

Of shining ore, nor reputation earn’d

By smooth hypocrisy, nor pleasures strain’d

By art’s device, to satiate the sense