Yet whilst with sorrow here we live opprest,
What life is best? Courts are but only superficial schools
To dandle fools: The rural parts are turned into a den
Of savage men: And where's a city from foul vice so free,
But may be termed the worst of all the three?
Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed,
Or pains his head: Those that live single, take it for a curse,
Or do things worse: Some would have children: those that have them, moan
Or wish them gone: What is it, then, to have or have no wife,
But single thraldom, or a double strife?
Our own affection still at home to please
Is a disease: To cross the seas to any foreign soil,
Peril and toil: Wars with their noise affright us; when they cease,
We are worse in peace;— What then remains, but that we still should cry
For being born, or, being born, to die?
FRANCIS, LORD BACON.
Moan, moan, ye dying gales!
The saddest of your tales
Is not so sad as life; Nor have you e'er began
A theme so wild as man,
Or with such sorrow rife.
Fall, fall, thou withered leaf!
Autumn sears not like grief,
Nor kills such lovely flowers; More terrible the storm,
More mournful the deform,
When dark misfortune lowers.
Hush! hush! thou trembling lyre,
Silence, ye vocal choir,
And thou, mellifluous lute, For man soon breathes his last,
And all his hope is past,
And all his music mute.
Then, when the gale is sighing,
And when the leaves are dying,
And when the song is o'er, O, let us think of those
Whose lives are lost in woes,
Whose cup of grief runs o'er.
HENRY NEELE.