Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A SERIOUS REFLECTION ON HUMAN LIFE, SELECTION by HENRY BAKER

First Line: HOW VAIN IS MAN! HOW FOOLISH ARE HIS WAYS!
Last Line: "AND MAKE OUT ONE CONTINUED SCENE OF WOE."
Subject(s): LIFE; PESSIMISM; TRANSIENCE; IMPERMANENCE;
"How vain is Man! how foolish are his ways!
How short, and yet how sorrowful, his days!
From life's first moment to its latest date,
A painful, careful, miserable state!
Languid as sunshine on a winter's day,
Its worthless joys, scarce tasted, haste away:
But grief, and labour, everlasting flow,
And make out one continued scene of woe."



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