A GOOD that never satisfies the mind, A beauty fading like the April flowers, A sweet with floods of gall that runs combined, A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours, An honor that more fickle is than wind, A glory at opinion's frown that lowers, A treasury which bankrupt time devours, A knowledge than grave ignorance more blind, A vain delight our equals to command, A style of greatness, in effect a dream, A swelling thought of holding sea and land, A servile lot, decked with a pompous name,— Are the strange ends we toil for here below, Till wisest death make us our errors know. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DELIGHT IN DISORDER by ROBERT HERRICK TO DOCTOR EMPIRIC by BEN JONSON ON THE PROJECTED KENDAL AND WINDERMERE RAILWAY by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH ON HIS MISTRESS, THE QUEEN OF BOHEMIA by HENRY WOTTON THE IRISH MOTHER'S LAMENT by CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER BUCK O' KINGWATTER by ROBERT ANDERSON OF CARLISLE |