What if a day, or a month, or a year Crown thy delights with a thousand sweet contentings? Cannot a chance of a night or an hour Cross thy desires with as many sad tormentings? Fortune, Honour, Beauty, Youth Are but blossoms dying; Wanton Pleasure, doting Love, Are but shadows flying. All our joys are but toys, Idle thoughts deceiving; None hath power of an hour In our lives' bereaving. Earth's but a point to the world, and a man Is but a point to the world's compared centre: Shall then the point of a point be so vain As to triumph in a silly point's adventure? All is hazard that we have, There is nothing biding; Days of pleasure are like streams Through fair meadows gliding. Weal and woe, time doth go, Time is never turning: Secret fates guide our states, Both in mirth and mourning. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ODE TO THE BROWN PAPER BAG by JAMES GALVIN HOW MY HEART SINKS by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON ON A YOUNG LADY'S SIXTH ANNIVERSARY by KATHERINE MANSFIELD SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: ALFRED MOIR by EDGAR LEE MASTERS HER EYES by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON THE UNDERGRADUATE KILLED IN BATTLE; OXFORD, 1915 by GEORGE SANTAYANA |