Shee is emptie, and void, and waste.
1
Shee's empty: Hark, she sounds: There's nothing there,
But noise to fill thy eare;
Thy vaine enquiry can, at length, but find
A blast of mumr'ing wind:
It is a Cask, that seems as full, as faire;
But meerely tunn'd with Ayre:
Fond youth, go build thy hopes on better grounds:
The soule that vainly founds
Her Joyes upon this world, but feeds on empty sounds:
2
Shee's empty: Hark; she sounds: There's nothing in't:
The spark-ingendring Flint
Shall sooner melt, and hardest Raunce shall, first,
Dissolve and quench thy thirst,
Ere this false world shall still thy stormy brest
With smooth-fac'd Calmes of Rest:
Thou mayst, as well, expect Meridian light
From shades of black-mouth'd night,
As in this empty world to find a full delight.
3
Shee's empty: Hark; she sounds; 'Tis void and vast;
What if some flattring blast
Of flatuous Honour should perchance, be there;
And whisper in thine eare,
It is but wind; and blowes but where it list,
And vanishes like a Mist:
Poore Honour earth can give! What gen'rous mind
Would be so base, to bind
Her heav'n-bred soule a slave, to serve a Blast of wind?
4
Shee's empty: Hark; She sounds: 'Tis but a Ball
For Fooles to play withall;
The painted filme but of a stronger Bubble,
That's lin'd with silken trouble;
It is a world, whose Work, and Recreation
Is vanity, and vexation;
A Hagg, repair'd with vice-complexion, paint:
A Questhouse of complaint;
It is Saint; a Fiend: worse Fiend, when most a Saint.
5
Shee's empty: Hark: she sounds: 'Tis vaine and void
What's here to be enjoy'd,
But Griefe, and sicknesse, and large bills of sorrow,
Drawne now, and crost to morrow?
Or what are Men, but puffs of dying breath,
Reviv'd with living death?
Fond lad; O build thy hopes on surer grounds
Than what dull flesh propounds;
Trust not this hollw world, shee's empty: Hark; she sounds.
S. CHRYS. in Ep. ad Heb.
Contemne riches, and thou shalt be rich; Contemne glory, and thou shalt be
glorious; Contemne injuries, and thou shalt be a conqueror; Contmne rest, and
thou shalt gaine rest; Contemne earth, and thou shalt find Heaven.
HUGO lib. de Vanit. mundi.
The world is a vanity which affords neither beauty to the amorous, nor reward
to the laborious, nor encouragement to the industrious.
