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THE VANITY OF THE WORLD, A POEM.

I

WHAT if a Day, or a Month, or a Year,
Crown thy Delights with a Thousand sweet contentings,
May not the Chance of a Night or an Hour,
Cross thy Delights with as many sad lamentings.
193

Fortune, Honour, Beauty, Youth, are but Blossoms dying;
Wanton Pleasures, doating Love, are but shadows flying:
All our Joys are but Toys, idle Thoughts deceiving;
None has Power of an Hour, to his Life retrieving.

II

The Earth's but a Point of the World; and a Man
Is but a Point to the Earth's compared Center:—
Shall then a Point of a Point be so vain,
As to triumph in a silly Points adventure.—
All is hazard that we have, there is nothing 'biding,
Days of Pleasure are like Streams, thro' fair Meadows gliding;
Weal or Woe, Time doth go; Time hath no returning;—
Secret Fates guide our States, both in Mirth and mourning.

III

What hast thou then, silly Man, for to boast,
But of a sad, and a sorrowful Life perplexed,
When Heart and Hope, and the Fancy at best,
Then Grief and Fear with despair are annexed.
Blossoms, Ashes, Earth and Bell, doth thy State resemble;
Fear of Sickness, Death and Hell, should make thee to tremble.
Every Thing that doth spring, soon is ripe, soon rotten!
Pomp and Pride, soon doth slide, soon they are forgotten.

IV

So soon as Death shall have ended thy Race,
And cut the Thread of thy Life,—thy Soul is ascending,
Into it's Rest, 'foredeemed the Place,
Whither thy Thoughts, Words and Works, were ever 'tending.
Death doth hasten, and the Grave, waiteth for thy coming;
Neither Friends nor Foes can save, thou art thither running.
Every Day taketh away part of thy Time flying;
Therefore strive, whilst alive, to be fit for dying.
previous section [Poems by Danforth in] Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society
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