 | Poems By John Hall |  |
What profiteth a Man of all his labour which he taketh under the Sun? Ecclesiastes. 1. 3.
1
Even as the wandring Traveller doth stray,Led from his way
By a false fire, whose Flame to cheated sight
Doth lead aright,
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Which should be gone;
Even so my foolish wishes are in chace
Of ev'ry thing, but what they should embrace.
2
We laugh at children, that can when they pleaseA bubble raise,
And, when their fond ambition sated is,
Againe dismisse
The fleeting toy into its former Aire.
What doe we here
But act such Tricks? yet thus we differ, they
Destroy, so do not we, wee sweat, they play.
3
Ambitions towrings do some gallants keepeFrom calmer sleepe,
Yet when their thoughts the most possessed are,
They grope but Aire,
And when they're highest, in an instant fade
Into a shade,
Or like a stone, that more forc'd upwards, shall
With greater violence to'ts Center fall.
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4
Another whose conceptions onely dreameMonsters of fame,
The vaine applause of other Mad-men buyes
With his owne sighes,
Yet his enlarged name shall never craule
Over this Ball,
But soone consume; thus doth a Trumpets sound
Rush bravely on a little, then's not found;
5
But we as soone may tell how often shapesAre chang'd by Apes,
As know how oft mans childish thoughts do vary
And still miscarry,
So a weake Eye in twilight thinkes it sees
New species,
While it sees nought, so men in dreames conceive,
Of Scepters, till that waking undeceive.
| Poems By John Hall | |