They shalbe as the chaffe that is driven with a whirlewind out of the
floore, and as the smoke out of the chimney.
Flint-brested Stoicks, you whose marble eyes
Contemne a wrinckle, and whose soules despise
To follow Natures too affected Fashion,
Or travell in the Regent walk of Passion;
Whose rigid hearts disdaine to shrinke at Feares,
Or play at fast and loose with Smiles and Teares;
Come burst your spleenes with laughter; to behold
A new-found vanity; which, dayes of old
Nev'r knew; A vanity, that has beset
The world, and made more slaves than Mahomet;
That has condemn'd us to the servile yoke
Of slavery, and made us slaves to smoke:
But stay! why taxe I thus our moderne times,
For new-blowne Follies, and for new-borne Crimes?
Are we sole guilty, and the first Age free?
No, they were smoak'd, and slav'd as well as we:
What's sweet-lipt Honours blast, but smoke? What's treasure;
But very smoke? And what more smoke than pleasure?
Alas! they'r all but shadowes, Fumes, and blasts;
That vanishes; this fades: the other waits:
The restlesse Merchant; he, that loves to steepe
His braines in wealth, and layes his soule to sleepe
In bags of Bullion, sees th'immortall Crowne,
And faine would mount, but Ingots keep him downe:
He brags to day, perchance, and begs tomorrow;
He lent but now; wants Credit, now, to borrow:
Blow wind? the Treasure's gone; the Merchant's broke;
A slave to silver's but a slave to smoke:
Behold the Glory-vying Child of Fame,
That from deep wounds sucks forth an honour'd name,
That thinks no purchase worth the stile of good,
But what is sold for sweat, and seal'd with blood,
That's for a Poynt, a blast of empty breath,
Undaunted, gazes in the face of death;
Whose deare-bought Bubble, fild with vaine renowne,
Breaks with a Phillip, or a Gen'rals frowne;
His stroke-got Honour staggers with a stroke;
A Slave to Honour is a Slave to Smoke:
And that fond soule which wasts his idle dayes
In loose delights, and sports about the Blaze
Of Cupids Candle; he that daily spies
'Twin Babies in his Mistresse Geminies,
Where to his sad devotion does impart
The sweet burnt offring of a bleeding heart;
See, how his wings are sing'd in Cyprian fire,
Whose flames consume with youth; in Age, expire:
The world's a Bubble; all the pleasures in it,
Like morning vapours vanish in a minit:
The vapours vanish, and the Bubble's broke;
A slave to Pleasure is a slave to smoke.
Now, Stoick, cease thy laughter, and repast
Thy pickled cheeks with Teares, and weep as fast.
S. HIEROM.
That rich man is great, who thinkes not himselfe great because he is rich:
the proud man (who is the poore man) brags outwardly, but begs inwardly: He is blowne up, but not full.
PETR. RAV.
Vexation and anguish accompany riches and honour: The pompe of the world
and the favour of the people are but smoake, and a blast suddenly vanishing:
which, if they commonly please, commonly bring repentance, and for a minut of
joy they bring an age of sorrow.
