William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649)

THIS Life, which seems so fair,

Is like a bubble blown up in the air

By sporting children’s breath,

Who chase it everywhere

And strive who can most motion it bequeath:

And though it sometime seem of its own might,

Like to an eye of gold, to be fixed there,

And firm to hover in that empty height;

That only is because it is so light.

But in that pomp it doth not long appear;

For when ’tis most admirèd, in a thought,

Because it erse was naught, it turns to naught.