LXIX. Henry Anderson

DELUDING world, which hath so long amus’d,

And with false shapes my dreaming soule abus’d:

Tyrannick court, where simple mortals buy

With life and fortune splendid slavery;

Henceforth adieu; my goodly stock of years

Laid out for that, I now lament with teares.

Monarchs, who with amazing splendour glare,

And favourites, who their reflections are,

Both shine, ’tis true, but ’tis like glass they do,

Brittle as that, and made of ashes too.

The houre is set wherein they must disown

The royal pomp, the treasure, and the throne;

The dazzling lustre of majestic state

Shall be extinguished by the hand of fate:

Highness must stoop into the hollow grave,

And keep sad court in a cold dampish grave.

Beauty and jovial youth decayes apace;

Age still and sickness oft doth both deface:

The favourite whom all adore and fear,

Whose strength doth so unshakeable appear,

Is but a towre built on flitting sands,

No longer than the tempest sleepeth, stands:

Nor can the calm of fortune long insure,

Or monarch’s favour crazy man secure.

We moulder of ourselves, and soone or late

We must resign beloved life to fate.

From stately palaces we must remoue,

The narrow lodging of a grave to proue:

Leave the faire train and the light-guilded room,

To lye alone, benighted in the tomb.

God only is immortal: man not so:

Life to be paid upon demand, we owe.

The rigid lawe of fate with none dispence,

From the least beggar to the greatest prince;

The crooked scythe that no distinction knows,

Monarchs and slaves indifferently mows.

One day we ’d pity those we now admire,

When after all the glory they acquire,

When after all the conquests they have made,

Fierce death their laurels in the dust hath laid.