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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Extracts from Miscellanies: Upon the Weakness and Misery of Man

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

Samuel Butler (1612–1680)

Extracts from Miscellanies: Upon the Weakness and Misery of Man

OUR pains are real things, and all

Our pleasures but fantastical.

Diseases of their own accord,

But cures come difficult and hard.

Our noblest piles and stateliest rooms

Are but outhouses to our tombs;

Cities though ne’er so great and brave

But mere warehouses to the grave.

Our bravery ’s but a vain disguise

To hide us from the world’s dull eyes,

The remedy of a defect

With which our nakedness is decked,

Yet makes us smile with pride and boast

As if we had gained by being lost.