Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke
William Makepeace Thackeray (18111863)From Vanitas Vanitatum
O V
How wayward the decrees of Fate are;
How very weak the very wise
How very small the very great are!
Sir Preacher, from your desk you mumble?
Why rail against the great and wise,
And tire us with your ceaseless grumble?
O man morose and narrow-minded!
Come turn the page—I read the next,
And then the next, and still I find it.
And Folly set in place exalted;
How Princes footed in the dust,
While lacquey in the saddle vaulted.
Since David’s son, the sad and splendid,
The weary King Ecclesiast,
Upon his awful tablets penned it,—
And life is every day renewing
Fresh comments on the old old tale
Of Folly, Fortune, Glory, Ruin.
He lifts his voice and cries his sermon,
Here at St. Peter’s of Cornhill,
As yonder on the Mount of Hermon;
(O dear beloved brother readers)
To-day, as when the good King spake
Beneath the solemn Syrian cedars.