Amadis Jamyn (1538–1592)

Translated by Henry Francis Cary

WHEN I behold a football to and fro

Urged by a throng of players equally,

Who run pell-mell, and thrust and push and throw,

Each party bent alike on victory;

Methinks I see, resembled in that show,

This round earth poised in the vacant sky,

Where all are fain to lay each other low,

Striving by might and main for mastery.

The ball is filled with wind: and even so

It is for wind most times that mortals war;

Death the sole prize they all are struggling for:

And all the world is but an ebb and flow;

And all we learn, whenas the game is o’er,

That life is but a dream, and nothing more.