Vanitas Vanitatum - John Webster

VANITAS VANITATUM
by: John Webster

ALL the flowers of the spring

Meet to perfume our burying;

These have but their growing prime,

And man does flourish but his time:

Survey our progress from our birth;

We are set, we grow, we turn to earth.

Courts adieu, and all delights,

All bewitching appetites!

Sweetest breath and clearest eye,

Like perfumes, go out and die;

And consequently this is done

As shadows wait upon the sun.

Vain ambition of kings

Who seek by trophies and dead things

To leave a living name behind,

And weave but nets to catch the wind. 

 

 

—oOo—