C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Anonymous
A Farewell to the Vanities of the World
F
Farewell, ye honored rags, ye glorious bubbles!
Fame’s but a hollow echo; gold, pure clay;
Honor’s the darling of but one short day;
Beauty, the eyes’ idol, but a damasked skin;
State but a golden prison to live in
And torture free-born minds; embroidered trains
Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins;
And blood allied to greatness is alone
Inherited, not purchased, nor our own;
Fame, honor, beauty, state, train, blood, and birth
Are but the fading blossoms of the earth.
Level his rays against the rising hill;
I would be high, but see the proudest oak
Most subject to the rending thunder-stroke;
I would be rich, but see men, too unkind,
Dig in the bowels of the richest mine;
I would be wise, but that I often see
The fox suspected whilst the ass goes free;
I would be fair, but see the fair and proud
Like the bright sun oft setting in a cloud;
I would be poor, but know the humble grass
Still trampled on by each unworthy ass:
Rich, hated; wise, suspected; scorned if poor;
Great, feared; fair, tempted; high, still envied more:
I have wished all, but now I wish for neither,
Great, high, rich, wise, nor fair; poor I’ll be rather.
Would beauty’s queen entitle me “the fair”;
Fame speak me fortune’s minion; could I vie
Angels with India; with a speaking eye
Command bare heads, bowed knees, strike justice dumb
As well as blind and lame; or give a tongue
To stones and epitaphs; be called great master
In the loose rhymes of every poetaster;
Could I be more than any man that lives,
Great, fair, rich, wise, all in superlatives,—
Yet I more freely would these gifts resign
Than ever Fortune would have made them mine,
And hold one minute of this holy leisure
Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure.
These guests, these courts, my soul more dearly loves;
Now the winged people of the sky shall sing
My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring;
A prayer-book now shall be my looking-glass,
In which I will adore sweet Virtue’s face.
Here dwell no hateful looks; no palace cares,
No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-faced fears:
Then here I’ll sit and sigh my hot love’s folly,
And learn to affect an holy melancholy;
And if contentment be a stranger then,
I’ll ne’er look for it but in heaven again.