The legend’s still the same: —

"O Vanity of Vanities!"

Here at the wine one birls,

There some one clanks a chain.

The flag that this man furls

That man to float is fain.

Pleasure gives place to pain:

These in the kennel crawl,

While others take the wall.

She has a glorious aim,

He lives for the inanities.

What come of every claim?

O Vanity of Vanities!

Alike are clods and earls.

For sot, and seer, and swain,

For emperors and for churls,

For antidote and bane,

There is but one refrain:

But one for king and thrall,

For David and for Saul,

For fleet of foot and lame,

For pieties and profanities,

The picture and the frame: —

“O Vanity of Vanities!”

Life is a smoke that curls —

Curls in a flickering skein,

That winds and whisks and whirls,

A figment thin and vain,

Into the vast Inane.

One end for hut and hall!

One end for cell and stall!

Burned in one common flame

Are wisdoms and insanities.

For this alone we came: —

“O Vanity of Vanities!”

Envoy

Prince, pride must have a fall.

What is the worth of all

Your state’s supreme urbanities?

Bad at the best’s the game.

Well might the Sage exclaim: —

“O Vanity of Vanities!”

Double Ballade Of Life And Fate

Fools may pine, and sots may swill,

Cynics gibe, and prophets rail,

Moralists may scourge and drill,

Preachers prose, and fainthearts quail.

Let them whine, or threat, or wail!

Till the touch of Circumstance

Down to darkness sink the scale,

Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance.

What if skies be wan and chill?

What if winds be harsh and stale?

Presently the east will thrill,

And the sad and shrunken sail,

Bellying with a kindly gale,

Bear you sunwards, while your chance

Sends you back the hopeful hail: —

‘Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance’.

Idle shot or coming bill,

Hapless love or broken bail,

Gulp it (never chew your pill!),

And, if Burgundy should fail,

Try the humbler pot of ale!

Over all is heaven’s expanse.

Gold’s to find among the shale.

Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance.

Dull Sir Joskin sleeps his fill,

Good Sir Galahad seeks the Grail,

Proud Sir Pertinax flaunts his frill,

Hard Sir AEger dints his mail;

And the while by hill and dale

Tristram’s braveries gleam and glance,

And his blithe horn tells its tale: —

‘Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance’.

Araminta’s grand and shrill,

Delia’s passionate and frail,

Doris drives an earnest quill,

Athanasia takes the veil:

Wiser Phyllis o’er her pail,

At the heart of all romance

Reading, sings to Strephon’s flail: —

‘Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance’.

Every Jack must have his Jill

(Even Johnson had his Thrale!):

Forward, couples — with a will!

This, the world, is not a jail.

Hear the music, sprat and whale!

Hands across, retire, advance!

Though the doomsman’s on your trail,

Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance.

Envoy

Boys and girls, at slug and snail

And their kindred look askance.

Pay your footing on the nail:

Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance.

Ballade Of Youth And Age

Spring at her height on a morn at prime,

Sails that laugh from a flying squall,

Pomp of harmony, rapture of rhyme —

Youth is the sign of them, one and all.

Winter sunsets and leaves that fall,

An empty flagon, a folded page,

A tumble-down wheel, a tattered ball —

These are a type of the world of Age.