Ah gentle pair, ye little think how nigh Your change approaches, when all these delights Will vanish and deliver ye to woe, More woe, the more your taste is now of joy.
Earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy.
It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them.
Spangling the wave with lights as vain As pleasures in the vale of pain, That dazzle as they fade.
Hence, all you vain delights, As short as are the nights Wherein you spend your folly! There's naught in this life sweet But only melancholy; O sweetest melancholy!
As beauteous is the world, and many a joy Floats through its wide dominion. But, alas, When we would seize the winged good, it flies.
Why, all delights are vain, but that most vain Which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain: As, painfully to pore upon a book, To seek the light of truth, which truth the while Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.
