MORTALITY, behold and fear! <br />What a change of flesh is here! <br />Think how many royal bones <br />Sleep within this heap of stones: <br />Here they lie had realms and lands, <br />Who now want strength to stir their hands: <br />Where from their pulpits seal'd with dust <br />They preach, 'In greatness is no trust.' <br />Here 's an acre sown indeed <br />With the richest, royall'st seed <br />That the earth did e'er suck in <br />Since the first man died for sin: <br />Here the bones of birth have cried-- <br />'Though gods they were, as men they died.' <br />Here are sands, ignoble things, <br />Dropt from the ruin'd sides of kings; <br />Here 's a world of pomp and state, <br />Buried in dust, once dead by fate.<br /><br />Francis Beaumont<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-the-tombs-in-westminster-abbey/
