VVhat is th' Existence of Mans life? <br />But open war, or slumber'd strife. <br />Where sickness to his sense presents <br />The combat of the Elements: <br />And never feels a perfect Peace <br />Till deaths cold hand signs his release. <br />It is a storm where the hot blood <br />Out-vies in rage the boyling flood; <br />And each loud Passion of the mind <br />Is like a furious gust of wind, <br />Which beats his Bark with many a Wave <br />Till he casts Anchor in the Grave. <br />It is a flower which buds and growes, <br />And withers as the leaves disclose; <br />Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep, <br />Like fits of waking before sleep: <br />Then shrinks into that fatal mold <br />Where its first being was enroll'd. <br />It is a dream, whose seeming truth <br />Is moraliz'd in age and youth: <br />Where all the comforts he can share <br />As wandring as his fancies are; <br />Till in a mist of dark decay <br />The dreamer vanish quite away. <br />It is a Diall, which points out <br />The Sun-set as it moves about: <br />And shadowes out in lines of night <br />The subtile stages of times flight, <br />Till all obscuring earth hath laid <br />The body in perpetual shade. <br />It is a weary enterlude <br />Which doth short joyes, long woes include. <br />The World the Stage, the Prologue tears, <br />The Acts vain hope, and vary'd fears: <br />The Scene shuts up with loss of breath, <br />And leaves no Epilogue but Death.<br /><br />Henry King<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-dirge-3/
