I loathe, O Lord, this life below, <br />And all its fading fleeting joys; <br />'Tis a short space that's fill'd with woe, <br />Which all our bliss by far outweighs. <br />When will the everlasting morn <br />With dawning light the skies adorn? <br />Fitly this life's compared to night, <br />When gloomy darkness shades the sky; <br />Just like the morn's our glimmering light <br />Reflected from the Deity. <br />When will celestial morn dispel <br />These dark surrounding shades of hell? <br />I'm sick of this vexatious state, <br />Where cares invade my peaceful hours; <br />Strike the last blow, O courteous fate, <br />I'll smiling fall like mowed flowers; <br />I'll gladly spurn this clogging clay, <br />And, sweetly singing, soar away. <br />What's money but refined dust? <br />What's honours but an empty name? <br />And what is soft enticing lust, <br />But a consuming idle flame? <br />Yea, what is all beneath the sky <br />But emptiness and vanity? <br />With thousand ills our life's oppress'd, <br />There's nothing here worth living for <br />In the lone grave I long to rest, <br />And be harass'd here no more: <br />Where joy's fantastic, grief's sincere, <br />And where there's nought for which I care. <br />Thy word, O Lord, shall be my guide, <br />Heaven, where thou dwellest is my goal; <br />Through corrupt life grant I may glide <br />With an untainted upward soul. <br />Then may this life, this dreary night, <br />Dispelled be by morning light.<br /><br />James Thomson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-complaint-on-the-miseries-of-life/
