Poem by John Webster

Vanitas Vanitatum

All the flowers of the spring
Meet to perfume our burying;
These have but their growing prime,
And man does flourish but his time:
Survey our progress from our birth;
We are set, we grow, we turn to earth.
Courts adieu, and all delights,
All bewitching appetites!
Sweetest breath and clearest eye,
Like perfumes, go out and die;
And consequently this is done
As shadows wait upon the sun.
Vain ambition of kings
Who seek by trophies and dead things
To leave a living name behind,
And weave but nets to catch the wind.

Vanitas Vanitatum – (ëàò.) ñóåòà ñóåò.

1. A Land Dirge
2. Death Song
3. Honourable Employment
4. The Madman's Song

William Thackeray Vanitas Vanitatum ("How spake of old the Royal Seer?")

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