What Wondrous Life Is This I Lead!

And All The Way, To Guide Their Chime, With Falling Oars They Kept Their Time.

Like The Vain Curlings Of The Watery Maze, Which In Smooth Streams A Sinking Weight Does Raise, So Man, Declining Always, Disappears In The Weak Circles Of Increasing Years; And His Short Tumults Of Themselves Compose, While Flowing Time Above His Head Does Close.

What Wondrous Life Is This I Lead! Ripe Apples Drop About My Head.

How Vainly Men Themselves Amaze, / To Win The Palm, The Oak, Or Bays; / And Their Incessant Labours See / Crowned From Some Single Herb Or Tree.

The Grave's A Fine And Private Place, But None, I Think, Do There Embrace.