What Wondrous Life Is This I Lead!

So Much One Man Can Do That Does Both Act And Know.

My Love Is Of A Birth As Rare As 'tis, For Object, Strange And High; It Was Begotten By Despair Upon Impossibility.

No White Nor Red Was Ever Seen So Am'rous As This Lovely Green. Fond Lovers, Cruel As Their Flame, Cut In These Trees Their Mistress' Name. Little, Alas, They Know Or Heed How Far These Beauties Hers Exceed! Fair Trees! Where S'e'er Your Barks I Wound, No Name Shall But Your Own Be Found.

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.

Self-preservation, Nature's First Great Law, All The Creatures, Except Man, Doth Awe.