Vanitas Vanitatum
John Webster 1580 (London) – 1632 (London)
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.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 28 sec read
- 142 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AABBCCDDEEFFGGHH |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 525 |
Words | 96 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 16 |
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"Vanitas Vanitatum" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/24150/vanitas-vanitatum>.
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