This Life, which seems so fair
William Drummond · 1616
Public domain
From The Golden Treasury, selected by Francis Turner Palgrave. William Drummond. The text is free of copyright in the United States. This copy is the poem, without the Project Gutenberg header.
This Life, which seems so fair,
Is like a bubble blown up in the air
By sporting children's breath,
Who chase it everywhere
And strive who can most motion it bequeath.
And though it sometimes seem of its own might
Like to an eye of gold to be fix'd there,
And firm to hover in that empty height,
That only is because it is so light.
--But in that pomp it doth not long appear;
For when 'tis most admiréd, in a thought,
Because it erst was nought, it turns to nought.