See how the feather’d blossoms through the air
Traverse a thousand various paths to find
On the impurer Earth a place that’s fair,
Courting the conduct of each faithless wind!
See how they seem to hover near their end,
Nicely supported on their doubtful wing,
Yet all by an impulse of fate descend,
On dunghills some, some on the courts of kings.
Of warmest vapours, which the sun exhales,
All are compos’d, & in a short-liv’d hour,
Their dazzling pride & coyest beauty falls,
Dissolved by Phoebus, or a weeping shower.
All, of one matter form’d, to one return:
Their fall is greatest who are plac’d most high;
Let not the proud presume, or poorest mourn,
Their fate’s decreed, and every one must die.
Boast not your talents or your noble birth;
From Earth all come, all must return to earth.
Albemarle St. Feby 14th