Retrospect of Life

Riches, chance may take or give; Beauty lives a day, and dies; Honour lulls us while we live; Mirth's a cheat, and pleasure flies.

Is there nothing worth our care? Time, and chance, and death our foes; If our joys so sleeting are, Are we only tied to woes?

Let bright virtue answer no; Her eternal powers prevail, When honours, riches, cease to flow, And beauty, mirth, and pleasure, fail.