Here you will find the Poem The Dirge of poet Henry King
VVhat is th' Existence of Mans life? But open war, or slumber'd strife. Where sickness to his sense presents The combat of the Elements: And never feels a perfect Peace Till deaths cold hand signs his release. It is a storm where the hot blood Out-vies in rage the boyling flood; And each loud Passion of the mind Is like a furious gust of wind, Which beats his Bark with many a Wave Till he casts Anchor in the Grave. It is a flower which buds and growes, And withers as the leaves disclose; Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep, Like fits of waking before sleep: Then shrinks into that fatal mold Where its first being was enroll'd. It is a dream, whose seeming truth Is moraliz'd in age and youth: Where all the comforts he can share As wandring as his fancies are; Till in a mist of dark decay The dreamer vanish quite away. It is a Diall, which points out The Sun-set as it moves about: And shadowes out in lines of night The subtile stages of times flight, Till all obscuring earth hath laid The body in perpetual shade. It is a weary enterlude Which doth short joyes, long woes include. The World the Stage, the Prologue tears, The Acts vain hope, and vary'd fears: The Scene shuts up with loss of breath, And leaves no Epilogue but Death.
