Anne Kingsmill Finch, Countess of Winchilsea - All is Vanity (Chap.1) lyrics

How vain is life! which rightly we compare to flying posts, that haste away, to plants, that fade with the declining day, to clouds, that sail amidst the yielding air, till by extension into that they flow, or, scattering on the world below, are lost and gone, ere we can say they were, to autumn-leaves, which every wind can chance, to rising bubbles, on the waters face, to fleeting dreams, that will not stay, Nor in abused fancy dance, when the returning rays of light, resuming their alternate right, break on th' ill-order'd scene on the fantastic trance, as weak is man, whilst tenant to the earth, as frail and as uncertain all his ways, from the first moment of his weeping birth, down to the last and best of his few restless days, when to the land of darkness he retires from disappointed hopes, and frustrated desires, reaping no other Fruit of all his pain bestow'd whilst in the vale of tears below, but this unhappy truth, at last to know, that vanity's our lot, and all mankind is vain.