The big teetotum twirlsAnd epochs wax and waneAs chance subsides or swirls;But of the loss and gainThe sum is always plain.Read on the mighty pall,The weed of funeralThat covers praise or blame,The -isms and the -anities,Magnificence and shame: --"O Vanity of Vanities!"
The Fates are subtile girls!They give us chaff for grain.And Time, the Thunderer, hurls,Like bolted death, disdainAt all that heart and brainConceive, or great or small,Upon this earthly ball.Would you be knight and dame?Or woo the sweet humanities?Or illustrate a name?O Vanity of vanities!
We sound the sea for pearls,Or drown them in a drain;We flute it with the merles,Or tug and sweat and strain;We grovel, or we reign;We saunter, or we brawl;We answer, or we call;We search the stars for Fame,Or sink her subterranities;The legend's still the same: --"O Vanity of Vanities!"
Here at the wine one birls,There some one chanks a chain.The flag that this man furlsThat man to float is fain.Pleasure gives place to pain:These in the kennel crawl,While others take the wall.She has a glorious aim,He lives for the inanities.What comes of every claim?O Vanity of Vanities!
Alike are clods and earls.For sot, and seer, and swain,For emperors and for churls,For antidote and bane,There is but one refrain:But one for king and thrall,For David and for Saul,For fleet of foot and lame,For pieties and profanities,The picture and the frame:--"O Vanity of Vanities!"
Life is a smoke that curls--Curls in a flickering skein,That winds and whisks and whirls,A figment thin and vain,Into the vast Inane.One end for hut and hall!One end for cell and stall!Burned in one common flameAre wisdoms and insanities.For this alone we came:--"O Vanity of Vanities!"
EnvoyWhat is the worth of allYour state's supreme urbanities?Bad at the best's the game.Well might the Sage exclaim:--"O Vanity of Vanities!"
