from

Cælica

by Fulke Greville


SONNET LXXXVIII.

A CONTRAST.


WHENAS man's life, the light of human lust,
    In socket of his earthly lanthorn burns,
That all his glory unto ashes must,
    And generations to corruption turns,
Then fond desires that only fear their end,
Do vainly wish for life, but to amend.
But when this life is from the body fled,
    To see itself in that eternal glass,
Where time doth end, and thoughts accuse the dead,
    Where all to come is one with all that was ;
Then living men ask how he left his breath,
That while he livèd never thought of death.



Schelling, Felix E., Ed. A Book of Elizabethan Lyrics.
Boston: Ginn and Company, 1895. 19.




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