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Henry King - The Dirge
Work rating: Low

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.
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