Tixall Poetry/A Song ("Ah! fading joy!")
A Song.
Ah! fading joy!
How quickly art thou past!
Yet we thy ruin haste;
And what too soon would die, help to destroy.
As if the cares of human life were few
We seek out new,
And follow fate, which does too fast pursue.
In vain does Nature's bounteous hand supply
What peevish mortals to themselves deny.
See, how on every bough the birds express
In their wild notes, their happiness;
Not anxious how to get or spare,
They on their mother Nature lay their care.
Why then should man, the lord of all below,
Such troubles chuse to know
As none of all his subjects undergo!
How quickly art thou past!
Yet we thy ruin haste;
And what too soon would die, help to destroy.
As if the cares of human life were few
We seek out new,
And follow fate, which does too fast pursue.
In vain does Nature's bounteous hand supply
What peevish mortals to themselves deny.
See, how on every bough the birds express
In their wild notes, their happiness;
Not anxious how to get or spare,
They on their mother Nature lay their care.
Why then should man, the lord of all below,
Such troubles chuse to know
As none of all his subjects undergo!