This Life

William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649)

THIS Life, which seems so fair,

Is like a bubble blown up in the air

By sporting children’s breath,

Who chase it everywhere

And strive who can most motion it bequeath.

And though it sometimes seem of its own might

Like to an eye of gold to be fixed there,

And firm to hover in that empty height,

That only is because it is so light.

—But in that pomp it doth not long appear;

For when ’t is most admired, in a thought,

Because it erst was nought, it turns to nought.