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Lord Francis Bacon
1561 - 1626

Life

The World's a bubble, and the life of man
Less than a span:
In his conception wretched, from the womb
So to the tomb;
Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years
With cares and fears.
Who then to frail mortality shall trust,
But limns on water, or but writes in dust.

Yet whilst with sorrow here we live opprest,
What life is best?
Courts are but only superficial schools
To dandle fools:
The rural parts are turn'd into a den
Of savage men:
And where's a city from foul vice so free,
But may be term'd the worst of all the three?

Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed
Or pains his head:
Those that live single, take it for a curse,
Some would have children: those that have them moan
Or wish them gone:
What is it, then, to have or have no wife,
But single thraldom, or a double strife?

Our own affections still at home to please
Is a disease:
To cross the seas to any foreign soil,
Peril and toil:
Wars with their noise affright us; when they cease,
We are worse in peace; -
What then remains, but that we still should cry
For being born, or, being born, to die?

© 2001 Elena and Yakov Feldman