Anne Kingsmill Finch, Countess of Winchilsea - All is Vanity (Chap.2) lyrics

If past the hazard of his tenderest years, neither in thoughtless sleep oppressed, nor poisoned with a tainted breast, loosed from the infant bands and female cares, a studious boy, advanced beyond his age, Wastes the dim lamp, and turns the restless page. For some loved book prevents the rising day, and on it, stolen aside, bestows the hours of play. Him the observing master does design For search of darkened truths and mysteries divine. Bids him with unremitting labor trace the rise of empires, and their various fates, The several tyrants over the several States, to babel's lofty towers, and warlike Nimrod's race. Bids him in paradise the bank survey, where man, new-molded from the tempered clay, (Till fired with breath Divine) a helpless figure lay Could he be led thus far What were the boast, what the reward of all the Toil it cost, What from that Land of ever-blooming Spring, For our instruction could he bring, Unless, that having humane nature found Unsaturated from its Parent Ground, (Howe'er we vaunt our Elevated Birth) The Epicure in soft Array, The loathsome Beggar, that before His rude inhospitable Door, Unpicked but by Brutes, a broken Carca** lay, Were both alike derived from the same common Earth? But ere the Child can to these Heights attain, Ere he can in the Learned Sphere arise. A guiding Star, attracting to the Skies, A fever, seizing the over labored Brain, Sends him, perhaps, to d**h's concealing Shade. Where, in the Marble Tomb now silent laid, He better does that useful Doctrine show, (Which all the sad Assistants ought to know, Who round the Grave his short continuance mourn) That first from Dust we came, and must to Dust return.