Classic Poem

Our life is like a twisted swing.
We start with little labor
And turning slowly ring by ring
Rise higher than our neighbor.

We twist and twist in endless strain,
With effort almost bursting;
And still, the more that we attain,
For more and more are thirsting.

Then suddenly there comes a pause,
And the untwist beginning,
When life's inexorable laws
Set the reversal spinning.

The triumph of our pain immense,
And all our boast and frothing,
Are whirled away to lack of sense
And so at last to nothing.