Classic Poem

CHAPTER I.

This Sermon the much-knowing Preacher made,
King David's son, who Judah's sceptre sway'd.
O restless vanity of vanities!
All is but vanity, the Preacher cries.
What profit have we by our labours won,
Of all beneath the circuit of the sun?
The earth is fix'd, we fleeting: as one age
Departs, another enters on the stage.
The setting sun resigns his throne to night,
Then hastens to restore the morning light.
The wind flies to the south, shifts to the north,
And wheels about to where it first brake forth.
All rivers run into th' insatiate main,
From thence to their old fountains creep again.
Incessantly all toil. The searching mind,
The eye and ear, no satisfaction find.
What is, hath been; what hath been shall ensue;
And nothing underneath the sun is new.
Of what can it be truly said, behold
This never was? The same hath been of old.
For former ages we remember not,
And what is now will be in time forgot.
Lo I, the Preacher, king of Israel,
Who in ability and pow'r excel,
In wisdom's search applied my industry,
To know whatever was beneath the sky.
(For God this toil on man's ambition lays,
To travel in so intricate a maze.)
I all their works have seen: all are but vain,
Conceiv'd with sorrow, and brought forth with pain.
The crooked never can be rectified,
Nor the defective number'd or supplied.
Thus in my heart I said: Thou art arriv'd
At honour's height; more wisdom hast achiev'd
Than all that liv'd in Solyma before,
Thy knowledge, judgment, and experience more.
As wisdom, so I folly did pursue,
And madness tried; these were vexatious too.
Much wisdom great anxieties infest,
And grief of mind by knowledge is increas'd.