Fade, flowers, fade! Nature will have it so; 'tis but what we in our autumn do.

What use of oaths, of promise, or of test, where men regard no God but interest?

That eagle's fate and mine are one, Which, on the shaft that made him die, Espied a feather of his own, Wherewith he wont to soar so high.

Go, lovely rose, Tell her that wastes her time and me, That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be.

The fear of Hell, or aiming to be blest, Savors too much of private interest. This moved not Moses, nor the zealous Paul, Who for their friends abandoned soul and all.

Poets that lasting marble seek, Must come in Latin or in Greek.

But virtue too, as well as vice, is clad in flesh and blood.