A soul without reflection, like a pile Without inhabitant, to ruin runs.
The melancholy ghosts of dead renown, Whispering faint echoes of the world's applause.
Man maketh a death which Nature never made.
Men should press forward, in fame's glorious chase; Nobles look backward, and so lose the race.
O let me be undone the common way, And have the common comfort to be pity'd, And not be ruin'd in the mask of bliss, And so be envy'd, and be wretched too!
We bleed, we tremble; we forget, we smile - The mind turns fool, before the cheek is dry