Titles and wealth are Fortune’s toils, Wherewith the vain themselves ensnare: The great are proud of borrowed spoils, The miser’s plenty breeds his care. 20 The one supinely yawns at rest, The other eternally doth toil; Each of them equally a beast, A pampered horse, or labouring moil: The titulados oft disgraced 25 By public hate or private frown, And he whose hand the creature raised, Has yet a foot to kick him down. The drudge who wold all get, all save, Like a brute beast both feeds and lies; 30 Prone to the earth, he digs his grave, And in the very labour dies. Excess of ill-got, ill-kept, pelf Does only death and danger breed; Whilst one rich worldling starves himself 35 With what would thousand others feed. By which we see that wealth and power, Although they make men rich and great, The sweets of life do often sour, And gull ambition with a cheat. 40 Nor is he happier than these, Who in a moderate estate, Where he might safely live at ease, Has lusts that are immoderate. For he, by those desires misled, 45 Quits his own vine’s securing shade, To’ expose his naked, empty head To all the storms man’s peace invade. Nor is he happy who is trim, Tricked up in favours of the fair, 50 Mirrors, with every breath made dim. Birds, caught in every wanton snare. Woman, man’s greatest woe or bliss, Does ofter far, than serve, enslave, And with the magic of a kiss 55 Destroys whom she was made to save. Oh! fruitful grief, the world’s disease! And vainer man, to make it so, Who gives his miseries increase By cultivating his own woe. 60 There are no ills but what we make By giving shapes and names to things; Which is the dangerous mistake That causes all our sufferings. We call that sickness, which is health; 65 That persecution, which is grace; That poverty, which is true wealth; And that dishonour, which is praise. Alas! our time is here so short, That in what state soe’er ’tis spent, 70 Of joy or woe, does not import, Provided it be innocent. But we may make it pleasant too, If we will take our measures right, And not what Heaven has done, undo 75 By an unruly appetite. The world is full of beaten roads, But yet so slippery withal, That where one walks secure, ’tis odds A hundred and a hundred fall. 80