The virtuous to those mansions go Where pleasures unembitter'd flow, Where, leading up a jocund band, Vigor and Youth dance hand in hand, Whilst Zephyr, with harmonious gales, Pipes softest music through the vales, And Spring and Flora, gaily crown'd, With velvet carpet spread the ground; With livelier blush where roses bloom, And every shrub expires perfume.
O world, world when I was younger I thought there was some order governing you and your deeds. But now you seem to be a labyrinth of errors, a frightful desert, a den of wild beasts, a game in which men move in circles…a stony field, a meadow full of serpents, a flowering but barren orchard, a spring of cares, a river of tears, a sea of suffering, a vain hope.