(339) 
Beauty is but a vain, a fleeting good, 
A shining gloss that fadeth suddenly, 
A flower that dies when almost in the bud, 
A bright glass that breaketh suddenly; 
A fleeting good, a gloss, a glass, a flower, 
Lost, faded, broken, dead within the hour. 
—Shakespeare 
beware ! 
Beware of 
This wavering world’s wretchedness, 
The sliding joy, the gladness short, 
The feigned love, the false comfort, 
The sugared mouths, 
The figured speech. 
The pleasing tongue, with hearts unplain— 
Beware! — Anon 
Cause, the first, of all things. 
How should matter occupy a charge, 
Dull as it is, and satisfy a law. 
So vast in its demands, unless impelled, 
To ceaseless service hy a ceaseless force 
And under pressure of some conscious Cause9 
The Lord of all Himself through all diffused, 
Sustains, and is the life of all that lives. 
Nature is but a name for an effect 
Whose cause is God. He feeds the secret fire 
By which the mighty process is maintained. 
Who sleeps not, is not weary; in Whose sight 
Slow circling ages are as transient days; 
Whose work is ivithout labor; Whose designs 
No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts; 
And Whose beneficence no charge exhausts. 
—Cowper, “The Task.” 
