The snow dissolves, the field its verdure spreads, The trees wave in air their leafy heads, Earth feels the change, the rivers calm subside, And smooth along their banks decreasing glide.

The elder Grace with her fair sister train In naked beauty dances o’er the plain, The circling hours that swiftly wing their way And in their flight consume the smiling day, Those circling hours and all the various year Convince us nothing is immortal here.

In vernal gales cold winter melts away, Soon wastes the spring in summer’s burning day, Yet summer dies in autumn’s fruitful rain, And slow-paced winter soon returns again.

The moon renews her orb with growing light, But when we sink into the depths of night, Where all the good, the rich, the brave are laid, Our best remains are ashes and a shade.

Who knows that Heaven, with ever-bounteous power, Shall add to-morrow to the present hour?

The wealth you give to pleasure and delight, Far from thy ravening air shall speed its flight.

But soon as minas thrown in awful state, Shall o’er thee speak the solemn words of fate, Nor virtue, birth, nor eloquence divine Shall bid the grave its destined prey resign.

Nor chaste Diana from infernal night Could bring her modest favourite back to light, And hell-descending Theseus strove in vain To break his amorous friend’s Lithuanian chain.