Vanity

What folly to defy advancing years!

How foolish, endeavors to impede their stride.

What mockery we make of time.

How troubled we dwell in vanity’s house.

What trickery is this we ply,

To defraud the years that pass us by?

How blind we are to even try.

No shout or trumpet’s blare will sound;

No numbered date to tell us we are old.

For “old” is not for mortal lives,

But for death itself, which is forever.

Your vanity has made you slave

To days of youth you strive to save.

And in those trials you probe your grave.

Life is wasted preserving youth,

As coffins hold neither day nor hour.

But are buried in the depths of time,

And “old” is all that lies therein.

From life to death, is youth to age.

We dare not turn breath’s yellowed page,

And free our hearts from freedom’s cage.

The days we live avoiding darkness

Are the days we are most without light.

Wastefulness as vanity, paid in installments;

Investments forfeited to the lightless ages.

The reaper waits to end our lives,

So live your youth that now survives,

And dwell with death when death arrives.