Page:Poems Craik.djvu/104

FAITHFUL IN VANITY-FAIR.

Suggested by one of David Scott's illustrations of "Pilgrim's Progress."

I.

HE great human whirlpool—'tis seething and seething:
On! No time for shrieking out—scarcely for breathing:
All toiling and moiling, some feebler, some bolder,
But each sees a fiend-face grim over his shoulder:
 Thus merrily live they in Vanity-fair.

The great human caldron—it boils ever higher:
Some drowning, some sinking; while some, stealing nigher
Athirst, come and lean o'er its outermost verges,
Or touch, as a child's feet touch, timorous, the surges—
 One plunge—lo! more souls swamped in Vanity-fair.

Let 's live while we live; for to-morrow all 's over:
Drink deep, drunkard bold; and kiss close, maddened lover;