I have recently been reading Thackeray's Vanity Fair (it's quite good--I regret not having picked it up before). Anyway, I jotted down these verses:
Vanitas
The sages say (a truth so clear)
that nothing lasts forever;
and handsome men shall not drawn near
but to pretty girls and clever.
Be as rigidly righteous as you can possibly dare,
your life will still be a show in the Vanity Fair,
for you shall escape it never.
