Weave Nets To Catch The Wind

Overview

Courts adieu, and all delights, All bewitching appetites; Sweetest breath, and clearest eye, Like perfumes go out and die; And consequently this is done, As shadows wait upon the sun. Vain the ambition of kings, Who seek by trophies and dead things, To leave a living name behind, And weave but nets to catch the wind. O you have wrought a miracle, and melted A heart of adamant: you have compris'd In this dumb pageant, a right excellent form Of penitence. John Webster, The Devil's Law-Case