No. 58 Vanitas Vanitatum
This vile world
In madness hurled
Offers but false shadows;
Joys that wane
And waste like vain
Lilies of the meadows.
Worldly wealth,
Youth, strength, and health,
Cramp the soul’s endeavour;
Drive it down
In hell to drown,
Hell that burns for ever.
What we see,
And what let be,
While on earth we tarry,
We shall cast
Like leaves at last
Which the sere oaks carry.
Carnal life,
Man’s law of strife,
Hath but brief existence;
Passes, fades,
Like wavering shades
Without real subsistence.
Therefore bind,
Tread down and grind
Fleshly lusts that blight us;
So heaven’s bliss
’Mid saints that kiss
Shall for aye delight us.
The fourth, in like manner, would have but little to do with a Commersbuch, were it not for the fact that the most widely famous modern student-song of Germany has borrowed two passages from its serious and tragic rhythm. Close inspection of Gaudeamus Igitur shows that the metrical structure of that song is based on the principle of quoting one of its long lines and rhyming to it.