Vi. Things Dependent Or Not Dependent On Us Poem by Ellis Walker

With our aversions and desires doth rise
A smiling twin-born hope, whose flatteries
Do equally themselves to each divide,
And with the like kind looks sooth either side,
This, with a promise of obtaining fires
The eager mind, and tickles the desires;
This promiseth that something we shall shun
From which we are averse, from which we run
Now what misfortunes, vulture-like, attend
The wretch, that's disappointed of his end?
And, ah! What real grief doth him surprize
Who suffers that, from which with care he flies?
If then thou only dost such things decline,
As are within thy pow'r, by nature thine,
Nothing shall ever frustrate thy design.
But if sickness, want, or death, thou fly
In sorrow thou shalt live, in terrors die.