Existence is a temporary state;

O, how fleeting is our time on this Earth!

How deeply then we should appreciate

Ev'ry day we are given after birth!

Eighty years can easily be shortened

By illness, accident, murder, or strife,

And rarely are there signs which can portend

How and when the end will come of one's life.

In our youth, we do not fear death's power,

As we feel us it surely cannot touch;

When we have grown, before it we cower

As we learn the fallacy of thoughts such.

Live each day like the next you will be dead;

Only the Fates know how long is one's thread.