| |
| LIKE to the steerless boat that swerves with every wind, | |
| The slipper top of worldly wealth, by cruel proof I find. | |
| Scarce hath the seed, whereof that nature formeth man, | |
| Received life, when death him yields to earth where he began! | |
| The grafted plants with pain, whereof we hoped fruit, | 5 |
| To root them up, with blossoms spread, then is our chief pursuit. | |
| That erst we reared up, we undermine again; | |
| And shred the sprays whose growth sometime we laboured with pain. | |
| Each froward threat’ning chere of fortune makes us plain; | |
| And every pleasant show revives our woful hearts again. | 10 |
| Ancient walls to rase is our unstable guise; | |
| And of their weather-beaten stones, to build some new device. | |
| New fancies daily spring, which vade, 1 returning mo’; | |
| And now we practise to obtain that straight we must forego. | |
| Some time we seek to spare that afterward we waste; | 15 |
| And that we travail’d sore to knit, for to unloose as fast. | |
| In sober silence now our quiet lips we close; | |
| And with unbridled tongues forthwith our secret hearts disclose. | |
| Such as in folded arms we did embrace, we hate; | |
| Whom straight we reconcile again, and banish all debate. | 20 |
| My seed with labour sown, such fruit produceth me, | |
| To waste my life in contraries that never shall agree. | |
| From God these heavy cares are sent for our unrests; | |
| And with such burdens for our wealth he fraughteth full our breasts. | |
| All that the Lord hath wrought, hath beauty and good grace; | 25 |
| And to each thing assigned is the proper time and place. | |
| And granted eke to man of all the world’s estate, | |
| And of each thing wrought in the same, to argue and debate. | |
| Which art, though it approach the heavenly knowledge most, | |
| To search the natural ground of things,—yet all is labour lost. | 30 |
| But then the wandering eyes that long for surety sought, | |
| Found that by pain no certain wealth might in this world be bought. | |
| Who liveth in delight and seeks no greedy thrift, | |
| But freely spends his goods, may think it is a secret gift. | |
| Fulfilled shall it be what so the Lord intend; | 35 |
| Which no device of man’s wit may advance, nor yet defend; | |
| Who made all things of nought, that Adam’s children might | |
| Learn how to dread the Lord, that wrought such wonders in their sight. | |
| The grisly wonders past, which time wears out of mind, | |
| To be renewed in our days the Lord hath so assign’d. | 40 |
| Lo! thus his careful scourge doth steal on us unware; | |
| Which, when the flesh hath clean forgot, he doth again repair. | |
| When I in this vain search had wander’d sore my wit, | |
| I saw a royal throne eke where as Justice should have sit. | |
| Instead of whom I saw, with fierce and cruel mood, | 45 |
| Where wrong was set; that bloody beast that drank the guiltless blood: | |
| Then thought I thus: ‘One day the Lord shall sit in doom, | |
| To view his flock, and choose the pure; the spotted have no room.’ | |
| Yet be such scourges sent, that each aggrieved mind | |
| Like the brute beasts that swell in rage and fury by their kind, | 50 |
| His error may confess when he hath wrestled long; | |
| And then with patience may him arm: the sure defence of wrong. | |
| For death, that of the beast the carrion doth devour, | |
| Unto the noble kind of man presents the fatal hour. | |
| The perfect form that God hath given to either man, | 55 |
| Or other beast, dissolve it shall to earth, where it began. | |
| And who can tell if that the soul of man ascend; | |
| Or with the body if it die, and to the ground descend. | |
| Wherefore each greedy heart that riches seeks to gain, | |
| Gather may he that savoury fruit that springeth of his pain. | 60 |
| A mean convenient wealth I mean to take in worth; | |
| And with a hand of largess eke in measure pour it forth. | |
| For treasure spent in life the body doth sustain; | |
| The heir shall waste the hoarded gold, amassed with much pain. | |
| Nor may foresight of man such order give in life, | 65 |
| For to foreknow who shall enjoy their gotten good with strife. | |
