Whanne that April with his shoures sote
The droughte of March hath perced to the rote.
And smale foules maken melodie,
That slepen alle night with open eye,
So priketh hem nature in hir corages;
Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages.
I hold a mouses wit not worth a leke,
That hath but on hole for to sterten to.
Therefore behoveth him a ful long spone,
That shall eat with a fend.
Fie on possession,
But if a man be vertuous withal.
The loss of wealth is loss of dirt,
As sages in all times assert;
The happy man's without a shirt.
Beaten with his owne rod.
So many heads so many wits.
We both be at our wittes end.
Reckeners without their host must recken twice.
To hold with the hare and run with the hound.
A man may well bring a horse to the water,
But he cannot make him drinke without he will.
There is no fire without some smoke.
Hee must have a long spoone, shall eat with the devill.
Some have too much, yet still do crave;
I little have, and seek no more:
They are but poor, though much they have,
And I am rich with little store:
They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;
They lack, I have; they pine, I live.
I cannot eat but little meat,
My stomach is not good;
But sure I think that I can drink
With him that wears a hood.
Was never eie did see that face,
Was never eare did heare that tong,
Was never minde did minde his grace,
That ever thought the travell long;
But eies and eares and ev'ry thought
Were with his sweete perfections caught.
My merry, merry, merry roundelay
Concludes with Cupid's curse:
They that do change old love for new,
Pray gods, they change for worse!
If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee, and be thy love.
Silence in love bewrays more woe
Than words, though ne'er so witty:
A beggar that is dumb, you know,
May challenge double pity.
Even such is time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days.
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust!
Note 1.Altissima quæque flumina minimo sono labi (The deepest rivers flow with the least sound).--Q. Curtius, vii. 4. 13.
Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.--William Shakespeare: 2 Henry VI. act iii. sc. i.
Note 3.If she be not so to me,
What care I how fair she be?
George Wither: The Shepherd's Resolution.
As when in Cymbrian plaine
An heard of bulles, whom kindly rage doth sting,
Doe for the milky mothers want complaine,
And fill the fieldes with troublous bellowing.
No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on grownd,
No arborett with painted blossoms drest
And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd
To bud out faire, and throwe her sweete smels al arownd.