XV.
[Life is a Poets fable]
[1]
Life is a Poets fable,
& al her daies are lies
Stolne from deaths reckoning table,
For I die as I speake,
Death times the notes that I doe breake.
2
Childhood doth die in youth,
And youth in old age dies,
I thought I liu'd in truth:
But I die, now I see,
Each age of death makes one degree.
3
Farewell the doting score,
Of worlds arithmeticke,
Life, ile trust thee no more,
Till I die, for thy sake,
Ile go by deaths new almanacke.
4
This instant of my song,
A thousand men lie sicke,
A thousand knels are rong:
And I die as they sing,
They are but dead and I dying.
5
Death is but lifes decay,
Life time, time wastes away,
Then reason bids me say,
That I die, though my breath
Prolongs this space of lingring death.
