Emblemes (1635) and Hieroglyphikes (1638) :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Post
Of swift foot Time
Hath now, at length, begun
The Kalends of our middle Stage:
The number'd Steps that we have gone, do show
The number of those Steps wee are to goe:
The Buds and blossoms of our Age
Are blowne, decay'd, and gone,
And all our prime
Is lost;
And what we boast too much, we have least cause to boast.

Ah mee!
There is no Rest,
Our Time is alwaies fleeing:
What Rein can curb our headstrong hours!
They post away: They passe wee know not how:
Our Now is gone, before wee can say, Now:
Time past and futur's none of ours;
That, hath as yet no Being;
And This hath ceast
To bee:
What is, is onely ours: How short a Time have Wee!

And now
Apolloes eare
Expects harmonious straines,
New minted from the Thracian Lyre;
For now the Virtue of the twiforkt Hill
Inspires the ravisht fancy, and doth fill
The veines with Pegasean fire:
And now, those sterill braines
That cannot show,
Nor beare
Some fruits, shall never weare Appollos sacred Bow.

Excesse
And surfets uses
To wait upon these daies:
Full feed, and flowing cups of wine
Conjure the fancy, forcing up a Spright,
By the base Magick of deboysd delight;
Ah pittie twiseborne Bacchus Vine
Should starve Apollo's Bayes,
And drown those Muses
That blesse
And calm the peaceful soule, when stormes of care oppres.

Strong light,
Boast not those beames
That can but onely rise,
And blaze awhile, and then away:
There is no Solstice in thy day;
Thy midnight glory lies
Betwixt th'extrems
Of night,
A Glory foyld with shame, and foold with false delight

Hast thou climbd up to the full age of thy few daies? Look backwards, and thou shalt see the frailty of thy youth; the folly of thy Childhood, and the waste of thy Infancy: Looke forwards; thou shalt see, the cares of the world, the troubles of thy mind, the diseases of thy body.