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[106]

Chorus.

May this be true, or doth the Fable fayne,
When corps is deade the Sprite to liue as yet?
When Death our eies with heauy hand doth strain,
And fatall day our leames of light hath shet,
And in the Tombe our ashes once be set,
Hath not the soule likewyse his funerall,
But stil (alas) do wretches liue in thrall?
Or els doth all at once togeather die?
And may no part his fatal howre delay.
But with the breath the soule from hence doth flie?
And eke the Cloudes to vanish quite awaye,
As danky shade fleeth from the poale by day?
And may no iote escape from desteny,
When once the brand hath burned the body?
What euer then the ryse of Sunne may see,
And what the West that sets the Sunne doth know.
In all Neptunus raygne what euer bee,
That restles Seas do wash and ouerflow,
With purple waues stil tombling to and fro.
Age shal consume: each thing that liuth shal die,
With swifter race then Pegasus doth flie.
And with what whirle, the twyse sixe signes do flie,
With course as svvift as rector of the Spheares,
Doth guide those glistering Globes eternally.
And Hecate her chaunged hornes repeares,
So drauth on death, and life of each thing vveares,
And neuer may the man, returne to sight,
That once hath felt the stroke of Parcas might.

107

For as the fume that from the fyre doth passe,
With tourne of hand doth vanish out of sight
And swifter then the Northren Boreas
With whirling blaste and storme of raging might,
Driuth farre away and puttes the cloudes to flight,
So fleeth the sprighte that rules our life away,
And nothing taryeth after dying day.
Swift is the race we ronne, at hand the marke
Lay downe your hope, that wayte here ought to win,
And who dreads ought, cast of thy carefull carke:
Wilt thou it wot what state thou shalt be in,
When dead thou art as thou hadst neuer bin.
For greedy tyme it doth deuoure vs all,
The world it swayes to Chaos heape to fall.
Death hurtes the Corpes and spareth not the spright,
And as for all the dennes of Tænare deeepe.
With Cerberus kingdome darke that knowes no light,
And streightest gates, that he there sittes to keepe,
They Fancies are that follow folke by sleepe
Such rumors vayne, but fayned lies they are,
And fables like the dreames in heauy care.