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1
On the beholding his face in a Glasse.
Svre if this Mirrour has limn'd out to meMy faces true and faithfull imagerie,
My cheeks do yet lye fallow, and my brow
Is not yet furrow'd with Times rugged plow;
No haire, as yet, has cloath'd my naked chin,
Nor wrinckle rumpell'd, or purl'd up my skin;
Nor has my head one haire, by Cares expence,
White with the powder of Experience:
But when more yeares shall fit on me, and age
Shall dresse me with his liverie, and engage
This structure of my flesh to droop, and cares
Shall into reverend gray have did my haires,
And I agen (perhaps) expose my face
To the impartiall censure of my glasse,
My shadow will enforme me, that it beares
(Like me) th'impressions too of many yeares,
When shivering agues do congeale the bloud,
And feavers melt again that purple floud:
When I lye floating in a sea of rheume,
Being tost with everie melancholy fume:
This by its wither'd aspect will declare
It symptomes does of the same sicknesse weare:
Nay, when sterne death with a rude hand does seek
To pluck the Roses out from either cheek,
To plant his Lillies there, and does dispense
To everie languishing, and vanquish'd sense,
2
The sad resemblance of that ashie hue,
That blasts my cheeks, that shadow would put on
The same appearance of complexion.
How brittle and how transitorie then
Are all those props that Nature leanes on, when
I from this faithfull Mirrour can descry,
My shadow is as permanent as I?
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