 | Songes and Sonettes |  |
How no age is content with his own estate, & how the age of children is the happiest, if they had skill to vnderstand it.
Layd in my quiet bed, in study as I were,I saw within my troubled head, a heape of thoughtes appere:
And euery thought did shew so liuely in myne eyes,
That now I sighed, & thē I smilde, as cause of thought doth ryse.
I saw the lytle boy in thought, how oft that he
Did wish of god, to scape the rod, a tall yongman to be.
The yongman eke that feles, his bones with paines opprest,
How he would be a rich olde man, to lyue, and lye at rest.
The rich oldman that sees his end draw on so sore,
How he would be a boy agayn, to liue somuch the more.
Wherat full oft I smilde, to se, how all these three,
From boy to man, from man to boy, would chop & change degree.
That man from welth, to lyue in wo, doth euer seke to change.
Thus thoughtfull as I lay, I saw my wytherd skyn,
How it doth show my dented chewes, the flesh was worne so thyn:
And eke my tothelesse chaps, the gates of my rightway,
That opes and shuts, as I do speake, doe thus vnto me say:
Thy white and hoarish heares, the messengers of age,
That shew, like lines of true belief, that this life doth asswage,
Byds thee lay hand, and fele them hanging on thy chin:
The whiche do write two ages past, the third now comming in.
Hang vp therfore the bit of thy yong wanton tyme:
And thou that therin beaten art, the happiest life define.
Wherat I sighed, and sayd, farewell, my wonted ioy:
Trusse vp thy pack, and trudge from me to euery litle boy:
And tell them thus from me, theyr tyme most happy is:
If, to their time, they reason had to know the trueth of this.
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