| Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900. |
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| Robert Southwell. 1561–95 |
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| 108. Times go by Turns |
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| THE loppèd tree in time may grow again, | |
| Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower; | |
| The sorest wight may find release of pain, | |
| The driest soil suck in some moist'ning shower; | |
| Times go by turns and chances change by course, | 5 |
| From foul to fair, from better hap to worse. | |
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| The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow, | |
| She draws her favours to the lowest ebb; | |
| Her tides hath equal times to come and go, | |
| Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web; | 10 |
| No joy so great but runneth to an end, | |
| No hap so hard but may in fine amend. | |
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| Not always fall of leaf nor ever spring, | |
| No endless night yet not eternal day; | |
| The saddest birds a season find to sing, | 15 |
| The roughest storm a calm may soon allay: | |
| Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all, | |
| That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall. | |
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| A chance may win that by mischance was lost; | |
| The net that holds no great, takes little fish; | 20 |
| In some things all, in all things none are crost, | |
| Few all they need, but none have all they wish; | |
| Unmeddled joys here to no man befall: | |
| Who least, hath some; who most, hath never all. | |
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GLOSS: unmeddled] unmixed. |
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