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| | Who feares not God shall not escape, |
| His daies as shadows pas; |
| Though wicked men triumph sometimes, |
| And iust men waile, alas! |
WHEN as contrariwise the wicked one | |
| Shall be dismounted from his seat of trust, | |
| Dismayd and desolate, forlorne, alone, | |
| Pursued by heauen and earth, by iudgment iust, | |
| Of God and man forsaken and contemnd, | 5 |
| As be the innocent before condemnd: | |
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| The pompe and glory of his passed pride | |
| Like to a flower shall vanish and decay; | |
| His life like ruines downe shall headlong slide, | |
| His fame like to a shadow vade away. | 10 |
| Because he feared not the God of might, | |
| In iustice shall these woes vpon him light. | |
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| And yet in truth it is a wondrous case | |
| To see the iust so many woes sustaine: | |
| Not that I thinke that pitie can haue place | 15 |
| With wicked ones to make them wrong refraine; | |
| But that the God of iustice doth permit | |
| His seruants to be subiect vnto it. | |
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| For you shall lightly see the better man | |
| The more afflicted in his worldly state; | 20 |
| The vilest person, worst, that find you can, | |
| Most wealthy and loued most, though worthy hate: | |
| But it is vaine to search God’s mind herein— | |
| Thereof to descant I will not begin. | |
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