| |
| WHO makes the last 1 a pattern for next year, | |
| Turns no new leaf, but still the same things reads; | |
| Seen things he sees again, heard things doth hear, | |
| And makes his life but like a pair of beads. | |
| |
| A palace, when ’tis that which it should be, | 5 |
| Leaves growing, and stands such, or else decays; | |
| But he which dwells there is not so; for he | |
| Strives to urge upward, and his fortune raise. | |
| |
| So had your body her morning, hath her noon, | |
| And shall not better; her next change is night; | 10 |
| But her fair, larger guest, to whom sun and moon | |
| Are sparks, and short-lived, claims another right. | |
| |
| The noble soul by age grows lustier; | |
| Her appetite and her digestion mend. | |
| We must not starve, nor hope to pamper her | 15 |
| With women’s milk, and pap, unto the end. | |
| |
| Provide you manlier diet. You have seen | |
| All libraries, which are schools, camps, and courts; | |
| But ask your garners if you have not been | |
| In harvest 2 too indulgent to your sports. | 20 |
| |
| Would you redeem it? then yourself transplant | |
| Awhile from hence. Perchance outlandish ground | |
| Bears no more wit than ours; but yet more scant | |
| Are those diversions there, which here abound. | |
| |
| To be a stranger hath that benefit, | 25 |
| We can beginnings, but not habits choke. | |
| Go—whither? hence. You get, 3 if you forget; | |
| New faults, till they prescribe to us, 4 are smoke. | |
| |
| Our soul, whose country’s heaven, and God her Father, | |
| Into this world, corruption’s sink, is sent; | 30 |
| Yet so much in her travel she doth gather, | |
| That she returns home wiser than she went. | |
| |
| It pays you well, if it teach you to spare, | |
| And make you ashamed to make your hawks’ praise yours, | |
| Which when herself she lessens in the air, | 35 |
| You then first say, that high enough she towers. | |
| |
| However, keep the lively taste you hold | |
| Of God; love Him as 5 now, but fear Him more; | |
| And in your afternoons think what you told | |
| And promised Him, at morning prayer before. | 40 |
| |
| Let falsehood like a discord anger you, | |
| Else be not froward. But why do I touch | |
| Things of which none is in your practice new? | |
| And fables, 6 or fruit-trenchers teach as much. | |
| |
| But thus I make you keep your promise, sir, | 45 |
| Riding I had you, though you still stay’d there; | |
| And in these thoughts, although you never stir, | |
| You came with me to Mitcham, and are here. | |
