A Friends advice:
In an excellent Ditty, concerning the variable changes in this World.
To a pleasant new Tune.
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W Hat if a day, or a month, or a yeere,
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Crowne thy delights
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with a thousand wisht contentings,
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Cannot the chaunce of a night or an houre,
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Crosse thy delights,
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with as many sad tormentings?
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Fortunes in their fairest birth,
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Are but blossomes dying,
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Wanton pleasures, doting mirth,
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Are but shadowes flying:
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All our joyes are but toyes,
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Idle thoughts deceiving;
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None hath power of an houre,
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In our lives bereaving.
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What if a smile, or a becke or a looke,
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Feede thy fond thoughts,
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with many a sweet conceiving:
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May not that smile, or that becke, or that looke,
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Tell thee as well
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they are but vaine deciving?
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Why should beauty be so proud,
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In things of no surmounting?
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All her wealth is but a shroud,
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Of a rich accounting:
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Then in this repose no blisse,
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Which is so vaine and idle:
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Beauties flowers have their howers,
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Time doth hold the bridle.
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What if the world with allures of her wealth,
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Raise thy degree
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to a place of high advancing?
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May not the World by a check of that wealth,
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Put thee againe
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to as low dispised chancing?
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Whilst the Suune of wealth doth shine,
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Thou shalt have friends plenty:
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But come want, then they repine,
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Not one abides of twenty:
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Wealth and Friends holds and ends,
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As your fortunes rise and fall,
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Up and downe, rise and frowne,
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Certaine is no state at all.
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What if a griefe, or a straine, or a fit,
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Pinch thee with paine,
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or the feeling panges of sicknes:
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Doth not that gripe, or that straine, or that fit,
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Shew thee the forme
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of thy owne true perfect likenesse?
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Health is but a glimpse of joy,
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Subject to all changes:
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Mirth is but a silly toy,
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Which mishap estranges.
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Tell me then, silly Man,
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Why art thou so weake of wit,
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As to be in jeopardy,
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When thou maist in quiet sit?
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Then if all this have declar'd thine amisse,
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Take it from me
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as a gentle friendly warning;
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If thou refuse, and good counsell abuse,
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Thou maist hereafter
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deerely buy thy learning:
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All is hazard that we have,
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There is nothing byding,
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Dayes of pleasure are like streames,
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Through faire Medowes gliding,
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Wealth or woe, time doth goe,
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There is no returning,
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Secret Fates guide our states,
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Both in mirth and mourning.
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The Second Part. To the same Tune.
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M An's but a blast, or a smoake, or a clowd,
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That in a thought,
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or a moment is dispersed:
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Life's but a span, or a tale, or a word,
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That in a trice,
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or sodaine is rehearsed:
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Hopes are chang'd, and thoughts are crost,
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Will nor skill prevaileth,
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Though we laugh and live at ease,
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Change of thoughts assayleth,
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Though a while Fortune smile,
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And her comforts crowneth,
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Yet at length failes her strength,
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And in fine she frowneth.
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Thus are the joyes of a yeare in an hower,
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And of a month,
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in a moment quite expired,
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And in the night with the word of a noyse,
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Crost by the day,
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of an ease our hearts desired:
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Fayrest blossoms soonest fade,
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Withered, foule, and rotten,
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And through griefe, our greatest joyes
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Quickly are forgotten:
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Seeke not then (mortall men)
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Earthly fleeting pleasure,
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But with paine strive to gaine
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Heavenly lasting treasure.
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Earth to the world, as a Man to the earth,
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Hath but a poynt,
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and a poynt is soone defaced:
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Flesh to the Soule, as a Flower to the Sun,
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That in a storme
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or a tempest is disgraced:
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Fortune may the Body please,
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Which is only carnall,
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But it will the Soule disease,
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That is still immortall,
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Earthly joyes are but toyes,
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To the Soules election.
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Worldly grace doth deface
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Mans divine perfection.
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Fleshly delights to the earth that is flesh,
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May be the cause
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of a thousand sweet contentings,
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But the defaults of a fleshly desire
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Brings to the Soule
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many thousand sad tormentings:
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Be not proude presum[c]ious Man,
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Sith thou art a poynt so base,
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Of the least and lowest Element,
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Which hath least and lowest place:
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Marke thy fate, and thy state,
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Which is only earth and dust,
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And as grasse, which alasse
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Shortly surely perish must.
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Let not the hopes of an earthly desire,
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Bar thee the joyes
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of an endlesse contentation,
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Nor let not thy eye on the world be so fixt,
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To hinder thy heart
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from unfeyned recantation:
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Be not backward in that course,
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That may bring thy Soule delight,
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Though another way may seeme
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Far more pleasant to thy sight;
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Doe not goe, if he sayes no
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That knowes the secrets of thy minde,
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Follow this, thou shalt not misse
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An endlesse happinesse to finde.
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