A Friends advice:
In an excellent Ditty, concerning the variable changes in this World.
To a pleasant new tune;
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WHat if a day or a month, or a yeare,
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crown thy desires with a thousand wisht contentings
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Cannot the chance of a night or an houre,
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Crosse thy delights with as many sad tormentings:
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Fortunes in their fairest birth,
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Are but blossoms dying.
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Wanton pleasures, doting mirth,
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Are but shadowes flying:
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All your 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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Feed thy fond thoughts with many a sweet conceiving
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May not that smile, or that beck or that looke,
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Tell thee as well they are but vain deceivings:
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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 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 houres
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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 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 again to as low despised chancing:
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Whilst the Sunne 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 grief, or a straine, or a fit,
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Pinch thee with pain, or the feeling pangs of sicknes
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Doth not that gripe, or that straine, or that fit,
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Shew thee the form of thine own true perfect liknes
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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 than, silly Man,
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Why art thou so weak of wit,
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As to be in jeopardy,
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When thou mayest in quiet sit:
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Then if all this have declard thine amisse,
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Take this from me for a gentle friendly warning,
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If thou refuse, and good counsell abuse,
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Thou maist hereafter dearely buy thy learning:
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All is hazard that we have.
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There is nothing bideing,
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Dayes of pleasure are like streams,
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Through faire Medows 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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MAns but a blast, or a smoake, or a clowd,
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T[ha]t in a thought, or a moment is dispersed:
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Lifes but a span, or a tale, or a word,
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That in a trice, or suddaine is rehearsed:
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Hopes are changd, 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 faile 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, 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, of an ease your hearts desired:
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Fairest blossoms soonest fade,
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Withered foule and rotten.
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And through grief 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 the Earth;
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Hath but a point, and a point soon defaced:
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Flesh to the Soule, as a Flower to the Sun,
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That in a storme or a tempest is disgraced:
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Fortune may the Body please,
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Which is onely 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 defate
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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 of a thousand sweet contentings,
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But tht defaults of a fleshly desire
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Brings to the soule many thousand sad tormentings,
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Be not proud presumptious Man,
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Sith thou art a point 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 onely 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 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 from unfained recantation,
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Be not backward in that course,
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That may bring the Soule delight,
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Though another way may seem
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Far more pleasant to thy sight:
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Do 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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And endlesse happinesse to finde.
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