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