Till in our eyes another sight we met; When fro my heart a sigh forthwith I set, Ruing alas upon the woeful plight

Of MISERY, that next appear'd in sight.

His face was lean, and some-deal pin'd away,
And eke his hands consumed to the bone;
But what his body was I cannot say,

For on his carcase raiment had he none,
Save clouts and patches pieced one by one;
With staff in hand, and scrip on shoulders cast,
His chief defence against the winter's blast.

His food, for most, was wild fruits of the tree, Unless sometime some crums fell to his share, Which in his wallet long, God wot, kept he;

As on the which full daintily he would fare: His drink the running stream; his cup the bare Of his palm clos'd, his bed the hard cold ground. To this poor life was MISERY ybound,

Whose wretched state when we had well beheld,
With tender ruth on him and on his fears,
In thoughtful cares forth then our pace we held;
And by and by another shape appears

Of greedy CARE, still brushing by the breers; His knuckles knob’d, his flesh deep dented in, With tawed hands, and hard ytanned skin.

The morrow gray no sooner hath begun
To spread his light e'en peeping in our eyes,
When he is up, and to his work yrun ;

But let the night's black misty mantle rise,
And with foul dark never so much disguise
The fair bright day, yet ceaseth he no while;
But hath his candles to prolong his toil.

By him lay heavy SLEEP, the cousin of Death,
Flat on the ground, and still as any stone,
A very corpse, save yielding forth a breath;
Small keep took he, whom Fortune frowned on;
Or whom she lifted up unto the throne
Of high renown; but as a living death,
So dead alive, of life he drew the breath.

The body's rest, the quiet of the heart,

The travel's ease, the still night's seer was he;
And of our life in earth the better part,
Rever of sight, and yet in whom we see
Things oft that tide, and oft that never be;
Without respect esteeming equally
King Croesus' pomp, and Irus' poverty.

And next in order sad OLD AGE we found:
His beard all hoar, his eyes hollow and blind,
With drooping cheer still poring on the ground,
As on the place where Nature him assign'd
To rest, when that the sisters had untwin'd
His vital thread, and ended with their knife
The fleting course of fast declining life.

There heard we him with broken and hollow plaint
Rue with himself his end approaching fast,

And all for nought his wretched mind torment

With sweet remembrance of his pleasures past, And fresh delights of lusty youth forewaste; Recounting which, how would he sob and shriek, And to be young again of Jove beseek.

But, an' the cruel fates so fixed be

That time forepast cannot return again, This one request of Jove yet prayed he,

That in such wither'd plight and wretched pain As eld, (accompanied with his loathsome train) Had brought on him, all were it woe and grief, He might awhile yet linger forth his life;

And not so soon descend into the pit,

Where Death, when he the mortal corpse hath slain, With reckless hand in grave doth cover it, Thereafter never to enjoy again

The gladsome light, but in the ground ylain,
In dept of darkness waste and wear to nought,
As he had never into the world been brought.

But who had seen him sobbing, how he stood
Unto himself, and how he would bemoan
His youth forepast, as though it wrought him good
To talk of youth, all were his youth foregone,

He would have mus'd, and marvell'd much whereon This wretched age should life desire to feign,

And knows full well life doth but length his pain.

Crook'd back'd he was, tooth-shaken, and blear-eyed, Went on three feet and sometimes crept on four,

With old lame bones, that rattled by his side,

His scalp all pil'd, and he with eld forlore:

His wither'd fist still knocking at death's door,
Fumbling and drivelling as he draws his breath,
For brief, the shape and messenger of Death.

And fast by him pale MALADY was plac'd,
Sore sick in bed, her colour all foregone,
Bereft of stomach, savour, and of taste;

Ne could she brook no meat but broths alone.
Her breath corrupt, her keepers, every one,
Abhorring her; her sickness past recure;
Detesting phisick, and all phisick's cure.

But O the doleful sight that then we see;
We turn'd our sight, and on the other side
A grisly shape of FAMINE mought we see,

With greedy looks, and gaping mouth that cried, And roar'd for meat as she should there have died; Her body thin and bare as any bone,

Whereto was left nought but the case alone.

And that, alas, was knawn on every where,

All full of holes, that I ne mought refrain

From tears, to see how she her arms could tear,

And with her teeth gnash on the bones in vain; When all for nought she fain would so sustain Her starven corpse, that rather seem'd a shade, Than any substance of a creature made.

Great was her force, whom stone wall could not stay; Her tearing nails snatching at all she saw;

With gaping jaws that by no means ymay

Be satisfied from hunger of her maw ;

But eats herself as she that hath no law:
Gnawing, alas, her carcase all in vain,
Where you may count each sinew, bone and vein.

On her while we thus firmly fix'd our eyes,
That bled for ruth of such a dreary sight,
Lo, suddenly she shright in so huge wise,

As made hell gates to shiver with the might,h Wherewith a dart we saw how it did light Right on her breast, and therewithal pale DEATH Enthrilling it to reve her of her breath.

And by and by a dumb dead corpse we saw,
Heavy and cold, the shape of death aright,
That daunts all earthly creatures to his law;

Against whose force in vain it is to fight;
Ne peers, ne princes, nor no mortal wight;
No town, ne realms, cities, ne strongest tower,
But all perforce must yeild unto his power.

His dart anon out of the corpse he took,
And in his hand (a dreadful sight to see)
With great triumph eftsoons the same he shook,
That most of all my fears affrayed me;

His body dight with nought but bones, perdie,
The naked shape of man there saw I plain,
All, save the flesh, the sinew and the vein.

h What an admirable and highly poetical line!