1.
I loathe that I did love,
In youth that I thought sweet;
As time requires, for my behove,
‖: Methinks they are not meet. :‖
2.
My lusts they do me leave,
My fancies all be fled,
And tract of time begins to weave
‖: Grey hairs upon my head. :‖
3.
For age with stealing steps
Hath clawed me with his clutch,
And lusty life away she leaps,
‖: As there had been none such. :‖
4.
My Muse doth not delight
Me as she did before;
My hand and pen are not in plight,
‖: As they have been of yore. :‖
5.
For reason me denies
This youthly idle rhyme;
And day by day to me she cries,
‖: Leave off these toys in time
. :‖
6.
The wrinkles in my brow,
The furrows in my face,
Say, limping age will lodge him now
‖: Where youth must give him place. :‖
7.
The harbinger of death,
To me I see him ride;
The cough, the cold, the gasping breath
‖: Doth bid me to provide. :‖
8.
A pickaxe and a spade,
And eke a shrouding sheet,
A house of clay for to be made
‖: For such a guest most meet. :‖
9.
Methinks I hear the clerk
That knolls the careful knell,
And bids me leave my woeful work,
‖: Ere nature me compel. :‖
10.
My keepers knit the knot
That youth did laugh to scorn,
Of me that clean shall be forgot,
‖: As I had not been born. :‖
11.
Thus must I youth give up,
Whose badge I long did wear;
To them I yield the wanton cup,
‖: That better may it bear. :‖
12.
Lo, here the bared skull,
By whose bald sign I know
That stooping age away shall pull
‖: That youthful years did sow. :‖
13.
For beauty with her band
These crooked cares hath wrought,
And shipped me into the land
‖: From whence I first was brought. :‖
14.
And ye that bide behind,
Have ye none other trust;
As ye of clay were cast by kind,
‖: So shall ye waste to dust. :‖