| Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517–47). The Poetical Works. 1880. | | | | Songs and Sonnets | | How no Age is content with his own Estate, and how the Age of Children is the happiest if they had Skill to understand it |
| | | LAID in my quiet bed, in study as I were, | |
| I saw within my troubled head a heap of thoughts appear. | |
| And every thought did shew so lively in mine eyes, | |
| That now I sigh’d, and then I smiled, as cause of thought did rise. | |
| I saw the little boy in thought how oft that he | 5 |
| Did wish of God to scape the rod, a tall young man to be. | |
| The young man eke that feels his bones with pains opprest, | |
| How he would be a rich old man, to live and lie at rest. | |
| The rich old man that sees his end draw on so sore, | |
| How he would be a boy again, to live so much the more. | 10 |
| Whereat full oft I smiled, to see how all these three, | |
| From boy to man, from man to boy, would chop and change degree. | |
| And musing thus I think, the case is very strange, | |
| That man from wealth, to live in woe, doth ever seek to change. | |
| Thus thoughtful as I lay, I saw my wither’d skin, | 15 |
| How it doth shew my dented chews, the flesh was worn so thin. | |
| And eke my toothless chaps, the gates of my right way, | |
| That opes and shuts as I do speak, do thus unto me say: | |
| ‘Thy white and hoarish hairs, the messengers of age, | |
| That shew, like lines of true belief, that this life doth assuage; | 20 |
| Bid thee lay hand, and feel them hanging on thy chin; | |
| The which do write two ages past, the third now coming in. | |
| Hang up therefore the bit of thy young wanton time: | |
| And thou that therein beaten art, the happiest life define.’ | |
| Whereat I sigh’d, and said: ‘Farewell! my wonted joy; | 25 |
| Truss up thy pack, and trudge from me to every little boy; | |
| And tell them thus from me; their time most happy is, | |
| If, to their time, they reason had, to know the truth of this.’ | | | | |
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