| |
| WHILST 1 one may labour, and take paine to live, | |
| To idlenesse his minde let him not give; | |
| Whilst one may have a thing, a thing that’s offer’d him, | |
| Let him not leave the thing which time hath profer’d him: | |
| Whether it be preferment, art, or glory, | 5 |
| Health, wealth, or pleasure, which are transitory. | |
| The man that may, and will not, mend his state, | |
| May not redresse it when it is too late. | |
| Time is so swift that none can stay his course,— | |
| Time is so strong that none can match his force: | 10 |
| Like to a thiefe, Tyme stealingly doth haste; | |
| No man can call time backe when Time is past: | |
| Time still describ’d in poets thus we finde, | |
| Bushy before, but very bald behinde. | |
| Even as the bee sucks hony out of thyme, | 15 |
| So may a man sucke sweetnesse out of Time. | |
| Thyme is a sweete flower, Time a sweeter word, | |
| And more commodity doth farre afford: | |
| But even as the spider poyson sucketh | |
| From that same herbe from whence the poore bee plucketh | 20 |
| The purest hony; so the slothfull wight, | |
| That doth in nought but idlenesse delight, | |
| Sucks sowre from sweet, sucks gall instead of hony: | |
| Time cannot be recall’d for love or money. | |
| Time is as swift as thought,—the swift’st-wing’d swallow | 25 |
| Cannot endure the flight of Time to follow: | |
| Time is of the Ubiquitaries’ race,— | |
| Time’s here, Time’s there, Time is in every place; | |
| Time is divided in a three-fold summe, | |
| Time past, Time present, and the Time to come. | 30 |
| Of present Time I presently intreat, | |
| For therein lyes the summe of my conceit; | |
| For Time (once past) can never be recal’d, | |
| And therefore is ne feyned to be bald: | |
| So Time to come, untill it present be, | 35 |
| Is neither May, nor opportunitie. | |
| Prudence, Fore-care, and Diligence (they say, | |
| With fit occasion,) are the flow’rs of May; | |
| And these in winter doe as faire appeare | |
| As in the summer-season of the yeere. | 40 |
| Carelesnesse, Sloth, Excuse, and Time’s delay, | |
| With Ignorance, are tearm’d the weedes of May; | |
| And these are neither sweet, or faire appeare, | |
| Neither in spring, nor yet in all the yeere. | |
| May may be fitly tearm’d (in my opinion) | 45 |
| The mistris of the moneths, and Nature’s minion, | |
| May, Nature’s beauty, beautifying Nature, | |
| May, Nature’s joy, delighting every creature. | |
| All Nature’s impes she trimmes with colours gay, | |
| And glories her rich beauty to display, | 50 |
| Decking the bosome of the earth with flowres, | |
| Nose-gayes for ladies and their paramours. | |
| In May the little buddes do sprout and spring, | |
| In May the little birds do chirpe and sing; | |
| In May the earth is clad in gaudy greene, | 55 |
| To entertaine and welcome sommer’s queene. | |
| The winde doth whistle musicke to the leaves; | |
| They dance for joy: thus ev’ry thing receives | |
| Pleasure by Maye’s approach, and true content, | |
| And doth rejoyce with generall consent, | 60 |
| And strive (in emulation) who shall be | |
| Most richly clad in Nature’s livery; | |
| To entertaine the parragon of Time, | |
| Each thing is in his chiefest pomp and prime. | |
