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THIS battle fares like to the morning’s war, | |
| When dying clouds contend with growing light; | |
| What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails, | |
| Can neither call it perfect day, nor night. | |
| Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea, | 5 |
| Forc’d by the tide to combat with the wind; | |
| Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea | |
| Forc’d to retire by fury of the wind; | |
| Sometime, the flood prevails; and then, the wind; | |
| Now, one the better; then, another best; | 10 |
| Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast, | |
| Yet neither conqueror, nor conquered: | |
| So is the equal poise of this fell war.— | |
| Here, on this molehill, will I sit me down. | |
| To whom God will, there be the victory! | 15 |
| For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too, | |
| Have chid me from the battle, swearing both, | |
| They prosper best of all when I am thence. | |
| Would I were dead! if God’s good will were so; | |
| For what is in this world but grief and woe? | 20 |
| O God! methinks it were a happy life | |
| To be no better than a homely swain; | |
| To sit upon a hill, as I do now, | |
| To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, | |
| Thereby to see the minutes how they run: | 25 |
| How many make the hour full complete, | |
| How many hours bring about the day, | |
| How many days will finish up the year, | |
| How many years a mortal man may live. | |
| When this is known, then to divide the times: | 30 |
| So many hours must I tend my flock; | |
| So many hours must I take my rest; | |
| So many hours must I contemplate; | |
| So many hours must I sport myself; | |
| So many days my ewes have been with young; | 35 |
| So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean; | |
| So many years ere I shall shear the fleece: | |
| So minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years, | |
| Pass’d over to the end they were created, | |
| Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. | 40 |
| Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely! | |
| Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade | |
| To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep, | |
| Than doth a rich embroidered canopy | |
| To kings, that fear their subjects’ treachery? | 45 |
| O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth. | |
| And to conclude,—the shepherd’s homely curds, | |
| His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle, | |
| His wonted sleep under a fresh tree’s shade,— | |
| All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,— | 50 |
| Is far beyond a prince’s delicates, | |
| His viands sparkling in a golden cup, | |
| His body couched in a curious bed, | |
| When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him. | |
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