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| DECEIVING world, that with alluring toys | |
| Hast made my life the subject of thy scorn, | |
| And scornest now to lend thy fading joys | |
| To lengthen my life, whom friends have left forlorn; | |
| How well are they that die ere they be born, | 5 |
| And never see thy sleights, which few men shun | |
| Till unawares they helpless are undone! | |
| |
| Oft have I sung of Love and of his fire; | |
| But now I find that poet was advised, | |
| Which made full feasts increasers of desire, | 10 |
| And proves weak Love was with the poor despised; | |
| For when the life with food is not sufficed, | |
| What thoughts of love, what motion of delight, | |
| What pleasure can proceed from such a wight? | |
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| Witness my want the murderer of my wit: | 15 |
| My ravished sense, of wonted fury reft, | |
| Wants such conceits as should in poems fit | |
| Set down the sorrow wherein I am left: | |
| But therefore have high heavens their gifts bereft, | |
| Because so long they lent them me to use, | 20 |
| And I so long their bounty did abuse. | |
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| O, that a year were granted me to live, | |
| And for that year my former wits restored! | |
| What rules of life, what counsel would I give, | |
| How should my sin with sorrow be deplored! | 25 |
| But I must die, of every man abhorred: | |
| Time loosely spent will not again be won; | |
| My time is loosely spent, and I undone. | |
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