. I loathe that I did love,
In youth that I thought sweet;
As time requires for my behove,
Me thinks they are not meet.
My lusts they do me leave,
My fancies all be fled,
And tract of time begins to weave
Gray hairs upon my head.
For age, with stealing steps,
Hath clawed me with his crutch,
And lusty life away she leaps
As there had been none such.
My muse doth not delight
Me as she did before,
My hand and pen are not in plight
As they have been of yore.
For reason me denies
This youthly idle rhyme,
And day by day to me she cries,
Leave off these toys in time.
The wrinkles in my brow,
The furrows in my face,
Say limping age will hedge him now
Where youth must give him place.
The harbinger of death,
To me I see him ride;
The cough, the cold, the gasping breath,
Doth bid me to provide
A pickaxe and a spade,
And eke a shrouding sheet;