The morrow gray no sooner hath begun

To spread her light even peeping in our eyes, Than he is up, and to his work y-run ;

But let the night's black misty mantles rise,
And with foul dark never so much disguise
The fair bright day, yet ceaseth he no while,
But hath his candles to prolong his toil.

By him lay heavy Sleep, cousin of Death,
Flat on the ground, and still as any stone,

A

very corps, save yielding forth a breath.— Small keep* took he whom fortune frowned on, Or whom she lifted up into the throne Of high renown, but as a living death, So dead alive, of life he drew the breath.

The bodies' rest, the quiet of the heart,

The travels' ease, the still night's feer was he;
And of our life on earth the better part;

Reaver of sight, and yet in whom we see
Things oft that tide, and oft that never be.
Without respect esteeming equally
King Cræsus' pomp, and Irus' poverty.

And next in order sad Old Age we found,

His beard all hoar, his eyes hollow and blind, With drooping cheer still poring on the ground,

As on the place where nature him assigned To rest, when that the sisters had untwined His vital thread, and ended with their knife, The fleeting course of fast declining life.

• Custody, guard. That taketh away. Betide-happen.

There heard we him, with broken hollow plaint
Rue with himself his end approaching fast;
And all for nought his wretched mind torment,
With sweet remembrance of his pleasures past,
And fresh delights of lusty youth forwaste.
Recounting which, how would he sob and shreek,
And to be young again of Jove beseek.

But, and the cruel fates so fixed be,

That time forspent can not return again, This one request of Jove yet prayed he;

That in such withered plight and wretched pain
As eld, accompanied with his loathsome train,
Had brought on him, all were it woe and grief,
He might awhile yet linger forth his life.

But who had seen him, sobbing where he stood,
Unto himself, and how he would bemoan
His youth forpast, as though it wrought him good
To talk of youth, although his youth forgone;
He would have mused and marvelled much whereon
This wretched age should life desire so fain,
And know full well life doth but length his pain.

Crook back'd he was, tooth shaken, and blear eyed,
Went on three feet, and sometimes crept on four,
With old lame bones, that rattled by his side;
His scalp all pilled,* and he with eld forlore :
His withered fist still knocking at death's door; †
Fumbling and drivelling as he draws his breath;
For brief-the shape and messenger of death.

* Bald.

+ And every hour they knock at deathi's gate.—SPENSER.

And fast by him pale Misery was placed,
Sore sick in bed, her colour all forgone,
Bereft of stomach, savour, and of taste;
Nor could she brook no meat but broths alone;
Her breath corrupt, her keepers every one
Abhorring her, her sickness past recure,
Detesting physic, and all physic's cure.

But oh! the doleful sight that then we see!
We turned our look, and on the other side
A grisly shape of Famine might we see

With greedy looks, and gaping mouth that cried, And roared for meat, as she should there have died; Her body thin, and bare as any bone,

Whereto was left nought but the case alone;

And that, alas! was gnawn on every where
All full of holes, that I ne mought refrain

From tears, to see how she her arms could tear,

And with her teeth gnash on the bones in yain : When all for nought she fain would so sustain Her starved corps, that rather seemed a shade, Than any substance of a creature made.

Great was her force, that stone walls could not stay,
Her tearing nails scratching at all she saw;

With gaping jaws that by no means y-may
Be satisfied with hunger of her maw,

1

But eats herself as she that hath no law;
Gnawing, alas! her carcass all in vain,
Where you may count each sinew, bone, and vein,

On her while we thus firmly fix our eyes,

That bled for ruth of such a dreary sight,
Loe suddenly she shrieked in so huge wise,
As made hell gates to shiver with the might;
Wherewith a dart, we saw how it did light
Right on her breast, and therewithall pale Death
Enthrilling it to reave her of her breath.

And bye and bye, a dumb dead corpse we saw,
Heavy and cold, the shape of death aright,
That daunts all earthly creatures to his law;
Against whose force in vain it is to fight.
Nor peers, nor princes, nor no mortal wight,
No towns, nor realms, cities, nor strongest tower,
But all perforce must yield unto his power.

His dart anon out of the corpse he took,

And in his hand a dreadful sight to see,

With great triumph eftsoons the same he shook,
That most of all my fear affrayed me:

His body dight with nought but bones, perdie,
The naked shape of man there saw I plain,
All but the flesh, the sinew and the vein.

Lastly stood War, in glittering arms y-clad ;
With visage grim, stern look, and blackly-hued;
In his right hand a naked sword he had,

That to the hilt was all with blood embrued: And in his left, that kings and kingdoms rued, Famine and fire he held, and therewithall

He razed towns, and threw down towers and all.

Cities he sacked, and realms that whilome flowered

In honour, glory, and rule above the best,
He overwhelmed, and all their fame devoured,
Consumed, destroyed, wasted, and never ceased,
"Till he their wealth, their name and all oppressed:
His face for-hewed with wounds, and by his side
There hung his targe with gashes deep and wide.

In midst of which, depainted there we found
Deadly debate, all full of snaky hair,
That with a bloody fillet was y-bound,

Outbreathing nought but discord every where,
And round about were pourtrayed here and there
The hugy host, Darius and his power,

His kings, princes, his peers, and all his flower.

Some of these personifications had also been painted by Chaucer, and doubtless Sackville had seen and profited by the designs of the elder bard.

Elde was y-painted after this,

That shorter was a fote, I wis,
Than she was wont in her younghede : +
Uneth herself she might y-feed:

So feeble and so old was she
That faded was all her beauty:

Full sallow was waxen her colour;

Her head for hoar was white as flour:
All waxen was her body unwelde §
And dire and dwindled all for elde:
A foul fotwelked || thing was she,
That whilome round and soft had bee;
Her hair shoken fast withal,

As from her head they woulden fall;
Her face y-frounced and forpined ¶

And both her hands lorn fordwined: **

Much scared.

Youth. She could scarcely feed herself.

Unwieldy. Much withered. ¶ Wrinkled and much wasted.

**Shrunk and rendered useless.