And sorrowing I to see the Summer flowers,
The lively green, the lusty leas forlorn;
The sturdy trees so shatter'd with the showers,
The fields so fade that flourished so beforne;
It taught me well all earthly things be borne
To die the death, for nought long time may last;
The Summer's beauty yields to Winter's blast.
Then looking upward to the Heaven's leams,
With Nightè's stars thick powder'd every where,
Which erst so glisten'd with the golden streams,
That cheerful Phoebus spread down from his sphere,
Beholding dark oppressing day so near;
The sudden sight reduced to my mind
The sundry changes that in earth we find.
That musing on this worldly wealth in thought, Which comes and goes more faster than we see The fleckering flame that with the fire is wrought, My busy mind presented unto me
Such fall of Peers as in this realm had be1,
That oft I wish'd some would their woes descrive, To warn the rest whom fortune left alive.
And strait forth-stalking with redoubled pace,
For that I saw the Night draw on so fast,
In black all clad, there fell before my face
A piteous wight, whom Woe had all forewaste,
Forth from her eyen the chrystal tears out brast,
And sighing sore, her hands she wrung and fold, Tare all her hair, that ruth was to behold.
Her body small, forewither'd and forespent,
As is the stalk that Summer's drought oppress'd;
Her wealked face with woeful tears besprent,
Her colour pale, and as it seem'd her best;
In woe and plaint reposed was her rest;
And as the stone that drops of water wears,
So dented was her cheek with fall of tears.
Sorrow then addresses the Poet.
For forth she paced in her fearful tale:
"Come, come," quoth she," and see what I shall
Come, hear the plaining and the bitter bale
Of worthy men by Fortune overthrow :
Come thou, and see them rewing all in row,
They were but shades that erst in mind thou roll'd, Come, come with me, thine eyes shall them behold."
And with these words, as I upraised stood,
And 'gan to follow her that strait forth paced,
Ere I was ware, into a desart wood
We now were come, where, hand in hand embraced,
She led the way, and through the thick so traced,
As, but I had been guided by her might,
It was no way for any mortal wight.
Allegorical Personages described in Hell.
And first within the porch and jaws of Hell
Sat deep Remorse of Conscience, all besprent.
With tears; and to herself oft would she tell
Her wretchedness, and cursing never stent1
To sob and sigh; but ever thus lament
With thoughtful care, as she that all in vain
Would wear and waste continually in pain.
Her eyes unstedfast, rolling here and there, Whirl'd on each place, as place that vengeance brought,
So was her mind continually in fear,
Toss'd and tormented by the tedious thought
Of those detested crimes which she had wrought:
With dreadful cheer and looks thrown to the sky,
Wishing for death, and yet she could not die.
Next saw we Dread, all trembling how he shook,
With foot uncertain proffer'd here and there;
Benumm❜d of speech, and with a ghastly look,
Search'd every place, all pale and dead for fear;
His cap upborn with staring of his hair,
Stoyn'd' and amazed at his shade for dread,
And fearing greater dangers than was need.
And next within the entry of this lake
Sat fell Revenge, gnashing her teeth for ire,
Devising means how she may vengeance take,
Never in rest till she have her desire;
But frets within so far forth with the fire
Of wreaking flames, that now determines she
To die by death, or veng'd by death to be.
When fell Revenge, with bloody foul pretence,
Had shewed herself, as next in order set,
With trembling limbs we softly parted thence,
Till in our eyes another sight we met,
When from my heart a sigh forthwith I fet',
Rewing, alas! upon the woeful plight
Of Misery, that next appear'd in sight.
His face was lean and some-deal pin'd away,
And eke his handes consumed to the bone,
But what his body was I cannot say;
For on his carcass raiment had he none,
Save clouts and patches, pieced one by one;
With staff in hand, and scrip on shoulders cast,
His chief defence against the winters blast.
His food, for most, was wild fruits of the tree;
Unless sometime some crumbs fell to his share,
Which in his wallet long, God wot, kept he,
As on the which full daintily would he fare.
His drink the running stream, his cup the bare
Of his palm closed, his bed the hard cold ground; To this poor life was Misery ybound.
Whose wretched state, when we had well beheld,
With tender ruth on him and on his feres1,
In thoughtful cares forth then our pace we held,
And, by and by, another shape appears,
Of greedy Care, still brushing up the breres,
His knuckles knob'd, his flesh deep dented in,
With tawed hands and hard ytanned skin.
The morrow gray no sooner had begun
To spread his light, even peeping in our eyes,
When he is up and to his work yrun;
And 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, the 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 body's rest, the quiet of the heart,
The travail's ease, the still night's fere was he;
And of our life in earth the better part,
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