His face was lean, and some deal pined away
And eke his hands consumed to the bone;
But what his body was I cannot say,
For on his carcase 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 winter's 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 daint❜ly 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 feres,
In thoughtful cares forth then our pace we held;
And, by and by, another shape appears
Of greedy Care, still brushing up the briers;
His knuckles knob'd, his flesh deep dinted in
With tawed hands, and hard ytanned skin:
The morrow gray no sooner hath begun
To spread his light e'en peeping in our eyes,
But he is up, and to his work yrun;
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, the cousin of Death,
Flat on the ground, and still as any stone,
A very corpse, 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 travel's ease, the still night's fere was he,
And of our life in earth the better part;
Riever of sight, and yet in whom we see
Things oft that [tyde] and oft that never be;
Without respect, esteeming equally
King Croesus' 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 assign'd
To rest, when that the sisters had untwined
His vital thread, and ended with their knife
The fleeting course of fast declining life:
There heard we him with broke and 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 forewaste;
Recounting which, how would he sob and
shriek,
And to be young again of Jove beseek!
But, an the cruel fates so fixed be
That time forepast cannot return again,
This one request of Jove yet prayed he
That in such wither'd plight, and wretched pain,
As eld, accompanied with her loathsome train,
Had brought on him, all were it woe and grief,
He might a while yet linger forth his life,
And not so soon descend into the pit;
Where Death, when he the mortal corpse hath slain,
With reckless hand in grave doth cover it:
Thereafter never to enjoy again
The gladsome light, but, in the ground ylain,
In depth of darkness waste and wear to nought,
As he had ne'er into the world been brought:
But who had seen him sobbing how he stood
Unto himself, and how he would bemoan
His youth forepast-as though it wrought him good
To talk of youth, all were his youth foregone-
He would have mused, and marvell'd much whereon
This wretched Age should life desire so fain,
And knows full well life doth but length his pain:
Crook-back'd he was, tooth-shaken, and blear-eyed;
Went on three feet, and sometime crept on four;
With old lame bones, that rattled by his side;
His scalp all piled,1 and he with eld forelore,
His wither'd fist still knocking at death's door;
Fumbling, and drivelling, as he draws his breath;
For brief, the shape and messenger of Death.
And fast by him pale Malady was placed :
Sore sick in bed, her colour all foregone;
Bereft of stomach, savour, and of taste,
Ne 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 turn'd our look, and on the other side
A grisly shape of Famine might we see:
With greedy looks, and gaping mouth, that cried
And roar'd 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 gnawen everywhere,
All full of holes; that I ne might refrain
From tears, to see how she her arms could tear,
And with her teeth gnash on the bones in vain,
When, all for nought, she fain would so sustain
Her starven corpse, that rather seem'd a shade
Than any
substance of a creature made:
Great was her force, whom stone-wall could not stay:
Her tearing nails snatching at all she saw;
With gaping jaws, that by no means ymay
Be satisfied from hunger of her maw,
But eats herself as she that hath no law;
Gnawing, alas! her carcase all in vain,
Where you may count each sinew, bone, and vein.
On her while we thus firmly fix'd our eyes,
That bled for ruth of such a dreary sight,
Lo, suddenly she shriek'd 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, therewithal, pale Death
Enthirling it, to rieve her of her breath:
17 'Enthirling:' piercing.
And, by and by, 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;
No 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 fears affrayed me;
His body dight with nought but bones, pardy;
The naked shape of man there saw I plain,
All save the flesh, the sinew, and the vein.
Lastly, stood War, in glittering arms yclad,
With visage grim, stern look, and blackly hued:
In his right hand a naked sword he had,
That to the hilts was all with blood imbrued;
And in his left (that kings and kingdoms rued)
Famine and fire he held, and therewithal
He razed towns, and threw down towers and all:
Cities he sack'd, and realms (that whilom flower'd
In honour, glory, and rule, above the rest)
He overwhelm'd, and all their fame devour'd,
Consumed, destroy'd, wasted, and never ceased,
Till he their wealth, their name, and all oppress'd:
His face forhew'd with wounds; and by his side
There hung his targe, with gashes deep and wide.
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