Take not a flattring woman to thy wife, A shameles creature, full of wanton words, (Whose bad, thy good; whose lust will end thy life, Cutting thy hart with sharpe two edged swords:) Cast not thy minde on her whose lookes allure, But she that shines in Truth and Vertue pure. Praise not thy selfe, let other men commend thee; Beare not a flattring tongue to glauer anie, Let Parents due correction not offend thee: Rob not thy neighbor, seeke the loue of manie; Hate not to heare good Counsell giuen thee, Lay not thy money vnto Vsurie. Restraine thy steps from too much libertie, Fulfill not th'enuious mans malitious minde; Embrace thy Wife, live not in lecherie; Content thyselfe with what Fates haue assignde: Be rul'd by Reason, Warning dangers saue; True Age is reuerend worship to thy graue. Be patient in extreame Aduersitie, (Man's chiefest credit growes by dooing well,) Be no high-minded in Prosperity; Falshood abhorre, nor lying fable tell. Giue not thy selfe to Sloth, (the sinke of Shame, The moath of Time, the enemie to Fame.) This leare I learned of a Bel-dame Trot, (When I was yong and wylde as now thou art): But her good counsell I regarded not; I markt it with my eares, not with my hart: But now I finde it too--too true (my Sonne), When my Age-withered Spring is almost done. Behold my gray head, full of siluer haires, My wrinckled skin, deepe furrowes in my face: Cares bring Old-Age, Old-Age increaseth cares; My Time is come, and I haue run my Race: Winter hath snow'd vpon my hoarie head, And with my Winter all my ioys are dead. And thou loue-hating Boy, (whom once I loued), Farewell, a thousand-thousand times farewell; My Teares the Marble Stones to ruth haue moued; My sad Complaints the babling Ecchoes tell: And yet thou wouldst take no compassion on mee. Scorning that crosse which Loue hath laid vpon mee. The hardest steele with fier doth mend his misse, Marble is mollifyde with drops of Raine; But thou (more hard than Steele or Marble is) Doost scorne my Teares, and my true loue disdaine, Which for thy sake shall euerlasting bee, Wrote in the Annalls of Eternitie. By this, the Night (with darknes ouer-spred) Had drawne the curtaines of her cole-blacke bed; And _Cynthia_ muffling her face with a clowd, (Lest all the world of her should be too prowd) Had taken _Conge_ of the sable Night, (That wanting her cannot be halfe so bright;) When I poore forlorne man and outcast creature (Despairing of my Loue, despisde of Beautie) Grew male-content, scorning his louely feature, That had disdaind my euer-zealous dutie: I hy'd me homeward by the Moone-shine light; Forswearing Loue, and all his fond delight. _FINIS._ [Illustration] [Illustration]