“Years wearing away carry also with them many commodities, and among others take away from the blood a great part of the lively spirits; that altereth the complection, and the instruments wax feeble whereby the soul worketh his effects. Therefore the sweet flowers of delight vade[2] away in that season out of our hearts, as the leaves fall from the trees after harvest; and instead of open and clear thoughts, there entereth cloudy and troublous heaviness, accompanied with a thousand heart griefs: so that not only the blood, but the mind is also feeble, neither of the former pleasures retaineth it any thing else but a fast memory, and the print of the beloved time of tender age, which when we have upon us, the heaven, the earth and each thing to our seeming rejoiceth and laugheth always about our eyes, and in thought (as in a savoury and pleasant garden) flourisheth the sweet spring time of mirth: So that peradventure, it were not unprofitable when now, in the cold season, the sun of our life, taking away from us our delights beginneth to draw toward the West, to lose therewithall the mindfulness of them, and to find out as Themistocles saith, an art to teach us to forget; for the senses of our body are so deceivable, that they beguile many times also the judgement of the mind. Therefore, methinks, old men be like unto them that sailing in a vessel out of an haven, behold the ground with their eyes, and the vessel to their seeming standeth still, and the shore goeth; and yet is it clean contrary, for the haven, and likewise the time and pleasures, continue still in their estate, and we with the vessel of mortality flying away, go one after another through the tempestuous sea that swalloweth up and devoureth all things, neither is it granted us at any time to come on shore again; but, always beaten with contrary winds, at the end we break our vessel at some rock.” [Footnote 2: ‘Vade’ is no doubt the true word here. The double sense of it,—that is, to _fade_, or to _go away_,—may be seen in Todd's Johnson and in Nares' Glossary. Neither of them quote the following lines from the Earl of Surrey's Poems. They occur in his Ecclesiastes. We, that live on the earth, draw toward our decay, Our children fill our place awhile, and then they vade away. And again, New fancies daily spring, which vade, returning mo.]