A Friends advice: In an excellent Ditty, concerning the variable changes in this World.  
To a pleasant new Tune.  

 

What if a day, or a month, or a year,  
Crown thy delights with a thousand wished content,  
Cannot the chance of a night or an hour,  
Cross thy delights, with as many sad torment?  
Fortunes in their fairest birth,  
Are but blossoms dying,  
Wanton pleasures, doting mirth,  
Are but shadows flying:  
All our joys are but toys,  
Idle thouhgts deceiving;  
None hath power of an hour,  
In our lives bereaving.   

What if a smile, or a beck or a look,  
Feed thy fond thoughts, with many a sweet conceiving:  
May not that smile, or that beck, or that look,  
Tell thee as well they are but vain deciuing?  
Why should beauty be so proud,  
In things of no surmounting?  
All her wealth is but a shroud,  
Of a rich accounting:  
Then in this repose no bliss,  
Which is so vain and idle:  
Beauties flowers have their hours,  
Time doth hold the bridle.   

What if the world with allures of her wealth,  
Raise thy degree to a place of high advancing?  
May not the World by a check of that wealth,  
Put thee again to as low despised chancing?  
Whilst the Sun of wealth doth shine,   
 

Thou shalt have friends plenty:  
But come want, than they repine,  
Not one abides of twenty:  
Wealth and Friends holds and ends,  
As your fortunes rise and fall,  
Up and down, rise and frown,  
Certain is no state at all▪   

What if a grief, or a strait, or a fit,  
Pinch thee with pain, or the feeling pangs of sickness:  
Doth not that gripe, or that strain, or that fit,  
Show thee the form of thy own true perfect likeness?  
Health is but a glimpse of joy,  
Subject to all changes:  
Mirth is but a silly toy,  
Which mishap estranges.  
Tell me then, silly Man,  
Why art thou so weak of wit,  
As to be in jeopardy,  
When thou mayst in quiet sit?   

Then if all this have declared thine amiss,  
Take it from me as a gentle friendly warning;  
If thou refuse, and good counsel abuse,  
Thou mayst hereafter dear buy thy learning:  
All is hazard that we have,  
There is nothing biding,  
Days of pleasure are like streams,  
Through fair Meadows gliding,  
Wealth or woe, tune doth go,  
There is no returning,  
Secret Fates guide our states,  
Both in mirth and mourning.    

The Second Part.  
To the same Tune.  
 

MAn's but a blast, or a smoke, or a cloud,  
That in a thought, or a moment is dispersed:  
Life's but a span, or a tale, or a word,  
That in a trice, or sudden is rehearsed:  
Hopes are changed, and thoughts are crossed,  
Will nor skill prevaileth,  
Though we laugh and live at ease,  
Change of thoughts assaileth,  
Though a while Fortune smile,  
And her comforts crowneth,  
Yet at length fails her strength,  
And in fine she frowneth.   

Thus are the joys of a year in an hour,  
And of a month, in a moment quite expired,  
And in the night with the word of a noise,  
Crossed by the day, of an ease our hearts desired:  
Fairest blossoms soon fade,  
Withered, foul, and rotten,  
And through grief, our greatest joys  
Quickly are forgotten:  
Seek not then (mortal men)  
Earthly fleeting pleasure,  
But with pain strive to gain  
Heavenly lasting treasure.   

Earth to the world, as a Man to the earth,  
Hath but a point, and a point is soon defaced:  
Flesh to the Soul, as a Flower to the Sun,  
That in a storm or a tempest is disgraced:  
Fortune may the Body please,  
Which is only carnal,   
 

But it will the Soul disease,  
That is still immortal,  
Earthly joys are but toys,  
To the Senses election,  
Worldly grace doth deface  
Man's divine perfection.   

Fleshly delights to the earth that is flesh,  
May be the cause of a thousand sweet content,  
But the defaults of a fleshly desire  
Brings to the Soul many thousand sad torment:  
Be not proud presumptuous Man,  
Sith thou art a point so base,  
Of the least and lowest Clement,  
Which hath least and lowest place:  
Mark thy fate, and thy state,  
Which is only earth and dust,  
And as grass, which alas  
Shortly surely perish must.   

Let not the hopes of an earthly desire,  
Bar thee the joys of an endless contentation,  
Nor let not thy ●●e on the world be so fixed,  
To hinder thy heart from unfeigned recantation:  
Be not backward in that course,  
That may bring thy Soul delight,  
Though another way may seem  
Far more pleasant to thy sight;  
Do not go, if he says no  
That knows the secrets of thy mind,  
Follow this, thou shalt not miss  
An endless happiness to find.    
FINIS.   

Printed for H. Gosson.