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 desires 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 your toys are but toys,  
jole thoughts 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 deceive;  
Why should beauty be so proud,  
In things of no surmounting;  
All her wealth is but shroud,  
Of a rich accounting:  
Then in this repose no bliss,  
Which is so vain and idle:  
Beauties flowers have their hour's  
Time doth hold the bridle.   

What if the world with assures 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 so as low despised chancing;  
Whilst the Sun of wealth doth shine,  
Thou shalt have friends plenty:  
But come waitt, than they repine,  
Not one abides of ●●●enty:  
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 strain, 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 thine own crew perfect líknes  
Health is but a glimpse of joy,  
Subject to all changes:  
Mirth is but a silly ●oy,  
Which mishap estranges.  
Tell me than, silly Man,  
Why art thou so weak of wit,  
As to be in teopardy,  
When thou mayest in quiet sit;   

Then if all this have deelared thine amiss,  
Take this from me for 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 bideing,  
Days of pleasure are like streams,  
Through fair Meadows gliding,  
Wealth or woe, time doth go,  
There is no returning,  
Secret Faces guide our states,  
Both in mirth and m● 〈◊〉   

The Second Part.  
To the same tune.  
 
 

MAn's but a blast, or a smoke, or a cloud,  
D●●●t in athought, 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 fail 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 your 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 the Earth;  
Hath but a point, and a point soon defaced:  
Flesh to the Soul, as a Flower to the Sun,  
That in a storm or a tempest is disgraced:  
Fortime may the Body-please,  
Which is only carnal,  
But it will the Soul● diseases  
That is still immortal,  
Earthly joys are but ●oyes,  
To the Souls election,  
Worldly grace doth defate  
Man's divine perfection▪   

Fleshly delights to the earth that is flesh,  
May be the cause of a thousand sweet ●oa●e●tings,  
But th● defaults of a fleshly desire  
Brings to the soul many thousand sad torment,  
Be not proud presumptuous Man,  
Sith thou art a point so vase,  
Of the least, and lowest Element,  
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 eye on the world be so six●  
To hinder thy heart from unfeigned recantation,  
Be not backward in that course,  
That may bring the 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 they mind,  
Follow this, thou shalt not miss  
And endless happiness to find,    
FINIS.   

Printed by the Assigns of Thomas Symcock