SEN.

Expect great joy when thou shalt lay down the mind of a child, and deserve the style of a wise man; for at those years childhood is past, but oftentimes childishness remaineth; and, what is worse, thou hast the authority of a man, but the voice of a child.

EPIG. 11.

To the declining man.

Why stand'st thou discontented? Is not he
As equal-distant from the top as thee?
What then may cause thy discontented frown?
He's mounting up the hill; thou plodding down.

DEUTERONOMY Xxxiii. 25.

As thy days, so shall thy strength be

The post

Of swift-foot time
Hath now at length begun

The kalends of our middle stage:

The number'd steps that we have gone, do show
The number of those steps we are to go:
The buds and blossoms of our age
Are blown, decay'd, and gone,
And all our prime

Is lost :

And what we boast too much, we have least cause to boast,

Ah me!

There is no rest:

Our time is always fleeing,

What rein can curb our headstrong hours? They post away they pass we know not how: Our Now is gone, before we can say now: Time past and future's none of ours: That hath as yet no being;

And this hath ceas'd

To be;

What is, is only ours: how short a time have we !

And

Now like the Sun, He glows with manly Fire; Invokes the Muse, and strikes the Thracian Lyre.

And now
Apollo's ear

Expects harmonious strains,
New minted from the Thracian lyre;
For now the virtue of the twi-fork'd hill
Inspires the ravish'd fancy, and doth fill
The veins with Pegasean fire:
And now those steril brains,
That cannot show
Nor bear

Some fruits, shall never wear Apollo's sacred bow.

Excess

And surfeit uses

To wait upon these days;
Full feed and flowing cups of wine
Conjure the fancy, forcing up a sp'rit
By the base magic of debauch'd delight;
Ah! pity, twice-born Bacchus' vine
Should starve Apollo's bays,

And drown those muses
That bless

And calm the peaceful soul, when storms of care oppress.

Strong light,

Boast not those beams
That can but only rise

And blaze awhile and then away:
There is no solstice in thy day;
Thy midnight glory lies

Betwixt th' extremes
Of night,

A glory soil'd* with shame, and fool'd with false delight.

Soil'd; i. e. sullied.

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