Verse > Anthologies > Edward Farr, comp. > Elizabethan Poetry
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Edward Farr, ed.  Select Poetry of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth.  1845.
 
Death Certain
XXXVII. William Bvttes
 
WHEN 1 man is sicke, then doth he seeke
  His sicknesse to eschew:
When health is got, God is forgot,
  And griefes do grow anew.
 
In wealth we wallow wickedly,        5
  Forgetting God most wretchedly;
In woe we waile, flesh is so fraile,
  That nought is life but miserie.
 
Long though we liue, strong though we be,
  Though stomack do not faile,        10
Lose yet we must life, and to dust;
  To this port must we saile.
 
Life is a leafe, death comes aloofe,
  Common to me with all:
Life is a blast, age comes at last,        15
  Then death to great and small.
 
In God therefore, leauing the world,
  See that you fit your ioy;
In death seek life, that dying once
  Auoide you may annoy.        20
 
Note 1. XXXVII. William Bvttes.—This author, of whom the editor has not met with any account, wrote “A Booke of Epitaphes,” etc. which was published in 1583. [back]
 
 
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