| Edward Farr, ed. Select Poetry of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. 1845. | | | | The Lenuoy | | CXXXVII. Nicholas Boweman |
| | | THE HIGHEST tree is seldome times most sure, | |
| The swelling floods yeelde ebbes that drench ful low; | |
| Nothing so firme that alwaies can indure: | |
| The tydes through time weare out their times, we know; | |
| The sunne eclips’d, the moone bereft of light, | 5 |
| The day surpris’d, the night abandoned quight. | |
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| Houres, dayes, and yeeres, runne out their course at last; | |
| The candell bright hath his extinct in time: | |
| None can recall swift time when time is past; | |
| What bootes it then for worldly pompe to clime? | 10 |
| The watch forwarnes when as the clock will strike; | |
| The cock and clocke are watches both alike. | |
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| The fairest day assures his glowning houre; | |
| The sunshine bright is covered oft with shade: | |
| Man’s harvest is compared to a flower, | 15 |
| That unawares doth perish, waste, and fade, | |
| And whose pride past beares but a withered hue, | |
| And bendes, and biddes the gardner then adew. | |
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| Our life a lampe, that for a time burnes bright; | |
| Our life a spanne, when it is at the best: | 20 |
| Our life assur’d of neither day nor night, | |
| Our life a smoake and unassured rest; | |
| Our life, our state, our stay and vital breath, | |
| Subject unto the sudden call of death. | | | | |
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