Classic Poem

Three jocund Gallants in their golden age,
Court Cock'rells, in their pucellage of witt;
For yet Discretion had not bedded it,
Rode to the forrest in faire equipage,
Where haveing pleas'd their phantasyes at least,
With chase, and quarry, They their sport surceast,
And curious were to find out new delights,
To cocker their fastidious appetites:
But while they view'd th'unartificiall bowres,
Which old Sylvanus for his Faunes and Satyres
Had there erected, over cristall waters,
Whose bankes were diaper'd with fragrant flowres,
Their owne felicityes they call'd to mind,
Which in this sonnett sweet, they thus combin'd:
Behold, our youthfull yeares,
With strength, and beauty crown'd,
While Fortune faire appeares,
And richesse doe abound:
Now while the Fates permitt,
We our delights pursue,
And for all pleasures fitt,
Our joyes wee still renue,
Which on our bosomes flow,
As thicke as flights of snow

But when these Yonkers finish'd had their song,
The scene was chang'd, for they did there descry,
Three naked fabrickes of mortality,
Three horride sceletons, arm'd with sithes long,
Who with sad hollow accents, did repeate
This answere, to those Monsieurs Canzonett
Wee liv'd in time of yore,
And were as brave as you,
Enrich'd with fortunes store:
But see, what wee are now:
In us, see and perpend
Your fraile, and wretched state;
And how you must descend
To the darke House of Fate,
Where yee must become foode,
Unto Earths footles broode

The Gallants frighted with this apparition,
To holy vowes, their gamesome humours chang'd
This dreadfull spectacle their minds estrang'd
From secular delights, and that condition,
Wherein they whilome liv'd: for Each forsooke
The world, and to a cell himself betooke./