IDENTILIN$$ F050CE1 I.3.16 James 68 (ff.3r-v)/EWS/o/6-28-85/cor EWS/o/6-15-92
050.CE1.0HE %1Praise of middle age%2
050.CE1.001 No spring nor sum%Mer beuty hath such grace,
050.CE1.002 As I have seene in one Autumnall face.
050.CE1.003 Young beutys force your love, & y%5t's%6 a rape:
050.CE1.004 This doth but counsell, yet you cannot scape.
050.CE1.005 If 'twere a shame to love, here 'twere no shame:
050.CE1.006 Affection here takes reverences name.
050.CE1.007 Were her first yeares her golden age? that's true:
050.CE1.008 But now she's gold oft tried, & ever true:
050.CE1.009 That was her scorching, her inflaming time,
050.CE1.010 This is her habitable Tropicke clime.
050.CE1.011 Fayr eyes who seekes more heat then comes fro%M hence
050.CE1.012 He in a feaver w%5ch%6 seekes a pestilence.
050.CE1.013 Call not those wrinkles graves: if graves they be,
050.CE1.014 %Yy%Z#They are loves graves, or els they are no where;
050.CE1.015 And her inshrined closely doth he sit
050.CE1.016 Vow'd to his trench, like to an anchoritt.
050.CE1.017 & here till hers, w%5ch%6 must be his death, come,
050.CE1.018 He doth not dig a grave, but build a tombe:
050.CE1.019 And though he sometime sojourne other where
050.CE1.020 In Progresse, yet his standing house is here:
050.CE1.021 Here, where still evening is not noone nor night,
050.CE1.022 Where no voluptuousnes, but all delight.
050.CE1.023 In all her words unto all hearers fit;
050.CE1.024 You may at revells, you may at councill sit.
050.CE1.025 This loves timber youths his underwood
050.CE1.026 Where he (like wine in Iune) inrageth blood:
050.CE1.027 W%5ch%6 then comes seasonablest, when our tast,
050.CE1.028 And appetite to other things is past.
050.CE1.029 Xerxes strainge Edian love the Platane tree
050.CE1.030 Was lov'd for age, none being so large as shee:
050.CE1.031 Or els becaus being young nature did blesse
050.CE1.032 Her ag->>youth< w%5th%6 ages glorie barrenesse.
050.CE1.033 If things long sought for please, age is a thing
050.CE1.034 W%5ch%6 we are 50 yeares in compassing:
050.CE1.035 If transitorie things w%5ch%6 soone decay,
050.CE1.036 Age must be loveliest at the latest day.
050.CE1.037 But name not winter faces, whose skinn slacke,
050.CE1.038 Lancke >as< an unthrifts purse, but a foules sacke:
050.CE1.039 Whose eyes seeke light w%5th%6in for all heere's shade;
050.CE1.040 Whose mouths are holes rather worne out then made:
050.CE1.041 Whose every tooth to a severall place is gone,
050.CE1.042 To vex theyr soules at y%5e56 resurection.
050.CE1.043 Name not these living deaths heads unto me:
050.CE1.044 For these not ancients, but anticks bee.
050.CE1.045 I hate extreames yet had I rather stay
050.CE1.046 W%5th%6 tombes then cradles to weare out y%5e%6 day.
050.CE1.047 Since such loves naturall lation is, may still [f.3v
050.CE1.048 My love descend, & iourney downe y%5e%6 hill,
050.CE1.049 Not panting after growing bewtys: so
050.CE1.050 I shall ebb on w%5th% such as homewards goe.
050.CE1.0SS horizontal rule
050.CE1.0$$ %1no ind; HE centered%2