Englands Parnassus: or the choysest flowers of our moderne poets, with their poeticall comparisons Descriptions of bewties, personages, castles, pallaces, mountaines, groues, seas, springs, riuers, &c. Whereunto are annexed other various discourses, both pleasaunt and profitable.

Old Age.

—Next in order, sad old Age we found, His beard all hoare, his eyes hollow and blinde, With drouping cheere still poaring on the ground As on the the place where valour him assign'd To rest, when as the sisters had vntwind His vitall thred, and ended with their knife, The fleeting course of fast declining life. M. Sackuill.

Crookt backt he was, tooth-shaken and bleare eide, Went on three feete, and sometime crept on foure, With old lame bones that ratled by his side, His scalpe all pild, and he with eld forlore, His withered fist still knocking at deaths dore, Fumbling and driueling as he drawes his breath, In breefe, the shape and messenger of death. G. Gascoigne. Transl.

Old age and winter do accord full nie, This chill, that cold, this crooked, that awrie. Ed. Spencer.

—He that plies the laps and lips of Ladies all his time, And fals to arms when age fails arms, then also looseth time: As if a beare in Moone-shine, shuld attempt the Moone to clime. W· VVarner.

Our infancie is feeble, and our lustie youth vnstaid, Our manhood carking, and our age more loathed then obaid. Idem.

Our heires wax sickish of our health, too long our here abode Mean while the nerer to our graues, the farther we frō God Gripple in works, testie in words, loathsom for most at lēgth, And such at foure score, as at foure, for maners wit and strength. Idem.

Eld is ordaind to counsell, youth to fight, Age to foresee, yoong courage to inact. D. Lodge.

Skill and experience good companions beene, Age knoweth whatsoeuet youth hath seene. S. I. H.

Decrepit age and hoary siluer haires, Still craueth helpe of lustie youthfull yeares. G. Gascoigne·

It is a common point whereon the aged grosly runne, Once to haue dared said, & seene, more then was euer done. W. Warner.

—The equall age doth equall life desire. S. Daniel.

Small drops God knowes do quench age heatlesse fire, When all the strength is onely in desire. M. Drayton.