. I loathe that I did love, <br />In youth that I thought sweet; <br />As time requires for my behove, <br />Me thinks they are not meet. <br />My lusts they do me leave, <br />My fancies all be fled, <br />And tract of time begins to weave <br />Gray hairs upon my head. <br />For age, with stealing steps, <br />Hath clawed me with his crutch, <br />And lusty life away she leaps <br />As there had been none such. <br />My muse doth not delight <br />Me as she did before, <br />My hand and pen are not in plight <br />As they have been of yore. <br />For reason me denies <br />This youthly idle rhyme, <br />And day by day to me she cries, <br />Leave off these toys in time. <br />The wrinkles in my brow, <br />The furrows in my face, <br />Say limping age will hedge him now <br />Where youth must give him place. <br />The harbinger of death, <br />To me I see him ride; <br />The cough, the cold, the gasping breath, <br />Doth bid me to provide <br />A pickaxe and a spade, <br />And eke a shrouding sheet; <br />A house of clay for to be made <br />For such a guest most meet. <br />Me thinks I hear the clerk <br />That knolls the careful knell, <br />And bids me leave my woeful work <br />Ere nature me compel. <br />My keepers knit the knot <br />That youth did laugh to scorn, <br />Of me that clean shall be forgot <br />As I had not been born. <br />Thus must I youth give up, <br />Whose badge I long did wear; <br />To them I yield the wanton cup <br />That better may it bear. <br />Lo, here the bared skull <br />By whose bald sign I know <br />That stooping age away shall pull <br />Which youthful years did sow. <br />For beauty, with her band, <br />These crooked cares hath wrought, <br />And shipped me into the land <br />From whence I first was brought. <br />And ye that bide behind, <br />Have ye none other trust; <br />As ye of clay were cast by kind, <br />So shall ye waste to dust.<br /><br />Thomas Vaux<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-aged-lover-renounceth-love-2/
