T H E
F I R S T   B O O K E
of Songes or Ayres

R O B E R T   I O N E S

1600

15. Life is a Poets fable.

                      1 
             Life is a Poets fable,
             And all her daies are lies,
             Stolne from deaths reckoning table,
       For I die, for I die, as I speake,
       Death times the notes that I doe breake.

                      2 
             Childhood doth die in youth,
             And youth in old age dies,
             I thought I liu'd in truth:
       But I die, but I die, now I see:
       Each age of death makes one degree.

                      3 
             Farewell the doting score,
             Or worlds arithmeticke,
             Life, ile trust thee no more,
       Till I die, ii. for thy sake,
       Ile go by deaths new almanacke.

                      4 
             This instant of my song,
             A thousand men lie sicke,
             A thousand knels are rong:
       And I die as they sing,
       They are but dead and I dying.

                      5 
             Death is but lifes decay,
             Life time, time wastes away,
             Then reason bids me say,
       That I die, though my breath
       Prolongs this space of lingring death.