![]() ![]() ![]() When this is known, then to divide the times: So many hours must I tend my flock So many hours must I take my rest So many hours must I contemplate So many hours must I sport myself So many days my ewes have been with young So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean: So many years ere I shall shear the fleece: So minutes, hours, days, months, and years, Pass'd over to the end they were created, Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. ![]() Would I were dead! if God's good will were so For what is in this world but grief and woe? O God! methinks it were a happy life, To be no better than a homely swain To sit upon a hill, as I do now, To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, Thereby to see the minutes how they run, How many make the hour full complete How many hours bring about the day How many days will finish up the year How many years a mortal man may live. To whom God will, there be the victory! For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too, Have chid me from the battle swearing both They prosper best of all when I am thence. Here on this molehill will I sit me down. Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea Forced by the tide to combat with the wind Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea Forced to retire by fury of the wind: Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind Now one the better, then another best Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast, Yet neither conqueror nor conquered: So is the equal poise of this fell war. This battle fares like to the morning's war, When dying clouds contend with growing light, What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails, Can neither call it perfect day nor night. ![]()
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