(From Cap. xlii. Graund Amours Epitaph)
O mortall folke! you may beholde and se Howe I lye here, sometime a myghty knyght;
The end of joye and all prosperite
Is death at last, through his course and myght;
After the day there cometh the derke night;
For though the day be never so longe,
At last the belles ringeth to evensonge.
And my selfe called La Graunde Amoure,
Seking adventure in the worldly glory,
For to attayne the riches and honour,
Did thinke full lytle that I should here
lye,
Tyll deth dyde marke me full ryght pryvely.
Lo what I am! and whereto you must!
Lyke as I am so shall you be all dust.
Than in your mynde inwardly despyse
The bryttle worlde, so full of doublenes,
With the vyle flesshe, and ryght sone aryse
Out of your slepe of mortall hevynes;
Subdue the devill with grace and meke-
THE EXCUSATION OF THE AUCTOUR
UNTO all Poetes I do me excuse,
If that I offende for lacke of science;
This lyttle boke yet do ye not refuse,
Though it be devoyde of famous eloquence;
Adde or detra1 by your hye sapience;
And pardon me of my hye enterpryse,
Whiche of late this fable dyd fayne and
devise.
Go, little boke! I praye God the save
From misse-metrying by wrong impression;
And who that ever list the for to have,
That he perceyve well thyne intencion,
For to be grounded without presumption,
As for to eschue the synne of ydlenes;
To make suche bokes I apply my busines.
Besechyng God for to geve me grace
Bokes to compyle of moral vertue;
Of my maister Lidgate to folowe the trace,
His noble fame for laude and renue,2
Whiche in his lyfe the slouthe did eschue;
Makyng great bokes to be in memory,
On whose soule I pray God have mercy.
Until that against your seven brethren 14 O they rade on, and on they rade,
And a' by the light of the moon, Until they cam to his mother's ha door, And there they lighted down.
15 'Get up, get up, lady mother,' he says, 'Get up, and let me in!
Get up, get up, lady mother,' he says, For this night my fair lady I've win.
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