Page:Complete Poems of Robert Southwell.djvu/168

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
64
TYMES GOE BY TURNES.

blunders. St. ii. line 1, see relative note on 'sely' in 'I die without desert.' St. iii. lines 3 and 5: here and throughout, I print 'Thee,' not 'The' of our mss.—the latter simply confuses, and this record is enough for critical purposes.

Consult our Introduction for elucidation of what I regard as an affecting personal reminiscence in st. i. lines 3-4. Cf. also 'Life is but Losse,' line 1, and st. iv., especially lines 3 and 5. G.


TYMES GOE BY TURNES.

The loppèd tree in tyme may growe agayne;
Most naked plants renewe both frute and floure;
The soriest wight may finde release of payne,
The dry est soyle sucke in some moystning shoure;
Tymes go by turnes and chaunces chang by course,
From foule to fayre, from better happ to worse.

The sea of Fortune doth not ever floe,
She drawes her favours to the lowest ebb;
Her tide hath equall tymes to come and goe,
Her loome doth weave the fine and coarsest webb;
No joy so great but runneth to an ende,
No happ so harde but may in fine amende.

Not allwayes fall of leafe nor ever springe,
No endlesse night yet not eternall daye;
The saddest birdes a season finde to singe,
The roughest storme a calme may soone alaye;
Thus with succeding turnes God tempereth all,
That man may hope to rise yet feare to fall.