Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 1.pdf/194

Flees^{[errata 1]}; or craven fear or shame,
Maybe, will keep him there, and frame
Excuse to stay until he die,
Sighing and groaning woefully
For that fair freedom he hath lost;
Unless God, pitying the drear frost4740
That nips his every manly sense,
Grant patience and meek abstinence.

Youth’s joyousness Through Youth’s quick goad ’tis people fall
To merry dance in bower and hall,
And ribald mirth and jollity,
While loose unbridled luxury
Doth cause within young hearts to rise
Desire, that bit and curb defies.
Such are the perils that attack
Bright youth astride fair Pleasure’s back.4750

And thus doth Pleasure deftly bind
Within his toils both body and mind
Of men, through Youth his chamberlain,
Who is of every folly fain,
And draws them on to crime, while they
List not his yoke to cast away.

But eld is she who casteth off
Folly; and if thereat you scoff.
Go ask the elders, who have been
Youth’s victims, but at last have seen4760
Escapement thence (and now repent
The madness which their backs hath bent),
Whether they’re not right glad to be
From thrall of Youth exempt and free.

1. Correction: Flees should be amended to Fleeth: detail