Stanzas CXLVI–CLIII

CXLVI
Companions in debauchery,
Ill souls and bodies well bestead,
Beware of that ill sun ( look ye)
That tans a man when he is dead :
'Tis a foul death to die, I dread.
Keep yourselves from it, so you may ;
And be this still remembered,
That all of you must die some day.

CXLVII
Item, I give the Fifteen-score —
(Three hundred just as well 't might be) —
For that by them I set great store,
(Paris, not Provins ones, for me) —
My goggles (sans the case, perdie)
So in the churchyards where they serve,
They may the bad to sever see
From honest folk that well deserve.

CXLVIII
Here silence doth for ever reign :
Nothing it profiteth the dead
On beds of satin to have lain
And drunk from gold the vine-juice red
And lived in glee and lustihead.
Soon all such joys must be resigned:
All pass away, and in their stead
Only the sin remains behind.

CXLIX
When I consider all the heads
That in these charnels gathered be,
Those that are sleeping in these beds
May have (for aught that I can see)
Been mighty lords of high degree,
Bishops and dames, — or else poor churls :
There is no difference to me
'Twixt watercarriers' bones and earls.

CL
These ladies all, that in their day
Each against each did bend and bow,
Whereof did some the sceptre sway,
Of others feared and courted, — now
Here are they sleeping all a-row,
Heaped up together anydele,
Their crowns and honours all laid low.
Masters or clerks, there's no appeal.

CLI
Now are they dead, God have their sprights !
As for their bodies, they are clay :
Once they were ladies, lords and knights,
That on soft beds of satin lay
And fed on dainties every day.
Their bones are mouldered into dust,
They reck not now of laugh or play :
Christ will assoilzie them, I trust.

CLII
I make this ditty for the dead :
The which I do communicate
To Courts and Pleas, ill doers' dread,
That unjust avarice do hate;
That for the welfare of the state
Do work their bones and bodies dry :
God and St. Dominick abate
Their sins unto them when they die.

CLIII
Item, Jacques Cardon nought of me
(For nought I have for him) shall get,
— Not that he'd throw't away, perdie —
Except this roundel ; if 'twere set
To some such tune as " Marionette,"
Composed for Marion Slow-to-come,
Or " Hold your door open, Guillemette,"
It might belike the vogue become.