Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 1.pdf/193

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How thus her nobleness doth speak

All trumpet-tongued ’gainst those who seek

Nought fairer in her work to see

Than carnal love and lechery.

For wot you well what those folk, who

But joyance seek herein, may do?

They give themselves as bondsmen o’er

To Satan, lord high chancellor

Of all foul vices, seen that this

The very fount and wellspring is

Of man’s worst woes, as Tully says.

Who, in his book ‘Of old age,’ lays

It clearly down that age should more

Be valued and esteemed therefore

Than youth, for man and maid doth youth

To follies numberless, forsooth,

Push on, and ’tis no simple thing

Both mind and body safe to bring

Through youth, devoid of shame, and free

From ills that curse posterity.

In youth run lawless passions wild,

Till folly is on folly piled.

By loose companions led aside

Man changeth oft, and roaming wide,

Becomes at last, perchance, a monk;

Within some dreary convent shrunk,

He casts off Nature’s glorious gift

Of freedom, in the hope to lift

A fool to heaven when in the pew

Of vows he lives, like hawk in mew.

And then perchance he finds too great

The load, and out the convent gate