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; 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 frost

That nips his every manly sense,

Grant patience and meek abstinence.

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.

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 seen

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.