Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 1.pdf/270

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‘My daughter, neither courtesy

Nor sense you show herein,’ quoth he;

‘Much better versed am I than you

In what the Gods propose to do;

You do but treat me to a lie,

Interpreting most shamefully

This riddle hid within my dream:

Your gloss approacheth the extreme

Of witlessness: my dream will be

Fulfilled, I doubt not, literally:

Sure ne’er before did prophet dare

To shadow forth for dream so fair

Such vile fulfilment.

Yet will come

The Gods from out their sky-built home,

To work the end that they in sleep

Foretold to me, and I shall reap,

Dear child, from them such high reward

As they to those they love accord,

For well have I deserved of them.’”

“Alas! the boastful apophthegm!

Fortune laid hand on him and gave

His body wastefully to wave

In wind and storm on gibbet hung,

And last be o’er the desert flung.

Doth this not plainly demonstrate

No man can cause her wheel to wait