Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 2.pdf/231

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With well-proved precepts how to be

A scourge to those who scourèd me;

And you right apt will be thereto

Recalling all I say to you,

Since you by happy chance have got

So young a mind as faileth not

To keep in memory the wit

That old experience plants in it.

For Plato said, long years agone,

That, things which men in youth had known

Stay fixed within the memory fast,

Though many a year be overpast.

Ah, dearest son, beloved youth,

If strong and young as you forsooth

I were, the laws by Draco made

My fierce revenge should cast in shade:

Such vengeance on my foes I’d take,

Before I could mine anger slake,

As never yet was known ere now

In all the world’s great age I trow.

Those ribalds who have passed me by

With mocks and jeers, insultingly,

And have disdained my glance to meet,

With open scorn in public street,

Good Lord! but they should dearly pay

Whene’er arrived the reckoning day,

For that contemptuous, scathing pride

Wherewith they have my spirit tried.

For, using the experience I

Have learned through God’s good clemency.

Know you the fashion they should fare?

In my turn would I pluck them bare;