Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 2.pdf/251

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Too late, alas! will she repent

When age is come, and beauty spent.

But witful women will believe

My words, and thankfully receive

My counsels and my rules will foster

With care, and many a paternoster

Say for my soul’s health when I die

For teaching them so worthily.

Well know I that these golden rules

Shall long be taught in noblest schools.

Fair son, if long you see earth’s light,

Most clearly I perceive you’ll write

My laws and precepts in a book,

And many a time therein will look,

Please God, when hence from me you’re gone

And, duly pondering thereupon,

In knowledge shall outrival me,

And, e’en as I, a teacher be,

Despite the highest chancellors,

In halls, in chambers and boudoirs,

In copse, and garden-close and field

Or nooks by friendly curtains sealed.

And let your scholars learn my lore,

In wardrobe-room and threshing-floor,

In stables or out-offices,

Failing of better spots than these,

And there my precepts should be read,

When you their force have mastered.

Abroad a woman oft should go,

For all the less that she doth show

Herself, the fewer men will press

Around to seek her loveliness,