My sad desires, rest therefore moderate!
For if that Time make ende of things so sure,
It als will end the paine which I endure.
VIII.
Through armes and vassals Rome the world subdu'd,
That one would weene that one sole cities strength
Both land and sea in roundnes had survew'd,
To be the measure of her bredth and length:
This peoples vertue yet so fruitfull was
Of vertuous nephewes*, that posteritie,
Striving in power their grandfathers to passe,
The lowest earth ioin'd to the heaven hie;
To th'end that, having all parts in their power,
Nought from the Romane Empire might be quight**;
And that though Time doth commonwealths devowre,
Yet no time should so low embase their hight,
That her head, earth'd in her foundations deep,
Should not her name and endles honour keep.
[* _Nephewes_, descendants.]
[** _Quight_, quit, free.]
IX.
Ye cruell starres, and eke ye gods unkinde,
Heaven envious, and bitter stepdame Nature!
Be it by fortune, or by course of kinde*,
That ye doo weld th'affaires of earthlie creature;
Why have your hands long sithence traveiled
To frame this world, that doth endure so long?
Or why were not these Romane palaces
Made of some matter no lesse firme and strong?
I say not, as the common voyce doth say,
That all things which beneath the moone have being
Are temporall and subiect to decay:
But I say rather, though not all agreeing
With some that weene the contrarie in thought,
That all this whole shall one day come to nought.
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