CHORUS 2. "What grows to-day in favour of the heaven,
Nurs'd with the sun and with the showers sweet,
Pluck'd with the hand, it withereth ere even.
So pass our days, even as the rivers fleet."
The valiant Greeks, that unto Troia gave
The ten years' siege, left but their names behind.
And he that did so long and only save
His father's walls,[50] found there at last his end.
Proud Rome herself, that whilome laid her yoke
On the wide world, and vanquish'd all with war,
Yet could she not remove the fatal stroke
Of death from them that stretch'd her pow'r so far.

CHORUS 3. Look, what the cruel sisters once decree'd,
The Thunderer himself cannot remove:
They are the ladies of our destiny,
To work beneath what is conspir'd above.
But happy he that ends this mortal life
By speedy death: who is not forc'd to see
The many cares, nor feel the sundry griefs,
Which we sustain in woe and misery.
Here fortune rules who, when she list to play,
Whirleth her wheel, and brings the high full low:
To-morrow takes, what she hath given to-day,
To show she can advance and overthrow.
Not Euripus'[51] (unquiet flood) so oft
Ebbs in a day, and floweth to and fro,
As fortune's change plucks down that was aloft,
And mingleth joy with interchange of woe.