No charm can stay, no medicine can assuage,
The sad incurable disease of age;
Only the hand in youth more warmly prest
Makes soft the couch and calms the final rest.
“What is the world? tell, Worldling (if thou know it).
If it be good, why do all ills o’erflow it?
If it be bad, why dost thou like it so?
If it be sweet, how come sit bitter then?
If it be bitter, what bewitcheth men?
If it be friend, why kills it (as a foe)
Vain-minded men that over-love and lust it?
If it be foe, Fondling, how dar’st thou trust it?”
Joshua Sylvester | “Mundus Qualis”