Oft stumbles at a straw.

Foul jealousy! that turnest love divine to joyless dread, and makest the loving heart with hateful thoughts to languish and to pine.

Much can they praise the trees so straight and high, The sailing pine,the cedar proud and tall, The vine-prop elm, the poplar never dry, The builder oak, sole king of forests all, The aspin good for staves, the cypress funeral, The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors And poets sage, the fir that weepest still, The yew obedient to the bender's will, The birch for shafts, the sallow for the mill, The myrrh sweet-bleeding in the bitter wound, The warlike beech, the ash for nothing ill, The fruitful olive, and the platane round, The carver holm, the maple seldom inward sound.

Fly from wrath; sad be the sights and bitter fruits of war; a thousand furies wait on wrathful swords.

Gather therefore the Rose, whilst yet is prime, For soon comes age, that will her pride deflower: Gather the Rose of love, whilst yet is time.

The poets scrolls will outlive the monuments of stone. Genius survives; all else is claimed by death.

For deeds to die, however nobly done, And thoughts of men to as themselves decay, But wise words taught in numbers for to run, Recorded by the Muses, live for ay.