C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Author Unknown

(Fourteenth Century)

NAUGHT, I hear thee say,

Can fill the greedy eye;

Yet a little clay

Will fill it by-and-by.

THY thoughts are but Silver when told:

Locked up in thy breast they are Gold.

THE STEED to the man who bestrides it newly,

The sabre to him who best can wield it,

The damsel to him who has wooed her truly,

And the province to him who refuses to yield it.

AN HOUR of Good, a day of Ill,

This is the lot of mourning Man,

Who leaves the world whene’er he will,

But goes to Heaven whene’er he—can.

TOUCH all that falls under thine eyes;

And beware

That thou buy not thy bird while he flies

In the air.