SONNET
To her
dear husband Deputy Judge
ELIAS BRENNER,
Upon the first day of January Anno 1691
My Friend! I ought of course on New Year’s gifts be musing
Provided
that my powers/ just as my will were good/
And had
not any lack of means in my way stood/
Then
keenly I would seek and something new be choosing/
Instead
my thoughts are fixed on bounties in full ration/
Which
are not found on sale in every grocer’s stall
And
which by women once were hardly grasped withal/
I will
in well-turned rhymes a dozen lines/ now fashion/
I think
that such a gift will give to you most pleasure/
That I
and no one else alone have laboured on/
For you
find secondhand things irksome beyond measure/
And I
think likewise and with you agree thereon
Nor
will I e’er relinquish the idea I treasure
That
borrowed feathers/ least of all befit a Swan.
Whoever
would reflect on where time’s ever stealing
Should
note with all due care this newly started year/
It
greys so fast/ as are both snow and frost revealing/
It ages
even while its birth-day is still here.
Today
it first begins/ and yet our end presages
The
more we gather years/ the fewer are our days/
Eternal
God most true/ whose years turn back no pages/
Help us
in time to avert from this fair world our gaze!
Teach
us to well observe how short is our life’s season/
And
that the final goal we edge towards inchmeal/
To see
there is/ in all combined both rhyme and reason/
Our
life is frail as glass and time’s wheel is of steel.
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