1The stately moose, being mounted up the hill,

2And of the beauteous prospect taken her fill,

3Viewing the rivers in the

vale1

that

trace2

,

4Enriching

Flora’s3

robe like silver lace;

5The next thing she considers is her diet:

6How she may eat the flowers and herbs in quiet.

7Then

politicly4

she doth the fields survey

8To see if any cruel beasts of prey–

9As lion, tiger, leopard, or bear–

10Might her disturb; but to dispel all fear,

11Fawns, lambs, and kids did skip about and play

12Whilst their old weary dams, their

sentinels5

, lay.

13Thus, being secure, she feeding down did go,

14For Nature placed her stag-like horns so low

15That she could never have of grass her fill.

16But when, in feeding, she went down the hill

17Which lay full south, the sun being

now6

her zenith,

18Which made her envy those that fed

beneath7

,

19His perpendicular beams did scald her so,

20That she resolved into the shade to go

21Of straight-armed cedars, firs, cypress, pine,

22About whose branches horrid serpents twine.

23One of the hugest slipped down from a bough

24And snatched the moose (poor beast!) she knew not how.

25Thus being by this monster overpowered

26(O her hard fate!), she was by him devoured.

27So have I seen a hawk a pheasant

truss8

28(Or partridges), so

melancholy puss9

29Doth mice

surprise10

, so foxes snatch up lambs

30As they lie playing by their

uberous11

dams–

31By which example we may plainly see

32That on this orb there’s no felicity.

33For Death and Hell combine and watch, each hour

34Our sinful souls and bodies to devour;

35For we are in a sea of sorrows tossed,

36And when we’re most secure, we’re nearest lost.

37As

Beauclerc’s children12

did their wrack

deplore13

38With greater grief being in the sight of shore.

39Then seeing our lives so frail and

casual14

be,

40Let me depend (dear God) on none but Thee.