Quote#Death
Crookebackt hee was, toothshaken, and blere eyed
Quote byThomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset · 1536–1608
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Induction (1563), Line 330, p. 322.
English (original)
Crookebackt hee was, toothshaken, and blere eyed, Went on three feete, and somtyme, crept on fowre, With olde lame boanes, that ratled by his syde, His scalpe all pild, and hee with eld forlore: His withred fist still knocking at Death's dore, Fumbling, and driveling, as hee drawes his breath, For briefe, the shape and messenger of Death.
— Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset
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Of justice yet must God in fine restore, This noble crowne unto the lawful heire For right will alwayes live, and rise at length, But wrong can never take deepe roote to last.
The wrathfull winter proching on apace, With blustering blasts had all ybarde the treene, And olde Saturnus, with his frosty face With chilling cold had pearst the tender greene.
His drinke, the running streame, his cup, the bare Of his palme cloasde, his bed, the hard cold ground: To this poore life was Misery ybound.
And sorrowing I to see the sommer flowers, The lively greene, the lusty lease, forlorne, The sturdy trees so shattred with the showers, The fieldes so fade, that florisht so beforne: It taught mee well, all earthly things be borne To dye …
But see! the pains begin to fly; Tho’ Venus bled she could not die: See the new phœnix point her eyes, And lovelier from her ashes rise.
Brighter from her disease she shines, As fire the precious gold refines. Thus when the silent grave becomes Pregnant with life as fruitful wombs; When the wide seas and spacious earth Resign us to our second birth;