No. 57 Autumn Years
While life’s April blossom blew,
What I willed I then might do,
Lust and law seemed comrades true.
As I listed, unresisted,
Hither, thither, could I play,
And my wanton flesh obey.
When life’s autumn days decline,
Thus to live, a libertine,
Fancy-free as thoughts incline,
Manhood’s older age and colder
Now forbids; removes, destroys
All those ways of wonted joys.
Age with admonition wise
Thus doth counsel and advise,
While her voice within me cries:
“For repenting and relenting
There is room; forgiveness falls
On all contrite prodigals!”
I will seek a better mind;
Change, correct, and leave behind
What I did with purpose blind:
From vice sever, with endeavour
Yield my soul to serious things,
Seek the joy that virtue brings.
The third would find a more appropriate place in a hymn-book than in a collection of Carmina Vagorum. It is, however, written in a lyrical style so closely allied to the secular songs of the Carmina Burana (where it occurs) that I have thought it well to quote its grimly medieval condemnation of human life.