WASTEFUL

¶What joy is Like the linked life? What hope might hold me from my wife? Can man his tongue so frame, Or eke dispose me from my dame? What does my substance good to Me, I will therefore be frank and free. Where couples young do meet, That plyaunt piece so sweet. My joy for to declare, Whose beauty is so rare. In coffers locked to lie, To serve my wife and I. ¶I warrant Thee, what I have said, Nothing I mean shall be delayed. I will the same fulfil, To ease and please my will. ¶Use it who list, for me he shall, I mean to hoard no store, I mean to serve my time withal, and then I seek no more. ¶Yea but sweet heart, if nought we shall have, When hereafter we shall aged war: Then had we better wish us in graven, Then needy poverty should us vex. ¶Why woman dost thou think that I, Have thought all this while, as I have said: I did it only thy mind to try, For pleasure in me, shall not be delayed. While the time is, the time I will take, What soever I list to say: Of my goods no God I will make, Therefore good wife, do thy sorrow away. ¶Yes by my troth, so it be not long, Or else you might count me greatly to blame. ¶Do so wife, and see we have good fare, I mean not long to tarry after Thee. Pause. Whose joy may be compared to mine, I have a wife beautiful and gay: She is young, pleasant, proper and fine, And plyaunt to please me both night and day. For whom should I pinch, for whom should I spare, Why should I not be liberal and free, How ever the world go I do not care. I have enough for my wife and me, And if my substance chance to decay: I know my credit is not so ill, But that I can borrow twenty pound always. To serve me at my pleasure and will, For repayment thereof, no care I will take: No matter it is if the same I may get, While it lasteth, therewith I will merry make. What skills it though that I come in debt. While young I am, youthful I will be, And pass my time in youthful sort: For as my wife here said unto me. Age does delight in no pleasant sport, Wherefore since pleasure I do love: In youth it behooves to take the same, Nothing there from my heart shall move. But I thereto my heart will frame. I fear me that I tarry to long, My wife do look for me before this: Therefore homeward I will be gone, For there is joy and heavenly bliss. Exiunt. ¶To follow your council, I will do my endeavour, I will seek the same in all points to perform: The effect of your words I will forget never, And now I will hence, my wife to reform. That she and I, in manner now, May amend our lives, to Gods glory and praise: Wherefore good sir unto you adue, I beseech the Lord to send Thee good days. Exiunt. ¶What woman would you have me always playing? So may we shortly both be undone. As for pleasure there is a time, So for profit there is the Like: Therefore I pray Thee gentle wife mine, Be contented that my profit I seek. ¶But better it is hardly to begin, And after in better estate to been: Then First to be aloft full trim, And after to fallen to lower degree. Spend, and God will send, else the proverb lie , ¶His sending woman, we daily do see, Is a staff and a wallet unto such: Who such excessive spenders been, Experience thereof we have to much. ¶Farewell my gentle friends withal my heart. ¶Well then will I seek some place where I may, Finish my life with Cord, or with knife: The dispatch thereof, I will not delay? Farewell now all the world, but chiefly my wife. fain a going out. ¶I believe God is merciful, as the Scripture sayeth. ¶O heavenly father, pardon mine offence. ¶And grant that thy mercy may to me repair, ¶Also Oh Father banish thou hence. ¶That wicked Monster of Despair. ¶Well God be praised that here I Thee find, How happy was I to approach this place. Despair is now fled, I perfectly know, And in Gods mercy I firmly do trust, Therefore Oh Lord deliver me from thrall: And pardon me a sinner, most vile and unjust. ¶O more then wretch, which so foolishly haste spent, Not only thine own goods, but also other men's: What account shall I make, for the goods to me lent, Which never I am able for to recompense. How wastefully have I, with wantonness my wife, Consumed our goods, substance and treasure, That would to God I were out of my life, For the remembrance thereof, is grief without measure. My wife and I now, are asunder dispersed, Each of us, to seek our living alone: Alas our woe may not be rehearsed, Unto whom now should we make our moan. In taking the time, to towards we wear, We were afeard to long to abide: Courages council in mind we did bear, He said that for no man would tarry the tied. But well away now, which way shall I run, I know it is folly unto God to call: For God I know my petition will shun, And into perdition I am now Like to fallen. Despair, despair. Why should I despair, since God does behold, The sinner with mercy as the Scripture does say.