(Ashmole’s Museum, A. 37.)
Like to the thundring tone of unspoke speeches,
Or like a lobster clad in logicke breeches,
Or like the graye-furre of a crimson catt,
Or like the moone-calfe in a slip-shodde hatt:
Even such is hee who never was begotten
Untill his children were both dead and rotten.
Like to the fiery tombstone of a cabbage,
Or like a crabbe-louse with its bag and baggage,
Or like the four square circle of a ring,
Or like to hey dinge, dingea dingea dinge:
Even such is he who spake, and yet no doubt
Spake to small purpose, when his tongue was out.
Like to a fairs, fresh, faiding, withered rose,
Or lyke to rhyming verse that runs in prose,
Or lyke the stumbles of a tynder box,
Or lyke a man that’s sound yet hath the pox:
Even such is he who dyed, and yet did laugh
To see these lines writt for his epitaph.