So did this Hawarde with courage valiauntly,
Till death abated his bolde audacitie."
The poet, gives "cursed fortune" a severe rating, and at such length that the old lady no doubt repented herself, for cutting off so promising a hero at so early an age:—
"Tell me, frayle fortune, why did thou breuiate
The liuing season of suche a captayne,
That when his actes ought to be laureate
Thy fauour turned him suffring to be slayne?"
And then he addresses the Duke himself in a consolatory strain, endeavouring to reconcile him to the loss of so promising a son, by recalling to his memory those heroes of antiquity whose careers of glory were cut short by sudden and violent deaths:—
"But moste worthy duke hye and victorious,
Respire to comfort, see the vncertentie