(Poetical Works of Skelton, ed. Dyce, I. i; London, 1843).
The poem was inserted amongst the imprinted works of Lydgate, who could not have been alive in 1483, cf. MS. Harl. 4011, fol. 169, vo, where it occurs among Lydgate’s works.
In John Taylor’s Trauels of Twelve-Pence, 1630 folio (Spenser Soc. reprint, p. 82), this verse occurs:—
Far[2] though from Earth man hath originall,
And to the Earth, from whence he came doth fall,
Though he be Earth, & can claime nought but earth,
(As the fraile portion due vnto his birth)
Yet many thousands that the earth doth breed,
Haue no place (certain) where to lodge or feed.
The following lines occur in a small volume called The Compleat Bell-Man, being a Pattern for all sorts of People to take notice of the most remarkable Times and Dayes in the Year, by H. Crouch (seventeenth century). The book contains thirty-nine verses, for Saint-Days and Anniversaries chiefly, a few being on more general subjects. The last verse, No. 39, Upon the day of Doom, runs as follows:—