Excelling brass, but more excelled by gold;
Then summer, autumn, winter did appear,
And spring was but a season of the year.
The sun his annual course obliquely made,
Good days contracted and enlarged the bad.
Then air with sultry heat began to glow;
The wings of winds were clogged with ice and snow;
And shivering mortals into houses driven,
Sought shelter from the inclemency of heaven.
Those houses then were caves or homely sheds,