GOOD COUNSEL.
[The following “Good Counsel” by Chaucer, freely modernised, is said to have been composed in his last agonies. In a MS. in the Cotton Library the verses are entitled, “a Ballade made by Giffrey Chaucyer upon his dethe bedde, lying in grete anguysse.”]
Fly from the crowd, and be to virtue true,
Content with what thou hast, though it be small;
To hoard brings hate; nor lofty things pursue;
He who climbs high endangers many a fall.
Envy’s a shade that ever waits on fame,
And oft the sun that raises it will hide:
Trace not in life a vast expensive scheme,
But be thy wishes to thy state ally’d.