All you that have got eares to heare,
Now listen unto mee;
Whilst I do tell a tale of feare;
A true one it shall bee:
A truer storie nere was told,
As some alive can showe;
'Tis of a man in crime grown olde,
Though age he did not know.
This man did his owne God denie
And Christ his onelie son,
And did all punishment defie,
So he his course might run.
Both day and night would he blaspheme,
And day and night would sweare,
As if his life was but a dreame,
Not ending in dispaire.
A poet was he of repute,
And wrote full many a playe,
Now strutting in a silken sute,
Then begging by the way.
He had alsoe a player beene
Upon the Curtaine-stage,
But brake his leg in one lewd scene,
When in his early age.
He was a fellow to all those
That did God's laws reject,
Consorting with the Christians' foes
And men of ill aspect.
Ruffians and cutpurses hee
Had ever at his backe,
And led a life most foule and free,
To his eternall wracke.
He now is gone to his account,
And gone before his time,
Did not his wicked deedes surmount
All precedent of crime.
But he no warning ever tooke
From others' wofull fate,
And never gave his life a looke
Untill it was too late.
He had a friend, once gay and greene.
Who died not long before,
The wofull'st wretch was ever seen,
The worst ere woman bore,
Unlesse this Wormall did exceede
Even him in wickednesse,
Who died in the extreemest neede
And terror's bitternesse.
Yet Wormall ever kept his course,
Since nought could him dismay;
He knew not what thing was remorse
Unto his dying day.
Then had he no time to repent
The crimes he did commit,
And no man ever did lament
For him, to dye unfitt.
Ah, how is knowledge wasted quite
On such want wisedome true,
And that which should be guiding light
But leades to errors newe!
Well might learnd Cambridge oft regret
He ever there was bred:
The tree she in his mind had set
Brought poison forth instead.
His lust was lawlesse as his life,
And brought about his death;
For, in a deadlie mortall strife,
Striving to stop the breath
Of one who was his rivall foe,
With his owne dagger slaine,
He groand, and word spoke never moe,
Pierc'd through the eye and braine.
Thus did he come to suddaine ende
That was a foe to all,
And least unto himselfe a friend,
And raging passion's thrall.
Had he been brought up to the trade
His father follow'd still,
This exit he had never made,
Nor played a part soe ill.
Take warning ye that playes doe make,
And ye that doe them act;
Desist in time for Wormall's sake,
And thinke upon his fact.
Blaspheming Tambolin must die,
And Faustus meete his ende;
Repent, repent, or presentlie
To hell ye must discend.
What is there, in this world, of worth,
That we should prize it soe?
Life is but trouble from our birth,
The wise do say and know.
Our lives, then, let us mend with speed,
Or we shall suerly rue
The end of everie hainous deede,
In life that shall insue.
Finis. Ign.