Fate deals out human life by seven-year spaces:
Time was you would be thought in her good graces
With nine of these; when David lived ’twas ten;
If more She gave, ’twas only now and then,
A few cold years of winter, and the last,
Tho’ charged with toil and sorrow, quickly past.
But in our age more bounteous Fate appears,
And often grants a dozen-fold seven years;
Nay, be but still and temperate like the Quakers,
Perhaps she’ll make your dozen up a baker’s.