Classic Poem

I Fergant, living now my latest days
Have brought to term this heavy history,
Showing how all things pass, and nothing stays:
How Fate may mar, and evil destiny.
And my last hand in age and sickness weak
Setting hereto, to God great thanks give I.
For God hath granted me so far to speak;
Yea He who showed the purpose to be sought,
Made straight the way, and gave the strength to seek
That I by serving might be served of thought,
In living might the life of others try,
And at the cost of pain to truth be brought:
That I might trace the maze of misery,
And make again dead Virtue, noble toil
Rise from the bed of low indignity:
That I from envy's weeds the wasted soil,
Which holds the memory of friends, might clear,
And Falsehood of her vaunting crown despoil:
That I that dreadful age might make appear,
As 'twas in this world's sickness, death, and birth,
Before, and in and forth the thousandth year
Much have I overpassed in my poor dearth
Of words and memory and method true;
But let me not have failed to heaven and earth
In setting forth with order not undue
The mighty workers of this world's affairs,
Fatality, infinity, these two,
The one the only yoke the other wears.