Classic Poem

So many pointed caps
Laced with double flaps,
And so gay felted hats,
Saw I never:
So many good lessons,
So many good sermons,
And so few devotions,
Saw I never.

So many gardes worn,
Jagged and all to-torn,
And so many falsely forsworn,
Saw I never:
So few good policies
In townes and cities
For keeping of blind hostries,
Saw I never.

So many good workes,
So few well-learned clerkes,
And so few that goodness markes,
Saw I never:
Such pranked coats and sleeves,
So few young men that preves,
And such increase of thieves,
Saw I never.

So many garded hose,
Such pointed shoes,
And so many envious foes,
Saw I never:
So many inquests sit
With men of smale wit,
And so many falsely quit,
Saw I never.

So many gay swordes,
So many altered wordes,
And so few covered boardes,
Saw I never:
So many empty purses,
So few good horses,
And so many curses,
Saw I never.

Such boasters and braggers,
So new fashioned daggers,
And so many beggers,
Saw I never:
So many proper knives,
So well apparelled wives
And so ill of their lives,
Saw I never.

So many cuckold-makers,
So many crakers,
And so many peace-breakers,
Saw I never:
So much vain clothing
With cutting and jagging,
And so much bragging,
Saw I never.

So many newes and knackes,
So many naughty packes,
And so many that money lackes,
Saw I never:
So many maidens with child
And wilfully beguiled,
And so many places untiled,
Saw I never.

So many women blamed
And righteously defamed,
And so little ashamed,
Saw I never:
Widows so soone wed
After their husbands be dead,
Having such haste to bed,
Saw I never.

So much striving
For goodes and for wiving,
And so little thriving,
Saw I never:
So many capacities,
Offices and pluralities,
And changing of dignities,
Saw I never.

So many laws to use
The truth to refuse,
Such falsehood to excuse,
Saw I never:
Executors having the ware,
Taking so little care
How the soul doth fare,
Saw I never.

Among them that are rich,
Where friendship is to seek,
Such fair glosing speech,
Saw I never:
So many poor
Coming to the door,
And so small succour,
Saw I never.

So proud and so gay,
So rich in array,
And so scant of money,
Saw I never:
So many bowyers,
So many fletchers,
And so few good archers,
Saw I never.

So many cheapers,
So few buyers,
And so many borrowers,
Saw I never:
So many ale-sellers
In bawdy holes and cellars,
Of young folks ill-counsellors,
Saw I never.

So many pinkers,
So many thinkers,
And so many good ale-drinkers,
Saw I never:
So many wrongs,
So few merry songs,
And so many ill tongues,
Saw I never.

So many a vagabond
Through all this land,
And so many in prison bound,
Saw I never:
So many citations,
So few oblations,
And so many new fashions,
Saw I never.

So many flying tales,
Pickers of purses and males,
And so many sales,
Saw I never:
So much preaching,
Speaking fair and teaching,
And so ill believing,
Saw I never.

So much wrath and envy,
Covetise and gluttony,
And so little charity,
Saw I never:
So many carders,
Revellers and dicers,
And so many ill-ticers,
Saw I never.

So many lollers,
So few true tollers,
So many bawds and pollers,
Saw I never:
Such treachery,
Simony and usury,
Poverty and lechery,
Saw I never.

So new-fashioned jacks,
With broad flaps in the necks,
And so gay new partlets,
Saw I never.
So many sluttish cooks,
So new-fashioned tucking-hooks,
And so few buyers of books,
Saw I never.

So many cloisters closed,
And priests at large loosed,
Being so evil-disposed,
Saw I never:
God save our sovereign lord the King,
And all his royal spring,
For so noble a prince reigning,
Saw I never.

So many Easterlings,
Lombards and Flemings,
To bear away our winnings,
Saw I never:
By their subtle ways
All England decays,
For such false Januays,
Saw I never.

Sometime we sang of mirth and play,
But now our joy is gone away,
For so many fall in decay,
Saw I never:
Whither is the wealth of England gone?
The spiritual saith they have none,
And so many wrongfully undone,
Saw I never.

It is great pity that every day
So many bribers go by the way,
And so many extortioners in each countrey,
Saw I never:
To thee, Lord, I make my moan,
For thou mayst help us every one:
Alas, the people is so woe-begone,
Worse was it never!

Amendment
Were convenient,
But it may not be:
We have exiled verity.
God is neither dead nor sick;
He may amend all yet,
And trow ye so indeed,
As ye believe ye shall have meed.
After better I hope ever,
For worse was it never.