Robert Herrick, All Things Decay and Die (a poem, from Hesperides)

Recorded in March 2022. From "Hesperides," published in 1648.

Glossary: A "luster" is a period of five years. It derives from the Latin "lustrum," which was "a ceremonial purification of the people, performed every five years, after the taking of the census." "Threescore lusters," therefore, is three hundred years.

The Latin associations of "luster" carry forward into the second half of the couplet. The "dictator" held an office of absolute power in ancient Rome; and the oak is imagined as presiding in that office over the wood, which is his “state.”

Transcript:

All things decay with time: the forest sees
The growth and downfall of her aged trees;
That timber tall, which threescore lusters stood
The proud dictator of the state-like wood,—
I mean (the sovereign of all plants) the oak—
Droops, dies, and falls without the cleaver's stroke.

The music is "Silent Turmoil" by myuu.