Times go by turns, and chances change by course,
From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.

Southwell’s couplet expresses a Renaissance commonplace: fortune is unstable, and human circumstances move in cycles. “Times go by turns” frames history and personal life as subject to reversals; “chances change by course” suggests that what seems like luck follows a larger, impersonal pattern rather than individual control. The paired contrasts—“foul to fair” and “better hap to worse”—underline how quickly prosperity can sour and adversity can lift. Read in a moral key, the lines caution against pride in good fortune and despair in bad, urging steadiness of character amid change. In a religious register (common in Southwell), it can also imply that worldly conditions are transient compared with spiritual constancy.