And by the aide of leisure, so controule
Whate'er is earth in us, to grow all foule ?
Knowledge doth ignorance ingender when
We study misteries of other men
And forraigne plots. Doe but in thy owne shade
Thy head upon some flowry pillow laide,
(Kind Nature's huswifery) contemplate all
His stratagems who labours to inthrall
The world to his great Master; and you'le finde
Ambition mockes itselfe, and graspes the wind.
Not conquest makes us great, blood is too deare
A price for Glory: Honour doth appeare
To statesmen like a vision in the night,
And juggler-like workes on the deluded fight.
The unbufied only wife: for no respect
Indangers them to error; they affect
Truth in her naked beauty, and behold
Man with an equall eye, not bright in gold
Or tall in title; so much him they weigh
As Vertue raiseth him above his clay.
Thus let us value things; and fince we find
Time bends us toward death, let's in our mind
Create new Youth, and arme against the rude
Affaults of age; that no dull folitude
Of the Country dead our thoughts, nor bufie care
Of the towne make us not thinke, where now we are
And whether we are bound; Time nere forgot
His journey, though his steps we numbred not.

A Farewell to the Vanities of the World.

FAREWELL, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles;
Farewell, ye honour'd rags, ye glorious bubbles;

Fame's but a hollow echo, gold pure clay;
Honour the darling but of one short day.
Beauty, th' eye's idol but a damask'd skin;
State, but a golden prison to live in,

And torture free-born minds: embroider'd trains
Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins;
And blood ally'd to greatness, is alone
Inherited, not purchas'd nor our own,

Fame, honour, beauty, state, train, blood and birth,
Are but the fading blossoms of the earth,

I would be great, but that the fun doth still
Level his rays against the rifing hill :
I would be high, but fee the proudest oak
Most subject to the rending thunder-stroke;
I would be rich, but fee men too unkind,
Dig in the bowels of the richest mind:
I would be wife, but that I often see
The fox suspected, whilst the ass goes free:
I would be fair, but fee the fair and proud
Like the bright fun, oft setting in a cloud:
I would be poor, but know the humble grass
Still trampled on by each unworthy ass:
Rich hated: wise suspected: scorn'd if poor:
Great fear'd: fair tempted: high still envy'd more:
I have wish'd all; but now I wish for neither;
Great, high, rich, wife nor fair; poor I'll be rather.

1

Would

4

Would the World now adopt me for her heir,
Would Beauty's Queen entitle me " The Fair,"
Fame speak me Fortune's minion, could I vie
Angels with India; with a speaking eye
Command bare heads, bow'd knees, strike Justice dumb,
As well as blind and lame, or give a tongue
To stones by epitaphs: be call'd Great Master
In the loose rhimes of every poetaster?
Could I be more than any man that lives,
Great, fair, rich, wife, all in superlatives:
Yet I more freely would these gifts resign,
Than ever fortune would have made them mine,
And hold one minute of this holy leifure,

Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure.

Welcome pure thoughts, welcome ye filent groves,
These guests, these courts, my foul most dearly loves :
Now the wing'd people of the sky shall fing
My chearful anthems to the gladsome spring:
A prayer-book now shall be my looking-glass,
In which I will adore sweet Virtues face.
Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace-cares,
No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-fac'd fears :
Then here I'll fit, and figh my hot love's folly,
And learn t' affect an holy melancholy;

And if Contentment be a stranger then,
I'll ne'er look for it, but in Heaven again.

Sir H. Wotton.

The

1

The SHORTNESS of LIFE,

MY glass is half unspent; forbear t' arreft

My thriftless day too foon: my poor request Is that my glass inay run but out the rest.

My time-devouring minutes will be done
Without thy help; see! see how swift they run:
Cut not my thread before my thread be spun.

The gaines not great I purchase by this stay;
What loss sustain't thou by so small delay,
To whom ten thousand years are but a day?

My following eye can hardly make a shift
To count my winged hours; they fly so swift,
They scarce deserve the bounteous name of gift.

The fecret wheels of hurrying time do give
So short a warning, and so fast they drive,
That I am dead before I seem to live.

And what's a life? a weary pilgrimage,
Whose glory in one day doth fill the stage
With Childhood, Manhood, and decrepit Age,

And

And what's a life? the flourishing array
Of the proud fummer-meadow, which to-day
Weares her green plush, and is to-morrow hay.

Read on this dial, how the shades devour
My short-lived winter's day! hour eats up hour;
Alas! the total's but from eight to four.

Behold these lilies, which thy hands have made
Fair copies of my life, and open laid
To view, how foon they droop, how foon they fade!

Shade not that dial, night will blind too foon;
My non-aged day already points to noon;
How simple is my fuit ! how small my boon!

Nor do I beg this slender inch, to wile

The time away, or falsely to beguile

My thoughts with joy; here's nothing worth a smile.

Quarles Emblems.

B. 3. Em. 13.

O That