With earthen plate, Agathocles, they say,
Did use to meal; so serv'd with Samo's clay,
When jewell'd plate, and rugged earth was by,
He seemed to mingle wealth and poverty.
One ask'd the cause: he answers, I that am
Sicilia's King, from a poor Potter came.
Hence learn, thou that art rais'd from mean estate,
To sudden riches, to be temperate.
Young men fly, when beauty darts
Amorous glances at your hearts,
The fixt marke gives your shooter aime,
And Ladyes lookes have power to maime,
Now 'twixt their lips, now in their eyes
Wrapt in a kisse or smile love lyes,
Then fly betimes for onely they
Conquer love that run away.
56. The pens prosopopeia to
the Scrivener.
Thinke who when you cut the quill,
Wounded was yet did no ill;
When you mend me, thinke you must
Mend yourselfe, else you're unjust.
When you dip my nib in Inke,
Thinke on him that gall did drinke,
When the Inke sheds from your pen,
Thinke who shed his blood for men ;
When you write, but thinke on this,
And you ne're shall write amisse.
If thou bee'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand dayes and nights,
Till age snow white haires on thee.
And thou when thou return'st wilt tell me ;
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And thou 'It sweare that no where
Lives a maiden true and faire.
58. On the Queene of Bohemia.
You meaner Beauties of the night,
Which poorely satisfie our eyes;
More by your number then your light;
The common people of the skies:
What are ye when the moon shall rise?
You violets that first appeare,
By your purple mantle known;
Like proud virgins of the yeere,
As if the Spring were all your own;
What are you, when the rose is blown?
You wandring chaunters of the wood,
That fill the ayre with natures layes,
Thinking your passions understood,
By weak accents, where's your praise,
When Philomell her voice shall raise :
So when my Princesse shall be seen,
In sweetnes of her lookes and mind,
By vertues first, then choyce a Queen,
Tell me, was she not design'd
Th' eclipse and glory of her kind?
59. To his noble friend.
There's no necessity that can exclude
The poorest being from a gratitude;
For when the strength of fortune lends no more,
He that is truely thankefull is not poore:
Yours be the bounty then, mine the great debt,
On which no time, nor power can ransome set.
Unjustly we complain of fate,
For short'ning our unhappy dayes,
When death doth nothing but translate
And print us in a better phrase;
Yet who can choose but weep? not I,
That beautie of such excellence,
And more vertue than could dy;
By deaths rude hand is ravish'd hence,
Sleepe blest creature in thine Urne,
My sighes, my teares shall not awake thee, I but stay untill my turne
And then, Oh then! I'le overtake thee.
61. Equè facilitas ac difficultas nocet amoris. I love not her, that at the first cries I,
I love not her that doth me still deny,
Be she too hard shee'll cause me to despaire,
Be she too easie, shee's as light as faire ;
'Tis hard to say whether most hurt procure,
She that is hard or easy to allure,
If it be so, then lay me by my side
The hard, soft, willing and unwilling bride.
A preaching fryar there was, who thus began,
The Scripture saith there was a certaine man :
A certain man? but I do read no where
Of any certaine woman mention'd there:
A certaine man a phrase in Scripture common,
But no place shewes there was a certain woman.
And fit it is, that we should ground our faith
On nothing more then what the Scripture saith.
63. On the Marriage of one Turbolt
with Mrs. Hill.
What are Deucalions dayes return'd that we
A Turbolt swimming on a Hill do see?
What shall we in this age so strange report,
That fishes leave the sea on hils to sport?
And yet this hill, though never tir'd with standing,
Lay gently down to give a Turbolt landing.
64. Barten Holiday to the Puritan
on his Technogamia.
'Tis not my person, nor my play,
But my sirname, Holiday,
That does offend thee, thy complaints
Are not against me, but the Saints;
So ill dost thou endure my name,
Because the Church doth like the same,
A name more awfull to the puritane
Then Talbot unto France, or Drake to Spaine.
The law hangs theeves for their unlawfull stealing, The law carts bawds for keeping of the doore, The law doth punish rogues, for roguish dealing, The law whips both the pander and the whore; But yet I muse from whence this law is grown; Whores must not steal, yet must not use their own.
66. Quicquid non nummus.
The mony'd man can safely saile all seas,
And make his fortune as himselfe shall please,
He can wed Danae, and command that now
Acrisius selfe that fatall match allow :
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