Nativity once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,

And time that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow!
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.

386

The want of self-knowledge.

Defect of manners, want of government,
Pride, haughtiness, opinion, and disdain:

The least of which,

Loseth men's hearts; and leaves behind a stain
Upon the beauty of all parts besides,

Beguiling them of commendation.

Poems.

18-iii. 1.

When the moon shone, we did not see the candle.
So doth the greater glory dim the less;
A substitute shines brightly as a king,
Until a king be by; and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
Into the main of waters.

388

Reason subdued by passion.
O strange excuse!

When Reason is the bawd to Lust's abuse.

389

The judgment corrupted by gold.

O thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce

9-v. 1.

"Twixt natural son and sire! thou bright defiler Of Hymen's purest bed! thou valiant Mars!

Poems.

Thou ever young, fresh, loved, and delicate wooer,
Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow

That lies on Dian's lap! thou visible god,

That solder'st close impossibilities,

And mak'st them kiss! that speak'st with every

tongue,

To every purpose! O thou touch* of hearts!

Think, thy slave man rebels; and by thy virtue

*For touchstone.

Set them into confounding odds, that beasts
May have the world in empire!

390

The evil of loose discipline.

27-iv. 3.

Now, as fond fathers,

Having bound up the threat'ning twigs of birch,
Only to stick it in their children's sight,

For terror, not to use; in time the rod

Becomes more mock'd than fear'd: so our decrees,
Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead;
And liberty plucks justice by the nose;
The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart
Goes all decorum.

Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound
The open ear of youth doth always listen.

5-i. 4.

17-ii. 1.

Despair to gain doth traffic oft for gaining:
And when great treasure is the meed proposed,
Though death be adjunct, there's no death supposed.

Those that much covet are of gain so fond,
That what they have not (that which they possess)
They scatter and unloose it from their bond,
And so by hoping more they have but less;
Or gaining more the profit of excess
Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain,
That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.

The aim of all is but to qurse the life

With honour, wealth, and ease, in waining age:
And in this aim there is such thwarting strife,
That one for all, or all for one, we gage:
As life for honour in fell battle's rage,

Honour for wealth, and oft that wealth doth cost
The death of all, and altogether lost.

So that in vent'ring all, we leave to be
The things we are for that which we expect :

And this ambitious foul infirmity,

In having much, torments us with defect

Of that we have: so then we do neglect

The thing we have, and all for want of wit,
Make something nothing, by augmenting it.

393

Experience necessary to complete the man.

He cannot be a perfect man,
Not being tried and tutor❜d in the world.
Experience is by industry achieved,
And perfected by the swift course of time.

394

The character of true excellence.

Value dwells not in particular will;

It holds its estimate and dignity

As well wherein 'tis precious of itself
As in the prizer; 'tis mad idolatry,

To make the service greater than the god;
And the will dotes, that is attributive
To what infectiously itself affects,*
Without some image of the affected merit.
I take to-day a wife, and my election
Is led on in the conduct of my will;†
My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,
Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores
Of will and judgment: How may I avoid,
Although my will distaste what it elected,
The wife I chose? there can be no evasion

Poems.

2-i. 3.

To blench‡ from this, and to stand firm by honour:
We turn not back the silks upon the merchant,

When we have soil'd them; nor the remainder viands
We do not throw in unrespective sieve,¡

Because we now are full.

395

The duty of conjugal fidelity.

Nature craves,

All dues be render'd to their owners; Now,
What nearer debt in all humanity,
Than wife is to the husband? if this law
Of nature be corrupted through affection;
And that great minds, of partial indulgence

26-ii. 2.

The will dotes that attributed or gives the qualities which it affects; that first causes excellence, and then admires it.

ti. e. Under the guidance of my will.

Shrink, or fly off.

§ Basket.

To their benumbed* wills, resist the same;
There is a law in each well-order'd nation,
To curb those raging appetites that are
Most disobedient and refractory.

396

Gold all things obey.

'Tis gold,

26-ii. 2.

Which buys admittance; oft it doth; yea, and makes
Diana's rangers, false themselves, yield up

Their deer to the stand of the stealer; and 'tis gold
Which makes the true man kill'd, and saves the thief;
Nay, sometimes hangs both thief and true man: What
Can it not do, and undo?
31-ii. 3.

397

Gold

The mind contaminated by gold.

This yellow slave

Will knit and break religious; bless the accursed;
Make the hoar leprosy adored; place thieves,
And give them title, knee, and approbation,
With senators on the bench: this is it,
That makes the wappen'dt widow wed again;
She, whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores
Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices
To the April day again.‡

398

The venom of Slander.

Slander,

27-iv. 3.

Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie

All corners of the world; kings, queens, and states,
Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave,
This viperous slander enters.

All unavoided|| is the doom of destiny,—
When avoided grace makes destiny.

31-iii. 4.

24-iv. 4.

The due of honour in no point omit. T

31-iii. 5.

* Inflexible.

† Sorrowful.

i. e. Gold restores her to all the sweetness and freshness of youth.

Persons of highest rank.

Heb. ii. 3. Rom. xiii. 7.

Unavoidable.

401

The world deluded by appearances.

The world is still deceived with ornament.
In Law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But, being season'd with a gracious voice,*
Obscures the show of evil? In Religion,
What damned error, but some sober brow
Will bless it, and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
There is no vice so simple, but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
How many Cowards, whose hearts are all as false
As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins
The beards of Hercules, and frowning Mars;
Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk?
And these assume but valour's excrement,
To render them redoubted. Look on Beauty,
And you shall see 'tis purchased by the weight;
Which therein works a miracle in nature,
Making them lightest that wear most of it:
So are those crisped† snaky golden locks,
Which make such wanton gambols with the wind,
Upon supposed fairness, often known

To be the dowry of a second head,

The scull that bred them, in the sepulchre.
Thus ornament is but the guiled‡ shore

To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,

The seeming truth which cunning times put on
To entrap the wisest.

402

Futurity wisely concealed.

9-iii. 2.

O heaven! that one might read the book of fate;
And see the revolution of the times

Make mountains level, and the continent

(Weary of solid firmness) melt itself

Into the sea! and, other times, to see

The beachy girdle of the ocean

Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,
And changes fill the cup of alteration

With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,

The happiest youth,-viewing his progress through,

*Winning favour, pleasing.

† Curled.

Treacherous.