| |
| OF monarchs he to Him is great alone | |
| Who to himself becomes a little one. | |
| The only greatness which poore man can have | |
| Is to be here his Great Redeemer’s slave. | |
| That king that doth not heav’n’s just King obey, | 5 |
| A traitor is himself to majesty. | |
| The simple shepherd who with chaste desires | |
| And cheerful innocence to heav’n aspires; | |
| The honest, painful labourer, who sweats | |
| From morn to night, to get the bread he eats; | 10 |
| If he serves heaven, is indeed more great | |
| Than kings, with all their pride and purple state. | |
| Thrice brave those monarchs who had dar’d to fly | |
| From all the alluring charms of majesty. * * * * * * * | |
| Thrice blest are those who fled from being great, | 15 |
| From courts, to suffer cottage’s retreat: | |
| Heaven kindly doth their humble thoughts defeat, | |
| For greatness while they strive to shun, they meet. | |
| They are made great, and far more glorious kings | |
| By being just, than by all earthly things. | 20 |
| Ah! how we win in losing for our God, | |
| While heav’n is gained for a poore sorry clod | |
| Of earth: when for a short grief here endur’d | |
| We are of everlasting joyes assur’d. | |
| Since for our pleasure we refuse our sense, | 25 |
| We shall have millions for our recompence. | |
| Poore abus’d men, unlucky flocke that stray | |
| Without the shepherd, void of the right way; | |
| Unthinking souls that perish with delight, | |
| Which all the threats of heav’n cannot affright. | 30 |
| For sure those pains which doth on sin attend, | |
| Pain which begins, but never must have end; | |
| The immaterial fire that burneth still, | |
| But to their great misfortune cannot kill; | |
| The devil’s dungeons, and all sorts of paine, | 35 |
| Which human fortitude cannot sustaine, | |
| Might, one would think, men’s brutish courage shake, | |
| And in our soules a noble fear awake. | |
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