| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | What Pleasure Have Great Princes | | Anonymous |
| | | WHAT 1 pleasure have great princes | |
| More dainty to their choice | |
| Than herdsmen wild, who careless | |
| In quiet life rejoice, | |
| And fortune’s fate not fearing | 5 |
| Sing sweet in summer morning? | |
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| Their dealings plain and rightful, | |
| Are void of all deceit; | |
| They never know how spiteful, | |
| It is to kneel and wait | 10 |
| On favourite presumptuous, | |
| Whose pride is vain and sumptuous. | |
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| All day their flocks each tendeth; | |
| At night, they take their rest; | |
| More quiet than who sendeth | 15 |
| His ship into the East, | |
| Where gold and pearl are plenty; | |
| But getting, very dainty. | |
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| For lawyers and their pleading, | |
| They ’steem it not a straw; | 20 |
| They think that honest meaning | |
| Is of itself a law: | |
| Whence conscience judgeth plainly, | |
| They spend no money vainly. | |
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| O happy who thus liveth! | 25 |
| Not caring much for gold; | |
| With clothing which sufficeth | |
| To keep him from the cold. | |
| Though poor and plain his diet | |
| Yet merry it is, and quiet. | 30 |
| | | Note 1. From William Byrd’s Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs, 1588. [back] | | |
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