| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | The Noble Balm | | By Ben Jonson (1572–1637) |
| | | HIGH-SPIRITED friend, | |
| I send nor balms nor cor’sives to your wound: | |
| Your fate hath found | |
| A gentler and more agile hand to tend | |
| The cure of that which is but corporal; | 5 |
| And doubtful days, which were named critical, | |
| Have made their fairest flight | |
| And now are out of sight. | |
| Yet doth some wholesome physic for the mind | |
| Wrapp’d in this paper lie, | 10 |
| Which in the taking if you misapply, | |
| You are unkind. | |
| |
| Your covetous hand, | |
| Happy in that fair honour it hath gain’d, | |
| Must now be rein’d. | 15 |
| True valour doth her own renown command | |
| In one full action; nor have you now more | |
| To do, than be a husband of that store. | |
| Think but how dear you bought | |
| This fame which you have caught: | 20 |
| Such thoughts will make you more in love with truth. | |
| ’Tis wisdom, and that high, | |
| For men to use their fortune reverently, | |
| Even in youth. | | | | |
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