| |
| TO have written then, when you writ, seem’d to me | |
| Worst of spiritual vices, simony; | |
| And not to have written then seems little less | |
| Than worst of civil vices, thanklessness. | |
| In this, my debt I seem’d loth to confess; | 5 |
| In that, I seem’d to shun beholdingness. | |
| But ’tis not so; nothings, as I am, may | |
| Pay all they have, and yet have all to pay. | |
| Such borrow in their payments, and owe more | |
| By having leave to write so, than before. | 10 |
| Yet, since rich mines in barren grounds are shown, | |
| May I not yield (not gold but) coal or stone? | |
| Temples were not demolish’d, though profane; | |
| Here Peter Jove’s; there Paul hath Dian’s fane. | |
| So whether my hymns you admit or choose, | 15 |
| In me you’ve hallowed a pagan muse, | |
| And denizen’d a stranger, who, mistaught | |
| By blamers of the times they marr’d, hath sought | |
| Virtues in corners, which now bravely do | |
| Shine in the world’s best part, or all it—you. 1 | 20 |
| I have been told, that virtue in courtiers’ hearts | |
| Suffers an ostracism, and departs. | |
| Profit, ease, fitness, plenty, bid it go; | |
| But whither, only knowing you, I know. | |
| Your, or you virtue, two vast uses serves; | 25 |
| It ransoms one sex, and one court preserves. | |
| There’s nothing but your worth, which being true | |
| Is known to any other, not to you. | |
| And you can never know it; to admit | |
| No knowledge of your worth, is some of it. | 30 |
| But since to you your praises discords be, | |
| Stoop 2 others’ ills to meditate with me. | |
| O! to confess we know not what we should, | |
| Is half excuse, we know not what we would. | |
| Lightness depresseth us, emptiness fills; | 35 |
| We sweat and faint, yet still go down the hills. | |
| As new philosophy arrests the sun, | |
| And bids the passive earth about it run, | |
| So we have dull’d our mind; it hath no ends; | |
| Only the body’s busy, and pretends. | 40 |
| As dead low earth eclipses and controls | |
| The quick high moon, so doth the body souls. | |
| In none but us are such mix’d engines found, | |
| As hands of double office; for the ground | |
| We till with them, and them to heaven we raise. | 45 |
| Who prayerless labours, or, without this, prays, | |
| Doth but one half, that’s none; He which said, “Plough | |
| And look not back,” to look up doth allow. | |
| Good seed degenerates, and oft obeys | |
| The soil’s disease, and into cockle strays. | 50 |
| Let the mind’s thoughts be but transplanted so | |
| Into the body, and bastardly they grow. | |
| What hate could hurt our bodies like our love? | |
| We, but no foreign tyrants, could remove | |
| These not engraved, but inborn dignities, | 55 |
| Caskets of souls, temples and palaces; | |
| For bodies shall from death redeemed be, | |
| Souls but preserved, born naturally free. 3 | |
| As men to our prisons now, souls to us 4 are sent, | |
| Which learn 5 vice there, and come in innocent. | 60 |
| First seeds of every creature are in us; | |
| Whate’er the world hath bad, or precious, | |
| Man’s body can produce; hence hath it been | |
| That stones, worms, frogs, and snakes in man are seen. | |
| But whoe’er saw, though nature can work so, | 65 |
| That pearl, or gold, or corn in man did grow? | |
| We’ve added to the world Virginia, and sent | |
| Two new stars lately to the firmament. | |
| Why grudge we us (not heaven) the dignity | |
| To increase with ours those fair souls’ company? | 70 |
| But I must end this letter; though it do | |
| Stand on two truths, neither is true to you. | |
| Virtue has some perverseness, for she will | |
| Neither believe her good, nor others’ ill. | |
| Even in you, virtue’s best paradise, | 75 |
| Virtue hath some, but wise degrees of vice. | |
| Too many virtues, or too much of one, | |
| Begets in you unjust suspicion; | |
| And ignorance of vice makes virtue less, | |
| Quenching compassion of our wretchedness. | 80 |
| But these are riddles; some aspersion | |
| Of vice becomes well some complexion. | |
| Statesmen purge vice with vice, and may corrode | |
| The bad with bad, a spider with a toad. | |
| For so, ill thralls not them, but they tame ill, | 85 |
| And make her do much good against her will. | |
| But in your commonwealth or world in you, | |
| Vice hath no office or good work to do. | |
| Take then no vicious purge, but be content | |
| With cordial virtue, your known nourishment. | 90 |
