NOT that in colour it was like thy hair, | |
| For armlets of that thou mayst 1 let me wear; | |
| Nor that thy hand it oft embraced and kiss’d, | |
| For so it had that good, which oft I miss’d; | |
| Nor for that silly old morality, | 5 |
| That, as these links were knit, our love 2 should be, | |
| Mourn I that I thy sevenfold chain have lost; | |
| Nor for the luck sake; but the bitter cost. | |
| O, shall twelve righteous angels, which as yet | |
| No leaven of vile solder did admit; | 10 |
| Nor yet by any way have stray’d or gone | |
| From the first state of their creation; | |
| Angels, which heaven commanded to provide | |
| All things to me, and be my faithful guide; | |
| To gain new friends, to appease great enemies; 3 | 15 |
| To comfort my soul, when I lie or rise; | |
| Shall these twelve innocents, by thy severe | |
| Sentence, dread judge, my sin’s great burden bear? | |
| Shall they be damn’d, and in the furnace thrown, | |
| And punish’d for offences not their own? | 20 |
| They save not me, they do not ease my pains, | |
| When in that hell they’re burnt and tied in chains. | |
| Were they but crowns of France, I carèd not, | |
| For most of these their country’s natural rot, 4 | |
| I think, possesseth; they come here to us | 25 |
| So pale, so lame, so lean, so ruinous. | |
| And howsoe’er French kings most Christian be, | |
| Their crowns are circumcised most Jewishly. | |
| Or were they Spanish stamps, still travelling, | |
| That are become as Catholic as their king; | 30 |
| Those unlick’d bear-whelps, unfiled pistolets, | |
| That—more than cannon shot—avails or lets; | |
| Which, negligently left unrounded, look | |
| Like many-angled figures in the book | |
| Of some great conjurer 5 that would enforce | 35 |
| Nature, as these do justice, from her course; | |
| Which, as the soul quickens head, feet and heart, | |
| As streams, like veins, run through th’ earth’s every part, | |
| Visit all countries, and have slily made | |
| Gorgeous France, ruin’d, ragged and decay’d, | 40 |
| Scotland, which knew no state, proud in one day, | |
| And mangled seventeen-headed Belgia. | |
| Or were it such gold as that wherewithal | |
| Almighty chemics, from each mineral | |
| Having by subtle fire a soul out-pull’d, | 45 |
| Are dirtily and desperately gull’d; | |
| I would not spit to quench the fire they’re in, | |
| For they are guilty of much heinous sin. | |
| But shall my harmless angels perish? Shall | |
| I lose my guard, my ease, my food, my all? | 50 |
| Much hope which they should nourish will be dead; | |
| Much of my able youth, and lustihead | |
| Will vanish; if thou love, let them alone, | |
| For thou wilt love me less when they are gone; | |
| And be content that some loud squeaking crier, | 55 |
| Well-pleas’d with one lean thread-bare groat for hire, | |
| May like a devil roar through every street, | |
| And gall the finder’s conscience, if he meet. 6 | |
| Or let me creep to some dread conjurer, | |
| That with fantastic scenes fills full much paper; | 60 |
| Which hath divided heaven in tenements, | |
| And with whores, thieves, and murderers stuff’d his rents | |
| So full, that though he pass them all 7 in sin, | |
| He leaves himself no room to enter in. | |
| But if, when all his art and time is spent, | 65 |
| He say ’twill ne’er be found; yet be content; | |
| Receive from him that doom 8 ungrudgingly, | |
| Because he is the mouth of destiny. | |
| Thou say’st, alas! the gold doth still remain, | |
| Though it be changed, and put into a chain. | 70 |
| So in the first fallen angels resteth still | |
| Wisdom and knowledge, but ’tis turn’d to ill; | |
| As these should do good works, and should provide | |
| Necessities; but now must nurse thy pride. | |
| And they are still bad angels; mine are none; | 75 |
| For form gives being, and their form is gone. | |
| Pity these angels yet; their dignities | |
| Pass Virtues, Powers, and Principalities. | |
| But thou art resolute; thy will be done; | |
| Yet with such anguish, as her only son | 80 |
| The mother in the hungry grave doth lay, | |
| Unto the fire these martyrs I betray. | |
| Good souls—for you give life to everything— | |
| Good angels—for good messages you bring— | |
| Destined you might have been to such an one, | 85 |
| As would have loved and worshipp’d you alone; | |
| One that would suffer hunger, nakedness, | |
| Yea death, ere he would make your number less; | |
| But, I am guilty of your sad decay; | |
| May your few fellows longer with me stay. | 90 |
| But O! thou wretched finder whom I hate | |
| So, that I almost pity thy estate, | |
| Gold being the heaviest metal amongst all, | |
| May my most heavy curse upon thee fall. | |
| Here fetter’d, manacled, and hang’d in chains, | 95 |
| First mayst thou be; then chain’d to hellish pains; | |
| Or be with foreign gold bribed to betray | |
| Thy country, and fail both of it and thy 9 pay. | |
| May the next thing thou stoop’st to reach, contain | |
| Poison, whose nimble fume rot thy moist brain; | 100 |
| Or libels, or some interdicted thing, | |
| Which negligently kept thy ruin bring. | |
| Lust-bred diseases rot thee; and dwell with thee | |
| Itching desire, and no ability. | |
| May all the evils that gold ever wrought; | 105 |
| All mischief that all devils ever thought; | |
| Want after plenty, poor and gouty age, | |
| The plagues of travellers, love, marriage 10 | |
| Afflict thee, and at thy life’s last moment, | |
| May thy swollen sins themselves to thee present. | 110 |
| But, I forgive; repent thee, honest man! | |
| Gold is restorative; restore it then: | |
| But if from it thou be’st loth to depart, 11 | |
| Because ’tis cordial, would ’twere at thy heart. | |
