Within a point at most: yet for all this
(Which is most strange) Natta thinks no man is
More honest than himself. Thus men may want
Conscience, whilst being brought up ignorant,
They use themselves to vice. And besides those
Illiberal arts forenam'd, no vicar knows,
Nor other captain less than he, his schools
Are ordinaries, where civil men seem fools,
Or are for being there; his best books, plays,
Where, meeting godly scenes, perhaps he prays.
His first set prayer was for his father's ill,
And sick, that he might die: that had, until
The lands were gone he troubled God no more;
And then ask'd him but his right, that the whore
Whom he had kept, might now keep him: she
They left each other on even terms; she went
To Bridewell, he unto the wars, where want
Hath made him valiant, and a lieutenant
He is become: where, as they pass apace,
He steps aside, and for his captain's place
He prays again: tells God, he will confess
His sins, swear, drink, dice, and whore thenceforth
On this condition, that if his captain die
And he succeed, but his prayer did not; they
Both cashier'd came home, and he is braver now
Than his captain: all men wonder, few know how,
Can he rob? No;-Cheat? No;-or doth he spend
His own? No. Fidus, he is thy dear friend,
That keeps him up. I would thou wert thine own,
Or thou had'st as good a friend as thou art one.
Durst take so hard a task kings were but men,
And by their place more noted, if they err;
How they and their lords unworthy men prefer;
And, as unthrifts, had rather give away
Great sums to flatterers, than small debts pay;
So they their greatness hide, and greatness show,
By giving them that which to worth they owe:
What treason is, and what did Essex kill?
Not true treason, but treason handled ill:
And which of them stood for their country's good?
Or what might be the cause of so much blood?
He said she stunk, and men might not have said
That she was old before that she was dead.
His case was hard to do or suffer; loath
To do, he made it harder, and did both :
Too much preparing lost them all their lives,
Like some in plagues kill'd with preservatives.
Friends, like land-soldiers in a storm at sea,
Not knowing what to do, for him did pray.
They told it all the world; where was their wit?
Cuffs, putting on a sword, might have told it.
And princes must fear favourites more than foes,
For still beyond revenge ambition goes.
How since her death, with sumpter horse that Scot
Hath rid, who, at his coming up, had not
A sumpter-dog. But till that I can write
Things worth thy tenth reading, dear Nick, good night.
MEN write, that love and reason disagree,
But I ne'er saw't express'd as 'tis in thee.
Well, I may lead thee, God must make thee see;
But thine eyes blind too, there's no hope for thee.
Thou say'st, she's wise and witty, fair and free;
All these are reasons why she should scorn thee.
Thou dost protest thy love, and would'st it show
By matching her, as she would match her foe:
And would'st persuade her to a worse offence
Than that, whereof thou didst accuse her wench.
Do what she can, love for nothing allow.
Besides, here were too much gain and merchandise;
And when thou art rewarded, desert dies.
Now thou hast odds of him she loves, he may doubt
Her constancy, but none can put thee out.
Again, be thy love true, she'll prove divine,
And in the end the good on't will be thine :
For though thou must ne'er think of other love,
And so wilt advance her as high above
Virtue, as cause above effect can be;
'Tis virtue to be chaste, which she'll make thee.
TO MR. CHRISTOPHER BROOK,
FROM THE ISLAND VOYAGE WITH THE EARL OF ESSEX.
THOU, which art I, ('tis nothing to be so)
Thou, which art still thyself, by this shalt know
Part of our passage; and a hand, or eye,
By Hilliard drawn, is worth a history
By a worse painter made; and (without pride)
When by thy judgment they are dignify'd,
My lines are such. 'Tis the pre-eminence
Of friendship only t' impute excellence.
England, to whom we owe what we be, and have,
Sad that her sons did seek a foreign grave,
(For Fate's or Fortune's drifts none can gainsay,
Honour and misery have one face, one way)
From out her pregnant entrails sigh'd a wind,
Which at th' air's middle marble room did find
Such strong resistance, that itself it threw
Downward again; and so when it did view
How in the port our fleet dear time did leese,
Withering like prisoners, which lie but for fees,
Mildly it kiss'd our sails, and fresh and sweet,
As to a stomach starv'd, whose insides meet,
Meat comes, it came; and swole our sails, when we
So joy'd, as Sarah her swelling joy'd to see :
But 'twas but so kind, as our countrymen, [then.
Which bring friends one day's way, and leave them
Then like two mighty kings, which dwelling far
Asunder, meet against a third to war,
The south and west winds join'd, and, as they blew,
Waves like a rolling trench before them threw.
Sooner than you read this line, did the gale,
Like shot not fear'd till felt, our sails assail;
And what at first was call'd a gust, the same
Hath now a storm's, anon a tempest's name.
Jonas, I pity thee, and curse those men,
Who, when the storm rag'd most, did wake thee
Sleep is pain's easiest salve, and doth fulfil [then:
All offices of death, except to kill.
But when I wak'd, I saw that I saw not.
I and the Sun, which should teach thee, had forgot
East, west, day, night; and I could only say,
Had the world lasted, that it had been day.
Thousands our noises were, yet we 'mongst all
Could none by his right name, but thunder call:
Lightning was all our light, and it rain❜d more
Than if the Sun had drunk the sea before.
Some coffin'd in their cabins lie, equally
Griev'd that they are not dead, and yet must die:
And as sin-burden'd souls from graves will creep
At the last day, some forth their cabins peep:
And trembling ask what news, and do hear so
As jealous husbands, what they would not know.
Some, sitting on the hatches, would seem there
With hideous gazing to fear away fear.
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