Say to the court, it glows

And shines like rotten wood; Say to the church, it shows What's good, and doth no good: If church and court reply, Then give them both the lie.

Tell potentates, they live
Acting by others' action;
Not loved unless they give,
Not strong but by a faction:
If potentates reply,
Give potentates the lie.

Tell men of high condition,
That manage the estate,
Their purpose is ambition,
Their practice only hate:
And if they once reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell them that brave it most,

They beg for more by spending, Who, in their greatest cost,

Seek nothing but commending:

And if they make reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell zeal it wants devotion;
Tell love it is but lust;
Tell time it is but motion;
Tell flesh it is but dust:
And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lie.

Tell age it daily wasteth;
Tell honour how it alters;
Tell beauty how she blasteth;
Tell favour how it falters:
And as they shall reply,
Give every one the lie.

Tell wit how much it wrangles
In tickle points of niceness;
Tell wisdom she entangles
Herself in over-wiseness:
And when they do reply,
Straight give them both the lie.

Tell physic of her boldness;
Tell skill it is pretension;
Tell charity of coldness;

Tell law it is contention:
And as they do reply,
So give them still the lie.

Tell fortune of her blindness;
Tell nature of decay;
Tell friendship of unkindness;

Tell justice of delay:

And if they will reply,

Then give them all the lie.

Tell arts they have no soundness,

But vary by esteeming;

Tell schools they want profoundness,

And stand too much on seeming:

If arts and schools reply,

Give arts and schools the lie.

Tell faith it's fled the city;

Tell how the country erreth;
Tell manhood shakes off pity;
Tell virtue least preferreth:
And if they do reply,
Spare not to give the lie.

So when thou hast, as I

Commanded thee, done blabbing,
Although to give the lie

Deserves no less than stabbing,
Stab at thee he that will,

No stab the soul can kill.

Raleigh.

326

The World

The world's a bubble and the life of man
Less than a span;

In his conception wretched, from the womb,
So to the tomb;

Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years
With cares and fears.

Who then to frail mortality shall trust
But limns on water, or but writes in dust.

Yet, whilst with sorrow here we live oppressed,
What life is best?

Courts are but only superficial schools,
To dandle fools;

The rural part is turned into a den
Of savage men;

And where's a city from foul vice so free
But be termed the worst of all the three?
may

Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed,
Or pains his head:

Those that live single take it for a curse,
Or do things worse:

These would have children; those that have them

moan,

Or wish them gone:

What is it, then, to have or have no wife,
But single thraldom or a double strife?

Our own affections still at home to please
Is a disease;

To cross the seas to any foreign soil,
Peril and toil;

Wars with their noise affright us; when they cease,
We're worse in peace:

What then remains, but that we still should cry
For being born, and, being born, to die?

327

The Happy Life

How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill;

Bacon.

Whose passions not his masters are;
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Untied unto the world by care

Of public fame or private breath;

Who envies none that chance doth raise,
Nor vice: who never understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good;

Who hath his life from rumours freed;
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great;

Who God doth late and early pray
More of his grace than gifts to lend;
And entertains the harmless day
With a religious book or friend.

This man is freed from servile bands,
Of hope to rise or fear to fall:
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And, having nothing, yet hath all.

328

Wotton.

Epistle to the Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland

He that of such a height hath built his mind, And reared the dwelling of his thoughts so strong, As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame Of his resolved powers; nor all the wind