Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light

To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful, and ridiculous excess.

16-iv. 2.

The king is but a man, as I am: the violet smells to him, as it doth to me; the element shows to him, as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions:* his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. 20-iv. 1.

167

Men often blind to their faults.

Men's faults do seldom to themselves appear,
Their own transgressions partially they smother :
O! how are they wrapt in with infamies,
That from their own misdeeds askance their eyes!

168

God's vengeance on the wicked.

Poems.

169

Man different only in exterior.

Though mean and mighty, rotting

Together, have one dust; yet reverence*

(That angel of the world) doth make distinction Of place 'tween high and low.

Kings, and mightiest potentates, must die;
For that's the end of human misery.

171

Unwelcome news, thankless.

The first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd knolling a departing friend.

As well the fear of harm, as harm apparent,
In my opinion, ought to be prevented.

Nothing can we call our own, but death;
And that small model of the barren earth,

31-iv. 2.

21-iii. 2.

19-i. 1.

24-ii. 2.

Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

174

Conflict of Grace.

17-iii. 2.

The flesh being proud, Desire doth fight with Grace, For there it revels, and when that decays,

The guilty rebel for remission

175

prays.

The failure of Hope.

The ample proposition, that hope makes

In all designs begun on earth below,

Poems.

Fails in the promised largeness: checks and disasters
Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd:

As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
Infect the sound pine, and divert his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.

Why then

Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works;
And think them shames, which are, indeed, nought

else

But the protractive trials of great Jove,

To find persistive constancy in men?
The fineness of which metal is not found

In fortune's love; for then, the bold and coward,
The wise and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and soft, seem all affined* and kin:
But, in the wind and tempest of her frown,
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mass, or matter, by itself
Lies, rich in virtue, and unmingled.

I held it ever,

26-i. 3.

Virtue and cunningt were endowments greater
Than nobleness and riches: careless heirs

May the two latter darken and expend;
But immortality attends the former,
Making a man a god.

177

Glory and Wealth, their temptation.

33-iii. 2.

O, the fiercet wretchedness that glory brings us!
Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt,
Since riches point to misery and contempt?
Who'd be so mock'd with glory? or to live
But in a dream of friendship?

To have his pomp, and all what state compounds,
But only painted, like his varnish'd friends?

27-iv. 2.

Grief boundeth where it falls,

Not with the empty hollowness, but weight.*

180

Misconstruction.

Men may construe things after their fashion,

17-i. 2.

Cleanf from the purpose of the things themselves.

181

Poverty and Riches.

Poor and content, is rich, and rich enough;
But riches, fineless, is as poor as winter,]]
To him that ever fears he shall be poor.

Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness,

29-i. 3.

37-iii. 3.

Wherein the pregnant¶ enemy does much. 4-ii. 2.

Strange it is,

30-v. 1.

That nature must compel us to lament

Our most persisted deeds.

184

Judgment governed by circumstances.

Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;
Robes, and furr'd gowns, hide all. Plate sin with

gold,

And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks:
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it.

185

Virtue.

34-iv. 6.

Virtue, that transgresses, is but patched with sin; and sin, that amends, is but patched with virtue.

186

Human nature.

4-i. 5.

When we are born, we cry, that we are come
To this great stage of fools.

34-iv. 6.

Sometimes, hath the brightest day a cloud:
And, after summer, evermore succeeds

Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold;
So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet. 22-ii. 4.
The camomile and youth contrasted.

188

Though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted the sooner it wears.

189

Pride, its effects.

Two curs shall tame each other: Pride alone

18-ii. 4.

Must tarre* the mastiffs on, as 'twere their bone.

190

Men, their various characters.

O heavens, what some men do,

While some men leave to do!

26-i. 3.

How some men creep in skittish Fortune's hall,
While others play the idiots in her eyes!

How one man eats into another's pride,

While pride is fasting in his wantonness! 26-iii. 3.

191

Contentment, its happiness.

"Tis better to be lowly born,

And range with humble livers in content,
Than to be perk'd up in a glistering grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.

25-ii. 3.