Go, Nightly Cares
O, nightly cares, the enemy to rest,
Forbear a while to vex my wearied sprite;
So long your weight hath lain upon my breast
That, lo! I live of life bereavèd quite:
O give me time to draw my wearied breath,
Or let me die as I desire the death.
Welcome, sweet Death! O life, no life, a hell!
Then thus and thus I bid the world farewell!
False world, farewell, the enemy to rest,
Now do thy worst, I do not weigh thy spite;
Free from thy cares I live forever blest,
Enjoying peace and heavenly true delight:
Delight, whom woes nor sorrows shall amate,
Nor fears or tears disturb her happy state:
And thus I leave thy hopes, thy joys untrue,
And thus, and thus, vain world, again adieu!
465. Epistle to the Countess of Cumberland
E 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
Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong
His settled peace, or to disturb the same:
What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may
The boundless wastes and wealds of man survey!
And with how free an eye doth he look down
Upon these lower regions of turmoil!
Where all the storms of passion mainly beat
On flesh and blood: where honour, power, renown,
Are only gay afflictions, golden toil;
Where greatness stands upon as feeble feet
As frailty doth; and only great doth seem
To little minds, who do it so esteem.
He looks upon the mightiest monarch's wars
But only as on stately robberies;
Where evermore the fortune that prevails
Must be the right: the ill-succeeding mars
The fairest and the best fac'd enterprise.
Great pirate Pompey lesser pirates quails:
Justice, he sees (as if seduced) still
Conspires with power, whose cause must not be ill.
He sees the face of right t'appear as manifold
As are the passions of uncertain man;
Who puts it in all colours, all attires,
To serve his ends, and make his courses hold.
He sees, that let deceit work what it can,
Plot and contrive base ways to high desires,
That the all-guiding Providence doth yet
All disappoint, and mocks the smoke of wit.
Nor is he mov'd with all the thunder cracks
Of tyrants' threats, or with the surly brow
Of Power, that proudly sits on others' crimes;
Charg'd with more crying sins than those he checks.
The storms of sad confusion, that may grow
Up in the present for the coming times
Appal not him; that hath no side at all,
But of himself, and knows the worst can fall.
Although his heart (so near allied to Earth)
Cannot but pity the perplexèd state
Of troublous and distress'd Mortality,
That thus make way unto the ugly birth
Of their own sorrows, and do still beget
Affliction upon imbecility:
Yet seeing thus the course of things must run,
He looks thereon not strange, but as fore-done.
And whilst distraught ambition compasses,
And is encompass'd; whilst as craft deceives,
And is deceiv'd: whilst man doth ransack man
And builds on blood, and rises by distress;
And th' inheritance of desolation leaves
To great-expecting hopes: he looks thereon,
As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye,
And bears no venture in impiety.
WHAT
AT if a day, or a month, or a year,
Crown thy delights with a thousand sweet con
Cannot a chance of a night or an hour
Cross thy desires with as many sad tormentings?
Fortune, Honour, Beauty, Youth, are but blossoms dying,
Wanton Pleasure, doating Love, are but shadows flying,
All our joys are but toys! idle thoughts deceiving:
None have power, of an hour, in their lives bereaving.
Earth's but a point to the world, and a man
Is but a point to the world's compared centre! Shall then a point of a point be so vain
As to triumph in a silly point's adventure?
All is hazard that we have, there is nothing biding; Days of pleasure are like streams through fair meadows gliding.
Weal and woe, time doth go! time is never turning;
Secret fates guide our states, both in mirth and mourn
467. A Farewell to the Vanities of the
FAREWELL, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles!
Farewell, ye honoured rags, ye glorious bubbles!
Fame's but a hollow echo; gold, pure clay;
Honour, the darling but of one short day;
Beauty - th' eye's idol - but a damasked skin;
State, but a golden prison to live in
And torture free-born minds; embroidered trains,
But pageants for proud swelling veins;
And blood allied to greatness, is alone
Inherited, not purchased, nor our own:
Fame, honour, beauty, state, train, blood, and birth Are but the fading blossoms of the earth.
I would be great, but that the sun doth still
Level his rays against the rising hill;
I would be high, but see the proudest oak
Most subject to the rending thunder-stroke;
I would be rich, but see men, too unkind,
Dig in the bowels of the richest mind;
I would be wise, but that I often see
The fox suspected whilst the ass goes free;
I would be fair, but see the fair and proud,
Like the bright sun, oft setting in a cloud;
I would be poor, but know the humble grass
Still trampled on by each unworthy ass:
Rich, hated; wise, suspected; scorned, if poor,
Great, feared; fair, tempted; high, still envied more;
I have wished all, but now I wish for neither;
Great, high, rich, wise, nor fair, poor I'll be rather.
Would the World now adopt me for her heir,
Would beauty's queen entitle me the fair,
Fame speak me Fortune's minion, could I vie
Angels with India, with a speaking eye
Command bare heads, bowed knees, strike Justice dumb
As well as blind and lame, or give a tongue
To stones by epitaphs, be called great master
In the loose rimes of every poetaster;
Could I be more than any man that lives,
Great, fair, rich, wise, all in superlatives;
Yet I more freely would these gifts resign,
Than ever Fortune would have made them mine;
And hold one minute of this holy leisure
Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure.
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