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Satyre V. |
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Thou shalt not laugh in this leafe, Muse, nor they |
Whom any pitty warmes; He which did lay |
Rules to make Courtiers, (hee being understood |
May make good Courtiers, but who Courtiers good?) |
Frees from the sting of jests all who in extreme |
Are wreched or wicked: of these two a theame |
Charity and liberty give me. What is hee |
Who Officers rage, and Suiters misery |
Can write, and jest? If all things be in all, |
As I thinke, since all, which were, are, and shall |
Bee, be made of the same elements: |
Each thing, each thing employes or represents, |
Then man is a world; in which, Officers, |
Are the vast ravishing seas; and Suiters, |
Springs; now full, now shallow, now drye; which, to |
That which drownes them, run: These selfe reasons do |
Prove the world a man, in which, officers |
Are the devouring stomacke, and Suiters |
The excrements, which they voyd; all men are dust, |
How much worse are Suiters, who to mens lust |
Are made preyes. O worse then dust, or wormes meat, |
For they do eate you now, whose selves wormes shall eate. |
They are the mills which grinde you, yet you are
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[CW: The] |