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To S.r Henry Wotton . |
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S.r more then kisses letters mingle Soules [202] |
ffor thus frinds absent speake, This ease controules |
The teadiousnesse of my life, But for these, |
I could Ideate nothing w.ch could please |
But should in one day wither away and passe |
To a bottle of hay w.ch am a lock of grasse.| |
Life is a voyage, and in our liues wayes |
Countrys, Courts, Townes, ar Rocks or Remoras |
They breake or stopp all shipps, yet our state's such |
That Though they stayne worse then pitch, wee must touch. |
If in the furnace of the eeuen line |
Or vnder th'aduerse icy Poles thou pine, |
Thou knowst two temperate regions girded in |
Dwell there. But oh what refuge canst thou winne |
Parch't in the Court and in the Country frozen? |
Shall Cittyes built of both extremes bee chosen? |
Can Dung or Garlick bee perfume? Or can |
A Scorpion or Torpedo cure a man? |
Cittyes are worst of all three. Of all three? |
(O knotty riddle) All ar worst æqually |
Cittyes ar Sepulchers, they w.ch dwell there |
Are Carcasses, as if none such there were. |
And Courts ar Theaters, wherein some play |
Princes, some slaues, All to one end, of one clay. |
The Country is a desert, where the good |
Gayn'd, in habits not, borne is not vnderstood. |
There men become beasts, and prone to all evills |
In Cittyes Blocks and in a lewd Court deuills |
As in the first Chaos, confusedly |
Each Elements qualityes were in th'other three
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[CW: So___] |