INSTABILITY OF HUMAN GREATNESS.
ADVICE TO A RECKLESS YOUTH.
LEARN to be wise, and practise how to thrive,
That would I have you do: and not to spend
Your coin on every bauble that you fancy,
Or every foolish brain that humours you.
I would not have you to invade each place,
Nor thrust yourself on all societies,
Till men's affections, or your own desert,
Should worthily invite you to your
rank.
He that is so respectless in his courses,
Oft sells his reputation at cheap market,
Nor would I you should melt away yourself
In flashing bravery, lest, while you affect
To make a blaze of gentry to the world,
A little puff of scorn extinguish it,
And you be left like an unsavoury snuff,
Whose property is only to offend.
I'd ha' you sober and contain yourself;
Not that your sail be bigger than your boat;
But moderate your expenses now (at first)
As you may keep the same proportion still,
Nor stand so much on your gentility,
Which is an airy, and mere borrow'd thing,.
From dead men's dust and bones; and none of yours,
Except you make, or hold it.
PHINEAS FLETCHER.
BORN, 1584; DIED, 1650.
INSTABILITY OF HUMAN GREATNESS.
FOND man, that looks on earth for happiness,
And here long seeks what here is never found!
For all our good we hold from heaven by lease,
With many forfeits and conditions bound;
Nor can we pay the fine and rentage due:
Though now but writ, and sealed, and given anew,
Yet daily we it break, then daily must renew.
Why shouldst thou here look for perpetual good,
At every loss 'gainst heaven's face repining?
Do but behold where glorious cities stood,
With gilded tops and silver turrets shining;
There now the hart, fearless of greyhound, feeds,
And loving pelican in safety breeds :
There screeching satyrs fill the people's empty stedes*.
Where is the Assyrian lion's golden hide,
That all the east once grasped in lordly paw?
Where that great Persian bear, whose swelling pride
The lion's self tore out with rav'nous jaw?
Or he who 'twixt a lion and a pard,
Through all the world with nimble pinions fared, And to his greedy whelps his conquered kingdoms shared.
Hardly the place of such antiquity,
Or note of those great monarchies we find: Only a fading verbal memory,
And empty name in writ is left behind:
But when this second life and glory fades,
And sinks at length in times obscurer shades, A second fall succeeds, and double death invades.
THE CONDITION OF KINGS HUMAN.
WHEREFORE pay you
This adoration to a sinful creature?
I am flesh and blood, as you are, sensible
Of heat and cold, as much a slave unto
The tyranny of my passions, as the meanest
Of my poor subjects. The proud attributes,
CONSOLATION OF EARLY DEATH.
By oil-tongued flattery imposed upon us,
As sacred, glorious, high, invincible,
The deputy of heaven, and in that
Omnipotent, with all false titles else,
Coin'd to abuse our frailty, though compounded,
And by the breath of sycophants applied,
Cure not the least fit of an ague in us.
We may give poor men riches, confer honours
On undeservers, raise, or ruin such
As are beneath us, and, with this puff'd up,
Ambition would persuade us to forget
That we are men: but He that sits above us,
And to whom, at our utmost rate, we are
But pageant properties, derides our weakness:
In me, to whom you kneel, 'tis most apparent.
Can I call back yesterday, with all their aids
That bow unto my sceptre? or restore
My mind to that tranquillity and peace
It then enjoyed?
CONSOLATION OF EARLY DEATH.
SWEET prince, the name of Death was never terrible,
To him that knew to live; nor the loud torrent
Of all afflictions, singing as they swim,
A gall of heart, but to a guilty conscience:
Whilst we stand fair, though by a two-edged storm,
We find untimely falls, like early roses,
Bent to the earth, we bear our native sweetness.
When we are little children,
And cry and fret for every toy comes cross us,
How sweetly do we show when sleep steals on us!
When we grow great, but our affection greater,
And struggle with this stubborn twin, born with us,
And tug and pull, yet still we find a giant:
Had we not then the privilege to sleep
Our everlasting sleep, he would make us idiots.
The memory and monuments of good men
Are more than lives; and though their tombs want tongues
Yet have they eyes that daily sweat their losses,
And such a tear from stone no time can value.
To die both young and good are Nature's curses,
As the world says; ask Truth, they are bounteous blessings;
For then we reach at Heaven, in our full virtues,
And fix ourselves new stars, crown'd with our goodness.
PARAPHRASE OF LINES ON THE TOMBS IN WEST-
MINSTER ABBEY.
"MORTALITY, behold, and fear,
What a charge of flesh is here!
Think how many royal bones
Sleep within this heap of stones:
Here they lie, had realms and lands,
Who now want strength to stir their hands.
Where from their pulpits seal'd in dust,
They preach In greatness is no trust.'
Here's an acre sown indeed
With the richest, royal'st seed
That the earth did e'er suck in,
Since the first man died for sin.
Here the bones of birth have cried,
Though Gods they were, as men they died.
Here are sands, ignoble things,
Dropp'd from the ruin'd sides of kings.
Here's a world of pomp and state
Buried in dust, once dead by fate."
ALLEGORICAL FIGURES OF AMBITION AND VAIN. GLORY.
THEREFORE above the rest Ambition sate:
His court with glitt'ring pearl was all enwalled,
And round about the wall in chairs of state,
And most majestic splendour, were enstalled
A hundred kings, whose temples were impaled
In golden diadems, set here and there
With diamonds, and gemmed everywhere,
And of their golden virges none disceptred were.
High over all Vain-glory's blazing throne,
In her bright turret, all of crystal wrought,
Like Phoebus' lamp, in midst of heaven, shone;
Whose starry top, with pride infernal fraught,
Self-arching columns to uphold were taught:
In which her image still reflected was
By the smooth crystal, that most like her glass,
In beauty and in frailty did all others pass.
A silver wand the sorceress did sway,
And, for a crown of gold her hair she wore ;
Only a garland of rose-buds did play
About her locks, and in her hand she bore
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