Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.

Contentation

Charles Cotton (1630–1687)

HEAVEN, what an age is this! what race

Of giants are sprung up, that dare

Thus fly in the Almighty’s face,

And with His providence make war!

I can go nowhere but I meet

With malcontents and mutineers,

As if in life was nothing sweet,

And we must blessings reap in tears.

O senseless man, that murmurs still

For happiness, and does not know,

Even though he might enjoy his will,

What he would have to make him so.

Is it true happiness to be

By undiscerning Fortune placed

In the most eminent degree

Where few arrive, and none stand fast?

Titles and wealth are Fortune’s toils

Wherewith the vain themselves ensnare

The great are proud of borrowed spoils

The miser’s plenty breeds his care.

The one supinely yawns at rest,

The other eternally doth toil,

Each of them equally a beast,

A pampered horse, or labouring moil.

The Titulado’s oft disgraced

By public hate or private frown,

And he whose hand the creature raised

Has yet a foot to kick him down.

The drudge who would all get, all save,

Like a brute beast both feeds and lies,

Prone to the earth, he digs his grave,

And in every labour dies.

Excess of ill-got, ill-kept pelf,

Does only death and danger breed;

Whilst one rich worldling starves himself

With what would thousand others feed.

By which we see what wealth and power

—Although they make men rich and great—

The sweets of life do often sour,

And gull ambition with a cheat.

Nor is he happier than these

Who, in a moderate estate,

Where he might safely live at ease,

Has lusts that are immoderate;

For he, by those desires misled,

Quits his own vine’s securing shade,

T’ expose his naked, empty head

To all the storms man’s peace invade.

Nor is he happy who is trim,

Tricked up in favours of the fair,

Mirrors, with every breath made dim,

Birds caught in every wanton snare.

Woman, man’s greatest woe, or bliss,

Does ofter far, than serve, enslave,

And with the magic of a kiss

Destroys whom she was made to save.

O fruitful grief, the world’s disease!

And vainer man to make it so,

Who gives his miseries increase

By cultivating his own woe.

There are no ills but what we make

By giving shapes and names to things;

Which is the dangerous mistake

That causes all our sufferings.

We call that sickness which is health,

That persecution which is grace;

That poverty which is true wealth,

And that dishonour which is praise.

Providence watches over all,

And that with an impartial eye;

And if to misery we fall

’Tis through our own infirmity.

’Tis want of foresight makes the bold

Ambitious youth to danger climb,

And want of virtue when the old

At persecution do repine.

Alas, our time is here so short

That, in what state soe’er ’tis spent

Of joy or woe, does not import,

Provided it be innocent.

But we may make it pleasant too

If we will take our measures right,

And not what Heaven has done undo

By an unruly appetite.

’Tis Contentation that alone

Can make us happy here below,

And, when this little life is gone,

Will lift us up to Heaven too.

A very little satisfies

An honest and a grateful heart,

And who would more than will suffice

Does covet more than is his part.

That man is happy in his share

Who is warm clad, and cleanly fed,

Whose necessaries bound his care,

And honest labour makes his bed;

Who free from debt, and clear from crimes,

Honours those laws that others fear;

Who ill of princes in worst times

Will neither speak himself, nor hear;

Who from the busy world retires

To be more useful to it still,

And to no greater good aspires

But only the eschewing ill;

Who, with his angle, and his books,

Can think the longest day well spent,

And praises God when back he looks,

And finds that all was innocent.

This man is happier far than he

Whom public business oft betrays,

Through labyrinths of policy,

To crooked and forbidden ways.

The world is full of beaten roads,

But yet so slippery withal,

That where one walks secure, ’tis odds

A hundred and a hundred fall.

Untrodden paths are then the best,

Where the frequented are unsure,

And he comes soonest to his rest

Whose journey has been most secure.

It is Content alone that makes

Our pilgrimage a pleasure here,

And who buys sorrow cheapest takes

An ill commodity too dear.

But he has Fortune’s worst withstood,

And Happiness can never miss,

Can covet naught, but where he stood,

And thinks him happy where he is.