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Home  »  Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical  »  Sir John Davies

C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Sir John Davies

  • Much like a subtle spider, which doth sit
  • In middle of her web, which spreadeth wide;
  • If aught do touch the utmost thread of it,
  • She feels it instantly on every side.
  • There was a man bespake a thing,
  • Which when the owner home did bring,
  • He that made it did refuse it;
  • And he that brought it would not use it,
  • And he that hath it doth not know
  • Whether he hath it yea or no.
  • These wickets of the soul are plac’d so high,
  • Because all sounds do highly move aloft;
  • And that they may not pierce too violently,
  • They are delay’d with turns and twinings oft.
  • For should the voice directly strike the brain,
  • It would astonish and confuse it much;
  • Therefore these plaits and folds the sound restrain.
  • That it the organ may more gently touch.
  • This is the slowest, yet the daintiest sense;
  • For ev’n the ears of such as have no skill,
  • Perceive a discord, and conceive offence;
  • And knowing not what’s good, yet find the ill.
  • Wit,—the pupil of the soul’s clear eye.