Edward Farr, ed. Select Poetry of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. 1845.
Lines from The Pilgrims FarewellLXXXV. William Lithgow
T
Is but as fruitlesse showes, which bloome, then perish:
Where merite buildes not, that foundation teares.
There’s nought but trueth that can man’s standing cherish:
This great experience dayly now appeares,
What one upholdes, another he downe casts,
This gentle blood doth suffer many blasts.
That clayme their discent from king Arthur great;
And they will drinke, and sweare, and roare: what then?
Would make their betters foote-stooles to their feet,
And stryve to bee applaus’d with print and pen;
And were hee but a farmer, if hee can
But keepe an hound,—O there’s a gentle-man!
How man lies there deform’d, consum’d in dust;
And in that mappe thy judgement may discearne
How little thou in birth and blood shouldst trust.
Such sightes are good,—they doe thy soule concerne.
Wer’st thou a kinglie sonne, and vertue want,
Thou art more brute than beastes which desarts hant.
Each day new murther, blood-shed, craft, and thift,
Thy lovelesse law, and lawlesse proude oppression,
Thy stiffeneckt crew their heads ov’r saincts they lift,
And, misregarding God, fall in degression:
The widdow mournes, the proude the poore oppresse,
The rich contemne the silly fatherlesse:
By sea and land, for gaine, run manie miles;
The noblest strive for state, ambition’s glore,
To have preferment, landes, and greatest stiles,
Yet nev’r content of all, when they have store;
And from the sheepheard to the king, I see,
There’s no contentment for a worldlie eye.
And rich, what tormentes his great griede doth feele:
And is hee gentle, hee strives moe hightes t’ touch;
If hee unthrives, hee hates another’s weele;
His eyes pull home what his handes dare not fetch.
A quiet minde, who can attaine that hight,
But either slaine by griede or envie’s spright?
Yet whiles hee lives God’s providence mistrustes;
Hee gapes for pelfe, and still in avarice burnes;
And, having all, hath nothing but his lustes,
Insatiate still, backe to his vomite turnes.
Vilde dust and earth, believ’st thou in a shadow,
Whose high-tun’d prime falles like a new-mowne medow?
The wretch, puft up, is swell’d with hellish griede;
The worlde deceives him with a swift assaying;
And as hee stands, hee cannot take good heede,
But for small trash must yeelde eternal paying:
And dead, another enjoyes what hee got,
And spendes up all, whiles hee in grave doeth rot.