William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.
ContentationCharles Cotton (16301687)
H
Of giants are sprung up, that dare
Thus fly in the Almighty’s face,
And with His providence make war!
With malcontents and mutineers,
As if in life was nothing sweet,
And we must blessings reap in tears.
For happiness, and does not know,
Even though he might enjoy his will,
What he would have to make him so.
By undiscerning Fortune placed
In the most eminent degree
Where few arrive, and none stand fast?
Wherewith the vain themselves ensnare
The great are proud of borrowed spoils
The miser’s plenty breeds his care.
The other eternally doth toil,
Each of them equally a beast,
A pampered horse, or labouring moil.
By public hate or private frown,
And he whose hand the creature raised
Has yet a foot to kick him down.
Like a brute beast both feeds and lies,
Prone to the earth, he digs his grave,
And in every labour dies.
Does only death and danger breed;
Whilst one rich worldling starves himself
With what would thousand others feed.
—Although they make men rich and great—
The sweets of life do often sour,
And gull ambition with a cheat.
Who, in a moderate estate,
Where he might safely live at ease,
Has lusts that are immoderate;
Quits his own vine’s securing shade,
T’ expose his naked, empty head
To all the storms man’s peace invade.
Tricked up in favours of the fair,
Mirrors, with every breath made dim,
Birds caught in every wanton snare.
Does ofter far, than serve, enslave,
And with the magic of a kiss
Destroys whom she was made to save.
And vainer man to make it so,
Who gives his miseries increase
By cultivating his own woe.
By giving shapes and names to things;
Which is the dangerous mistake
That causes all our sufferings.
That persecution which is grace;
That poverty which is true wealth,
And that dishonour which is praise.
And that with an impartial eye;
And if to misery we fall
’Tis through our own infirmity.
Ambitious youth to danger climb,
And want of virtue when the old
At persecution do repine.
That, in what state soe’er ’tis spent
Of joy or woe, does not import,
Provided it be innocent.
If we will take our measures right,
And not what Heaven has done undo
By an unruly appetite.
Can make us happy here below,
And, when this little life is gone,
Will lift us up to Heaven too.
An honest and a grateful heart,
And who would more than will suffice
Does covet more than is his part.
Who is warm clad, and cleanly fed,
Whose necessaries bound his care,
And honest labour makes his bed;
Honours those laws that others fear;
Who ill of princes in worst times
Will neither speak himself, nor hear;
To be more useful to it still,
And to no greater good aspires
But only the eschewing ill;
Can think the longest day well spent,
And praises God when back he looks,
And finds that all was innocent.
Whom public business oft betrays,
Through labyrinths of policy,
To crooked and forbidden ways.
But yet so slippery withal,
That where one walks secure, ’tis odds
A hundred and a hundred fall.
Where the frequented are unsure,
And he comes soonest to his rest
Whose journey has been most secure.
Our pilgrimage a pleasure here,
And who buys sorrow cheapest takes
An ill commodity too dear.
And Happiness can never miss,
Can covet naught, but where he stood,
And thinks him happy where he is.