John Donne (1572–1631). The Poems of John Donne. 1896.
Letters to Several PersonagesTo Sir Henry Wotton
H
Tell you Calais, or Saint Michael’s tales, as tell
That vice doth here habitually dwell.
And toil to sweeten rest; so, may God frown,
If, but to loathe both, I haunt court or town.
Of vice by any other reason free,
But that the next to him still ’s worse than he.
(God’s commissary) doth so throughly hate,
As in the court’s squadron to marshal their state;
With wishes, prayers, and neat integrity,
Like Indians ’gainst Spanish hosts they be.
And to have as many ears as all have tongues;
Tender to know, tough to acknowledge wrongs.
When to be like the court was a play’s praise,
Plays were not so like courts, as courts like plays.
Whose deepest projects and egregious gests
Are but dull morals of a game at chests.
Therefore I end; and bid farewell awhile;
“At court,”—though “from court” were the better style.