William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.
Song: Virtues branches wither, Virtue pinesThomas Dekker (c. 15701632)
V
O pity, pity, and alack the time;
Vice doth flourish, Vice in glory shines,
Her gilded boughs above the cedar climb.
She in every land doth monarchize;
Virtue is exiled from every city,
Virtue is a fool, Vice only wise.
Vice laughs to see her faint, alack the time.
This sinks, with painted wings the other flies:
Alack that best should fall, and bad should climb.
Vice doth flourish, Vice in glory shines,
Vice is a saint, Virtue an underling;
Virtue’s branches wither, Virtue pines.