40 The Happy Heart LIV THE HAPPY HEART Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers? Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexéd? Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexéd Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny! Swimm'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears? Then he that patiently want's burden bears Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny y! T. DEKKER LV This Life, which seems so fair, Is like a bubble blown up in the air By sporting children's breath, Who chase it everywhere And strive who can most motion it bequeath. Like to an eye of gold to be fix'd there, And firm to hover in that empty height, That only is because it is so light. LVI SOUL AND BODY Poor Soul, the centre of my sinful earth, Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end? Then, Soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss, And let that pine to aggravate thy store; Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross; Within be fed, without be rich no more :— So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men, And death once dead, there's no more dying then. W. SHAKESPEARE LVII LIFE The world's a bubble and the Life of Man Less than a span In his conception wretched, from the womb Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years Who then to frail mortality shall trust, 42 Lessons of Nature Yet whilst with sorrow here we live opprest, Courts are but only superficial schools The rural parts are turn'd into a den And where's a city from foul vice so free, Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed, Those that live single, take it for a curse Some would have children: those that have them moan What is it, then, to have, or have no wife, But our affections still at home to please To cross the seas to any foreign soil, Peril and toil: Wars with their noise affright us: when they cease, What then remains, but that we still should For being born, or being born, to die? cry LORD BACON LVIII THE LESSONS OF NATURE Of this fair volume which we World do name The World's Way Find out his power which wildest powers doth tame, His justice which proud rebels doth not spare, But silly we, like foolish children, rest Or if by chance we stay our minds on aught, LIX 43 W. DRUMMOND Doth then the world go thus, doth all thus move? Those souls which vice's moody mists most blind, Ah! if a Providence doth sway this all Why should best minds groan under most distress? Heavens! hinder, stop this fate; or grant a time LX THE WORLD'S WAY Tired with all these, for restful death I cry As, to behold desert a beggar born, And purest faith unhappily for sworn, 44 St. John Baptist And gilded honour shamefully misplaced, And art made tongue-tied by authority, -Tired with all these, from these would I be gone, W. SHAKESPEARE LXI SAINT JOHN BAPTIST The last and greatest Herald of Heaven's King There burst he forth : All ye whose hopes rely Only the echoes, which he made relent, |