on the sudden was in wondrous trance;The fiends of hell mustering in fearful manner,
Of sundry colour’d silks display’d a banner
Which he had stolen, and wish’d, as they did tell,
That he might find it all one day in hell.
The man, affrighted with this apparition,
Upon recovery grew a great precisian:
He bought a Bible of the best translation,
And in his life he show’d great reformation;
He walkéd mannerly, he talkéd meekly,
He heard three lectures and two sermons weekly;
He vow’d to shun all company unruly,
And in his speech he used no oath but truly;
And zealously to keep the Sabbath’s rest,
His meat for that day on the eve was drest;
And lest the custom which he had to steal
Might cause him sometimes to forget his zeal,
He gives his journeyman a special charge,
That if the stuff, allowance being large,
He found his fingers were to filch inclined,
Bid him to have the banner in his mind.
This done (I scant can tell the rest for laughter),
A captain of a ship came, three days after,
And brought three yards of velvet and three-quarters,
To make Venetians down below the garters.
He, that precisely knew what was enough,
Soon slipt aside three-quarters of the stuff.
His man, espying it, said in derision,
“Master, remember how you saw the vision!”
“Peace, knave!” quoth he, “I did not see one rag
Of such a colour’d silk in all the flag.”
THE WILL
BEFORE I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,
Great Love, some legacies: Here I bequeathe
Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see;
If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee;
My tongue to fame; to embassadors mine ears;
To women or the sea, my tears.
Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore,
By making me serve her who had twenty more,
That I should give to none but such as had too much before.
My constancy I to the planets give;
My truth to them who at the court do live;
My ingenuity and openness
To Jesuits; to buffoons my pensiveness;
My silence to any who abroad have been;
My money to a Capuchin.
Thou, Love, taught’st me, by appointing me
To love there where no love received can be,
Only to give to such as have an incapacity.
My faith I give to Roman Catholics;
All my good works unto the schismatics
Of Amsterdam; my best civility
And courtship to a university;
My modesty I give to soldiers bare;
My patience let gamesters share.
Thou, Love, taught’st me, by making me
Love her that holds my love disparity,
Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity.
I give my reputation to those
Which were my friends; mine industry to foes;
To schoolmen I bequeathe my doubtfulness;
My sickness to physicians, or excess;
To Nature all that I in rhyme have writ;
And to my company my wit.
Thou, Love, by making me adore
Her who begot this love in me before,
Taught’st me to make as though I gave, when I do but restore.
To him for whom the passing bell next tolls
I give my physic-books; my written rolls
Of moral counsel I to Bedlam give;
My brazen medals unto them which live
In want of bread; to them which pass among
All foreigners, mine English tongue.
Thou, Love, by making me love one
Who thinks her friendship a fit portion
For younger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion.
Therefore I’ll give no more, but I’ll undo
The world by dying, because love dies too.
Then all your beauties will no more be worth
Than gold in mines where none doth draw it forth;
And all your graces no more use shall have
Than a sundial in a grave.
Thou, Love, taught’st me, by making me
Love her who doth neglect both thee and me,
To invent and practise this one way to annihilate all three.
SHAKESPEAREAN SATIRE
MY liege, I did deny no prisoners;
But I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress’d,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new reap’d,
Show’d like a stubble-land at harvest-home.
He was perfuméd like a milliner,
And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
He gave his nose and took ’t away again;
Who, therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuff: and still he smil’d and talk’d,
And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He call’d them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly, unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
With many holiday and lady terms
He question’d me; among the rest, demanded
My prisoners in your Majesty’s behalf.
I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,
To be so pester’d with a popinjay,
Out of my grief and my impatience,
Answer’d neglectingly I know not what,
He should, or he should not; for he made me mad
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman
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