NONSENCE.
(Ashmole’s Museum, A. 37.)
Like to the thundring tone of unspoke speeches,
Or like a lobster clad in logicke breeches,
Or like the graye-furre of a crimson catt,
Or like the moone-calfe in a slip-shodde hatt:
Even such is hee who never was begotten
Untill his children were both dead and rotten.
Like to the fiery tombstone of a cabbage,
Or like a crabbe-louse with its bag and baggage,
Or like the four square circle of a ring,
Or like to hey dinge, dingea dingea dinge:
Even such is he who spake, and yet no doubt
Spake to small purpose, when his tongue was out.
Like to a fairs, fresh, faiding, withered rose,
Or lyke to rhyming verse that runs in prose,
Or lyke the stumbles of a tynder box,
Or lyke a man that’s sound yet hath the pox:
Even such is he who dyed, and yet did laugh
To see these lines writt for his epitaph.
THE COUNTRY LIFE[116].
Thrice and above blest (my souls halfe!) art thou
In thy though last yet better vowe,
Canst leave the Cyttye with exchange to see
The Country’s sweet simplicitie,
And to knowe and practise, with intent
To growe the sooner innocent,
By studdyinge to knowe vertue, and to ayme
More at her nature than her name.
The last is but the least, the first doth tell
Wayes not to live, but to live well.
And both are knowne to thee, who now canst live,
Led by thy conscience, to give
Justice[117] to soon pleas’d Nature, and to showe
Wisdome and she togeather goe,
And keepe one center: this with that conspires
To teach man to confine’s desires;
To knowe that riches have their proper stint
In the contented minde, not mint;
And canst instruct, that those that have the itch
Of cravinge more, are never rich.
These thinges thou knowst to th’ height, and dost prevent
The mange, because thou art content
With that Heaven gave thee with a sparinge hand,
More blessed in thy brest than land,
To keepe but Nature even and upright,
To quench not cocker appetite.
The first is Nature’s end; this doth impart
Least thankes to Nature, most to Art.
But thou canst tersely live, and satisfie
The bellye only, not the eye;
Keepinge the barkinge stomache meanly quiet
With a neat yet needfull dyett.
But that which most creates thy happy life,
Is the fruition of a wife,
Whom (starres consentinge with thy fate) thou hast
Gott, not so beautifull as chast.
By whose warm’d side thou dost securely sleepe,
Whilst Love the centinell doth keepe
With those deeds done by day, which ne’er affright
The silken slumbers in the night;
Nor hath the darkenesse power to usher in
Feare to those sheets that knowe no sinne:
But still thy wife, by chast intention led,
Gives thee each night a maidenhead.
For where pure thoughts are led by godly feare,
Trew love, not lust at all, comes there;
And in that sense the chaster thoughts commend
Not halfe so much the act as end:
That, what with dreams in sleepe of rurall blisse,
Night growes farre shorter than shee is.
The damaske meddowes, and the crawlinge streames,
Sweeten, and make soft thy dreams.
The purlinge springes, groves, birdes, and well-weav’d bowers,
With fields enamelled with flowers,
Present thee shapes, whilst phantasye discloses
Millions of lillyes mixt with roses.
Then dreame thou hear’st the lambe with many a bleat
Woo’d to come sucke the milkey teate;
Whilst Faunus, in the vision, vowes to keepe
From ravenouse wolfe the woolley sheepe;
With thowsand such enchantinge dreames, which meet
To make sleepe not so sound as sweet.
Nor can these figures in thy rest endeere,
As not to up when chanticleere
Speaks the last watch, but with the dawne dost rise
To worke, but first to sacrifice:
Makinge thy peace with Heaven for some late fault,
With holy meale and cracklinge salt.
That done, thy painfull thumbe this sentence tells us,
God for our labour all thinges sells us.
Nor are thy daylye and devout affayres
Attended with those desperate cares
Th’ industriouse marchant hath, who for to finde
Gold, runneth to the furthest Inde[118],
And home againe tortur’d with fear doth hye,
Untaught to suffer povertye.
But you at home blest with securest ease,
Sitt’st and beleev’st that there are seas,
And watrye dangers; but thy better hap
But sees these thinges within thy mapp,
And viewinge them with a more safe survaye,
Makst easy Feare unto thee say,
A heart thrice wall’d with oake and brass that man
Had, first durst plough the ocean.
But thou at home, without or tyde or gale,
Canst in thy mapp securely sayle,
Viewinge the parted countryes, and so guesse
By their shades their substances;
And from their compasse borrowing advise,
Buy’st travayle at the lowest price.
Nor are thy eares so seald but thou canst heare
Far more with wonder than with feare.
—Cætera desiderantur.