ODE 4.
Pon this sinful earth,
If Man can happy be,
And higher than his birth,
Friend, take him thus of me:
Whom promise not deceives,
That he the breach should rue;
Nor constant reason leaves
Opinion to pursue.
To raise his mean estate,
That soothes no Wanton's sin:
Doth that preferment hate,
That virtue doth not win
Nor bravery doth admire:
Nor doth more love profess
To that he doth desire,
Than that he doth possess.
Loose humour nor to please,
That neither spares nor spends;
But by discretion weighs
What is to needful ends.
To him deserving not,
Not yielding: nor doth hold
What is not his: doing what
He ought, not what he could.
Whom the base tyrants' will
So much could never awe
As him, for good or ill,
From honesty to draw.
Whose constancy doth rise
'Bove undeservèd spite;
Whose valuers to despise
That most doth him delight.
That early leave doth take
Of th' World, though to his pain,
For Virtue's only sake;
And not till need constrain.
No man can be so free,
Though in imperial seat;
Nor eminent: as he
That deemeth nothing great.