Ami. Montague, much joy attend thy marriage-bed;
By thy example of true goodness, envy is exil'd,
And to all honest men that truth intend,
I wish good luck, fair fate be still thy friend. [Exeunt.
Upon an Honest Man's Fortune.
By Mr. JOHN FLETCHER.
You that can look through Heaven, and tell the Stars,
Observe their kind conjunctions, and their wars;
Find out new Lights, and give them where you please,
To those men honors, pleasures, to those ease;
You that are God's Surveyers, and can show
How far, and when, and why the wind doth blow;
Know all the charges of the dreadful thunder,
And when it will shoot over, or fall under:
Tell me, by all your Art I conjure ye,
Yes, and by truth, what shall become of me?
Find out my Star, if each one, as you say,
Have his peculiar Angel, and his way;
Observe my fate, next fall into your dreams,
Sweep clean your houses, and new line your Sceames,
Then say your worst: or have I none at all?
Or is it burnt out lately? or did fall?
Or am I poor? not able, no full flame?
My Star, like me, unworthy of a name?
Is it your Art can only work on those,
That deal with dangers, dignities, and cloaths?
With Love, or new Opinions? you all lye,
A Fish-wife hath a fate, and so have I,
But far above your finding; he that gives,
Out of his providence, to all that lives,
And no man knows his treasure, no, not you:
He that made Egypt blind, from whence you grew
Scabby and lowzie, that the world might see
Your Calculations are as blind as ye:
He that made all the Stars, you daily read,
And from thence filtch a knowledge how to feed;
Hath hid this from you, your conjectures all
Are drunken things, not how, but when they fall:
Man is his own Star, and the soul that can
Render an honest, and a perfect man,
Commands all light, all influence, all fate,
Nothing to him falls early, or too late.
Our Acts our Angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still,
And when the Stars are labouring, we believe
It is not that they govern, but they grieve
For stuborn ignorance; all things that are
Made for our general uses, are at war,
Even we among our selves, and from the strife,
Tour first unlike opinions got a life.
Oh man! thou Image of thy Makers good,
What canst thou fear, when breathed into thy bloud,
His spirit is, that built thee? what dull sence
Makes thee suspect, in need, that Providence?
Who made the morning, and who plac'd the light
Guide to thy labours? who call'd up the night,
And bid her fall upon thee like sweet showers
In hollow murmurs, to lock up thy powers?
Who gave thee knowledge, who so trusted thee,
To let thee grow so near himself, the Tree?
Must he then be distrusted? shall his frame
Discourse with him, why thus, and thus I am?
He made the Angels thine, thy fellows all,
Nay, even thy servants, when Devotions call.
Oh! canst thou be so stupid then, so dim,
To seek a saving influence, and loose him?
Can Stars protect thee? or can poverty,
Which is the light to Heaven, put out his eye?
He is my Star, in him all truth I find,
All influence, all fate, and when my mind
Is furnish'd with his fullness, my poor story
Shall out-live all their age, and all their glory,
The hand of danger cannot fall amiss,
When I know what, and in whose power it is.
[N]or want, the cause of man, shall make me groan,
A Holy Hermit is a mind alone.
Doth not experience teach us all we can,
To work our selves into a glorious man?
Love's but an exhalation to best eyes
The matter spent, and then the fools fire dies?
Were I in love, and could that bright Star bring
Increase to Wealth, Honor, and every thing:
Were she as perfect good, as we can aim,
The first was so, and yet she lost the Game.
My Mistriss then be knowledge and fair truth;
So I enjoy all beauty and all youth,
And though to time her Lights, and Laws she lends,
She knows no Age, that to corruption bends.
Friends promises may lead me to believe,
But he that [is] his own friend, knows to live.
Affliction, when I know it is but this,
A deep allay, whereby man tougher is
To ear the hammer, and the deeper still,
We still arise more image of his Will.
Sickness, an humorous cloud 'twixt us and light
And death, at longest but another night.
Man is his own Star, and that soul that can
Be honest, is the only perfect man.
FINIS.
THE
MASQUE of the Gentlemen
OF
GRAYS-INNE and the INNER-TEMPLE;
Performed before the KING in the Banqueting-House in White-Hall, at the Marriage of the Illustrious Frederick and Elizabeth, Prince and Princess Palatine of the Rhine.