Pride looks aloft, still staring on the starres,
Humility looks lowly on the ground;
Th' one menaceth the gods with civill warres,
The other toyles till he have Vertue found.
His thoughts are humble, not aspiring hye,
But Pride looks haughtily with scornefull eye.
Humillity is clad in modest weedes,
But Pride is brave and glorious to the show;
Humillity his friends with kindnes feedes,
But Pride his friends in neede will never know,
Supplying not their wants, but them disdaining,
Whilst they to pitty never neede complayning.
Humillity in misery is reliev'd,
But Pride in neede of no man is regarded;
Pitty and Mercy weepe to see him griev'd,
That in distresse had them so well rewarded;
But Pride is scornd, contemnd, disdaind, derided,
Whilst Humblenes of all things is provided.
Oh then be humble, gentle, meeke, and milde,
So shalt thou be of every mouth commended;
Be not disdainfull, cruell, proud, sweet childe,
So shalt thou be of no man much condemned:
Care not for them that vertue doo despise;
Vertue is loathde of fooles, lovde of the wise.
O faire boy, trust not to thy beauties wings,
They cannot carry thee above the sunne:
Beauty and wealth are transitory things,
For all must ende that ever was begunne.
But Fame and Vertue never shall decay,
For Fame is toombles, Vertue lives for aye.
The snow is white, and yet the pepper 's blacke,
The one is bought, the other is contemned:
Pibbles we have, but store of jeat we lacke,
So white comparde to blacke is much condemned.
We doo not praise the swanne because shees white,
But for she doth in musique much delite.
And yet the silver-noted nightingale,
Though she be not so white, is more esteemed;
Sturgion is dun of hew, white is the whale,
Yet for the daintier dish the first is deemed:
What thing is whiter than the milke-bred lilly?
That knowes it not for naught, what man so silly?
Yea, what more noysomer unto the smell
Than lillies are? What's sweeter then the sage?
Yet for pure white the lilly beares the bell,
Till it be faded through decaying age.
House-doves are white, and oozels blacke-birds bee,
Yet what a difference in the taste we see?
Compare the cow and calfe with ewe and lambe,
Rough hayrie hydes with softest downy fell;
Hecfar and bull with weather and with ramme,
And you shall see how far they doo excell;
White kine with blacke, blacke coney-skins with gray,
Kine nesh and strong, skins deare and cheape alway.
The whitest silver is not alwaies best,
Lead, tynne, and pewter are of base esteeme;
The yellow burnisht gold that comes from th' East,
And West, of late invented, may beseeme
The worlds ritch treasury, or Mydas eye;
The ritch mans god, poore mans felicitie.