WIT.
And can there be within this world a thing too hard for you?
NATURE.
My power it is not absolute in jurisdiction,
For I cognise another lord above,
That hath received unto his disposition
The soul of man, which he of special love
To gifts of grace and learning eke doth move.
A work so far beyond my reach and call,
That into part of praise with him myself to show
Might soon procure my well-deserved fall:
He makes the frame, and [I] receive it so,
No jot therein altered for my head;
And as I it receive, I let it go,
Causing therein such sparkles to be bred,
As he commits to me, by whom I must be led:
Who guides me first, and in me guides the rest,
All which in their due course and kind are spread
Of gifts from me such as may serve them best,
To thee, son Wit, he will'd me to inspire,
The love of knowledge and certain seeds divine,
Which ground might be a mean to bring thee here,
If thereunto thyself thou wilt incline:
The massy gold the cunning hand makes fine:
Good grounds are till'd, as well as are the worst,
The rankest flower will ask a springing time;
So is man's wit unperfit at the first.
WIT.
If cunning be the key and well of wordly[382] bliss
Me-thinketh God might at the first as well endue all with this.
NATURE.
As cunning is the key of bliss, so it is worthy praise:
The worthiest things are won with pain in tract of time always.
WIT.
And yet right worthy things there are, you will confess, I trow,
Which notwithstanding at our birth God doth on us bestow.
NATURE.
There are; but such as unto you, that have the great to name,
I rather that bestow, than win thereby immortal fame.
WIT.
Fain would I learn what harm or detriment ensued,
If any man were at his birth with these good gifts endued.
NATURE.
There should be nothing left, wherein men might excel,
No blame for sin, no praise to them that had designed well:
Virtue should lose her price, and learning would abound;
And as man would admire the thing, that each-where might be found.
The great [e]state, that have of me and fortune what they will,
Should have no need to look to those, whose heads are fraught with skill.
The meaner sort, that now excels in virtues of the mind,
Should not be once accepted there, where now they succour find.
For great men should be sped of all, and would have need of none,
And he that were not born to land should lack to live upon.
These and five thousand causes mo, which I forbear to tell,
The noble virtue of the mind have caused there to dwell,
Where none may have access, but such as can get in
Through many double doors: through heat, through cold, through
thick and thin.
WIT.
Suppose I would address myself to seek her out,
And to refuse no pain that lieth thereabout;
Should I be sure to speed?
NATURE.
Trust me, and have no doubt,
Thou canst not choose but speed with travail and with time:
These two are they that must direct thee how to climb.