From Robert Jones’s Ultimum Vale or Third Book of Airs (1608).
Happy he
Let who will
The active life commend
And all his travels bend
Earth with his fame to fill:
Such fame, so forced, at last dies with his death,
Which life maintain’d by others’ idle breath.
My delights,
To dearest home confined,
Shall there make good my mind
Not aw’d with fortune’s spites:
High trees heaven blasts, winds shake and honors[5] fell,
When lowly plants long time in safety dwell.
All I can,
My worldly strife shall be
They one day say of me
‘He died a good old man’:
On his sad soul a heavy burden lies
Who, known to all, unknown to himself dies.
[5] Qy. “hammers”?
From John Wilbye’s Second Set of Madrigals, 1609.
Happy, O! happy he, who not affecting
From Francis Pilkington’s First Set Of Madrigals, 1613.
Have I found her? O rich finding!