To man how sweet is breath! yet sweetest of all
That breath, which from his native air doth fall.
How many weary paces have I measured,
How many known and unknown dangers past,
Since I commenced my tedious pilgrimage,
The last great work of my death-yielding age!
Yet am I blest, that my returning bones
Shall be rak’t up in England’s peaceful earth.
Anon.
28.
Usury.
Nature in all inferior things hath set
A pitch or term, when they no more shall get
Increase and offspring. Unrepaired houses
Fall to decay; old cattle cease to breed;
And sapless trees deny more fruit or seed:
The earth would heartless and infertile be.
If it should never have a jubilee.
Only the Usurer’s Money ’genders still;
The longer, lustier; age this doth not kill.
He lives to see his Money’s Money’s Money
Even to a hundred generations reach.
Anon.
29.
Love defined by contraries.
Fie, fie, how heavy is light Love in me!—
How slow runs swift Desire!—this leaden air,
This ponderous feather, merry melancholy;
This Passion, which but in passion
Hath not his perfect shape.—
Day.