Soon as her hot and dry fumes are let loose,
Storms and clouds mixing, suddenly put out
The eyes of all those glories; the creation
Turn'd into chaos; and we then desire,
For all our joy of life, the death of sleep;
So when the glories of our lives, (men's loves,
Clear consciences, our fames, and loyalties),
That did us worthy comfort, are eclipsed,
Grief and disgrace invade us; and for all
Our night of life besides, our misery craves
Dark earth would ope and hide us in our graves.
Opinion the Scale of Good or Bad.
there is no truth of any good
To be discern'd on earth; and, by conversion,
Naught therefore simply bad: but as the stuff
Prepared for arras pictures, is no picture
Till it be form'd, and man hath cast the beams
Of his imaginous fancy thorough it,
In forming ancient kings and conquerors
As he conceives they look'd and were attired,
Though they were nothing so so all things here
Have all their price set down from men's conceits,
Which make all terms and actions good or bad,
And are but pliant and well-colour'd threads,
Put into feigned images of truth.
We must have these lures when we hawk for friends,
And wind about them like a subtile river,
That, seeming only to run on his course,
Doth search yet, as he runs ; and still finds out
The easiest parts of entry on the shore,
Gliding so slily by, as scarce it touch'd,
Yet still eats something in it.
The Stars not able to foreshow anything.
I am a nobler substance than the stars,
And shall the baser over-rule the better?
Or are they better, since they are the bigger?
I have a will, and faculties of choice,
To do or not to do; and reason why
I do or not do this: the stars have none;
They know not why they shine more than this taper,
Nor how they work, nor what. I'll change my
I'll piecemeal pull the frame of all my thoughts,
And cast my will into another mould,
And where are all your Caput Algols then?
Your planets all, being underneath the earth
At my nativity,-what can they do?
Malignant in aspects! in bloody houses!
The Master Spirit.
Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea
Loves t' have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind,
Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack,
And his rapt ship run on her side so low,
That she drinks water, and her keel ploughs air.
There is no danger to a man that knows
What life and death is: there's not any law
Exceeds his knowledge; neither is it lawful
That he should stoop to any other law :
He goes before them, and commands them all,
That to himself is a law rational.
Vile Natures in High Places.
foolish statuaries,
That under little saints suppose1 great bases,
Make less (to sense) the saints and so, where
Advanceth vile minds to states great and noble,
She much the more exposeth them to shame ;
Not able to make good, and fill their bases
With a conformed structure.
Innocence the Harmony of the Faculties.
Innocence, the sacred amulet
'Gainst all the poisons of infirmity,
Of all misfortune, injury, and death;
That makes a man in tune still in himself,
Free from the hell to be his own accuser;
Ever in quiet, endless joy enjoying,
No strife nor no sedition in his powers;
No motion in his will against his reason,
No thought 'gainst thought; nor (as 'twere in the
confines
Of wishing and repenting) doth possess
Only a wayward and tumultuous peace;
But, all parts in him friendly and secure,
Fruitful of all best things in all worst seasons,
He can with every wish be in their plenty;
When the infectious guilt of one foul crime
Destroys the free content of all our time.
King Henry the Fourth of France blesses the young
Dauphin.
My royal blessing, and the king of heaven
Make thee an aged and a happy king.
Help, nurse, to put my sword into his hand;
Hold, boy, by this, and with it may thy arm
Cut from thy tree of rule all traitorous branches,
That strive to shadow and eclipse thy glories;
Have thy old father's angel for thy guide,
Redoubled be his spirit in thy breast;
Who, when this state ran like a turbulent sea,
In civil hates and bloody enmity,
Their wraths and envies, like so many winds,
Settled and burst; and like the halcyon's birth
Be thine, to bring a calm upon the shore,
In which the eyes of war may ever sleep,
As over-watch'd with former massacres,
When guilty, made noblesse feed on noblesse,
All the sweet plenty of the realm exhausted;
When the naked merchant was pursued for spoil;
When the poor peasants frighted neediest thieves
With their pale leanness, nothing left on them
But meagre carcases, sustain'd with air,
Wand'ring like ghosts affrighted from their graves;
When with the often and incessant sounds
The very beasts knew the alarum bell,
And, hearing it, ran bellowing to their home;
From which unchristian broils and homicides
Let the religious sword of justice free
Thee, and thy kingdoms, govern'd after me.
O Heaven! Or if th' unsettled blood of France,
With ease, and wealth, renew her civil furies,
Let all my powers be emptied in my son
To curb and end them all as I have done.
Let him by virtue, quite out of from fortune,
Her feather'd shoulders, and her winged shoes,
And thrust from her light feet her turning stone;
That she may ever tarry by his throne.
And of his worth, let after ages say,
(He fighting for the land, and bringing home
Just conquests, loaden with his enemies' spoils,)
His father pass'd all France in martial deeds,
But he his father twenty times exceeds.
What we have, we slight; what we want, we think excellent.
as a man, match'd with a lovely wife,
When his most heavenly theory of her beauties
Is dull'd and quite exhausted with his practice,
He brings her forth to feasts, where he, alas,
Falls to his viands with no thought like others,
That think him blest in her, and they, poor men,
Court, and make faces, offer service, sweat
With their desires' contention, break their brains
For jests and tales, sit mute, and loose their looks,
Far out of wit, and out of countenance,
So all men else do, what they have, transplant,
And place their wealth in thirst of what they want.
Soliloquy of King Henry deliberating on the death
of a traitor.
O thou that govern'st the keen sword of kings,
Direct my arm in this important stroke,
Or hold it, being advanc'd; the weight of blood,
Even in the basest subject, doth exact
Deep consultation in the highest king;
For in one subject, death's unjust affrights,
Passions, and pains, though he be ne'er so poor,
Ask more remorse, than the voluptuous spleens
Of all kings in the world deserve respect;
He should be born grey-headed, that will bear
The weight of empire; judgment of the life,
Free state, and reputation of a man,
(If it be just and worthy,) dwells so dark,
That it denies access to sun and moon;
The soul's eye, sharpen'd with that sacred light,
Of whom the sun itself is but a beam,
Must only give that judgment; O how much
Err those kings then, that play with life and death,
And nothing put into their serious states
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