Times Cvrtaine Drawne :: :: University of Virginia Library

Death is a passage, and if vnderstood,
A gratefull messenger vnto the good,
By which they passe from this same house of clay
To Syons Court, where they shall liue for aye.
Why should Death then a terrour be, since it
Is made the Meanes, by which we freedome get?
Here are we Pilgrimes, and though store I haue,
Yet for all this I am but Fortunes slaue;
Subiect to euery hazard, and am faine
To keepe with care, what I haue got with paine.
Yea, tell me thou that in all honour liues,
And wantest nothing, had'st thou neuer grieues
To discontent thee? Or if thou wer't free
From discontents; did nere mortalitie
Vrge thee to Dissolution? Thou wilt say,
Thou had'st in deede, but soone they went away;
And gone, thou hast forgot those griefes as cleane
As if thou nere had felt, what they had beene.
Vnhappie wretch, this is thy too-much pride
To vaunt of those, should make thee mortifide,
For griefes be Passions, which may caution thee,
To thinke thou art not where thou ought'st to be;
Which thou may hence collect: A traueller
Hauing through many a desert wandred far.
And now returning home, he is at rest
From th'care with which he was before opprest.

But thou wilt say: thou once was of that minde,
When thou had no estate to leaue behinde,
When thy attendance was of reckoning small,
Thy fare but meane, thy honour none at all:
When thou in th'eye of worldly men did seeme
Of that contempt as if thou hadst not beene;
But now the case is altered, and doest hate
To thinke on death, since thou hast raisd thy state.
What argument this is, thou streight shall see,
Scanning those things which seeme to hinder thee.
Me thinkes a Pilgrime farre from his abode,
And in his trauayle pressed with a load,
Should much desire (hauing beene wearied
With that he bore) to be disburdened:
And so should thou, if thou could'st feele thy selfe,
Desire to be disburdened of thy pelfe,
Which as a load, to many men is giuen,
And makes the way seeme tedious towards heauen.
Yea, sure I am, there is no man drawes breath,
If he haue hope in after-Time, but death
Will seeme as pleasant, and as well accepted,
As if he had obtayn'd what hee expected.
For well he see's, his Labours haue an end,
His foes are quell'd, and he shall haue a friend,
Which will receiue him, where such ioyes appeare,
As farre surpasse these comforts he had here.
It's true indeed, that many are dismayd.
When they doe see death on a wall portrayd,
They like not his proportion, for he breeds
Diuerse distractions in their troubled heads:
Whence ist we see so many soules depart
With eyes deiected, and with heauie heart.

For why, Distrust they haue ere to entreate
Pardon of God, because their sinn's so great.
Wretched these, in that they entertaine,
That hideous sinne hatcht first by odious Caine,
Crying with him, and with him I must leaue them,
“So great's our sinnes, the Lord can nere forgiue them.
More could I speake, for subiect had I more,
But some perchance will say I spoke before
Of Death in Fate, but these as seemes to me,
Should not confounded but distinguishd' be;
“For this twixt Fate and Death's the difference,
“Fate doth ordaine, Death is the ordinance.

FINIS.