Emblems With elegant figures :: :: University of Virginia Library

Traitor self, why do I try
Thee my bitterest Enemy?
What can I beare
Alas more deare
Then is this Center of my selfe, my heart?
Yet all those traines that blow me up lie there,
Hid in so small a part.

2

How many back-bones nourisht have
Crawling Serpents in the grave?
I am alive,
Yet life doe give
To myriads of adders in my breast,
Which doe not there consume, but grow and thrive,
And undisturbed rest;

3

Still gnawing where they first were bred,
Consuming where they'r nourished,
Endeavouring still
Even him to kill

102

That gives them life, and looses of his blisse
To entertain them; that tyrannick Ill
So radicated is.

4

Most fatall men, what can we have
To trust? our bosomes will deceive;
The clearest thought
To witnesse brought,
Will speake against us, and condemne us too:
Yea and they all are knowne. O how we ought
To sift them through!

5

Yet what's our diligence? even all
Those sands to number that do fall
Chac'd by the winde.
Nay we may finde
A mighty difference: who would suppose
This little thing so fruitfull were and blind,
As it's own ruine showes?

103

Epigram 6.

See how these poisnous passions gnaw & feed
Upon the tortur'd heart in which they breed:
And when (their poison spent) these Vipers dy,
The worme of conscience doth their room supply.