University of Virginia Library

A Melancholly Man.

Is one that lives in singlenesse of folly,
Whose Summum boman is his Melancholly:
A stray sheep from the fold, a piece of Earth
Digg'd from a Quarry where the Lead takes birth.
A Lute untun'd, a strange mysterious Fable,
Of one unsociably sociable:
His sighs are broken Air, and his hoarse Hum,
Like a dead March, beat on a funeral drum:
The pleasures of the world, and he, agree
As fire, and parchment, the Antipathie
Unto Time, Tune, and Mood, and wonders what
Men (when they laugh) see to be merry at:
A man of mingled thoughts, that onely tend
Unto a prosecution, without end;
One in whose head more drums and rattles are,
Than sun-shine days display in Smithfield Fair;
In company you'l finde him by these types,
He gnaws his gloves, cuts trenchers, or breaks pipes
And if you tell a story, you shall know
His approbation, by his I and No
Unpleasingly mis-plac'd, which strange applause
Hath its direction from the Speakers pause:
He sleeps with open Eye-lids, and the theam
His fansie works on, is a waking dream
Of studied nothing, which at your departing
Vanisheth (Vision-like) with sudden starting:
He's the contriver of crosse arms, fixt eyes,
Treads tractless fields, dark groves, and much complies
With mourning Mirtle, Willow, Ivie, and
The straying streams of an indented strand:
His walks are desarts, if he chance to see
The ruines of an old raz'd Priorie,
As motionlesse as the object he appears,
And sets his fansie back five hundred years;
His nights are vigils, where he nature wrongs
By measuring time, as Choristers do songs:
His own distempers make him turn so oft
From place to place, no pillow can be soft;
A down-bed is a quarry, a bare boord
Hath as much ease as feathers can afford;
He lies, sits, treads on thorns, and yet we may
Not hence infer, he is in Heavens way;
For Hell accounts such haplesse souls her own,
Whom black despair instructs to be alone;
His practice are strange looks, and doth professe
The egregious garb of studied carelesnesse,
Yet vexeth at your Boots, to see you go,
With not a span, distant from Top to Toe.
But this mad Malady doth often spring,
From the soft Mischiefe of self-humouring,
Or an affected Pride; which being crost,
The World and he, are to each other lost;
And prove so potent in imperious passion,
They ne'r admit of Reconciliation.
He's no Religion, though he do insist,
Much on the Tenents of a Separatist,
For such repugnance is in flesh and blood,
Men when alone, seldom converse with Good.
If this disease proceed from being crost
In Love, and's amorous expectation lost;
There's nothing more his extasie can move,
Then sad Romancies, where men die for Love;
Who by a queint intelligence doth finde,
That Birds chaunt out his griefs 'gainst Womankind.
He knows yon Christal Brook, or silver Boorn,
For his unhappiness, are taught to mourn;
And in carv'd Characters, each Tree shall tell,
The falseness of his fairest Florimel.
But if the rancour of this disposition,
Take root from being thwarted in Ambition,
The fierce resentments make him male-content,
And (growing great) proves oft a punishment,
To peaceful Nations; on whose ruines, he
Resolves to raise up Towers of Tyrany,
High as projected Babel; till it please,
God to destroy it, with all Languages.
He is the Bane of Government, the Fate,
And fierce affliction to the Church and State:
Not caring so his arrogancy thrives,
If the red purchase cost three Kingdomes lives.