Emblems With elegant figures newly published. By J. H. [i.e. John Hall] |
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Emblems With elegant figures | ||
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[Even as the wandring Traveller doth stray]
Toyes of toyes, and vanities of vanities did withhold mee.
Aug. Conf. l. 8. c. 11.
1
Even as the wandring Traveller doth strayLead from his way
By a false fire, whose flame to cheated sight
doth lead aright,
All Paths are footed over but that one
Which should be gone:
Even so my foolish wishes are in chase
Of every thing but what they should embrace.
2
We laugh at children that can when they pleaseA bubble raise,
And when their fond Ambition sated is
Again dismisse
Thee fleeting Toy into its former aire:
What do we here
But act such tricks? yet thus we differ, they
Destroy, so do not we: we sweat, they play.
3
Ambitious towring's do some gallants keepFrom calmer sleep,
Yet when these thoughts the most possessed are
They grope but aire,
And when they're highest in an instant fade
Into a shade;
Or like a stone that more forc't upwards shall
With greater violence to its centre fall.
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Another, whose conceptions onely dreamMonsters of fame.
The vain applause of other mad-men buyes
With his own sighes
Yet his enlarged Name shall never craul
Over this ball:
But soon consume, thus doth a trumpet's sound
Rush bravely on a little, then's not found.
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But we as soon may tell how often shapesAre chang'd by apes;
As know how oft mans childish thoughts do vary
And still miscarry:
So a weak eye in twilight thinks it sees
New species,
While it sees nought, so men in dreams conceive
Of scepters, till that waking undeceive.
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Epigram 2.
Why frets thou that thy soul doth dote uponThese guilded trifles of corruption?
Thy self's the very cause, what remedy
And thine own hearts a Traytor to thine eye.
Emblems With elegant figures | ||