II. ECCLESIASTES IV. VIII.
There is no end of all his labour, neither is his eye satisfied with riches.
O, How our wid'ned Armes over-stretch
Their owne dimensions! How our hands can retch
Beyond their distances! How our yeelding brest
Can shrinke, to be more full, and full possest
Of this inferiour Orbe! How earth refinde
Can cling to sordid earth! How kinde to kinde!
Wee gape, we graspe, we gripe; adde store to store;
Enough requires too much; too much craves more;
Wee charge our Soules so farre beyond our stint,
That wee recoyle or burst; The busie Mint
Of our laborious thoughts is ever going,
And coyning new desires; desires, not knowing
Where next to pitch; but, like the boundless Ocean
Gaine, and gaine ground, and grow more strong by motion.
The pale-fac'd Lady of the black-eyed night
First tips her horned browes with easie light,
Whose curious traine of spangled Nymphs attire
Her next nights Glory with encreasing Fire;
Each ev'ning addes more luster, and adornes
The growing beautie of her grasping hornes;
Shee suckes and drawes her brothers golden store
Untill her glutted Orbe can sucke no more,
Ev'n so the Vulture of insatiate mindes,
Still wants, and wanting seekes; and seeking, findes
New fuell to encrease her rav'nous fire,
The grave is sooner cloyd then mans desire:
Wee crosse the Seas, and midst her waves we burne,
Transporting lifes, perchance that here returne:
Wee sacke, wee ransacke to the utmost sands
Of native kingdomes, and of forraine lands;
Wee travill Sea, and Soyle; wee pry; wee proule,
Wee progresse, and wee progge from pole to pole;
Wee spend our mid-day sweat, our mid-night oyle;
Wee tyre the night in thought; the day, in toyle;
Wee make Art servill, and the Trade gentile,
(Yet both corrupted with ingenious guile)
To compasse earth; and with her empty store,
To fill our Armes, and graspe one handfull more;
Thus seeking Rest, our labours never cease,
But as our yeares, our hot desires encrease;
Thus wee poore little worlds (with blood and sweat)
In vaine attempt to comprehend the great;
Thus, in our gaine, become wee gainfull losers,
And what's enclos'd, encloses the enclosers.
Now, reader, close thy Booke, and then advise:
Be wisely worldly; be not not wordlly wise;
Let not thy nobler thoughts be alwaies raking
The worlds base dunghill; Vermins took, by taking:
Take heede thou trust not the deceitfull Lappe
Of wanton Delilah; The world's a Trappe.
HUGO de anima.
Tell me where bee those now that so lately loved, and hugg'd the world?
Nothing remaines of them but dust and wormes; Observe what those men were;
what thoes men are: they were like thee; they did eate, drinke, laugh, and led
merry dayes, and in a moment slipt into Hell; Here their flesh is food for
wormes: There, their soules are fuell for fire, till they shall be rejoynd in an
unhappy fellowship, and cast into eternall torments; where they that were once
companions in sinne shall be hereafter partners in punishment.
EPIGRAM 2.
[Gripe, Cupid, and gripe still untill that wind]
Gripe, Cupid, and gripe still untill that wind,
That's pent before, find secret vent behind:
And when th'ast done, hark here, I tell thee what,
Before I'le trust thy Armefull I'le trust that.
