Prison-Pietie or, Meditations Divine and Moral. Digested into Poetical Heads, On Mixt and Various Subjects. Whereunto is added A Panegyrick to The Right Reverend, and most Nobly descended, Henry, Lord Bishop of London. By Samuel Speed, Prisoner in Ludgate, London |
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On Envy. |
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On Envy.
All lusts reduced are to Three-fold heads,Lust of the eyes, the flesh, and that which leads
To as much Vice and a continual Strife,
The haughty humour, or the pride of life.
But Envy is the chiefest lust of eyes;
Seeing another good, with him it vies,
Not to be farther good; his envy grew,
Seeing good men belov'd and honour'd too.
Envy thinks all men made of equal stuff:
Why may not envious men be good enough?
It for the Innocent defends a Cause
To seem a Saint, and to procure applause:
But 'tis a Plague within a man's own brest,
And a Disease will not admit of Rest.
If such a thing as Admiration be,
It's heart doth whisper, That belongs to me.
It is a furious wind, which to rehearse,
Sometimes breaks forth to shake the Universe.
A sharp Malignity, most quick of sight;
An Ostrich with an eager appetite.
Cherish a Dog, and you may make him tame;
Lions by gentleness become the same:
But man grown envious, if you speak him fair,
Yet keep at distance, of his wiles beware:
For if he sees you creep, then he proves worse,
May smile upon you when his heart doth curse.
If the World's frowns do force you to comply,
He gluts himself with your adversity;
And Beetle-like, as I have heard it sung,
When hungry grown, doth eat its fellows dung.
Whilst Envy doth obliquely look upon
The good of others, all his own is gone:
Or at the least takes no delight; the smart
Is like a Vulture seeding on the heart.
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And Shrubs it breatheth on; and when he please
Doth scorch and burn all Herbs, and Leaves of Grass
Over the which his body chance to pass.
So Envy is an Ætna in a man,
(Like the Cantharides) if feeding can
Encompass as its stomach doth dispose;
And often diets on the fairest Rose.
It is a Passion doth ones Health deser,
And proves at last a man's Self-murtherer.
'Tis Couzen-German to the sin of Pride,
And each may well be call'd a Homicide.
Wrath kills the foolish man, when in his way
The envious man the silly Soul doth slay.
The eye, alas, is the unhappy pit
That first doth this destructive guest admit:
And when it gets a full possession once,
It shrinks the Nerves, and rots into the bones:
Till with Consumption it doth man environ,
Feeding on him as Rust doth seed on Iron.
Envy believes its will should be its law:
Socrates saith, 'Tis to the Soul a Saw;
Grates without mercy when it doth behold
Its dross, and sees another shine in gold.
Like the poor Fly, to put the Candle out,
Doth burn it self with buzzing round about.
Or like the Bee, that with a humming flies,
Looses his sting, and then at once he dies.
Or Viper-like, to make a Paul expire,
Leaping on him, is cast into the fire.
Envy's a Canker in the Heart and Minde,
Spleen to the good; Great Charity is kinde.
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