University of Virginia Library

SIR THOMAS OVERBVRY,

OR THE POYSONED KNIGHTS COMPLAINT.

Great powerfull God, whom all are bound to loue,
How gracelesse bad, doth Man (thy Creature) proue?
Thy Supreame Creature ouer all the rest,
(In number numberlesse to bee exprest,)
To whom thou gauest grace to bee his guide,
Reason with Vnderstanding, and beside,
Thy Law to be direction for his wayes,
Which vnto Sinners view, thy Iudgements layes,
Those fearefull plagues pronounc'd for vgly Sinne,
Which with the first created, did beginne,
Who by the Law of Nature vnderstood,
To make a difference of bad deedes and good.
By which enlightening, that is giuen vs,
No Nation Heathenish, and Barbarous,
(Farthest remote from true religions light)
But can distinguish betwixt wrong and right,
Those that to Christ did neuer yet belong,
Can tell they do amisse, when they do wrong,
And that there is a Iustice to be done,
And shamefull actions, which they are to shun,
Yet neuer age, since Nature first began,
Wherein man was not Deuill vnto man,
In practising most opposite to kinde,
Inhumane actions out of bloody minde.
Behold the first that in the VVorld was borne,
VVith his reiected Sacrifice of Corne,
Because his Brothers gifts more grace did yeeld,
Lift vp his hand against him in the field,
And with a cruell hart obdurate ill,
Did innocent pure-thoughted Abell kill.
VVhen Ioab sent for Abner (as a friend)
Hee came to Hebron, for a peacefull end,
VVhere, as in armes hee lent a cheerefull smile,
He gaue his heart a mortall stab the while.
Gods holy History hath many more
Humane records, Innumerable store,
What intercepting hath there bin of liues,
By Pistolls, Stabbing, Powder, Daggers, Kniues:
Drowning and Hanging, and strange murthering?
As second Edward, sometimes Englands King,
Whom an incarnate Diuell did torment,
With red hot Spit into his fundament.
Some in their beds haue acted tragick Scenes,
As those two Princes, which by Glosters meanes,
(Their cruell Vncle, Fathers vnkind Brother)
Villaines betweene the sheetes to death did smother.
Some in vnwonted manner done to death,
As George the Duke of Clarence lost his breath,
When with heeles vpwards he was strangely put,
To suffer drowning in a Malmesey But.
Yet besides all these damned plots to kill,
And thousands more from Hell transported still,
The Diuell hath a poyson working Art,
In which of late I shar'd a mortall part.
A Rapier drawne, and at thy heart aim'd iust,
May be put by and made a broken thrust:
A Dagger offer'd for anothers paine,
Hath bin return'd into the stabbers braine:
A Pistoll shot with an intent to kill,
Hath mist the marke, and party liuing still:
But this life-killing poyson, cureles foe,
The bodies hopeles, helples ouerthrowe:
Brings with it nothing but pale deaths command,
Depriuing life with a remorseles hand.
Oh sacred Iustice! euermore renound
In thy vprightnes of reuenge late found:
Proceede with vengeance as thou didst begin,
To punish Caines most bloody crying sinne:
Let not a murtherer remaine conceal'd,
Nor breath aliue when being once reueal'd:
This is the suite wrong'd Innocents doe craue,
This is the Iustice that the Heauens will haue.