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Flamma sine Fumo

or, poems without fictions. Hereunto are annexed the Causes, Symptoms, or Signes of several Diseases with their Cures, and also the diversity of Urines, with their Causes in Poetical measure. By R. W. [i.e. Rowland Watkyns]

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Ambition exemplified in the Parable,
[_]

Judg. 9.

The trees would chuse a King: they all agree,
The Olive should their King elective be.
The Olive would not her rich fatness leese
To be promoted over all the trees.
The Vine would not be King to lose her wine,
Which doth all hearts rejoice, all wits refine;
The Fig-tree much did of her sweetness boast,
And would not reign to have her sweetness lost.

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At last the Bramble doth intrude, and would
(Though most unfit) the Royal Scepter hold.
With vain ambition those do never swell,
In whom high gifts of grace and nature dwell.
Ambition spurs the bad, by some sad fate,
Who many times usurp the Chair of State.
To row their Boats for wind and tide they watch,
And at Promotion, like the Bramble, catch.
Ambition moves me not; my self I yield
To be the meanest flower in all the field;
Yet from preferment I'le not turn aside,
Nor go on foot, when God doth bid me ride.