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] |
 |
Conscience. |
|
|
|
 | Flamma sine Fumo |  |
Conscience.
Conscientia mille Testes,
Consider all thy actions, and take heed
On stollen bread, though it is sweet, to feed.
Sinne like a Bee unto thy hive may bring
A little honey, but expect the sting.
Thou maist conceal thy sinne by cunning Art,
But conscience sits a witnesse in thy heart,
Which will disturb thy peace, thy rest undo,
For that is witnesse, Judge, and prison too:
The pleasant streame doth fair and smoothly glide,
When in the bottom no great rubbes abide.
No swelling grief, no boystrous cares appear,
Where honest ways preserve the conscience clear.
Our cloths being new, and fair, we hold it fit,
To care, what thing we touch, and where we sit.
When they are foul, or torne, we leave that care,
And cast them up and down like broken ware:
Tis so with conscience; while 'tis fair within,
We fear to stain it with some heynous sin:
If once the Virgin-Conscience plays the quean,
We seldom after care to keep it clean.
Then keep thy conscience, like thy paper white,
And do not blot, when thou maist fairly write.
| Flamma sine Fumo | |