Emblems With elegant figures :: :: University of Virginia Library

No sooner wretched man beginning is
To do amiss,
But fear doth give alarm's, and wake
The drousie conscience, which doth shake
The raging Passions, yet they forward run
Pursuing alwayes what they first begun,

Thus doth depraved man at first begin.
To act his sin,
And put his hand to that his heart
Doth with such opposition thwart,
Half punishing before, thus Serpent sin
To sting and poyson doth at once begin,

But when w' have acted what deprav'd desire
Did first require;
The torturer Guilt doth banish fear,
And sin doth like her self appear
Arm'd with her venom'd snakes which ready stand
To punish what her self did first command.

By this means conscience disturb'd doth so
Enraged grow
That she whips out all peace, so we
Snatch't from our false securitie
Are torne by our own tortures, such as ne're
The worst offender can from tyrant fear.

Then we suppose each twig that is behind
mov'd by the wind
Would give a lash, we think a hare
Flying detest's us, if we heare
A lamkin bleat for milk, we think 't doth cry
Mother, yon man's a sinner, come not nigh:

Meanwhile the silken bonds of sleep
Cannot us keep
Or if one slumber seaze our eyes,
Legions of ugly dreams arise,
That in the night we wish for day, in day
(Finding no ease) we wish the light away.

While that thy fiery steed did run
Poor Absalon
Thy circkling knots of golden hair
Onely so many halters were
And to thee (fairest of the earth!) that earth
Gave not a death-bed that had given the birth.

Epigram 3.

So fatall 'tis! he that commits a crime
Is his own executioner that time;
And is with secret sorrows onely rent,
Since sin it self is its own punishment.