The poems of William Habington Edited with introduction and commentary by Kenneth Allott |
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To the Right Honourable HENRY Lord M.
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 | The poems of William Habington |  |
To the Right Honourable HENRY Lord M.
My Lord.
My thoughts are not so rugged, nor doth earthSo farre predominate in me, that mirth
Lookes not as lovely as when our delight
First fashion'd wings to adde a nimbler flight
To lazie time; who would, to have survai'd
Our varied pleasures, there have ever staid.
And they were harmelesse. For obedience
If frailty yeelds to the wild lawes of sence;
We shall but with a sugred venome meete;
No pleasure, if not innocent as sweet.
And that's your choyce: who adde the title good
To that of noble. For although the blood
Of Marshall, Stanley, and 'La Pole doth flow
With happy Brandon's in your veines; you owe
Your vertue not to them. Man builds alone
Oth' ground of honour: For desert's our owne.
71
Ith' shade, from heat of businesse. While my wit
Is neither big with an ambitious ayme,
To build tall Pyramids Ith' court of fame,
For after ages, or to win conceit
Oth' present, and grow in opinion great.
Rich in our selves, we envy not the East,
Her rockes of Diamonds, or her gold the West.
Arabia may be happy in the death
Of her reviving Phœnix; In the breath
Of coole Favonius, famous be the grove
Of Tempe; while we in each others love.
For that let us be fam'd. And when of all
That Nature made us two, the funerall
Leaves but a little dust; (which then as wed,
Even after death, shall sleepe still in one bed.)
The Bride and Bridegroome on the solemne day,
Shall with warm zeale approach our Vrne, to pay
Their vowes, that heaven should blisse so farre their rites,
To shew them the faire paths to our delights.
| The poems of William Habington | |