Woe be to you the laugh now, for ye shall mourne and weepe.
The world's a popular disease, that raignes
Within the froward heart, and frantick braines
Of poore distemper'd mortals, oft arising
From ill digestion, through th'unequall poysing
Of ill-weigh'd Elements, whose light directs
Malignant humors to maligne Effects:
One raves, and labours with a boyling Liver:
Rends haire by handfuls, cursing Cupids Quiver:
Another, with a Bloody-fluxe of oathes,
Vowes deepe Revenge; one dotes: the other loathes:
One frisks and sings, and vyes a Flagon more
To drench dry Cares; and makes the Welkin rore;
Another droopes; the sunshine makes him sad;
Heav'n cannot please; One's moap'd; the tother's mad;
On huggs his Gold; Another lets it flie,
He knowing not, for whom; nor, tother, why:
One spends his day in Plots; his night, in Play;
Another sleeps and slugs both night and day:
One laughs at this thing; tother cries for that;
But neither one, nor tother knowes for what:
Wonder of wonders! What we ought t'evite
As our disease, we hugg as our delight:
'Tis held a Symptome of approaching danger,
When disacquainted Sense becomes a stranger,
And takes no knowledge of an old disease;
But when a noysome Griefe begins to please
The unresisting Sense, it is a feare
That death has parlyed, and compounded there:
As when the dreadfull Thund'rers awefull hand
Powres forth a Viall on th'infected land,
At first th'affrighted Mortalls, quake, and feare,
And ev'ry noyse is thought the Thunderer;
But when the frequent Soule-departing Bell
Has pav'd their eares with her familiar knell,
It is reputed but a nine dayes wonder,
They neither feare the Thund'rer, nor his Thunder;
So when the world (a worse disease) began
To smart for sin, poore new-created Man
Could seek for shelter, and his gen'rous Son
Knew, by his wages, what his hands had done;
But bold-fac'd Mortalls, in our blushlesse times,
Can sin and smile, and make a sport of Crimes,
Transgresse of Custome, and rebell in ease;
We false-joy'd fooles can triumph in disease,
And (as the carelesse pilgim, being bit
By the Tarantula, begins a Fit
Of life-concluding laughter) wast our breath
In lavish pleasure, till we laugh to death.
HUGO de anima.
What profit is there in vaine Glory, momentary mirth, the worlds power, the
fleshes pleasure, full riches, noble descent, and great desires? Where is their
laughter? Where is their mirth? Where their Insolence? Their Arrogance? From
how much joy, to how much sadnesse! After how much mirth, how much misery?
From how great glory are they fallen to how great torments! What hath fallen to
them, may befall thee, because thou art a man: Thou art of earth; thou livest of
earth; Thou shalt returne to earth. Death expects thee every where; be wise
therefore, and expect death every where.
