 | Satires and miscellaneous poetry and prose |  |
178
CUSTOME
Custom is (like the moone's) Inconstant, vain,
And always shifting 'twixt the Ful and wane:
Was never known to weare one certaine face,
And twice apeare to be the same it was,
And therefore 'tis no Miracle, mens mindes
Are to themselves more various then the winds.
For as 'tis Natural for use and Custome
To Reconcile things ere s' averse and Loathsom
(As Ragusts of a Basilisque or Toad
By Custome have been Renderd wholsom food)
So use can make an obstinate Practician
Do Feats beyond an ordinary Magician;
As in Mechanique Practices the Hand
Can See, and Hear, and Judge, and understand,
And ev'ry finger in the Dark, finde out
The Subtlest Mathematique Poynt by Rote,
As Blinde men when they Play upon an Harp
Unsight unseen, can hit a Flat or Sharp;
And when that Fatal Desperate Impostume
Contagious, and Pestilential Custome
Is but Possest of any vital Part,
The Remedy is Past the Cure of Art.
And always shifting 'twixt the Ful and wane:
Was never known to weare one certaine face,
And twice apeare to be the same it was,
And therefore 'tis no Miracle, mens mindes
Are to themselves more various then the winds.
For as 'tis Natural for use and Custome
To Reconcile things ere s' averse and Loathsom
(As Ragusts of a Basilisque or Toad
By Custome have been Renderd wholsom food)
So use can make an obstinate Practician
Do Feats beyond an ordinary Magician;
As in Mechanique Practices the Hand
Can See, and Hear, and Judge, and understand,
And ev'ry finger in the Dark, finde out
The Subtlest Mathematique Poynt by Rote,
As Blinde men when they Play upon an Harp
Unsight unseen, can hit a Flat or Sharp;
And when that Fatal Desperate Impostume
Contagious, and Pestilential Custome
Is but Possest of any vital Part,
The Remedy is Past the Cure of Art.
To prove by Syllogism's but to spel
A Proposition like a Syllable.
A Proposition like a Syllable.
| Satires and miscellaneous poetry and prose | |