Look how our foule Dayes do exceed our faire;
And as our bad, more then our good Works are:
Ev'n so those Lines, pen'd by my wanton Wit,
Treble the number of these good I've writ.
Things precious are least num'rous: Men are prone
To do ten Bad, for one Good Action.

Thou sail'st with others, in this Argus here;
Nor wrack, or Bulging thou hast cause to feare:
But trust to this, my noble passenger;
Who swims with Vertue, he shall still be sure
(Ulysses-like) all tempests to endure;
And 'midst a thousand gulfs to be secure.

Goes the world now, it will with thee goe hard:
The fattest Hogs we grease the more with Lard.
To him that has, there shall be added more;
Who is penurious, he shall still be poore.

Mutely the mole toils on;
The worm in silk cocoon
Stealthy as spider spins,
As glides the moon.
But listen where envy peers beneath half-closed lid;
Where peeping vanity lurks; where pride lies hid;
And peace beyond telling share with the light-stilled eye,
When only the image of the loved one's nigh.

How often, these hours, have I heard the monotonous crool of a dove —
Voice, low, insistent, obscure, since its nest it has hid in a grove —
Flowers of the linden wherethrough the hosts of the honeybees rove.

And I have been busily idle: no problems; nothing to prove;
No urgent foreboding; but only life's shallow habitual groove:
Then why, if I pause to listen, should the languageless note of a dove
So dark with disquietude seem? And what is it sorrowing of?

High mounted on an Ant Nanus the tall
Was throwne alas, and got a deadly fall.
Under th' unruly Beasts proud feet he lies
All torne; with much adoe yet ere he dyes,
Hee straines these words; Base Envy, doe, laugh on.
Thus did I fall, and thus fell Phaethon .

DID Cytherea to the skies
From this pellucid lymph arise?
Or was it Cytherea's touch,
When bathing here, that made it such?

I Paint so ill, my peece had need to bee
Painted againe by some good Poesie.
I write so ill, my slender Line is scarce
So much as th' Picture of a well-lim'd verse.
Yet may the love I send be true, though I
Send nor true Picture, nor true Poesie:
Both which away, I should not need to feare,
My Love, or Feign'd or painted should appeare.

Lo here the faire Chariclia! in whom strove
So false a Fortune, and so true a Love.
Now after all her toyles by Sea and Land,
O may she but arrive at your white hand,
Her hopes are crown'd, onely she feares that than,
Shee shall appeare true Ethiopian.

C HARON ! receive a family on board
Itself sufficient for thy crazy yawl;
Apollo and Diana, for a word
By me too proudly spoken, slew us all.