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Gold, silver, ivory, vases sculptur'd high,

Paint, marble, gems, and robes of Persian dye, There are who have not-and thank Heaven! there

are,

Who if they have not, think not worth their care.
Talk what you will of taste, my friend, you'll find
Two of a face, as soon as of a mind.

Why of two brothers, rich and restless one
Ploughs, burns, manures, and toils from sun to sun;
The other slights, for women, sports, and wines,
All Townshend's turnips, and all Grosvenor's mines:
Why one like Bu** with pay and scorn content,
Bows and votes on in court and parliament;
One, driven by strong benevolence of soul,
Shall fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole:
Is known alone to that Directing Power,
Who forms the genius in the natal hour;
That God of nature, who within us still,
Inclines our action, not constrains our will;
Various of temper, as of face or frame,
Each individual: His great end the same.
Yes, sir, how small soever be my heap,
A part I will enjoy, as well as keep.
My heir may sigh, and think it want of
grace
A man so poor would live without a place :
But sure no statute in his favour says,
How free or frugal I shall pass my days:
I who at some times spend, at others spare,
Divided between carelessness and care.
'Tis one thing madly to disperse my store;
Another, not to heed to treasure more:
Glad, like a boy, to snatch the first good day,
And pleas'd, if sordid want be far away.

What is't to me (a passenger God wot)
Whether my vessel be first-rate or not?
The ship itself may make a better figure;
But I that sail, am neither less nor bigger:
I neither strut with every favouring breath,
Nor strive with all the tempest in my teeth.

In pow'r, wit, figure, virtue, fortune, plac'd
Behind the foremost, and before the last.

But why all this of avarice? I have none.' I wish you joy, sir, of a tyrant gone! But does no other lord it at this hour, As wild and mad? the avarice of power? Does neither rage inflame, nor fear appal? Not the black fear of death that saddens all? With terrors round, can reason hold her throne, Despise the known, nor tremble at th' unknown? Survey both worlds, intrepid and entire, In spite of witches, devils, dreams, and fire? Pleas'd to look forward, pleas'd to look behind, And count each birthday with a grateful mind? Has life no sourness, drawn so near its end? Canst thou endure a foe, forgive a friend? Has age but melted the rough parts away, As winter-fruits grow mild ere they decay? Or will you think, my friend, your business done, When, of a hundred thorns, you pull out one?

Learn to live well, or fairly make your will; You've play'd, and lov'd, and ate, and drank your fill:

Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age

Comes tittering on, and shoves you from the stage: Leave such to trifle with more graće and ease,

Whom folly pleases, and whose follies please.

THE

SATIRES OF DR. JOHN DONNE,

DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S,

VERSIFIED.

Quid vetat et nosmet Lucili scripta legentes
Quærere, num illius, num rerum dura negârit
Versiculos natura magis factos, et euntes
Mollius?

HOR.

SATIRE II.

YES; thank my stars! as early as I knew

This town, I had the sense to hate it too: Yet here, as ev'n in hell, there must be still One giant-vice, so excellently ill,

That all beside one pities, not abhors:

As who knows Sappho, smiles at other whores.

SATIRE II.

SIR; though (I thank God for it) I do hate

Perfectly all this town: yet there's one state

In all ill things, so excellently best,

[rest.

That hate towards them, breeds pity towards the

I grant that poetry's a crying sin;

It brought (no doubt) th' excise and army in: Catch'd like the plague, or love, the Lord knows how, But that the cure is starving, all allow.

Yet like the papist's, is the poet's state,

Poor and disarm'd, and hardly worth your hate!
Here a lean bard, whose wit could never give
Himself a dinner, makes an actor live:
The thief condemn'd, in law already dead,
So prompts, and saves a rogue who cannot read.
Thus as the pipes of some carv'd organ move,
The gilded puppets dance and mount above.
Heav'd by the breath th' inspiring bellows blow:
Th' inspiring bellows lie and pant below.

One sings the fair: but songs no longer move;
No rat is rhym'd to death, nor maid to love:
In love's, in nature's spite, the siege they hold,
And scorn the flesh, the devil, and all but gold.
These write to lords, some mean reward to get,
As needy beggars sing at doors for meat.

Though poetry, indeed, be such a sin,

As I think, that brings dearth and Spaniards in:
Though like the pestilence and old-fashion'd love,
Ridlingly it catch men, and doth remove
Never, till it be starv'd out; yet their state
Is poor, disarm'd, like papists, not worth hate.
One (like a wretch, which at bar judg'd as dead,
Yet prompts him which stands next, and cannot read
And saves his life) gives ideot actors means
(Starving himself) to live by 's labour'd scenes.
As in some organs puppets dance above,
And bellows pant below, which them do move.
One would move love by rhymes; but witchcraft's

charms

Bring not now their old fears, nor their old harms; Rams and slings now are silly battery,

Pistelets are the best artillery.

Those write because all write, and so have still
Excuse for writing, and for writing ill.
Wretched indeed! but far more wretched yet
Is he who makes his meal on others' wit:
"Tis chang'd, no doubt, from what it was before;
His rank digestion makes it wit no more:
Sense, past through him, no longer is the same;
For food digested takes another name.

I

pass

o'er all those confessors and martyrs,
Who live like S-tt-n, or who die like Chartres,
Out-cant old Esdras, or out-drink his heir,
Out-usure Jews, or Irishmen out-swear;
Wicked as pages, who in early years

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Act sins which Prisca's confessor scarce hears.
Ev'n those I pardon, for whose sinful sake
Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make;
Of whose strange crimes no canonist can tell
In what commandment's large contents they dwell.
One, one man only breeds my just offence;

Whom crimes gave wealth, and wealth gave impudence:

And they who write to lords, rewards to get,
Are they not like singers at doors for meat?
And they who write, because all write, have still
That 'scuse for writing, and for writing ill.
But he is worst, who beggarly doth chaw
Other wits-fruits, and in his ravenous maw
Rankly digested, doth those things out-spue,
As his own things; and they're his own, 'tis true,
For if one eat my meat, though it be known
The meat was mine, the excrement's his own.
But these do me no harm, nor they which use,
to out-usure Jews.

*

To out-drink the sea, t'out-swear the letanie,
Who with sins all kinds as familiar be

As confessors, and for whose sinful sake
Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make ;

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