Though but in numbers few,

And I shall think I have the heart,

Or part

Of Clipseby Crew.

TO HIS WORTHY KINSMAN, MR. STEPHEN SOAME.

NOR is

my number full, till I inscribe

Thee, sprightly Soame, one of my righteous tribe: A tribe of one lip, leven, and of one

Civil behaviour and religion :

A stock of saints, where ev'ry one doth weare
A stole of white, and canonized here;

Among which holies be thou ever known,

Brave kinsman, markt out with the whiter stone, Which seales thy glorie, since I doe prefer

Thee here in

my

eternall calender.

TO HIS TOMB-MAKER.

Go I must; when I am gone,
Write but this upon my stone;
Chaste I liv'd, without a wife,
That's the story of my life.
Strewings need none, every flower
Is in this word, batchelour.

GREAT SPIRITS SUPERVIVE.

OUR mortall parts may wrapt in seare-cloths lye; Great spirits never with their bodies dye.

NONE FREE FROM FAULT.

OUT of the world he must who once comes in ; No man exempted is from death or sinne.

UPON HIMSELFE BEING BURIED.

LET me sleep this night away,
Till the dawning of the day;
Then at th' opening of mine eyes,
I, and all the world shall rise.

PITIE TO THE PROSTRATE.

'Tis worse then barbarous cruelty to show
No part of pitie on a conquer'd foe.

WAY IN A CROWD.

ONCE on a lord-mayor's day, in Cheapside, when
Skulls co'd not well passe through that scum of men,
For quick dispatch, Skulls made no longer stay,
Then but to breath, and every one gave way;
For as he breath'd, the people swore from thence
A fart flew out, or a sir-reverence.

HIS CONTENT IN THE COUNTRY.

HERE, here I live with what my board
Can with the smallest cost afford;
Though ne'r so mean the viands be,
They well content my Prew and me:
Or pea or bean, or wort or beet,
What ever comes, content makes sweet.
Here we rejoyce, because no rent
We pay for our poore tenement;
Wherein we rest, and never feare
The landlord or the usurer.
The quarter-day do's ne'r affright
Our peacefull slumbers in the night;
We eate our own, and batten more,
Because we feed on no man's score;
But pitie those whose flanks grow great,
Swel'd with the lard of other's meat.
We blesse our fortunes when we see
Our own beloved privacie ;

And like our living, where w'are known
To very few, or else to none.

THE CREDIT OF THE CONQUERER.

He who commends the vanquisht, speaks the power, And glorifies the worthy conquerer.

ON HIMSELFE.

SOME parts may perish, dye thou canst not all; The most of thee shall scape the funerall.

UPON ONE-EY'D BROOMSTED.

EPIG.

BROOMSTED a lamenesse got by cold and beere ; And to the bath went to be cured there ;

His feet were helpt, and left his crutch behind; But home return'd, as he went forth, halfe blind.

IF

ye

THE FAIRIES.

will with Mab find grace,

Set each platter in his place; N

Rake the fier up, and get

Water in, ere sun be set.

Wash your pailes and clense your dairies

Sluts are loathsome to the fairies;

Sweep your house; who doth not so,
Mab will pinch her by the toe.

TO HIS HONOURED FRIEND, M. JOHN WEARE,

COUNCELLOUR.

Di I. or love, or could I others draw

To the indulgence of the rugged law;
The first foundation of that zeale sho'd be
By reading all her paragraphs in thee,

Who dost so fitly with the lawes unite,
As if you two were one hermophrodite ;

Nor courts thou her because she's well attended

With wealth, but for those ends she was entended; Which were, and still her offices are known,

Law is to give to ev'ry one his owne ;

To shore the feeble up against the strong,

To shield the stranger and the poore from wrong:
This was the founder's grave and good intent,
To keepe the outcast in his tenement ;

To free the orphan from that wolfe-like man,
Who is his butcher more then guardian;

To drye the widowe's teares, and stop her swoones,
By pouring balme and oyle into her wounds ;
This was the old way, and 'tis yet thy course
To keep those pious principles in force.
Modest I will be, but one word Ile say,
Like to a sound that's vanishing away,
Sooner the inside of thy hand shall grow
Hisped and hairie, ere thy palm shall know
A postern-bribe tooke, or a forked fee
To fetter justice, when she might be free.
Eggs Ile not shave; but yet, brave man, if I
Was destin❜d forth to golden sovereignty;
A prince I'de be, that I might thee preferre
To be my counsell both and chanceller.