WHEN thou hast spent the lingring day
In pleasure and delight,
Or after toyle and wearie waye,
Dost seeke to rest at nighte:
Unto thy paynes or pleasures past,
Adde this one labour yet,
Ere sleepe close vp thyne eye to fast,
Do not thy God forget,
But searche within thy secret thought,
What deeds did thee befal:
And if thou find amisse in ought,
To God for mercy call.
Yea though thou find nothing amisse,
Which thou canst cal to mind,
Yet euer more remember this,
There is the more behind:
And thinke how well so euer it be,
That thou hast spent the daye,
It came of God, and not of thee,
So to direct thy waye.
Thus if thou trie thy dayly deedes,
And pleasure in this payne,
Thy life shall clense thy corne from weeds,
And thine shal be the gaine:
But if thy sinfull sluggishe eye,
Will venter for to winke,
Before thy wading will may trye,
How far thy soule maye sinke,
Beware and wake, for else thy bed,
Which soft and smoth is made,
May heape more harm vpon thy head,
Than blowes of enmies blade.
Thus if this paine procure thine ease,
In bed as thou doest lye,
Perhaps it shall not God displease,
To sing thus soberly;
I see that sleepe is lent me here,
To ease my wearye bones,
As death at laste shall eke appeere,
To ease my greeuous grones.
The stretching armes, the yauning breath,
Which I to bedward vse,
Are patternes of the pangs of death,
When life will me refuse:
And of my bed eche sundrye part,
In shaddowes doth resemble,
The sundry shapes of deth, whose dart
Shal make my flesh to tremble.
My bed it selfe is like the graue,
My sheetes the winding sheete,
My clothes the mould which I must haue,
To couer me most meete:
The waking cock that early crowes
To weare the night awaye,
Puts in my minde the trumpe that blowes Before the latter day.
And as I ryse up lustily,
When sluggish sleepe is past,
So hope I to ryse ioyfully,
To iudgement at the last.
Thus wyll I wake, thus wyll I sleepe,
Thus wyll I hope to ryse,
Thus wyll I neither waile nor weepe,
But sing in godly wyse.
My bones shall in this bed remaine,
My soule in God shall trust,
By whome I hope to ryse againe
From death and earthly dust.
BORN 1560. EXECUTED 1595.
A few small pieces, the relics of numerous compositions in verse by this Author, have been preserved, which are peculiarly pleasing. He was charged, as a Priest and a Jesuit, with conspiring against Queen Elizabeth's Government, yet nothing was proved against him, but what he fearlessly avowed,-that he had come into England to preach the Catholic Religion. It would be hard to convince any enlightened reader that the Author of such poems as the following was a traitor. He fell a martyr, if not to his faith, to the persecuting spirit of the age in which he lived.
Love's servile Lot.
LOVE, mistress is of many minds,
Yet few know whom they serve,
They reckon least how little Love
Their service doth deserve.
The will she robbeth from the wit,
The sense from reason's lore,
She is delightfull in the rine,
Corrupted in the core.
She shroudeth vice in vertue's vaile,
Pretending good in ill,
She offereth joy, affordeth griefe,
A kisse where she doth kill.
A honey-shower raines from her lips,
Sweet lights shine in her face,
She hath the blush of virgine kind,
The mind of vipers race.
May never was the Month of Love,
For May is full of flowers;
But rather Aprill, wet by kind,
For Love is full of showers.
With soothing words, inthralled soules
She chaines in servile bands;
Her eye in silence has a speach
Which eye best understands.
Like Winter rose and Summer ise
Her joyes are still untimely;
Before her Hope, behind Remorse :
Faire first, in fine unseemely.
Moodes, passions, fancies, jealous fits,
Attend upon her traine:
She yeeldeth rest without repose,
And Heaven in hellish paine.
Her house is Sloth, her doore Deceite,
And slipperie Hope her staires ;
Unbashfull Boldness bids her guests,
And every Vice repaires.
Her dyet is of such delights
As please till they be past;
But then the poyson kills the hart,
That did entise the taste.
Her sleepe in Sinne doth end in Wrath,
Remorse rings her awake;
Death cals her up, Shame drives her out,
Despaires her up-shot make.
Plow not the seas, sowe not the sands,
Leave off your idle paine;
Seeke other mistresse for your mindes,
Love's service is in vaine.
WHERE wards are weak, and foes encountring strong,
Where mightier do assault then doe defend,
The feebler part puts up enforced wrong,
And silent sees that speach could not amend;
Yet higher powers must thinke, though they repine,
When sunne is set, the little starres will shine.
While pike do range, the silly tench doth flie,
And crouch in privie creekes, with smaller fish:
Yet pikes are caught when little fish goe by,
These fleete affote, while those doe fill the dish;
There is a time even for the wormes to creepe,
And sucke the dew while all their foes doe sleepe.
The marline cannot ever soare on high,
Nor greedie grey-hound still pursue the chace,
The tender larke will finde a time to flie,
And fearfull hare to runne a quiet race.
He that high growth on cedars did bestow,
Gave also lowly mushrumps leave to growe.
In Haman's pompe poor Mordocheus wept;
Yet God did turne his fate upon his foe:
The Lazar pinde, while Dives feast was kept,
Yet he to Heaven, to Hell did Dives goe.
We trample grasse, and prize the flowers of May,
Yet grasse is greene, when flowers doe fade away.
A VALE there is, enwrapt in dismal shades,
Which thick with mournful pine shrouds from the sun,
Where hanging cliffs yield short and narrow glades,
And snowy floods with broken streams do run.
Where ears of other sounds can have no choice
But various blustering of the stubborn wind,
In trees, in caves, in straits, with diverse noise,
Which now doth hiss, now howl, now roar by kind.
And in the horror of this fearful quire,
Consists the music of this doleful place;
All pleasant birds their tunes from thence retire,
Where none but heavy groans have any space.
Resort there is of none but pilgrim-wights,
That pass with trembling foot and panting heart,
With terror, cast in cold and shuddering frights,
And all the place for terror framed by art.
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