Wars with their noise affright us; when they cease, What then remains, but that we still should cry Lord Bacon. VII THE SOUL'S ERRAND. Go, Soul, the body's guest, Fear not to touch the best; The truth shall be thy warrant. Go, since I needs must die, And give the world the lie. Say to the Court it glows 30 5 Tell them that brave it most, They beg for more by spending, Like nothing but commending: Tell Zeal it wants devotion; Tell Age it daily wasteth; Tell Honour how it alters; Tell Beauty how she blasteth; Tell Favour how it falters. And as they shall reply, Give every one the lie. Tell Wit how much it wrangles In tickle points of niceness; Tell Wisdom she entangles And when they do reply, Straight give them both the lie. Tell Physic of her boldness; Tell Skill it is pretension; Tell Charity of coldness; Tell Law it is contention. And as they do reply, 25 30 35 40 45 50 What is the world? tell, worldling, if thou know it. If it be good, why do all ills o'erflow it? If it be friend, why kills it, as a foe, 5 2 EMBLEMA. Friend faber, cast me a round hollow ball, With flowers and fruits, with brooks, beasts, fish, and fowl, With rarest cunning of thy curious art: And grave in gold, about my silver bowl, Thus rolls the world, the idol of mankind, Whose fruit is fiction, whose foundation wind. 5 3 FUIMUS FUMUS. Where, where are now the great reports Of those proud kings bade Heaven defiance? Methinks I see a mighty smoke Thick mounting from quick-burning matter, 4 OMNIA SOMNIA. Go, silly worm, drudge, trudge, and travel, 5 པ་ 5 MORS MORTIS. The World and Death one day them cross-disguised, To cozen man, when sin had once beguiled him. Both called him forth, and questioning advisèd 5 To say whose servant he would fairly yield him. Man, weening then but to the World to' have given him, By the false World became the slave of Death; But from their fraud he did appeal by faith TO HIM whose death killed Death, and from the world has driven him. Which soon perceive the little larks, The lapwing and the snipe, And tune their songs, like Nature's clerks, 15 |