XLIX SONNET. Poor Soul, the centre of my sinful earth, Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end? 5 IO L SONNET. The expense of spirit in a waste of shame All this the world well knows; yet none knows well William Shakespeare. 5 ΙΟ LI TIMES GO BY TURNS. The lopped tree in time may grow again; The driest soil suck in some moistening shower; Times go by turns, and chances change by course, 5 From foul to fair, from better hap to worse. The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow, She draws her favours to the lowest ebb; Her tides have equal times to come and go; Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web; 10 No joy so great but runneth to an end, No hap so hard but may in fine amend. Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring; No endless night, yet no eternal day; The saddest birds a season find to sing; The roughest storm a calm may soon allay; Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all, That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall. A chance may win that by mischance was lost; That net that holds no great, takes little fish ; In some things all, in all things none are crossed ; Few all they need, but none have all they wish; Unmeddled joys here to no man befall, 15 20 Who least hath some, who most hath never all. Robert Southwell. LII LIFE A bubble. This Life, which seems so fair, Is like a bubble blown up in the air, By sporting children's breath, Who chase it everywhere, And strive who can most motion it bequeath; And though it sometimes seem of its own might But in that pomp it doth not long appear; LIII 5 10 William Drummond. MAN'S MORTALITY. Like as the damask rose you see, Or like the gourd which Jonas had— 5 10 Or like a tale that's new begun, Or like the bird that's here to day, 15 Or like the pearlèd dew of May, Or like an hour, or like a span, Or like the singing of a swan E'en such is man; who lives by breath, E 20 LIV ON GOD'S OMNIPOTENCY. O every living worldly wight, Awake and dress yourself with speed, To serve and praise the God of might, From whom all bounty does proceed : For if ye drift and still refuse, The heaven and earth will you accuse. The brutal beasts without all strife They willingly his voice obey; The creatures that have no life Set forth his glory day by day; The earth, the air, the sea, and fire Are subject all to his empire. The heaven it is his dwelling place, 5 10 From every airth by day and night; We hear them thudding by us go, Yet not conceive them with our sight: 40 But in a clap the Lord to please Like flocks of fowls the clouds above Again they suddenly remove, 45 We wot not where, nor reason why: But to obey his holy law They pour out rain, sharp hail, and snaw. He made the sun, a lamp of light, A well of heat, to shine by day; 50 He made the moon to guide the night, Ye pride your pens men's ears to please 60 He is above Mercurius, Above Neptunus on the sea, |