Classic Poem

of a good man.

A good and wise man (such as hardly one
Of millions, could be found out by the Sun)
Is Iudge himselfe, of what stuffe he is wrought,
And doth explore his whole man to a thought.
What ere great men do; what their sawcie bawdes;
What vulgar censure barks at, or applauds
His carriage still is chearfull and secure;
He, in himselfe, worldlike, full, round, and sure.
Lest, through his polisht parts, the slendrest staine
Of things without, in him should sit, and raigne;

To whatsoeuer length, the fierie Sunne,
Burning in Cancer, doth the day light runne;
How faire soeuer Night shall stretch her shades,
When Phoebus gloomie Capricorne inuades;
He studies still; and with the equal beame,
His ballance turnes; himselfe weighs to th'extreme.
Lest any crannie gaspe, or angle swell
Through his strict forme: and that he may compell
His equall parts to meete in such a sphere,
That with a compasse tried, it shall not erre:
What euer subiect is, is solide still:
Wound him, and with your violent fingers feele

All parts within him, you shall neuer find
An emptie corner, or an abiect mind.
He neuer lets his watchfull lights descend,
To those sweet sleepes that all iust men attend,
Till all the acts the long day doth beget,
With thought on thought laid, he doth oft repeate:
Examines what hath past him, as forgot:
What deed or word was vsde in time, what not.
Why this deed of Decorum felt defect?
Of reason, that? What left I by neglect?
Why set I this opinion downe for true,
That had bene better chang'd? Why did I rue
Need in one poore so, that I felt my mind

(To breach of her free powres) with griefe declin'd?
Why will'd I what was better not to will?
Why (wicked that I was) preferr'd I still
Profite to honestie? Why any one
Gaue I a foule word? or but lookt vpon,
With count'nance churlish? Why should nature draw
More my affects, then manly reasons law?
Through all these thoughts, words works, thus making way,
And all reuoluing, from the Euen till day:
Angrie, with what amisse, abusde the light,
Palme and reward he giues to what was right.

A great Man.

A great and politicke man (which I oppose
To good and wise) is neuer as he showes.
Neuer explores himselfe to find his faults:
But cloaking them, before his conscience halts,
Flatters himselfe, and others flatteries buyes,
Seemes made of truth, and is a forge of lies,
Breeds bawdes and sycophants, and traitors makes
To betray traitors; playes, and keepes the stakes,
Is iudge and iuror, goes on life and death:
And damns before the fault hath any breath.
Weighs faith in falsehoods ballance; iustice does
To cloake oppression; taile-down downward groes:
Earth his whole end is: heauen he mockes, and hell:
And thinkes that is not, that in him doth dwell.
Good, with Gods right hand giuen, his left takes t'euil:
When holy most he seemes, he most is euill.
Ill vpon ill he layes: th'embroderie
Wrought on his state, is like a leprosie,
The whiter, still the fouler. What his like,
What ill in all the bodie politike
Thriues in, and most is curst: his most blisse fires:
And of two ils, still to the worst aspires.
When his thrift feeds, iustice and mercie feare him:
And (Wolf-like fed) he gnars at all men nere him.

Neuer is chearefull, but when flatterie trailes
On squatting profite; or when Policie vailes

Some vile corruption: that lookes red with anguish
Like wauing reeds, his windshook comforts languish.
Paies neuer debt, but what he should not ow;
Is sure and swift to hurt, yet thinks him slow.
His bountie is most rare, but when it comes,
Tis most superfluous, and with strook-vp drums.
Lest any true good pierce him, with such good
As ill breeds in him, Mortar, made with blood
Heapes stone-wals in his heart, to keepe it out.
His sensuall faith, his soules truth keepes in doubt,
And like a rude, vnlearn'd Plebeian,
Without him seekes his whole insulting man.
Nor can endure, as a most deare prospect,
To looke into his own life, and reflect
Reason vpon it, like a Sunne still shining,
To giue it comfort, ripening, and refining:
But his blacke soule, being so deformd with sinne,
He still abhorres; with all things hid within:
And forth he wanders, with the outward fashion,
Feeding, and fatting vp his reprobation.
Disorderly he sets foorth euerie deed,
Good neuer doing, but where is no need.
If any ill he does, (and hunts through blood,
For shame, ruth, right, religion) be withstood,
The markt withstander, his race, kin, least friend,
That neuer did, in least degree offend,
He prosecutes, with hir'd intelligence
To fate, defying God and conscience,
And to the vtmost mite, he rauisheth
All they can yeeld him, rackt past life and death.
In all his acts, he this doth verifie,
The greater man, the lesse humanitie.
While Phebus runs his course through all the signes,
He neuer studies; but he vndermines,
Blowes vp, and ruines, with pretext to saue:
Plots treason, and lies hid in th'actors graue.
Vast crannies gaspe in him, as wide as hell,
And angles, gibbet-like, about him swell:
Yet seemes he smooth and polisht, but no more
Solide within, then is a Medlars core.
The kings frown fels him, like a gun-strooke fowle:
When downe he lies, and casts the calfe his soule.
He neuer sleepes but being tir'd with lust:
Examines what past, not enough vniust;
Not bringing wealth enough, not state, not grace:
Not shewing miserie bedrid in his face:
Not skorning vertue, not deprauing her,
Whose ruth so flies him, that her Bane's his cheare.
In short, exploring all that passe his guards,
Each good he plagues, and euerie ill rewards.

A sleight man.

A sleight, and mixt man (set as twere the meane
Twixt both the first) from both their heapes doth gleane:
Is neither good, wise, great, nor politick,
Yet tastes of all these with a naturall tricke.
Nature and Art, sometimes meet in his parts:
Sometimes deuided are: the austere arts,
Splint him together, set him in a brake
Of forme and reading. Nor is let partake
With iudgement, wit, or sweetnesse: but as time,
Terms, language, and degrees, haue let him clime,
To learn'd opinion; so he there doth stand,
Starke as a statue; stirres nor foote nor hand.
Nor any truth knowes: knowledge is a meane
To make him ignorant, and rapts him cleane,
In stormes from truth. For what Hippocrates
Says of foule bodies (what most nourishes,
That most annoies them) is more true of mindes:
For there, their first inherent prauitie blinds
Their powres preiudicate: and all things true
Proposd to them, corrupts, and doth eschue:
Some, as too full of toyle; of preiudice some:
Some fruitlesse, or past powre to ouercome:
With which, it so augments, that he will seeme
With iudgement, what he should hold, to contemne
And is incurable. And this is he
Whose learning formes not lifes integritie.
This the mere Artist; the mixt naturalist,
With foole-quicke memorie, makes his hand a fist,
And catcheth Flies, and Nifles: and retaines
With heartie studie, and vnthriftie paines,
What your composd man shuns. With these his pen
And prompt tongue tickles th'eares of vulgar men:
Sometimes takes matter too, and vtters it
With an admir'd and heauenly straine of wit:
Yet with all this, hath humors more then can
Be thrust into a foole, or to a woman.
As nature made him, reason came by chance,
Held her torch to him, cast him in a trance;
And makes him vtter things that (being awake
In life and manners) he doth quite forsake.
He will be graue, and yet is light as aire;
He will be proude, yet poore euen to despaire.
Neuer sat Truth in a tribunall fit,
But in a modest, staid, and humble wit.
I rather wish to be a naturall bred,
Then these great wits with madnesse leauened.
He's bold, and frontlesse, passionate, and mad,
Drunken, adulterous, good at all things bad.
Yet for one good, he quotes the best in pride,
And is enstil'd a man well qualifide.
These delicate shadowes of things vertuous then
Cast on these vitious, pleasing, patcht vp men,
Are but the diuels cousenages to blind
Mens sensuall eyes, and choke the enuied mind.
And where the truly learnd is euermore
Gods simple Image, and true imitator:
These sophisters are emulators still
(Cousening, ambitious) of men true in skill.
Their imperfections yet are hid in sleight,
Of the felt darknesse, breath'd out by deceipt,
The truly learn'd, is likewise hid, and failes
To pierce eyes vulgar, but with other vailes.
And they are the diuine beames, truth casts round
About his beauties, that do quite confound
Sensuall beholders. Scuse these rare seene then,
And take more heede of common sleighted men.

A good woman.

A woman good, and faire (which no dame can
Esteeme much easier found then a good man)
Sets not her selfe to shew, nor found would be:
Rather her vertues flie abroad then she.
Dreames not on fashions, loues no gossips feasts,
Affects no newes, no tales, no guests, no ieasts:
Her worke, and reading writs of worthiest men:
Her husbands pleasure, well taught childeren:
Her housholds fit prouision to see spent,
As fits her husbands will, and his consent:
Spends pleasingly her time, delighting still,
To her iust dutie, to adapt her will.
Vertue she loues, rewards and honors it,
And hates all scoffing, bold and idle wit:
Pious and wise she is, and treads vpon
This foolish and this false opinion,
That learning fits not women; since it may
Her naturall cunning helpe, and make more way
To light, and close affects: for so it can
Courbe and compose them too, as in a man:
And, being noble, is the noblest meane,
To spend her time: thoughts idle and vncleane,
Preuenting and suppressing: to which end
She entertaines it: and doth more commend
Time spent in that, then houswiferies low kindes,
As short of that, as bodies are of minds.
If it may hurt, is powre of good lesse great,
Since food may lust excite, shall she not eate?
She is not Moon-like, that the Sunne, her spouse
Being furthest off, is cleare and glorious:
And being neare, growes pallid and obscure:
But in her husbands presence, is most pure,
In all chast ornaments, bright still with him,
And in his absence, all retir'd and dim:
With him still kind and pleasing, still the same;
Yet with her weeds, not putting off her shame:
But when for bed-rites her attire is gone,
In place thereof her modest shame goes on.
Not with her husband lies, but he with her:
And in their loue-ioyes doth so much prefer
Modest example, that she will not kisse
Her husband, when her daughter present is.
When a iust husbands right he would enioy,
She neither flies him, nor with moods is coy.
One, of the light dame sauours, th'other showes
Pride, nor from loues ingenuous humor flowes.
And as Geometricians approue,
That lines, nor superficies, do moue
Themselues, but by their bodies motions go:
So your good woman neuer striues to grow
Strong in her owne affections and delights,
But to her husbands equall appetites,
Earnests and ieasts, and lookes austerities,
Her selfe in all her subiect powres applies.
Since lifes chiefe cares on him are euer laid,
In cares she euer comforts, vndismaid,
Though her heart grieues, her lookes yet makes it sleight,
Dissembling euermore, without deceit.
And as the twins of learn'd Hippocrates,
If one were sicke, the other felt disease:
If one reioyc't; ioy th'others spirits fed:
If one were grieu'd, the other sorrowed:
So fares she with her husband; euery thought
(Weightie in him) still watcht in her, and wrought.
And as those that in Elephants delight,
Neuer come neare them in weeds rich and bright;
Nor Buls approch in scarlet; since those hewes,
Through both those beasts, enrag'd affects diffuse:
And as from Tygres, men the Timbrels sound
And Cimbals keepe away; since they abound
Thereby in furie, and their owne flesh teare:
So when t'a good wife, it is made appeare,
That rich attire, and curiositie
In wires, tires, shadowes, do displease the eye
Of her lou'd husband; musicke, dancing, breeds
Offence in him; she layes by all those weeds,
Leaues dancing, musicke; and at euery part
Studies to please; and does it from her heart.
As greatnesse in a Steede; so dignitie
Needs in a woman, courbe, and bit, and eie,
If once she weds, shee's two for one before:
Single againe, she neuer doubles more.