Short Poems

In the hope of ease to come,
Let's endure one Martyrdome.

You aske me what I doe, and how I live?
And (Noble friend) this answer I must give:
Drooping, I draw on to the vaults of death,
Or'e which you'l walk, when I am laid beneath.

Up with the Quintill, that the Rout,
May fart for joy, as well as shout:
Either's welcome, Stinke or Civit,
If we take it, as they give it.

For thirty yeares, Tubbs has been proud and poor,
'Tis now his habit, which he can't give ore.

One more by Thee, Love, and Desert have sent,
T'enspangle this expansive Firmament.
O Flame of Beauty! come, appeare, appeare
A Virgin Taper, ever shining here.

Why, Madam, will ye longer weep,
When as your Baby's lull'd asleep?
And (pretty Child) feeles now no more
Those paines it lately felt before.
All now is silent; groanes are fled:
Your Child lyes still, yet is not dead:
But rather like a flower hid here
To spring againe another yeare.

God's evident, and may be said to be
Present with just men, to the veritie:
But with the wicked if He doth comply,
'Tis (as S. Bernard saith) but seemingly.

Feacie (some say) doth wash her clothes i'th'Lie
That sharply trickles from her either eye.
The Laundresses, They envie her good-luck,
Who can with so small charges drive the buck.
What needs she fire and ashes to consume,
Who can scoure Linnens with her own salt reeume?

The longer thred of life we spin,
The more occasion still to sin.

By so much, vertue is the lesse,
By how much, neere to singlenesse.