Works

God's prescience makes none sinful; but th' offence
Of man's the chief cause of God's prescience.

When what is lov'd is present, love doth spring;
But being absent, love lies languishing.

Men are suspicious, prone to discontent:
Subjects still loathe the present government.

That prince takes soon enough the victor's room
Who first provides not to be overcome.

As thou deserv'st, be proud; then gladly let
The Muse give thee the Delphic coronet.

Princes and fav'rites are most dear, while they
By giving and receiving hold the play;
But the relation then of both grows poor,
When these can ask, and kings can give no more.

You see this gentle stream that glides,
Shoved on, by quick-succeeding tides:
Try if this sober stream you can
Follow to th' wider ocean,
And see, if there it keeps unspent
In that congesting element....

Readers, we entreat ye pray
For the soul of Lucia;
That in little time she be
From her purgatory free:
In the interim she desires
That your tears may cool her fires.

No wrath of men, or rage of seas,
Can shake a just man's purposes;
No threats of tyrants, or the grim
Visage of them can alter him;
But what he doth at first intend,
That he holds firmly to the end.

Putrefaction is the end
Of all that nature doth intend.

What are our patches, tatters, rags, and rents,
But the base dregs and lees of vestiments?

What's got by justice is established sure:
No kingdoms got by rapine long endure.

The readiness of doing doth express
No other but the doer's willingness.

Who plants an olive, but to eat the oil?
Reward, we know, is the chief end of toil.

Hast thou attempted greatness? then go on:
Back-turning slackens resolution.

Physicians say repletion springs
More from the sweet than sour things.

Ponder my words, if so that any be
Known guilty here of incivility;
Let what is graceless, discomposed, and rude,
With sweetness, smoothness, softness be endued:
Teach it to blush, to curtsy, lisp, and show...

On with thy work, though thou be'st hardly press'd:
Labour is held up by the hope of rest.

Lay by the good a while; a resting field
Will, after ease, a richer harvest yield;
Trees this year bear: next, they their wealth withhold:
Continual reaping makes a land wax old.

Man's disposition is for to requite
An injury, before a benefit:
Thanksgiving is a burden and a pain;
Revenge is pleasing to us, as our gain.