Works

Chorus.

What sweeter music can we bring,
Than a Carol, for to sing
The Birth of this our heavenly King?
Awake the Voice! Awake the String!
Heart, Ear, and Eye, and every thing...

Though frankincense the deities require,
We must not give all to the hallow'd fire.
Such be our gifts, and such be our expense,
As for ourselves to leave some frankincense.

To house the hag, you must do this:
Commix with meal a little piss
Of him bewitch'd; then forthwith make
A little wafer or a cake;
And this rawly bak'd will bring
The old hag in. No surer thing.

One man repentant is of more esteem
With God, than one that never sinned 'gainst Him.

We two are last in hell; what may we fear
To be tormented or kept pris'ners here
Alas! if kissing be of plagues the worst,
We'll wish in hell we had been last and first.

Know when to speak; for many times it brings
Danger to give the best advice to kings.

'Tis not a thousand bullocks' thighs
Can please those heav'nly deities,
If the vower don't express
In his offering cheerfulness.

Christ took our nature on Him, not that He
'Bove all things loved it for the purity:
No, but He dress'd Him with our human trim,
Because our flesh stood most in need of Him.

Kings must not only cherish up the good,
But must be niggards of the meanest blood.

'Tis no discomfort in the world to fall,
When the great crack not crushes one, but all.

The same who crowns the conqueror, will be
A coadjutor in the agony.

Be not dismayed though crosses cast thee down;
Thy fall is but the rising to a crown.

Conformity gives comeliness to things:
And equal shares exclude all murmurings.

Nothing can be more loathsome than to see
Power conjoin'd with Nature's cruelty.

The lictors bundled up their rods; beside,
Knit them with knots with much ado unti'd,
That if, unknitting, men would yet repent,
They might escape the lash of punishment.

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness;
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher;...

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction:
An erring lace which here and there
Enthralls the crimson stomacher:...

Women, although they ne'er so goodly make it,
Their fashion is, but to say no, to take it.

More discontents I never had
Since I was born, than here;
Where I have been, and still am, sad,
In this dull Devonshire.
Yet justly too I must confess,
I ne'er invented such...

Cynthius, pluck ye by the ear,
That ye may good doctrine hear;
Play not with the maiden-hair,
For each ringlet there's a snare.
Cheek, and eye, and lip, and chin -
These are traps to take fools in....