MUHAMMAD

MY Lord! So oft alone, pulls down the heart To thoughts, and courses far unmeet for it. Princes must show themselves in open sighed; Men joy in them that do in men delight. Triumphs of common peace, sacrifice, thanks, praise, Prepared are, To solemnize this universal joy, Wherein your self the greatest partly enjoy. Joy opens minds, and envy shuts them in: God, by your brother's life, adjourns our sin. Your brother's fault was only Princes fear; One ill example hurts to many were. It is no chance to give the elder place. Alaham! Our Gods decree did not exile Thy brother: It was heavenly mystery, Which faction construed to impiety. When I returned, I saw foundations laid In Princes faults, for Bashas tyranny; Who keeping both the Princes heirs alive, The one exiled, the other envious, Would make each plague to other; both, to us. I wrought, and overcame the Princes hate, Restored his son, and in his son the State. The giddy head that sees with daz'led sighed, Imagines all the world to turn about: And rage, which to your self makes you seem great, Is less to me, than if you did entreat. To them God thankless seems, not thank less is, That sacrifice for leave to do amiss. If wrongfully you had not banished me; To whom could my return thankworthy be? Alaham! Put off this fruitless peevishness Of expectation, lost in ill desires. For you, in witness of my thankful heart, The Government of old Ormus I God; And by possession men hope loses not. Alaham! Beside, judge both your thoughts, and State: Kings children are no Kings; Authority Goes not by blood; she sets another rate: Use, is her kin; Grace, her affinity. Then look not on desires earnestness; Impossible is easy there, wishes effect, The future great, the present ever less: Comparison still carrying up the eye To make all that we have but misery. Care, bought with blood; and fear, with treachery; Danger, with wrong; and shame, with venturing; Uncertain Hope's, and certain misery, The Fortune's be of haste to be a King. A blessed work, if it be wrought within. By whom? What is my fault? What his reward? Where lies my hope? A wicked choice, where mischief is the best. Is their delight in shedding guiltless blood? Who be the men? Disperse these clouds: Secrecy is evils friend; Neutrality hath never noble end. Tell me their names, that I my foes may know, And you, with honour, from ill friendship go. Uncredible it is to think men never change; To think they altar easily, is as strange. Upon what grounds should this strange malice move? What moved Cain? Good Angels still protect the innocent: Hell would have all, if harm were ill intent. I well know Cain: his nature to excess Of good, or ill, is forced by industry: In others spite lies his impiety. Appease your wife: for that must lie in you. Reason and truth shall plead to her for me. Impossible all counsel does refuse. My heart shall first take counsel with my fate: If it foretell the worst, it teaches feat; If it divines no ill, how can it hate? If what shall fallen it feels not; I must bear. The time grows on: The King (I know) makes haste To sacrifice to God: For common joys Are made much dearer by the sorrows passed. That is, to cherish Prince in their ill: For they must flatter good, and evil too, That under Princes all alone will do. Flattery so Like in all to duty shows, But finelier dressed in diligence, and care, As Kings best pleased, that most deceived, are. A joust, severe, and universal care Of people, shorn by Princes favorites, To spies of Tyranny unpleasing is; Which ever, Like ambitious Adamants, So fast from people draw to Princes States, As in the end they must draw up their hares. Cain! then take heed of your selfseeking plot, Engrossing offices, aspiring all; For it offends even those it touches not. Nor is it only this that hazards you; Ill never goes alone, if fame say true. Fame is the peoples voice, to tell their grief, Appealing from inferiors to the chief. If falsely you, and Hala, fame abuse; Infamy for nothing men unwisely choose: If fame speak truth, which you would not have known, Grieve to deserve, but not to bear your own. Unjustly suffer, or unjustly love. Reason must judge of love, not love of it; Else shall love ground of every mischief be: For murder, theft, adultery, and spite, Are but love of revenge, and others right. Ah Cain! my heart is racked with inward grief, Justice hath party there, and so hath love: They both have wounds, and yet they both have life; The one suppressing what the other moves. I will speak plain: Hala, thou dost abuse, And stainest the Princes line with servile lust: Wherein proud courage, matched with guiltiness, Adds wrong to wrong; and to or'e-build complaint, Affects that greatness which makes faults seem less. Cain! weigh thy course: " Ambitions gilded spheres " Are Like to painted hells, which please the eyes, " Even while they show the heart where horror lies. Her gilded Throne built on the ruin is Of Fame, of true Religion, and of Law: The labor's great that all the world must draw. The second place, which with this King you hold, Yields fear unfearful, greatness well secured: Who stand, or fallen with Kings, stand well assured. Where men that wrongfully aspire a Crown, While they look upward ever tumble down. Beside, thy bloody plots discovered be To work my death; did not the Powers above Restrain both ill men's malice, and their love. Nay let thy life, in his power thou wouldst kill, Prove, God gives seldom good success to ill. Behold! Even Nature's joust accusing spies Now make thy face blush forth thy guiltiness; Remorse begets strange contrarieties: Confusions war of good, and ill, I see, At once contending for the victory. But Cain! hold fast these sparks, they be of truth. These smokes will pass, and light appear again; Shame passed, is honour; Error is virtues book, Where knowledge does above temptation look: Who loose their evils, loose their own despair; Out of which lose new Hope's of honour rise, To show the world desire with better eyes. Favour thy self: Passion are desperate, And tempt with uncouth woe, as well as joy. It evil is that glories to destroy; Her, and her counsels kill, and I agree; For she is foe alike to thee, and me. Cain! credit not those visions of the ill. Faults are in flesh, as motes be in the Sun, Where light does show each little thing amiss. Presumption, and despair live opposite, As times false glasses, wherein frailties see, Their faults too great, or else too little be. But judge the man from whom these motions grow. Alaham ambitious is, light, violent; His end but to surprise his father's state: Unto which end, no lets there are but we; Who won, removed, or ruined must be. He first tried me with rival jealousy, Showing me hope, and honour in the start: Beside revenge, by thy death offering me, Of our divided powers and unity. But I stood firm. While he no whit dismayed, Tempts thee more strongly, whom he hates more; Resolved who ever kills, shall killed be: So much the faithless joy in cruelty. Who live distrusting, yet have time to friend; But who mistrusting die, make haste to go To that infernal Monarchy of fear, Where worse things come to pass, than doubted were. Grant me again, while secretly I live, You guard your self from Alahams treachery; Lest you have harm; he, joy; I, infamy. Who ever have observed the work of spirits May see how easily men slide down to ill. The world hath strange examples, false delights, Which make our senses nets to catch our will. Who then with men for every fault falls out, Must hate himself, and all the world about. Behold! the man I speak of does appear: Retire aside, stand close, mark what succeeds: His own destruction, or else mine he breeds. Cain! what is it, that thus your mind distracts? Counsels of honour altar not the face; Hearts only think with pain of doubtful acts. The second born are not born to the Crown. Are truth and friendship but ambitious traps, To feed desire with all that she can get? Are words, and good turns but hearts counterfeit? They purchase care unto themselves, that know The weight of care; and yet will it embrace. If care be grievous, why usurp you so?