LUCRE

For death we call, yet death is still in sighed, Lucre does sealed in drops of melting gold, Accusing Rust, calls on eternal might, Where flames consume, and yet we freeze with cold: Sorrow adds Sulphur unto Furies heat, And chops them ye, whose chattering teeth do Beatrice, But sulphur, snow, flame, frost nor hideous crying Can cause them die, that ever are in dying. Nor make the pain diminish or increase, sorrow is slack, and yet will never cease. I think my seat some mineral stone to be. I cold from it, it draws heat from me. Ladies consent, and we our seats will view. My spots are gone, my skin is smooth and plain. Hail shining sun and fairest firmament, Comfort to those that time in woe have spent. In golden letters on my stone is Care. No Fraud, farewell, I must be won no more, to keep such servants as I kept before. How art thou called? I? No, sir, Conscience says. Why who is it that makes this latest suit? Great is the service he hath done for me, But Usury now I may not deal with thee. Well Usury, Fraud, and Simony Dissimulation Harken unto me, My tongue (although in memory it be green) Cannot declare what horrors I have seen, He can it enter into mortal ears Unmortified: the furies, f res and fears. the shrieks, the groans, the tortures and the pains, that any soul for each of you sustains. No pen can write, how Conscience hath me scourged. When with your faults my soul she ever urged: Arithmetic doth fail to number all, the plagues of sorrow in the Den of thrall: then tempt me not, nor trouble me no more, I must not use you as I did before, If you be found within fair Londons gate. You must to prison, whence we came of late. Conscience will accuse you if you be in sighed. Against their coming might my read be hard, Prepare would we garlands of Laurel green, To welcome them, more for the common good, Than for affection private that we bear. Lord pomp, well met, and welcome home again. Which I with Nemos license gladly take. A blast of wind is world's felicity, Me hath thy worm Oh Conscience, stung too deep. Of Fraud ? Indeed by speech it should be he. From. what seekest though And Conscience on the Marble of remorse, Then fit we down Like silly souls forlorn , And hide our faces that we be not known, For Sorrows plagues tormented me no more, Than will their fight that knew me heretofore. That pray with faith, and with vnsain'd remors For true belief and tears make prayer of force: Upon a heavy stone, not half so cold, not half so hight as theirs, But of some secret power, for I do find and sensibly I feel, That I from it exhale and earthly cold, And it from me doth draw a kindly heat.