VIRTUE

O most unhappy state, of rechlesse humane kind! O dangerous raze of man, unwitty, found, and blind! O wretched worldlings, subject to all misery, When fortune is the prop of your prosperity! Can you so soon forget, that you have learned of yore, The graven divine precepts, the sacred wholesome lore, That wise Philosophers, with painful industry Had written and pronounced, for men felicity? Whilom hath been taught that Fortune's hold is tickle, She bears a double face, disguised, false, and fickle, Full fraughted with all sleights, she plays on the pack, On whom she smileth most, she turns most to wrack. The time hath been, when virtue had the sovereignty Of greatest price, and placed in chiefest dignity: But topsie-turuy now, the world is turned about: Proud Fortune is preferred, poor Virtue clean thrust out: Manssence so dulled is, so all things come to pass, Above the massy gold, esteem the brittle glass. Equity, for my partly, I envy not her state, Nor yet mislike the meanness of my simple rate. But what the heavens assign, that do I still think best: My fame was never yet, by Fortune's frown oppressed: Here therefore will I rest, in this my homely bower, With patience to abide the storms of every shower. The very beasts that be devoid of reason, dul & dumb, By nature learn to shun those things, whereof their hurt may come. If man were then but as a beast, only by nature taught, He would also by nature learn, to shun what things are nought. But man with reason is endued, he reason hath for stay, Which reason should restrain his will, from going much astray. But most men stoop to stubborn will, Which conquereth reason clean. No ease, no pleasure, can be good, that is not God with pains. I grieve for man, that man should be, of ill at ̄ pts so feign. Then will I take a cheerful mind, Unpleasant thoughts expel, And cares for man commit to them, That in the heavens do dwell. Of what adventures tell you? let us know. How? Oh horrible fact! So horrible a fact can hardly plead for favour: Therefore go you, Equity, examine more diligently, The manner of this outrageous robbery: And as the same, by examination shall appear, Endue justice may be done in presence here. Let it be delivered to my steward Liberality. My Lords, you see how far this worldly state is, From good declinde, inclined still to follow things amiss. You see but very few, that make of Virtue any price: You see all sorts with hungry wills, run headlong into vice. And pains, I think, they feel likewise, That unto vice do bend. Now my Lords, I see no cause, but that depart we may.