Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edward Farr, ed. Select Poetry of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. 1845.

Lines from “The Pilgrim’s Farewell”

LXXXV. William Lithgow

THIS worthlesse honour, that desert not reares,

Is but as fruitlesse showes, which bloome, then perish:

Where merite buildes not, that foundation teares.

There’s nought but trueth that can man’s standing cherish:

This great experience dayly now appeares,

What one upholdes, another he downe casts,

This gentle blood doth suffer many blasts.

I smyle to see some bragging gentle-men,

That clayme their discent from king Arthur great;

And they will drinke, and sweare, and roare: what then?

Would make their betters foote-stooles to their feet,

And stryve to bee applaus’d with print and pen;

And were hee but a farmer, if hee can

But keepe an hound,—O there’s a gentle-man!

But, foolish thou, looke to the grave, and learne

How man lies there deform’d, consum’d in dust;

And in that mappe thy judgement may discearne

How little thou in birth and blood shouldst trust.

Such sightes are good,—they doe thy soule concerne.

Wer’st thou a kinglie sonne, and vertue want,

Thou art more brute than beastes which desarts hant.

And more, vaine worlde, I see thy great transgression,

Each day new murther, blood-shed, craft, and thift,

Thy lovelesse law, and lawlesse proude oppression,

Thy stiffeneckt crew their heads ov’r saincts they lift,

And, misregarding God, fall in degression:

The widdow mournes, the proude the poore oppresse,

The rich contemne the silly fatherlesse:

And rich men gape, and, not content, seeke more,

By sea and land, for gaine, run manie miles;

The noblest strive for state, ambition’s glore,

To have preferment, landes, and greatest stiles,

Yet nev’r content of all, when they have store;

And from the sheepheard to the king, I see,

There’s no contentment for a worldlie eye.

O! is hee poore, then faine he would bee rich;

And rich, what tormentes his great griede doth feele:

And is hee gentle, hee strives moe hightes t’ touch;

If hee unthrives, hee hates another’s weele;

His eyes pull home what his handes dare not fetch.

A quiet minde, who can attaine that hight,

But either slaine by griede or envie’s spright?

Man’s naked borne, and naked hee returnes,

Yet whiles hee lives God’s providence mistrustes;

Hee gapes for pelfe, and still in avarice burnes;

And, having all, hath nothing but his lustes,

Insatiate still, backe to his vomite turnes.

Vilde dust and earth, believ’st thou in a shadow,

Whose high-tun’d prime falles like a new-mowne medow?

I grieve to see the world and worldling playing:

The wretch, puft up, is swell’d with hellish griede;

The worlde deceives him with a swift assaying;

And as hee stands, hee cannot take good heede,

But for small trash must yeelde eternal paying:

And dead, another enjoyes what hee got,

And spendes up all, whiles hee in grave doeth rot.