| Edward Farr, ed. Select Poetry of the Reign of King James the First. 1847. | | | | Against Inordinate Loue of Creatures | | XXII. Sir John Beaumont |
| | | AH! who would loue a creature, who would place | |
| His heart, his treasure, in a thing so base? | |
| Which time consuming, like a moth, destroyes, | |
| And stealing death will rob him of his ioyes. | |
| Why lift we not our minds aboue this dust? | 5 |
| Haue we not yet perceiu’d that God is iust, | |
| And hath ordain’d the obiects of our loue | |
| To be our scourges, when we wanton proue? | |
| Go, carelesse man, in vaine delights proceed, | |
| Thy fansies and thine outward senses feede; | 10 |
| And bind thyselfe, thy fellow-seruant’s thrall: | |
| Loue one too much, thou art a slaue to all. | |
| Consider when thou follow’st seeming good, | |
| And drown’st thyselfe too deepe in flesh and blood, | |
| Thou making sute to dwell with woes and feares, | 15 |
| Art sworne their souldier in the vale of teares: | |
| The bread of sorrow shall be thy repast; | |
| Expect not Eden in a thorny waste, | |
| Where grow no faire trees, no smooth riuers swell, | |
| Here onely losses and afflictions dwell. | 20 |
| These thou bewayl’st with a repining voyce, | |
| Yet knew’st before that mortall was thy choyse. | |
| Admirers of false pleasures must sustaine | |
| The waight and sharpnesse of insuing paine. | | | | |
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