| |
| HE 1 that of such a height hath built his mind, | |
| And reared the dwelling of his thoughts so strong, | |
| As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame | |
| Of his resolvèd powers; nor all the wind | |
| Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong | 5 |
| His settled peace, or to disturb the same: | |
| What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may | |
| The boundless wastes and wealds of man survey! | |
| |
| And with how free an eye doth he look down | |
| Upon these lower regions of turmoil! | 10 |
| Where all the storms of passion mainly beat | |
| On flesh and blood: where honour, power, renown, | |
| Are only gay afflictions, golden toil; | |
| Where greatness stands upon as feeble feet | |
| As frailty doth; and only great doth seem | 15 |
| To little minds, who do it so esteem. | |
| |
| He looks upon the mightiest monarch’s wars | |
| But only as on stately robberies; | |
| Where evermore the fortune that prevails | |
| Must be the right: the ill-succeeding mars | 20 |
| The fairest and the best fac’d enterprise. | |
| Great pirate Pompey lesser pirates quails: | |
| Justice, he sees (as if seducèd) still | |
| Conspires with power, whose cause must not be ill. | |
| |
| He sees the face of right t’appear as manifold | 25 |
| As are the passions of uncertain man; | |
| Who puts it in all colours, all attires, | |
| To serve his ends, and make his courses hold. | |
| He sees, that let deceit work what it can, | |
| Plot and contrive base ways to high desires, | 30 |
| That the all-guiding Providence doth yet | |
| All disappoint, and mocks the smoke of wit. | |
| |
| Nor is he mov’d with all the thunder cracks | |
| Of tyrants’ threats, or with the surly brow | |
| Of Power, that proudly sits on others’ crimes; | 35 |
| Charg’d with more crying sins than those he checks. | |
| The storms of sad confusion, that may grow | |
| Up in the present for the coming times | |
| Appal not him; that hath no side at all, | |
| But of himself, and knows the worst can fall. | 40 |
| |
| Although his heart (so near allied to Earth) | |
| Cannot but pity the perplexèd state | |
| Of troublous and distress’d Mortality, | |
| That thus make way unto the ugly birth | |
| Of their own sorrows, and do still beget | 45 |
| Affliction upon imbecility: | |
| Yet seeing thus the course of things must run, | |
| He looks thereon not strange, but as fore-done. | |
| |
| And whilst distraught ambition compasses, | |
| And is encompass’d; whilst as craft deceives, | 50 |
| And is deceiv’d: whilst man doth ransack man | |
| And builds on blood, and rises by distress; | |
| And th’ inheritance of desolation leaves | |
| To great-expecting hopes: he looks thereon, | |
| As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye, | 55 |
| And bears no venture in impiety. | |
