| |
| TILL I have peace with thee, war other men, | |
| And when I have peace, can I leave thee then? | |
| All other wars are scrupulous; only thou | |
| O free 1 fair city, mayst thyself allow | |
| To any one. In Flanders, who can tell | 5 |
| Whether the master press, or men rebel? | |
| Only we know, that which most idiots 2 say, | |
| They must bear blows which come 3 to part the fray. | |
| France in her lunatic giddiness did hate 4 | |
| Ever our men, yea, and our God, of late; | 10 |
| Yet she relies upon our angels well, | |
| Which ne’er return, no more than they which fell. | |
| Sick Ireland is with a strange 5 war possest, | |
| Like to an ague, now raging, now at rest, | |
| Which time will cure; yet it must do her good | 15 |
| If she were purg’d, and her head-vein 6 let blood; | |
| And Midas joys our Spanish journeys give; | |
| We touch all gold, 7 but find no food to live; | |
| And I should be in that hot 8 parching clime | |
| To dust and ashes turned before my time. | 20 |
| To mew me in a ship is to enthral | |
| Me in a prison that were like to fall; | |
| Or in a cloister, save that there men dwell | |
| In a calm heaven, here in a swaying 9 hell. | |
| Long voyages are long consumptions, | 25 |
| And ships are carts for executions; 10 | |
| Yea, they are deaths; is ’t not all one 11 to fly | |
| Into another world, as ’tis to die? | |
| Here let me war; in these arms let me lie: | |
| Here let me parley, batter, bleed, and die. 12 | 30 |
| Thine arms imprison me, and my arms thee; | |
| Thy heart thy ransom is; take mine for me. | |
| Other men war, that they their rest may gain, | |
| But we will rest that we may fight again. | |
| Those wars th’ ignorant, these th’ experienced love; | 35 |
| There we are always under, here above. | |
| There 13 engines far off breed a just true fear; | |
| Near thrusts, pikes, stabs, yea, bullets, hurt not here. | |
| There lies are wrongs; here safe uprightly lie. 14 | |
| There men kill men; we’ll make one by and by. | 40 |
| Thou nothing, I not half so much shall do 15 | |
| In those wars, 16 as they may which from us two | |
| Shall spring. Thousands we see which travel not | |
| To war, but stay, swords, arms, and shot | |
| To make at home; and shall not I do 17 then | 45 |
| More glorious service, staying to make men? | |
