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To Sr Henry Wootton. |
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Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle Soules, |
For, thus friēds absent speak. This ease controules |
The tediousnesse of my life: But for these |
I could ideate nothing, which could please, |
But I should wither in one day, and passe |
To'a bottle of Hay, that am a lock of Grasse. |
Life is a voyage, and in our lives wayes |
Countries, Courts, Townes are Rocks, or Remoraes; |
They breake or stop all ships, yet our state's such |
That though then pitch they staine worse, we must touch. |
If in the furnace of the raging line, |
Or under th'adverse icy pole thou pine, |
Thou know'st two temperate Regions girded in, |
Dwell there: But oh, what refuge canst thou win |
Parch'd in the Court, and in the countrey frozen? |
Shall cities built of both extremes be chosen? |
Can dung, or garlike be perfume? Or can |
A Scorpion, or Torpedo cure a man? |
Cities are worst of all three; of all three? |
(O knotty riddle) each is worst equally. |
Cities are Sepulchres; they who dwell there |
Are carcases, as if none such there were. |
And Courts are Theaters, where some men play |
Princes, some slaves, all to one end, of one clay. |
The Countrey is a desert, where the good, |
Gain'd inhabits not, borne, is not understood.
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[CW: There] |