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To Sir Henry Wootton. |
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Here's no more new, then virtue, I may as well |
Tell Calis,, or Saint Michaels Mount, as tell |
That vice doth here habitually dwell. |
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Yet, as to get stomachs, we walk up and down, |
And toyl to sweeten rest; so, may God frown, |
If but to loath both, I haunt Court, and Town. |
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For, here, no one is from th'extremitie |
Of vice, by any other reason free, |
But that the next to him, still, is worse then he. |
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In this worlds warfare, they whom rugged Fate, |
(Gods Commissary) doth so throughly hate, |
As in the Courts Squadron to marshall their state: |
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If they stand arm'd with silly honesty, |
With wishing, prayers, and neat integritie, |
Like Indians 'gainst Spanish hosts they be. |
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Suspicious boldness to this place belongs, |
And to have as many ears as all have tongues; |
Tender to know, tough to acknowledge wrongs. |
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Believe me Sir, in my youths giddiest dayes, |
When to be like the Court was a players praise, |
Playes were not so like Courts, as Courts like Playes. |
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Then let us at these mimique antiques jeast, |
Whose deepest projects are egregeous guests, |
And but dull Morals at a game at Chests.
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[CW: But] |