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| To S.r Henry Wotton . |
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| S.r more then kisses letters mingle Soules [202] |
| ffor thus frinds absent speake, This ease controules |
| The teadiousnesse of my life, But for these, |
| I could Ideate nothing w.ch could please |
| But should in one day wither away and passe |
| To a bottle of hay w.ch am a lock of grasse.| |
| Life is a voyage, and in our liues wayes |
| Countrys, Courts, Townes, ar Rocks or Remoras |
| They breake or stopp all shipps, yet our state's such |
| That Though they stayne worse then pitch, wee must touch. |
| If in the furnace of the eeuen line |
| Or vnder th'aduerse icy Poles thou pine, |
| Thou knowst two temperate regions girded in |
| Dwell there. But oh what refuge canst thou winne |
| Parch't in the Court and in the Country frozen? |
| Shall Cittyes built of both extremes bee chosen? |
| Can Dung or Garlick bee perfume? Or can |
| A Scorpion or Torpedo cure a man? |
| Cittyes are worst of all three. Of all three? |
| (O knotty riddle) All ar worst æqually |
| Cittyes ar Sepulchers, they w.ch dwell there |
| Are Carcasses, as if none such there were. |
| And Courts ar Theaters, wherein some play |
| Princes, some slaues, All to one end, of one clay. |
| The Country is a desert, where the good |
| Gayn'd, in habits not, borne is not vnderstood. |
| There men become beasts, and prone to all evills |
| In Cittyes Blocks and in a lewd Court deuills |
| As in the first Chaos, confusedly |
| Each Elements qualityes were in th'other three
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[CW: So___] |