Society and the World

A servant with this clause Makes drudgery divine: Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, Makes that and th’ action fine.

God’s works are wide, and let in future times; His ancient justice overflows our crimes.

I struck the board, and cried, No more: I will abroad. What? shall I ever sigh and pine? My lines and life are free; free as the road, Loose as the wind, as large as store. Shall I be still in suit? Have I no harvest but a thorn To let me blood, and not restore What I have lost with cordial fruit? Sure there was wine Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn Before my tears did drown it; Is the year only lost to me? Have I no bays to crown it?

Nothing wears clothes, but Man; nothing doth need But he to wear them.

For thirty pence he did my death devise, Who at three hundred did the ointment prize.

Man stole the fruit, but I must climb the tree.

Be useful where thou livest.

By no means run in debt: take thine own measure. Who cannot live on twenty pound a year, Cannot on forty.

Drink not the third glass, which thou canst not tame When once it is within thee.

Dare to be true: nothing can need a lie: A fault, which needs it most, grows two thereby. 2

Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out.

Heaven-gates are not so highly arch’d As princes’ palaces; they that enter there Must go upon their knees.

And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek.

Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold, And almost every vice—almighty gold.

Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold, And almost every vice—almighty gold.

If poisonous minerals, and if that tree, Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us, If lecherous goats, if serpents envious Cannot be damn’d; alas; why should I be?

And new philosophy calls all in doubt, The element of fire is quite put out; The sun is lost, and the earth, and no man’s wit Can well direct him where to look for it. And freely men confess that this world’s spent, When in the planets, and the firmament They seek so many new; then see that this Is crumbled out again to his atomies. ’Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone; All just supply, and all relation: Prince, subject, Father, Son, are things forgot.

O my America! my new-found land.

And now good morrow to our waking souls, Which watch not one another out of fear; For love, all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room, an everywhere. Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone, Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown, Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here; Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones.

Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine, His honor and the greatness of his name Shall be, and make new nations.

Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues We write in water.

Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee; Corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues: be just, and fear not. Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s, Thy God’s, and truth’s; then if thou fall’st, O Cromwell! Thou fall’st a blessed martyr!

Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee; Corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues: be just, and fear not. Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s, Thy God’s, and truth’s; then if thou fall’st, O Cromwell! Thou fall’st a blessed martyr!