Poetry

all our Harrys and our Edwards talk,
From king to king, and all their kin can walk.
Your ears shall hear nought but kings; your eyes meet
Kings only; the way to it is King’s street.”
He smack’d and cried, “He’s base, mechanic, coarse,
So are all your Englishmen in their discourse.
Are not your Frenchmen neat? Mine, as you see,
I have but one, sir, look⁠—he follows me.”
“Certes they’re neatly clothed. I of this mind am,
Your only wearing is your grogaram.”
“Not so, sir, I have more.” Under this pitch
He would not fly; I chafed him. But as itch
Scratched into smart, and as blunt iron ground
Into an edge, hurts worse; so I, fool, found
Crossing hurt me. To fit my sullenness,
He to another key his style doth dress,
And asks, “What news?” I tell him of new plays.
He takes my hand, and as a still which stays
A semibreve, ’twixt each drop, he niggardly,
As loth to enrich me, so tells many a lie,
More than ten Holinsheds, or Halls, or Stows,
Of trivial household trash. He knows; he knows
When the Queen frown’d, or smiled, and he knows what
A subtle statesman may gather of that;
He knows who loves whom; and who by poison
Hastes to an office’s reversion;
He knows who hath sold his land, and now doth beg
A licence, old iron, boots, shoes, and egg⁠—
Shells to transport; shortly boys shall not play
At span-counter, or blow-point, but shall pay
Toll to some courtier; and wiser than all us,
He knows what lady is not painted. Thus
He with home meats cloys me. I belch, spew, spit,
Look pale and sickly, like a patient, yet
He thrusts on more; and as he’d undertook
To say Gallo-Belgicus without book,
Speaks of all states and deeds that have been since
The Spaniards came, to the loss of Amiens.
Like a big wife, at sight of loathèd meat,
Ready to travail, so I sigh and sweat
To hear this Macaron talk. In vain; for yet,
Either my humour, or his own to fit,
He, like a privileged spy, whom nothing can
Discredit, libels now ’gainst each great man.
He names a price for every office paid;
He saith, our wars thrive ill, because delay’d;
That offices are entail’d, and that there are
Perpetuities of them, lasting as far
As the last day; and that great officers
Do with the pirates share, and Dunkirkers.
Who wastes in meat, in clothes, in horse, he notes;
Who loves whores, who boys, and who goats.
I more amazed than Circe’s prisoners, when
They felt themselves turn beasts, felt myself then
Becoming traitor, and methought I saw
One of our giant statutes ope his jaw
To suck me in, for hearing him I found
That as burnt venom lechers do grow sound
By giving others their sores, I might grow
Guilty, and he free; therefore I did show
All signs of loathing; but since I am in,
I must pay mine and my forefathers’ sin
To the last farthing. Therefore to my power
Toughly and stubbornly I bear this cross; but th’ hour
Of mercy now was come; he tries to bring
Me to pay a fine to ’scape his torturing,
And says, “Sir, can you spare me”⁠—I said, “Willingly”;
“Nay, sir, can you spare me a crown”? Thankfully I
Gave it, as ransom; but as fiddlers, still,
Though they be paid to be gone, yet needs will
Thrust one more jig upon you; so did he
With his long complimental thanks vex me.
But he is gone, thanks to his needy want,
And the prerogative of my crown; scant
His thanks were ended, when I⁠—which did see
All the court fill’d with more strange things than he⁠—
Ran from thence with such, or more haste than one
Who fears more actions doth haste from prison.
At home, in wholesome solitariness,
My piteous soul began the wretchedness
Of suitors at court to mourn, and a trance
Like his, who dreamt he saw hell, did advance
Itself o’er me; such men as he saw there,
I saw at court, and worse, and more. Low fear
Becomes the guilty, not th’ accuser; then
Shall I, none’s slave, of highborn or raised men
Fear frowns? and, my mistress Truth, betray thee
To huffing, braggart, puffed nobility?
No, no; thou which since yesterday hast been
Almost about the whole world, hast thou seen,
O sun, in all thy journey, vanity
Such as swells the bladder of our court? I
Think he which made your waxen garden, and
Transported it, from Italy, to stand
With us at London, flouts our courtiers, for
Just such gay painted things, which no sap nor
Taste have in them, ours are; and natural
Some of the stocks are, their fruits bastard all.
’Tis ten a-clock and past; all whom the mews,
Baloun, tennis, diet, or the stews
Had all the morning held, now the second
Time made ready that day, in flocks are found
In the presence, and aye⁠—God pardon me⁠—
As fresh and sweet their apparels be, as be
The fields they sold to buy them. “For a king
Those hose are,” cry the flatterers; and bring
Them next week to the theatre to sell. -
Wants reach all states. Meseems they do as well
At stage as court; all are players; whoe’er looks
—For themselves dare not go⁠—o’er Cheapside books
Shall find their wardrobe’s inventory. Now,
The ladies come. As pirates, which do know
That there came weak ships fraught with cochineal,
The men board them; and praise, as they think, well
Their beauties; they, the men’s wits; both are bought.
Why good wits ne’er wear scarlet gowns, I thought
This cause; These men men’s wits for speeches buy,
And women buy all reds which scarlets dye.
He called her beauty lime-twigs, her hair net;
She fears her drugs ill laid, her hair loose set.
Would not Heraclitus laugh to see Macrine
From hat to shoe himself at door refine,
As if the presence were a mosque; and lift
His skirts and hose, and call his clothes to shrift,
Making them confess, not only mortal
Great stains and holes in them, but venial
Feathers and dust, wherewith they fornicate;
And then by Durer’s rules survey the state
Of his each limb, and with strings the odds tries
Of his neck to his leg, and waist to thighs?
So in immaculate clothes, and symmetry
Perfect as circles, with such nicety
As a young preacher at his first time goes
To preach, he enters, and a lady which owes
Him not so much as good will, he arrests,
And unto her protests, protests, protests,
So much as at Rome would serve to have thrown
Ten cardinals into th’ Inquisition;
And whispers “By