_To S^{r}
Nicholas
Smyth.
John Donne
_Walton_.
]
Translated out of _Gazaeus_, _Vota Amico facta_. _fol. _ 160.
God grant thee thine own wish, and grant thee mine,
Thou, who dost, best friend, in best things outshine;
May thy soul, ever chearfull, nere know cares,
Nor thy life, ever lively, know gray haires.
Nor thy hand, ever open, know base holds, 5
Nor thy purse, ever plump, know pleits, or folds.
Nor thy tongue, ever true, know a false thing,
Nor thy word, ever mild, know quarrelling.
Nor thy works, ever equall, know disguise,
Nor thy fame, ever pure, know contumelies. 10
Nor thy prayers, know low objects, still Divine;
God grant thee thine own wish, and grant thee mine.
Translated _&c. _] _1650-69_, _in sheets added 1650_: _for
original see note_]
APPENDIX B.
POEMS WHICH HAVE BEEN ATTRIBUTED
TO JOHN DONNE IN THE OLD EDITIONS
AND THE PRINCIPAL MS. COLLEC-
TIONS, ARRANGED ACCORDING
TO THEIR PROBABLE
AUTHORS.
I.
POEMS
PROBABLY BY SIR JOHN ROE, KNT.
_To S^{r} Nicholas Smyth. _
Sleep, next Society and true friendship,
Mans best contentment, doth securely slip
His passions and the worlds troubles. Rock me
O sleep, wean'd from my dear friends company,
In a cradle free from dreams or thoughts, there 5
Where poor men ly, for Kings asleep do fear.
Here sleeps House by famous Ariosto,
By silver-tongu'd Ovid, and many moe,
Perhaps by golden-mouth'd Spencer too pardie,
(Which builded was some dozen Stories high) 10
I had repair'd, but that it was so rotten,
As sleep awak'd by Ratts from thence was gotten:
And I will build no new, for by my Will,
Thy fathers house shall be the fairest still
In Excester. Yet, methinks, for all their Wit, 15
Those wits that say nothing, best describe it.
Without it there is no Sense, only in this
Sleep is unlike a long Parenthesis.
Not to save charges, but would I had slept
The time I spent in London, when I kept 20
Fighting and untrust gallants Company,
In which Natta, the new Knight, seized on me,
And offered me the experience he had bought
With great Expence. I found him throughly taught
In curing Burnes. His thing hath had more scars 25
Then Things himselfe; like Epps it often wars,
And still is hurt. For his Body and State
The Physick and Counsel which came too late,
'Gainst Whores and Dice, hee nowe on mee bestowes
Most superficially: hee speaks of those 30
(I found by him) least soundly who most knows:
He swears well, speakes ill, but best of Clothes,
What fits Summer, what Winter, what the Spring.
He had Living, but now these waies come in
His whole Revenues. Where each Whore now dwells, 35
And hath dwelt, since his fathers death, he tells.
Yea he tells most cunningly each hid cause
Why Whores forsake their Bawds. To these some Laws
He knows of the Duello, and touch his Skill
The least lot in that or those he quarrell will, 40
Though sober; but so never fought. I know
What made his Valour, undubb'd, Windmill go,
Within a Pint at most: yet for all this
(Which is most strange) Natta thinks no man is
More honest than himself. Thus men may want 45
Conscience, whilst being brought up ignorant,
They use themselves to vice.