No More Learning

Preposterous is that order, when we run
To ask our wages ere our work be done.

_Preposterous_, lit. hind part before.


709. TEARS AND LAUGHTER.

Knew'st thou one month would take thy life away,
Thou'dst weep; but laugh, should it not last a day.


710. GLORY.

Glory no other thing is, Tully says,
Than a man's frequent fame spoke out with praise.


711. POSSESSIONS.

Those possessions short-liv'd are,
Into the which we come by war.


713. HIS RETURN TO LONDON.

From the dull confines of the drooping West
To see the day spring from the pregnant East,
Ravish'd in spirit I come, nay, more, I fly
To thee, bless'd place of my nativity!
Thus, thus with hallowed foot I touch the ground,
With thousand blessings by thy fortune crown'd.
O fruitful Genius! that bestowest here
An everlasting plenty, year by year.
O place! O people! Manners! fram'd to please
All nations, customs, kindreds, languages!
I am a free-born Roman; suffer, then,
That I amongst you live a citizen.
London my home is: though by hard fate sent
Into a long and irksome banishment;
Yet since call'd back; henceforward let me be,
O native country, repossess'd by thee!
For, rather than I'll to the West return,
I'll beg of thee first here to have mine urn.
Weak I am grown, and must in short time fall;
Give thou my sacred relics burial.


714. NOT EVERY DAY FIT FOR VERSE.

'Tis not ev'ry day that I
Fitted am to prophesy;
No; but when the spirit fills
The fantastic pannicles
Full of fire, then I write
As the godhead doth indite.
Thus enrag'd, my lines are hurled,
Like the Sybil's, through the world.
Look how next the holy fire
Either slakes, or doth retire;
So the fancy cools, till when
That brave spirit comes again.