No More Learning

724. HIS GRANGE, OR PRIVATE WEALTH.

Though clock,
To tell how night draws hence, I've none,
A cock
I have to sing how day draws on.
I have
A maid, my Prew, by good luck sent
To save
That little Fates me gave or lent.
A hen
I keep, which creeking day by day,
Tells when
She goes her long white egg to lay.
A goose
I have, which with a jealous ear
Lets loose
Her tongue to tell that danger's near.
A lamb
I keep, tame, with my morsels fed,
Whose dam
An orphan left him, lately dead.
A cat
I keep that plays about my house,
Grown fat
With eating many a miching mouse.
To these
A Tracy[A] I do keep whereby
I please
The more my rural privacy;
Which are
But toys to give my heart some ease;
Where care
None is, slight things do lightly please.

_My Prew_, Prudence Baldwin.
_Creeking_, clucking.
_Miching_, skulking.

[A] His spaniel. (Note in the original edition. )


725.
GOOD PRECEPTS OR COUNSEL.

In all thy need be thou possess'd
Still with a well-prepared breast;
Nor let the shackles make thee sad;
Thou canst but have what others had.
And this for comfort thou must know
Times that are ill won't still be so.
Clouds will not ever pour down rain;
_A sullen day will clear again_.
First peals of thunder we must hear,
Then lutes and harps shall stroke the ear.


726. MONEY MAKES THE MIRTH.

When all birds else do of their music fail,
Money's the still sweet-singing nightingale.


727. UP TAILS ALL.

Begin with a kiss,
Go on too with this;
And thus, thus, thus let us smother
Our lips for awhile,
But let's not beguile
Our hope of one for the other.

This play, be assur'd,
Long enough has endur'd,
Since more and more is exacted;
For Love he doth call
For his _uptails all_;
And that's the part to be acted.

_Uptails all_, the refrain of a song beginning "Fly Merry News": see
Note.


729. UPON LUCIA DABBLED IN THE DEW.

My Lucia in the dew did go,
And prettily bedabbled so,
Her clothes held up, she showed withal
Her decent legs, clean, long, and small.