THE CALM.

OUR storm is past, and that storm's tyrannous rage
A stupid Calm, but nothing it doth 'swage.
The fable is inverted, and far more

A block afflicts now then a stork before.

Storms chafe, and soon wear out themselves or us;
In Calms Heaven laughs to see us languish thus.
As steady as I could wish my thoughts were,
Smooth as thy mistress' glass, or what shines there,
The sea is now, and as the isles which we
Seek when we can move, our ships rooted be.
As water did in storms, now pitch runs out;
As lead, when a fir'd church becomes one spout;
And all our beauty and our trim decays,
Like courts removing, or like ending plays.
The fighting place now seamen's rage supply,
And all the tackling is a frippery.

No use of lanthorns; and in one place lay
Feathers and dust to-day and yesterday.

Earth's hollownesses, which the world's lungs are,
Have no more wind than th' upper vault of air,
We can nor lost friends nor sought foes recover,
But, meteor-like, save that we move not, hover:
Only the calenture together draws

Dear friends, which meet dead in great fishes' maws,
And on the hatches, as on altars, lies

Each one, his own priest and own sacrifice. I

10

20

Who live that miracle do multiply,
Where walkers in hot ovens do not die.
If in despite of these we swim, that hath.
No more refreshing than a brimstone bath;
But from the sea into the ship we turn,
Like parboil'd wretches on the coals to burn.
Like Bajazet encag'd, the shepherds' scoff;
Or like slack-sinew'd Samson, his hair off,
Languish our ships. Now as a myriad
Of ants durst th' Empror's lov'd snake invade,
The crawling gallies, sea-gulls, finny chips,
Might brave our pinnaces, our bed-rid ships:
Whether a rotten state and hope of gain,
Or to disuse me from the queasy pain
Of being belov'd and loving, or the thirst
Of honour or fair death outpush'd me first,
I lose my end; for here, as well as I,
A desperate may live, and coward die.
Stag, dog, and all which from or towards flies,
Is paid with life or prey, or doing dies:
Fate grudges us all, and doth subtilely lay
A scourge 'gainst which we all forgot to pray.
He that at sea prays for more wind, as well
Under the poles may beg cold, heat in hell.
What are we then? How little more, alas!
Is man now than before he was he was?
Nothing; for us, we are for nothing fit;
Chance or ourselves still disproportion it.
Volume 11.

L

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40

50

We have no power, no will, no sense. I lie;
I should not then thus feel this misery.

TO SIR HENRY WOTTON.

2:56

SIR, more than kisses letters mingle souls,
For thus friends absent speak. This ease controuls
The tediousness of my life: but for these

I could invent nothing at all to please;
But I should wither in one day, and pass
To a lock of hay that am a bottle of grass.
Life is a voyage, and in our life's ways
Countries, courts, towns, are rocks or remoras;

They break or stop all ships, yet our state 's such.
That (tho' than pitch they stain worse) we must touch,
If in the furnace of the even line,

Or under th' adverse icy Pole, thou pine,

Thou know'st two temperate regions girded in
Dwell there; bu', oh! what refuge canst thou win
Parch'd in the court, and in the country frozen?
Shall cities built of both extremes be chosen ?
Can dung or garlick be' a perfume? or can
A scorpion or torpedo cure a man?
Cities are worst of all three: of all three?
(O knotty riddle!) each is worst equally.
Cities are sepulchres; they who dwell there
Are carcasses, as if none such there were:
And courts are theatres where some men play.
Princes, some slaves, and all end in one day. Å

20

The country is a desert where the good

Gain'd inhabits not; born is not understood:

There men become beasts, and, prone to all evils,

In cities blocks, and in a lewd court devils.

As in the first chaos confusedly

Each element's qualities were in th' other three; 30 So pride, lust, covetize, being several

To these three places, yet all are in all,

And, mingled thus, their issue is incestuous;
Falsehood is denizon'd, Virtue is barbarous.
Let no man say there Virtue's flinty wall
Shall lock vice in me; I'll do none, but know all.
Men are spunges, which to pour out receive;
Who know false play rather than lose deceive:
For in best understandings sin began;
Angels sinn'd first, then devils, and then man.
Only, perchance, beasts sin not; wretched we
Are beasts in all but white Integrity.

I think if men, which in these places live,
Durst look in themselves, and themselves retrieve,
They would, like strangers, greet themselves, seeing
Utopian youth grown old Italian.

[then
Be then thine own home, and in thyself dwell;
Inn any where; continuance maketh hell:
And seeing the snail, which every where doth roam,
Carrying his own house still, still is at home,
Follow (for he is easy pac'd) this snail;
Be thine own palace, or the world's thy gaol:

50

And in the world's sea do not, like cork, sleeprica 10 T

Upon the water's face, nor in the deep
Sink like a lead without a line; but as
Fishes glide, leaving no print where they pass,
Nor making sound, so closely thy course go:
Let men dispute whether thou breathe or no;
Only' in this be no Galenist. To make
Courts' hot ambitions wholesome, do not take
A dram of country's dulness; do not add
Correctives, but as chymics purge the bad.
But, Sir, I advise not you; I rather do

Say o'er those lessons which I learn'd of you, Whom, free from Germany's schisms, and lightness Of France, and fair Italy's faithlessness,

60

Having from these suck'd all they had of worth,
And brought home that faith which you carried forth,
I th'roughly love; but if myself I have won

To know my rules, I have, and you have DONNE, 70

TO SIR HENRY WOTTON.

HERE
ERE's no more news than virtue; I may as well
Tell you Calais or Saint Michael's Mount, as tell
That Vice doth here habitually dwell.

Yet as, to get stomachs, we walk up and down,
And toil to sweeten rest; so may God frown,
If but to loath both I haunt court and town.