5.

And thou, whose thriveless hands are ever straining
Earth's fluent breasts into an empty sieve,

That always hast, yet always are complaining,

And whin'st for more than earth hath pow'r to give; Whose treasure flows and flees away as fast;

That ever hast, and hast, yet hast not what thou hast.

6.

Go chuse a substance, fool, that will remain
Within the limits of thy leaking measure;
Or else go seek an urn that will retain
The liquid body of thy slipp'ry, treasure:

Alas! how poorly are thy labours crown'd!
Thy liquor's never sweet, nor yet thy vessel sound..

What less than fool is man to prog

and plot.

And lavish out the cream of all his care.

To gain poor seeming goods, which, being got,
Make firm possession but a thorough-fare?

Or, if they stay, they furrow thoughts the deeper ;And, being kept with care, they lose their careful keeper.

S. GREG. Hom. iii: secund. Parte Ezech.

If we give more to the flesh than we ought, we nourish an enemy; if we give not to her necessity what we ought, we destroy a citizen: the flesh is to be satisfied so far as suffices to our good; whosoever alloweth so much to her as to make her proud, knoweth not how to be satisfied: to be satisfied, is a great art; lest, by the satiety of the flesh, we break forth into the iniquity of her folly.

HUGO de Anima.

The heart is a small thing, but desireth great matters. It is not sufficient for a kite's dinner, yet the whole world is not sufficient for it...

EPIG.

ÉPIG. 12.

What makes thee, fool, so fat? Fool, thee so bare?
Ye suck the self same milk, the self same air :
No mean betwixt all paunch, and skin and bone?
The mean's a virtue, and the world has none.

XIII.

JOHN iii. 19.

Men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.

LORD, when we leave, the world, and come to thee,

How how slug are we!
How backward! how prepost'rous is the motion
Of our ungain devotion !

Our thoughts are millstones, and our souls are lead,
And our desires are dead:

Our vows are fairly promis'd, faintly paid;

Or broken, or not made;

Our better work (if any good) attends

In whose

Upon our private ends : performance one poor worldly scoff Foils us, or beats us off.

If thy sharp scourge find out some secret fault,

We grumble or revolt;

And if thy gentle hand forbear, we stray,

Is the road fair;

Or idly lose the way.

we loiter; clogg'd with mire :
We stick, or else retire:

A lamb appears a lion; and we fear,

Each bush we see's a bear.

When our dull souls direct our thoughts to thee,

As slow as snails are we:

But at the earth we dart our wing'd desire;

We burn, we burn like fire.

Like

Like as the am'rous needle joys to bend
To her magnetic friend:

Or as the greedy lover's eye-balls fly

At his fair mistress' eye: So, so we cling to earth; we fly and puff, Yet fly not fast enough.

If pleasure beckon with her balmy hand,

Her beck's a strong command:

If honour calls us with a courtly breath,

An hour's delay is 'death,

If profit's golden finger'd charm enveigles,

We clip more swift than eagles:
Let Auster weep or blustr'ing Boreas roar,
Till eyes or lungs be sore:

Let Neptune swell, until his dropsy sides
Burst into broken tides!:)

Nor threat'ning rocks, nor winds, nor waves, nor fire,
Can curb our fierce desire ;

Nor fire, not rocks, can stop our furious minds, holt 1.0
Nor waves nor winds:

How fast and fearless do our footsteps flee!
The light-foot roebuck's not so swift as we.