Living from hand to mouth.
The world's a stage where God's omnipotence,
His justice, knowledge, love, and providence
Do act the parts.
Weakened and wasted to skin and bone.
Bright-flaming, heat-full fire,
The source of motion.
Or savage beasts upon a thousand hils.
There is no theam more plentifull to scan
Than is the glorious goodly frame of man.
To man the earth seems altogether
No more a mother, but a step-dame rather.
Hot and cold, and moist and dry.
Much like the French (or like ourselves, their apes),
Who with strange habit do disguise their shapes;
Who loving novels, full of affectation,
Receive the manners of each other nation.
Yielding more wholesome food than all the messes
That now taste-curious wanton plenty dresses.
Through thick and thin, both over hill and plain.
Not unlike the bear which bringeth forth
In the end of thirty dayes a shapeless birth;
But after licking, it in shape she drawes,
And by degrees she fashions out the pawes,
The head, and neck, and finally doth bring
To a perfect beast that first deformed thing.
What is well done is done soon enough.
Dog, ounce, bear, and bull,
Wolfe, lion, horse.
A good turn at need,
At first or last, shall be assur'd of meed.
Night's black mantle covers all alike.
In every hedge and ditch both day and night
We fear our death, of every leafe affright.
Soft carpet-knights, all scenting musk and amber.
For where's the state beneath the firmament
That doth excel the bees for government?
Did thrust as now in others' corn his sickle.
