I, who at some times spend, at others spare, 290
Divided between carelessness and care.

'Tis one thing madly to disperse my store;
Another, not to head to treasure more;
Glad, like a boy, to fnatch the first good-day,
And pleas'd, if fordid want be far away.

(d) What is't to me (a passenger God wot)
Whether my vessel be first-rate or not?
The thip itself may make a better figure,
But I that fail, am neither less nor bigger.
I neither strut with ev'ry fav'ring breath,
Nor strive with all the tempeft in my teeth.
In pow'r, wit, figure, virtue, fortune, plac'd
Behind the foremost, and before the last.

295

300

(e) "But why all this of av'rice? I have none.'

I with you joy, Sir, of a tyrant gone;
But does no other lord it at this hour,
As wild and mad? the avarice of pow'r?

305

(d) Pauperies immunda domus procul absit: ego,

utrum

Nave ferar magna an parva; ferar unus et idem. Non agimur tumidis velis Aquilone fecundo: Non tamen adverfis ætatem ducimus Auftris. Viribus, ingenio, specie, virtute, loco, re, Extremi primorum, extremis usque priores.

(e) Non es avarus: abi. quid? cætera jam fimul

ifto

Cum vitio fugere ? caret tibi pectus inani Ambitione caret mortis formidine et ira? Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas, Nocturnos lemures, portentaque Thessala rides? Natales grate numeras? ignoscis amicis?

Does 1

312

Does neither rage inflame, nor fear appall?
Not the black fear of Death, that faddens all?
With terrors round, can Reason hold her throne,
Despise the known, nor tremble at th' unknown?
Survey both worlds, intrepid aud intire,
In spite of witches, devils, dreams, and fire ?
Pleas'd to look forward, pleas'd to look behind,
And count each birth-day with a grateful mind?
Has life no fourness, drawn so near its end;
Can'st thou endure a foe, forgive a friend?
Has age but melted the rough parts away,
As winter-fruits grow mild ere their decay; 319
Or will you think, my friend, your business done,
When, of an hundred thorns you pull out one?

(f) Learn to live well, or fairly make your will; You've play'd, and lov'd, and ate, and drank your

fill:

Walk fober off, before a sprightlier age
Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage:
Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease, 326
Whom folly pleases, and whose follies please.

Lenior et melior fis accedente senecta
Quid te exempta levat spinis de pluribus una?
(f) Vivere fi recte nefcis, decede peritis.

Lufisti satis, edisti satis, atque bibifti:
Tempus abire tibi eft: ne potum largius æque
Rideat, et pulset lasciva decentius ætas.

THE

SATIRES

OF

Dr JOHN DONNE,

Dean of St PAUL'S, verfified.

Quid vetat et nosmet Lucili fcripta legentes Quærere, num illius, num rerum dura negarit Verficulos natura magis factos, et euntes Mollius?

HOR.

き

Y

SATIRE II.

ES; thank my stars! as early as I knew
This town, I had the sense to hate it too:

Yet here, as even in Hell, there must be still
One giant-vice, so excellently ill,

SATIRE II.

SIR, though (I thank God for it)

I do hate

Perfectly all this town; yet there's one state

In all ill things so excellently best,

That hate towards them, breeds pity towards the

Though Poetry, indeed, be such a fin,

As I think, that brings dearth and Spaniards in:

(reft.

That

That all befide, one pities, not abhors;
As who knows Sappho, smiles at other whores.

5

I grant that poetry's a crying fin; It brought (no doubt) th' Excise and Army in: Catch'd like the plague, or love, the Lord knows

how,

But that the cure is starving, all allow.

Yet like the Papist's is the poet's state,

Poor and disarm'd, and hardly worth your hate!

Here a lean bard, whose wit could never give

10

15

Himself a dinner, makes an actor live:
The thief condemn'd, in law already dead,
So prompts, and saves a rogue who cannot read.
Thus as the pipes of some carv'd organ move,
The gilded puppets dance and mount above.
Heav'd by the breath th' inspiring bellows blow:
Th' inspiring bellows lie and pant below.

20

One fings the fair; but fongs no longer move;

No rat is rhym'd to death, nor maid to love:

Tho' like the pestilence and old fashion'd love,
Ridlingly it catch men, and doth remove
Never, till it be starv'd out; yet their state
Is poor, disarm'd, like Papiits, not worth hate.

One (like a wretch, which at barre judg'd as
[read,

dead,

Yet prompts him which stands next, and cannot
And saves his life) gives idiot-actors means,
(Starving himself) to live by's labour'd scenes.
As in some organs, puppets dance above,
And bellows pant below which them do move.
One would move love by rhymes; but witchcraft's

charms

Bring not now their old fears, nor their old harms;

In love's, in nature's spite, the fiege they hold,
And fcorn the flesh, the dev'l, and all but gold.
These write to lords, some mean reward to get,
As needy beggars fing at doors for meat.
Those write because all write, and so have fstill
Excuse for writing, and for writing ill.

26

30

Wretched indeed! but far more wretched yet Is he who makes his meal on others wit: 'Tis chang'd, no doubt, from what it was before, His rank digeftion makes it wit no more: Senfe, paft thro' him, no longer is the fame; For food digested takes another name.

I pass o'er all those confeffors and martyrs, 35 Who live like S---tt---n, or who die like Chartres, Outcant old Efdras, or outdrink his heir, Outufure Jews, or Irishmen outswear;

Rams, and flings now are filly battery,
Pistolets are the best artillery.
And they who write to lords, rewards to get,
Are they not like fingers at doors for meat?
And they who write, because all write, have still
That 'scuse for writing, and for writing ill.

But he is worst, who beggarly doth chaw
Others wits fruits, and in his ravenous maw
Rankly digefted, doth these things outspue,
As his own things; and they're his own, 'tis true,
For if one eat my meat, tho' it be known
The meat was mine, the excrement's his own.

But these do me no harm, nor they which use

to outufure Jews,

T' outdrink the sea, t' outswear the Letanie,
Who with fins all kinds as familiar be