The meaner mind works with more nicetie,
As spiders wont to weave their idle web,
But braver spirits do all things gallantly
Of lesser failings nought at all affred:
So Natures carelesse pencill dipt in light
With sprinkled starres hath spattered the Night.

And if my notions clear though rudely thrown
And loosely scattered in my poesie,
May lend men light till the dead Night be gone,
And Morning fresh with roses strew the skie:
It is enough, I meant no trimmer frame
Or by nice needle-work to seek a name.

Vain man! that seekest name mongst earthly men
Devoid of God and all good virtuous lere;
Who groping in the dark do nothing ken
But mad; with griping care their souls do tear,
Or burst with hatred or with envie pine
Or burn with rage or melt out at their eyne.

Thrice happy he whose name is writ above,
And doeth good though gaining infamie;
Requiteth evil turns with hearty love,
And recks not what befalls him outwardly:
Whose worth is in himself, and onely blisse
In his pure conscience that doth nought amisse.

Who placeth pleasure in his purged soul
And virtuous life his treasure doth esteem;
Who can his passions master and controll,
And that true lordly manlinesse doth deem,
Who from this world himself hath clearly quit
Counts nought his own but what lives in his sprite.

So when his sprite from this vain world shall flit
It bears all with it whatsoever was dear
Unto it self, passing in easie fit,
As kindly ripen'd corn comes out of th' eare.
Thus mindlesse of what idle men will say
He takes his own and stilly goes his way.

But the retinue of proud Lucifer,
Those blustering Poets that flie after fame
And deck themselves like the bright Morning-starre.
Alas! it is but all a crackling flame.
For death will strip them of that glorious plume
That airie blisse will vanish into fume.

For can their carefull ghosts from Limbo take
Return, or listen from the bowed skie
To heare how well their learned lines do take?
Or if they could; is Heavens felicitie
So small as by mans praise to be encreas'd,
Hells pain no greater then hence to be eas'd?

Therefore once dead in vain shall I transmit
My shadow to gazing Posteritie;
Cast farre behind me I shall never see't,
On Heavens fair Sunne having fast fixt mine eye.
Nor while I live, heed I what man doth praise
Or und