Or If Virtue Feeble Were, Heav'n Itself

For What Can War, But Endless War, Still Breed?

Here We May Reign Secure; And In My Choice To Reign Is Worth Ambition, Though In Hell: Better To Reign In Hell Than Serve In Heaven.

Alas! What Boots It With Uncessant Care To Tend The Homely Slighted Shepherd's Trade, And Strictly Meditate The Thankless Muse; Were It Not Better Done As Others Use, To Sport With Amaryllis In The Shade, Or With The Tangles Of Neaera's Hair? Fame Is The Spur That The Clear Spirit Doth Raise (that Last Infirmity Of Noble Mind) To Scorn Delights, And Live Laborious Days; But The Fair Guerdon When We Hope To Find, And Think To Burst Out Into Sudden Blaze, Comes The Blind Fury With Th'abhorred Shears, And Slits The Thin-spun Life.

Courtesy Which Oft Is Found In Lowly Sheds, With Smoky Rafters, Than In Tapestry Halls And Courts Of Princes, Where It First Was Named.

But Who Is This, What Thing Of Sea Or Land,- Female Of Sex It Seems,- That So Bedeck'd, Ornate, And Gay, Comes This Way Sailing Like A Stately Ship Of Tarsus, Bound For Th' Isles Of Javan Or Gadire, With All Her Bravery On, And Tackle Trim, Sails Fill'd, And Streamers Waving, Courted By All The Winds That Hold Them Play, An Amber Scent Of Odorous Perfume Her Harbinger?