When A Virtuous Man Is

If I Freely May Discover What Should Please Me In My Lover, I Would Have Her Fair And Witty, Savouring More Of Court Than City; A Little Proud, But Full Of Pity; Light And Humorous In Her Toying, Oft Building Hopes, And Soon Destroying, Long, But Sweet In The Enjoying; Neither Too Easy Nor To Hard; All Extremes I Would Have Barr'd.

Words Borrowed Of Antiquity Do Lend A Kind Of Majesty To Style, And Are Not Without Their Delight Sometimes. For They Have The Authority Of Years, And Out Of Their Intermission Do Win To Themselves A Kind Of Grace-like Newness. But The Eldest Of The Present, And Newest Of The Past Language, Is The Best.

Ambition, Like A Torrent, Never Looks Back.

Nor For My Peace Will I Go Far, As Wanderers Do, That Still Do Roam, But Make My Strengths, Such As They Are, Here In My Bosom, And At Home.

I Feel My Griefs Too, And There Scarce Is Ground Upon My Flesh T'inflict Another Wound. Yet Dare I Not Complain, Or Wish For Death With Holy Paul; Lest It Be Thought The Breath Of Discontent; Or That These Prayers Be For Weariness Of Life, Not Love Of Thee.