UPON SIR JOHN LAURENCE'S BRINGING WATER OVER THE HILLS TO MY L. MIDDLESEX HIS HOUSE AT WITTEN
And is the water come? sure 't cannot be;
It runs too much against philosophy:
For heavy bodies to the centre bend;
Light bodies only naturally ascend.
How comes this then to pass? The good knight's skill5
Could nothing do without the water's will:
Then 'twas the water's love that made it flow;
For love will creep where well it cannot go.
A BARBER
I am a barber, and, I'd have you know,
A shaver too, sometimes no mad one though:
The reason why you see me now thus bare
Is 'cause I always trade against the hair.
But yet I keep a state; who comes to me,5
Whos'e'er he is, he must uncover'd be.
When I'm at work, I'm bound to find discourse,
To no great purpose, of great Sweden's force,
Of Witel, and the Burse, and what 'twill cost
To get that back which was this summer lost:10
So fall to praising of his Lordship's hair;
Ne'er so deform'd, I swear 'tis sans compare:
I tell him that the King's doth sit no fuller,
And yet his is not half so good a colour;
Then reach a pleasing glass, that's made to lie,15
Like to its master, most notoriously;
And, if he must his mistress see that day,
I with a powder send him strait away.
A SOLDIER
I am a man of war and might,
And know thus much, that I can fight,
Whether I am i' th' wrong or right,
Devoutly.
No woman under heaven I fear,5
New oaths I can exactly swear;
And forty healths my brain will bear
Most stoutly.
