What Joy to Live
I wage no war, yet peace I none enjoy;
I hope, I fear, I fry in freezing cold;
I mount in mirth, still prostrate in annoy;
If all the world embrace yet nothing hold.
All wealth is want where chiefest wishes fail,
Yea life is loathed where love may not prevail.
For that I love I long, but that I lack;
That other love I loath, and that I have;
All worldly freights to me are deadly wrack,
Men present hap, I future hopes do crave:
They, loving where they live, long life require,
To live where best I love, I death desire.
Here loan is lent for love of filthy gain;
Most friends befriend themselves with friendship's show;
Here plenty peril, want doth breed disdain;
Cares common are, joys faulty, short and few;
Here honour envied, meanness is despised;
Sin deemed solace, virtue little prized.
Here beauty is a bait that, swallow 'd, chokes;
A treasure sought still in the owner's harms;
A light that eyes to murdering sights provokes,
A grace that souls enchants with mortal charms;
A luring gain to Cupid's fiery slights,
A baleful bliss that damns where it delights.
Oh! who would live so many deaths to try?
Where will doth wish that wisdom doth reprove,
Where nature craves that grace must needs deny,
Where sense doth like that reason cannot love,
Where best in show in final proof is worst,
Where pleasures upshot is to die accurst?