Donne by John Donne

tries to bring
    Me to pay a fine to scape his torturing,
    And saies, Sir, can you spare me; I said, willingly;
    Nay, Sir, can you spare me a crowne? Thankfully I
    Gave it, as Ransome; But as fidlers, still,
    Though they be paid to be gone, yet needs will
    Thrust one more jigge upon you: so did hee
    With his long complementall thankes vexe me.
    But he is gone, thankes to his needy want,
    And the prerogative of my Crowne: Scant
    His thankes were ended, when I, (which did see
    All the court fill’d with more strange things then hee)
    Ran from thence with such or more haste, then one
    Who feares more actions, doth haste from prison;
    At home in wholesome solitarinesse
    My precious soule began, the wretchednesse
    Of suiters at court to mourne, and a trance
    Like his, who dreamt he saw hell, did advance
    It selfe on mee, Such men as he saw there,
    I saw at court, and worse, and more; Low feare
    Becomes the guiltie, not the accuser; Then,
    Shall I, nones slave, of high borne, or rais’d men
    Feare frownes? And, my Mistresse Truth, betray thee
    To th’huffing braggart, puft Nobility?
    No, no, Thou which since yesterday hast beene
    Almost about the whole world, hast thou seene,
    O Sunne, in all thy journey, Vanitie,
    Such as swells the bladder of our court? I
    Thinke he which made your waxen garden, and
    Transported it from Italy to stand
    With us, at London, flouts our Presence, for
    Just such gay painted things, which no sappe, nor
    Tast have in them, ours are; And naturall
    Some of the stocks are, their fruits, bastard all.
    ’Tis ten a clock and past; All whom the Mues,
    Baloune, Tennis, Dyet, or the stewes,
    Had all the morning held, now the second
    Time made ready, that day, in flocks, are found
    In the Presence, and I, (God pardon mee.)
    As fresh, and sweet their Apparrells be, as bee
    The fields they sold to buy them; For a King
    Those hose are, cry the flatterers; And bring
    Them next weeke to the Theatre to sell;
    Wants reach all states; Me seemes they doe as well
    At stage, as court; All are players, who e’r lookes
    (For themselves dare not goe) o’r Cheapside books,
    Shall finde their wardrops Inventory; Now,
    The Ladies come; As Pirats, which doe know
    That there came weak ships fraught with Cutchannel,
    The men board them; and praise, as they thinke, well,
    Their beauties; they the mens wits; Both are bought.
    Why good wits ne’r weare scarlet gownes, I thought
    This cause, These men, mens wits for speeches buy,
    And women buy all reds which scarlets die.
    He call’d her beauty limetwigs, her haire net.
    She feares her drugs ill laid, her haire loose set;
    Would not Heraclitus laugh to see Macrine,
    From hat, to shooe, himselfe at doore refine,
    As if the Presence were a Moschite, and lift
    His skirts and hose, and call his clothes to shrift,
    Making them confesse not only mortall
    Great staines and holes in them; but veniall
    Feathers and dust, wherewith they fornicate:
    And then by
Durers
rules survay the state
    Of his each limbe, and with strings the odds trye
    Of his neck to his legge, and wast to thighes.
    So in immaculate clothes, and Symetrie
    Perfect as circles, with such nicetie
    As a young Preacher at his first time goes
    To preach, he enters, and a Lady which owes
    Him not so much as good will, he arrests,
    And unto her protests protests protests
    So much as at Rome would serve to have throwne
    Ten Cardinalls into the Inquisition;
    And whispered by Jesu, so often, that A
    Pursevant would have ravish’d him away
    For saying of our Ladies psalter; But ’tis fit
    That they each other plague, they merit it.
    But here comes Glorius that will plague them both,
    Who, in the other extreme, only doth
    Call a rough carelessenesse, good fashion;
    Whose cloak his spurres teare; whom he spits on
    He cares not, His ill words doe no harme
    To him; he rusheth in, as if arme, arme,
    He meant to crie; And though his face be as ill
    As theirs which in old hangings whip Christ, still
    He strives to looke worse, he