Now, blessings on ye all, ye heroic race,
Who keep their primitive powers and rights so well
Though men and angels fell.
Of all material lives the highest place
To you is justly given,
And ways and walks the nearest Heaven;
Whilst wretched we, yet vain and proud, think fit
To boast that we look up to it.
Even to the universal tyrant Love
You homage pay but once a year;
None so degenerous and unbirdly prove,
As his perpetual yoke to bear.
None but a few unhappy household fowl,
Whom human lordship does control;
Who from their birth corrupted were
By bondage, and by man's example here.
IV.
He's no small prince who every day
Thus to himself can say,
Now will I sleep, now eat, now sit, now walk,
Now meditate alone, now with acquaintance talk;
This I will do, here I will stay,
Or, if my fancy call me away,
My man and I will presently go ride
(For we before have nothing to provide,
Nor after are to render an account)
To Dover, Berwick, or the Cornish Mount.
If thou but a short journey take,
As if thy last thou wert to make,
Business must be despatched ere thou canst part.
Nor canst thou stir unless there be
A hundred horse and men to wait on thee,
And many a mule, and many a cart:
What an unwieldy man thou art!
The Rhodian Colossus so
A journey too might go.
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