Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (1544 – 1590)
French poet.
'T is what you will,—or will be what you would.
Out of the book of Natur's learned brest.
Oft seen in forehead of the frowning skies.
Or almost like a spider, who, confin'd
In her web's centre, shakt with every winde,
Moves in an instant if the buzzing flie
Stir but a string of her lawn canapie.
And swans seem whiter if swart crowes be by.
There is no theam more plentifull to scan
Than is the glorious goodly frame of man.
A good turn at need,
At first or last, shall be assur'd of meed.
The world's a stage where God's omnipotence,
His justice, knowledge, love, and providence
Do act the parts.
From north to south, from east to west.
Not that the earth doth yield
In hill or dale, in forest or in field,
A rarer plant.
I take the world to be but as a stage,
Where net-maskt men do play their personage.
The will for deed I doe accept.
Through thick and thin, both over hill and plain.
These lovely lamps, these windows of the soul.
Mercy and justice, marching cheek by joule.
Weakened and wasted to skin and bone.
For where's the state beneath the firmament
That doth excel the bees for government?
Will change the pebbles of our puddly thought
To orient pearls.
Not unlike the bear which bringeth forth
In the end of thirty dayes a shapeless birth;
But after licking, it in shape she drawes,
And by degrees she fashions out the pawes,
The head, and neck, and finally doth bring
To a perfect beast that first deformed thing.