Samuel(poetButler (1612 – 1680)
English satirical poet.
Nor do I know what is become
Of him, more than the Pope of Rome.
As men of inward light are wont
To turn their optics in upon 't.
Friend Ralph, thou hast
Outrun the constable at last.
For what is worth in anything
But so much money as 't will bring?
For those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that's slain.
As the ancients
Say wisely, have a care o' th' main chance,
And look before you ere you leap;
For as you sow, ye are like to reap.
What makes all doctrines plain and clear?
About two hundred pounds a year.
And that which was prov'd true before
Prove false again? Two hundred more.
But still his tongue ran on, the less
Of weight it bore, with greater ease.
He cou'd foretel whats'ever was
By consequence to come to pass;
As death of great men, alterations,
Diseases, battles, inundations.
All this, without th' eclipse o' th' sun,
Or dreadful comet, he hath done,
By inward light; away as good,
And easy to be understood;
But with more lucky hit than those
That use to make the stars depose,
Like Knights o' th' post, and falsely charge
Upon themselves what others forge:
As if they were consenting to
All mischiefs in the world men do:
Or, like the Devil, did tempt and sway 'em
To rogueries, and then betray 'em.
Where entity and quiddity,
The ghosts of defunct bodies, fly.
To swallow gudgeons ere they 're catch'd,
And count their chickens ere they're hatch'd.
True as the dial to the sun,
Although it be not shin'd upon.
While the honour thou hast got
Is spick and span new.
And weave fine cobwebs, fit for skull
That's empty when the moon is full;
Such as take lodgings in a head
That's to be let unfurnished.
Cheer'd up himself with ends of verse
And sayings of philosophers.
Or shear swine, all cry and no wool.
The hollow-hearted, disaffected,
And close malignant are detected ;
Who lay their lives and fortunes down,
For pledges to secure our own.
We idly sit, like stupid blockheads,
Our hands committed to our pockets,
And nothing but our tongues at large,
To get the wretches a discharge:
Like men condemn'd to thunder-bolts,
Who, ere the blow, become mere dolts;
Or fools besotted with their crimes,
That know not how to shift betimes,
And neither have the hearts to stay,
Nor wit enough to run away.
Who thought he 'd won
The field as certain as a gun.
With mortal crisis doth portend
My days to appropinque an end.