Edward Fairfax

A narrow room our glory vain upties, A little circle doth our pride contain, Earth like an isle amid the water lies, Which sea sometime is called, sometime the main, Yet naught therein responds a name so great, It's but a lake, a pond, a …

Oh vanity of man's unstable mind, Puffed up with every blast of friendly wind!

They make their fortune who are stout and wise, Wit rules the heavens, discretion guides the skies.

Two inward vultures, Sorrow and Disdain.

Greatest praise, in greatest peril, wons.

Coward dread lacks order, fear wants art, Deaf to attend, commanded or desired.

O poverty, chief of the heavenly brood.

Cupid's deep rivers have their shallow fords, His griefs, bring joys; his losses, recompenses; He breeds the sore, and cures us of the pain: Achilles' lance that wounds and heals again.

Hard is that heart which beauty makes not soft.

Jealousy is Cupid's food; For the swift steed runs not so fast alone, As when some strain, some strive him to outgone.

Power constrained is but a glorious slave.

Vile man, begot of clay, and born of dust.

High state, the bed is where misfortune lies, Mars most unfriendly, when most kind he seems, Who climbeth high, on earth he hardest lights, And lowest falls attend the highest flights.

Chance in uncertain, fortune double faced,

Wayward beauty doth not fancy move, A frown forbids, a smile engendereth love.

Nor love consents that beauty's field lie waste.

The fear of ill exceeds the evil we fear.

The brazen trump of iron-winged fame, That mingleth faithful troth with forged lies.

My mind, Time's enemy, Oblivion's foe, Disposer true of each noteworthy thing.

Out of the hierarchies of angels sheen The gentle Gabriel called he from the rest, 'Twixt God and souls of men that righteous been Ambassador is he, forever blest, The just commands of Heaven's Eternal King, 'Twixt skies and earth, he up …

Women have tongues of craft, and hearts of guile, They will, they will not, fools that on them trust, For in their speech is death, hell in their smile.

Remembrance is the life of grief; his grave, Forgetfulness.

Nature gives beauty, fortune wealth, in vain.

The rosy-fingered morn with gladsome ray Rose to her task from old Tithonus' lap.