Page:The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation 15.djvu/60

On braue indeuours, knowing that in them
The tract of heauen in morne-like glory opens,
That know you cannot be the Kings of earth,
(Claiming the rights of your creation)
And let the Mynes of earth be Kings of you;
That are so farre from doubting likely drifts,
That in things hardest y'are most confident:
You that know death liues, where power liues vnusde,
Ioying to shine in waues that burie you,
And so make way for life euen through your graues;
That will not be content like horse to hold
A thread-bare beaten way to home affaires:
But where the sea in enuie of your reigne,
Closeth her wombe, as fast as t'is disclosede,
That she like Auarice might swallow all,
And let none find right passage through her rage:
There your wise soules as swift as Eurus lead
Your Bodies through, to profit and renowne,
And skorne to let your bodies choke your soules,
In the rude breath and prisoned life of beastes:
You that herein renounce the course of earth,
And lift your eyes for guidance to the starres,
That liue not for yourselues, but to possesse
Your honour'd countrey of a generall store;
In pitie of the spoyle rude selfe-loue makes,
Of them whose liues and yours one ayre doth feede,
One soile doeth nourish, and one strength combine;
You that are blest with sence of all things noble,
In this attempt your compleat woorthes redouble.

But how is Nature at her heart corrupted,
(I meane euen in her most ennobled birth)
How in excesse of Sence is Sence bereft her!
That her most lightening-like effects of lust
Wound through her flesh, her soule, her flesh vnwounded;
And she must neede incitements to her good,
Euen from that part she hurtes! O how most like
Art thou (heroike Autor of this Act)
To this wrong'd soule of Nature, that sustainst
Paine, charge, and perill for thy countreys good,
And she must like a bodie numb'd with surfeits,