130
COWLEY'S POEMS.
But in this thankless world the givers
Are envied ev'n by the receivers:
’Tis now the cheap and frugal fashion,
Rather to hide, than pay, the obligation:
Nay, ’tis much worse than so;
It now an artifice does grow,
Wrongs and outrages to do,
Lest men should think we owe.
Such monsters, Theron! has thy virtue found:
But all the malice they profess,
Thy secure honour cannot wound;
For thy vast bounties are so numberless,
That them or to conceal, or else to tell,
Is equally impossible!
Are envied ev'n by the receivers:
’Tis now the cheap and frugal fashion,
Rather to hide, than pay, the obligation:
Nay, ’tis much worse than so;
It now an artifice does grow,
Wrongs and outrages to do,
Lest men should think we owe.
Such monsters, Theron! has thy virtue found:
But all the malice they profess,
Thy secure honour cannot wound;
For thy vast bounties are so numberless,
That them or to conceal, or else to tell,
Is equally impossible!
