Take heed lest passion sway Thy judgement to do aught, which else free will Would not admit.
Yet hold it more humane, more heav’nly, first, By winning words to conquer willing hearts, And make persuasion do the work of fear.
Justice divine Mends not her slowest pace for prayers or cries.
Suffering for truth’s sake Is fortitude to highest victory, And to the faithful death the gate of life.
Hard are the ways of truth, and rough to walk.
Tears such as angels weep.
Few sometimes may know, when thousands err.
Yet I shall temper so Justice with mercy, as may illustrate most Them fully satisfy’d, and thee appease.
The brazen throat of war.
No war or battle sound Was heard the world around.
The rising world of waters dark and deep.
And fast by, hanging in a golden chain, This pendent world, in bigness as a star Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon.
Or if Virtue feeble were, Heav’n itself would stoop to her.
The work under our labour grows, Luxurious by restraint.
His rod revers’d, And backward mutters of dissevering power.
But oh the heavy change, now thou art gone, Now thou art gone and never must return!
A bevy of fair women.
The conquer’d, also, and enslaved by war, Shall, with their freedom lost, all virtue lose.
Extol not riches then, the toil of fools, The wise man’s cumbrance, if not snare, more apt To slacken virtue, and abate her edge, Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise.
Prudence is the virtue by which we discern what is proper to do under various circumstances in time and place.