My power it is not absolute in jurisdiction,
For I cognise another lord above,
That hath received unto his disposition
The soul of man, which he of special love
To gifts of grace and learning eke doth move.
A work so far beyond my reach and call,
That into part of praise with him myself to show
Might soon procure my well-deserved fall:
He makes the frame, and [I] receive it so,
No jot therein altered for my head;
And as I it receive, I let it go,
Causing therein such sparkles to be bred,
As he commits to me, by whom I must be led:
Who guides me first, and in me guides the rest,
All which in their due course and kind are spread
Of gifts from me such as may serve them best,
To thee, son Wit, he will'd me to inspire,
The love of knowledge and certain seeds divine,
Which ground might be a mean to bring thee here,
If thereunto thyself thou wilt incline:
The massy gold the cunning hand makes fine:
Good grounds are till'd, as well as are the worst,
The rankest flower will ask a springing time;
So is man's wit unperfit at the first.
WIT.
If cunning be the key and well of wordly[382] bliss
Me-thinketh God might at the first as well endue all with this.
NATURE.
As cunning is the key of bliss, so it is worthy praise:
The worthiest things are won with pain in tract of time always.
WIT.
And yet right worthy things there are, you will confess, I trow,
Which notwithstanding at our birth God doth on us bestow.
Pages:
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239