HUGO. Luxury is an enticing pleasure, a bastard mirth, which hath honey in her mouth, gall in her heart, and a sting in her tail. EPIG. 3. What, Cupid, are thy shafts already made? True emblem of thy sweets! Thy bees do bring IV. PSALM Ixii. 29. To be laid in the balance, it is altogether lighter than PUT vanity. 1. UT in another weight: 'tis yet too light: And yet another still there's under-weight : Put in another hundred: put again; Add world to world; then heap a thousand more Take up more worlds on trust, to draw thy balance low'r. 2. Put in the flesh, with all her loads of pleasure; 3. Lord! what a world is this, which day and night Good Good God! that frantic mortals should destroy Their higher hopes, and place their idle joy Upon such airy trash, upon so light a toy! 4. Thou bold impostor, how hast thou befool'd And cheated men with thy false weights and measure, Proclaiming bad for good; and gilding death with pleasure ! 5 The world's a crafty strumpet, most affecting And coyly flying those that most affect her : If thou be free, she's strange; if strange, she's free; Flee, and she follows; follow, and she'll flee : Than she there's none more coy, there's none more fond than she. 6. O what a crocodilian world is this, Compos'd of treach'ries, and insnaring wiles! She clothes destruction in a formal kiss, And lodges death in her destructive smiles; She hugs the soul she hates; and there does prove And is a serpent most, when most she seems a dove. 7. Thrice happy he, whose nobler thoughts despise Thrice happy he, that ne'er was born to try S. AUGUST. lib. Confess. O you that dote upon this world, for what victory do ye fight? Your hopes can be crowned with no greater reward than the world can give; and what is the world, but a brittle thing full of dangers, wherein we travel from lesser to greater perils? O let all her vain, light, momentary glory, perish with herself, and let us be conversant with more eternal things. Alas! this world is miserable; life is short, and death is sure. EPIG. 4. My soul, what's lighter than a feather? Wind. mind. The fire. And what, than fire? The What's lighter than the mind? A thought. Than thought? This bubble world. G Nought. What, than this bubble? V. 1 COR. vii. 13. The fashion of this world passeth away. ONE are those golden days, wherein Pale conscience started not at ugly sin: When jealous Ops ne'er fear'd th' abuse In mortal hearts, whose absence earth bewails: The |