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John Donne - To Sir Henry Wotton II
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HERE`S no more news than virtue ; I may as well
Tell you Calais, or Saint Michael`s tales, as tell
That vice doth here habitually dwell.

Yet as, to get stomachs, we walk up and down,
And toil to sweeten rest ; so, may God frown,
If, but to loathe both, I haunt court or town.

For, here, no one`s from th` extremity
Of vice by any other reason free,
But that the next to him still `s worse than he.

In this world`s warfare, they whom rugged Fate
(God`s commissary) doth so throughly hate,
As in the court`s squadron to marshal their state ;

if they stand arm`d with silly honesty,
With wishes, prayers, and neat integrity,
Like Indians `gainst Spanish hosts they be.

Suspicious boldness to this place belongs,
And to have as many ears as all have tongues ;
Tender to know, tough to acknowledge wrongs.

Believe me, sir, in my youth`s giddiest days,
When to be like the court was a play`s praise,
Plays were not so like courts, as courts like plays.

Then let us at these mimic antics jest,
Whose deepest projects and egregious gests
Are but dull morals of a game at chests.

But now `tis incongruity to smile,
Therefore I end ; and bid farewell awhile ;
“ At court,”—though “ from court” were the better style.
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