Poore _Hart_, why dost thou run so fast? and why, Behind thee dost thou looke, when thou dost fly? As if thou seem’dst in thy swift flight, to heare Those _dangers_ following thee, w^{ch} thou dost feare? Alas! thou labour’st, and thou runn’st in vaine, To shunne, by _flight_, thy _terrors_, or thy _paine_; For, loe, thy _Death_, which thou hast dreaded so, Clings fast unto thee, wheresoere thou goe: And while thou toyl’st, an _outward-ease_ to win, Thou draw’st thine owne _destruction_ further _in_; Making that _Arrow_, which but prickes thy hide, To pierce thy tender entrailes, through thy side. And, well I may this wounded _Hart_ bemoane; For, here, me thinkes, I’m taught to looke upon Mine owne condition; and, in him, to see Those deadly wounds, my _Sinnes_ have made in mee. I greatly feare the _World_, may unawares Intangle mee, by her alluring snares: I am afraid, the _Devill_ may inject Some poys’nous fume, my _Spirit_ to infect, With ghostly _Pestilence_; and, I assay, To flie from these, with all the pow’rs I may. But, oh my Flesh! this very _Flesh_ I weare, Is worse to mee, than _Worlds_, and _Devils_ are: For, without this, no pow’r on mee, they had. This is that _Shirt_, which made _Alcides_ mad. It is a _griefe_, which I shall never cure, Nor flie from, whilst my life-time doth endure: From thence, oh _Lord_, my greatest _sorrowes_ bee; And, therefore, from my _Selfe_, I flie to _Thee_. _When =Magistrates= confined are, They revell, who were kept in feare._ [Illustration: CAPTIVUM IMPUNE LACESSUNT. ILLVSTR. VII. _Book. 4_]