Sick soul! what cure shall I for thee devise, Whose leprous state corrupts all remedies? What medicine or what cordial can be got For thee, who poison'st thy best antidote? Repentance is thy bane, since thou by it Only reviv'st the fault thou didst commit. Nor griev'st thou for the past, but art in pain, For fear thou mayst not act it o'er again. 30 So that thy tears, like water spilt on lime, Serve not to quench, but to advance the crime. My blessed Saviour! unto thee I fly For help against this homebred tyranny. Thou canst true sorrows in my soul imprint, And draw contrition from a breast of flint. Thou canst reverse this labyrinth of sin, My wild affects and actions wander in. O guide my faith! and, by thy grace's clew, Teach me to hunt that kingdom at the view 40 Where true joys reign, which like their day shall last; Those never clouded, nor that overcast. [_The Labyrinth._] 12 her] our _Malone MS. 22._] [Line: 26 Orig. 'anti_dot_', on the eye-[and ear]-system as before.] _Being waked out of my sleep by a snuff of candle which offended me, I thus thought._ Perhaps 'twas but conceit. Erroneous sense! Thou art thine own distemper and offence. Imagine then, that sick unwholesome steam Was thy corruption breath'd into a dream. Nor is it strange, when we in charnels dwell, That all our thoughts of earth and frailty smell. Man is a Candle, whose unhappy light Burns in the day, and smothers in the night. And as you see the dying taper waste, 10 By such degrees does he to darkness haste. Here is the diff'rence: When our bodies' lamps Blinded by age, or chok'd with mortal damps, Now faint, and dim, and sickly 'gin to wink, And in their hollow sockets lowly sink; When all our vital fires ceasing to burn, Leave nought but snuff and ashes in our urn: God will restore those fallen lights again, And kindle them to an eternal flame. _Sic Vita._ KING AND BEAUMONT. [I.] Like to the falling of a star; Or as the flights of eagles are; Or like the fresh springs gaudy hue; Or silver drops of morning dew; Or like a wind that chafes the flood; Or bubbles which on water stood; Even such is man, whose borrow'd light Is straight call'd in, and paid to night. The wind blows out; the bubble dies; The Spring entomb'd in Autumn lies; 10 The dew dries up; the star is shot; The flight is past; and man forgot. WASTELL. [II.]