‘He that of such a height hath built his mind, And rear’d the dwelling of his thoughts so strong, As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame Of his resolved pow’rs; nor all the wind Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong His settled peace, or to disturb the same: What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey! And with how free an eye doth he look down Upon these lower regions of turmoil, Where all the storms of passions mainly beat On flesh and blood: where honour, pow’r, renown, Are only gay afflictions, golden toil; Where greatness stands upon as feeble feet, As frailty doth; and only great doth seem To little minds, who do it so esteem. He looks upon the mightiest monarch’s wars But only as on stately robberies; Where evermore the fortune that prevails Must be the right: the ill-succeeding mars The fairest and the best-fac’d enterprize. Great pirate Pompey lesser pirates quails: Justice, he sees (as if seduced) still Conspires with pow’r, whose cause must not be ill. He sees the face of right t’ appear as manifold As are the passions of uncertain man. Who puts it in all colours, all attires, To serve his ends, and make his courses hold. He sees, that let deceit work what it can, Plot and contrive base ways to high desires; That the all-guiding Providence doth yet All disappoint, and mocks this smoke of wit. Nor is he mov’d with all the thunder-cracks Of tyrants’ threats, or with the surly brow Of pow’r, that proudly sits on others’ crimes: Charg’d with more crying sins than those he checks. The storms of sad confusion, that may grow Up in the present for the coming times, Appal not him; that hath no side at all, But of himself, and knows the worst can fall. Although his heart (so near ally’d to earth) Cannot but pity the perplexed state Of troublous and distress’d mortality, That thus make way unto the ugly birth Of their own sorrows, and do still beget Affliction upon imbecility: Yet seeing thus the course of things must run, He looks thereon not strange, but as fore-done. And whilst distraught ambition compasses, And is encompass’d; whilst as craft deceives, And is deceived; whilst man doth ransack man, And builds on blood, and rises by distress; And th’ inheritance of desolation leaves To great expecting hopes: he looks thereon, As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye, And bears no venture in impiety.’