Advice to My Best Brother, Coll: Francis Lovelace

Frank, wil't live unhandsomely? trust not too farThy self to waving seas: for what thy star,Calculated by sure event, must be,Look in the glassy-epithete, and see.

Yet settle here your rest, and take your state,And in calm halcyon's nest ev'n build your fate;Prethee lye down securely, Frank, and keepWith as much no noyse the inconstant deepAs its inhabitants; nay, stedfast stand,As if discover'd were a New-found-land,Fit for plantation here. Dream, dream still,Lull'd in Dione's cradle; dream, untillHorrour awake your sense, and you now findYour self a bubbled pastime for the wind;And in loose Thetis blankets torn and tost.Frank, to undo thy self why art at cost?

Nor be too confident, fix'd on the shore:For even that too borrows from the storeOf her rich neighbour, since now wisest know(And this to Galileo's judgement ow),The palsie earth it self is every jotAs frail, inconstant, waveing, as that blotWe lay upon the deep, that sometimes liesChang'd, you would think, with 's botoms properties;But this eternal, strange Ixion's wheelOf giddy earth ne'er whirling leaves to reel,Till all things are inverted, till they areTurn'd to that antick confus'd state they were.

Who loves the golden mean, doth safely wantA cobwebb'd cot and wrongs entail'd upon't;He richly needs a pallace for to breedVipers and moths, that on their feeder feed;The toy that we (too true) a mistress call,Whose looking-glass and feather weighs up all;And cloaths which larks would play with in the sun,That mock him in the night, when 's course is run.

To rear an edifice by art so high,That envy should not reach it with her eye,Nay, with a thought come neer it. Wouldst thou know,How such a structure should be raisd, build low.The blust'ring winds invisible rough stroakMore often shakes the stubborn'st, prop'rest oak;And in proud turrets we behold withal,'Tis the imperial top declines to fall:Nor does Heav'n's lightning strike the humble vales,But high-aspiring mounts batters and scales.

A breast of proof defies all shocks of Fate,Fears in the best, hopes in worser state;Heaven forbid that, as of old, time everFlourish'd in spring so contrary, now never.That mighty breath, which blew foul Winter hither,Can eas'ly puffe it to a fairer weather.Why dost despair then, Frank? Aeolus hasA Zephyrus as well as Boreas.

'Tis a false sequel, soloecisme 'gainst thosePrecepts by fortune giv'n us, to supposeThat, 'cause it is now ill, 't will ere be so;Apollo doth not always bend his bow;But oft, uncrowned of his beams divine,With his soft harp awakes the sleeping Nine.

In strictest things magnanimous appear,Greater in hope, howere thy fate, then fear:Draw all your sails in quickly, though no stormThreaten your ruine with a sad alarm;For tell me how they differ, tell me, pray,A cloudy tempest and a too fair day?

"Grant to Fras. Lovelace, of the office of chief steward of theLiberties of the late monastery of St. Augustine, near Canterbury."