Good Fortune Will With Him Abide, That Hath True Vertue, for His Guide
THe Gryphon, is the figure of a creature,
Not found within the Catalogues of Nature:
But, by those Wits created, who, to shew
Internall things, externall Figures drew:
The Shape, in which this Fiction they exprest,
Was borrow’d from a Fowle, and, from a Beast;
Importing (when their parts were thus combin’d)
The Vertues, both of Body, and of minde:
And, Men are sayd on Gryphons backes to ride,
When those mixt Vertues, them have dignify’d.
The Stone (this Brute supporting) may expresse
The firme abiding, and the solidnesse
Of all true Vertues. That, long-winged Ball,
Which doth appeare fast-linked therewithall,
The gifts of changing Fortune doth implye:
And, all those things together, signifie,
That, when by such like Vertues Men are guided,
Good Fortune cannot be from them divided.
If this be true (as true I this believe)
Why should wee murmure, why repine, or grieve,
As if our Studies, or our honest paines,
Deprived were of some deserved gaines?
Why should we thinke the world hath done us wrong,
Because wee are not register’d among
Those thriving men, who purse up evr’y day,
For twelve hours labour more then twelve months pay?
If wee our paines rewarded cannot see,
Wee count our Merits greater then they be.
But if we bide content, our worth is more;
And rich we are, though others think us poore.