VII — 1 — Mundus Qualis
What is the world? tell, worldling, if thou know it.
If it be good, why do all ills o’erflow it?
If it be bad, why dost thou like it so?
If it be sweet, how comes it bitter then?
If it be bitter, what bewitcheth men? 5
If it be friend, why kills it, as a foe,
Vain-minded men that over-love and lust it?
If it be foe, fondling, how dar’st thou trust it?
2 — Emblema
Friend faber, cast me a round hollow ball,
Blown full of wind, for emblem of this All;
Adorn it fair, and flourish every part
With flowers and fruits, with brooks, beasts, fish, and fowl,
With rarest cunning of thy curious art: 5
And grave in gold, about my silver bowl,
Thus rolls the world, the idol of mankind,
Whose fruit is fiction; whose foundation wind.
3 — Fuimus Fumus
Where, where are now the great reports
Of those huge haughty earthborn giants?
Where are the lofty towers and forts
Of those proud kings bade Heaven defiance?
When these I to my mind revoke, 5
Methinks I see a mighty smoke
Thick mounting from quick-burning matter,
Which in an instant winds do scatter.
4 — Omnia Somnia
Go, silly worm, drudge, trudge, and travel,
Despising pain, so thou may’st gain
Some honour or some golden gravel;
But death the while, to fill his number,
With sudden call takes thee from all, 5
To prove thy days but dream and slumber.
5 — Mors Mortis
The World and Death one day them cross-disguisèd,
To cozen man, when sin had once beguiled him.
Both called him forth, and questioning advisèd
To say whose servant he would fairly yield him.
Man, weening then but to the World to’ have given him, 5
By the false World became the slave of Death;
But from their fraud he did appeal by faith
To Him whose death killed Death, and from the world has driven him.
Joshua Sylvester.