Ode 4 [To My Worthy Friend, Master John Savage Of The Inner Temple]

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Title:     Ode 4 [To My Worthy Friend, Master John Savage Of The Inner Temple]
Author: Michael Drayton [More Titles by Drayton]

Upon this sinful earth
If man can happy be,
And higher then his birth,
(Friend) take him thus from me.

Whom promise not deceives
That he the breach should rue,
Nor constant reason leaves
Opinion to pursue.

To raise his mean estate
That sooths no wanton's sin,
Doth that preferment hate
That virtue doth not win.

Nor bravery doth admire,
Nor doth more love profess
To that he doth desire,
Then that he doth possess.

Loose humor nor to please,
That neither spares nor spends,
But by discretion weighs
What is to needful ends.

To him deserving not
Not yielding, nor doth hould
What is not his, doing what
He ought not what he could.

Whome the base tyrants will
So much could never awe
As him for good or ill
From honesty to draw.

Whose constancy doth rise
'Bove undeserved spite
Whose valour's to despise
That most doth him delight.

That early leave doth take
Of th' world though to his pain
For virtues only sake
And not till need constrain.

No man can be so free
Though in imperial seat
Nor Eminent as he
That deemeth nothing great.

[The end]
Michael Drayton's poem: To My Worthy Friend, Master John Savage Of The Inner Temple

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