Selected Works. George Herbert

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      47. CONSTANCES.

      WHO is the honest man?

      He that doth still and strongly good pursue,

      To God, his neighbour, and himself most true:

      Whom neither force nor fawning can

      Unpinne, or wrench from giving all their due.

      Whose honestie is not

      So loose or easie, that a ruffling winde

      Can blow away, or glittering look it blinde:

      Who rides his sure and even trot,

      While the world now rides by, now lags behinde.

      Who, when great trials come,

      Nor seeks, nor shunnes them; but doth calmly stay,

      Till he the thing and the example weigh:

      All being brought into a summe,

      What place or person calls for, he doth pay.

      Whom none can work or wooe,

      To use in any tiling a trick or sleight;

      For above all things he abhorres deceit:

      His words and works and fashion too

      All of a piece, and all are cleare and straight.

      Who never melts or thaws

      At close tentations: when the day is done,

      His goodnesse sets not, but in dark can runne:

      The sunne to others writeth laws,

      And is their vertue; Vertue is his Sunne.

      Who, when he is to treat

      With sick folks, women, those whom passions sway,

      Allows for that, and keeps his constant way:

      Whom others’ faults do not defeat;

      But though men fail him, yet his part doth play.

      Whom nothing can procure,

      When the wide world runnes bias, from his will

      To writhe his limbes, and share, not mend the ill.

      This is the Mark-man, safe and sure,

      Who still is right, and prayes to be so still.