Often sought, scarce ever chancing.
Time and place gives best advice.
Out of season, out of price.
Crush the serpent in the head,
Breake ill eggs ere they be hatched:
Kill bad chickens in the tread;
Fledged, they hardly can be catched:
In the rising stifle ill,
Lest it grow against thy will.
Drops do pierce the stubborn flint,
Not by force, but often falling;
Custome kills with feeble dint.
More by use than strength prevailing:
Single sands have little weight,
Many make a drowning freight.
Tender twigs are bent with ease,
Aged trees do breake with bending;
Young desires make little prease,
Growth doth make them past amending.
Happie man that soon doth knocke,
Babel's babes against the rocke.
ROBERT SOUTHWELL.
*
THE SEED GROWING SECRETLY.
Dear, secret greenness! nurst below
Tempests and winds and winter nights!
Vex not, that but One sees thee grow;
That One made all these lesser lights.
What needs a conscience calm and bright
Within itself, an outward test?
Who breaks his glass, to take more light,
Makes way for storms into his rest.
Then bless thy secret growth, nor catch
At noise, but thrive unseen and dumb;
Keep clean, bear fruit, earn life, and watch
Till the white-winged reapers come!