Ash⚡

Three thousand times within this three years’

space;

For every man with his affects is born,

Not by might mastered, but by special grace.

If I break faith, this word shall speak for me:

I am forsworn on mere necessity."

While it doth study to have what it would,

It doth forget to do the thing it should.

And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,

’Tis won as towns with fire—so won, so lost."

Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain:

As painfully to pore upon a book

To seek the light of truth, while truth the while

Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.

Light seeking light doth light of light beguile.

So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,

Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.

Study me how to please the eye indeed

By fixing it upon a fairer eye,

Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed

And give him light that it was blinded by.

Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun,

That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks.

Small have continual plodders ever won,

Save base authority from others’ books.

These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights,

That give a name to every fixèd star,

Have no more profit of their shining nights

Than those that walk and wot not what they are.

Too much to know is to know naught but fame,

And every godfather can give a name."

To know the thing I am forbid to know:

As thus—to study where I well may dine,

When I to feast expressly am forbid;

Or study where to meet some mistress fine

When mistresses from common sense are hid;

Or having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath,

Study to break it, and not break my troth.

If study’s gain be thus, and this be so,

Study knows that which yet it doth not know.

Swear me to this, and I will ne’er say no."