And into base and wilfull beggery run
This man as he some glorious acte had done,
With some great pension, or rich guift releeu’d, 80
When he that hath by industry atchieu’d
Some noble thing, contemned and disgrac’d,
In the forlorne hope of the times is plac’d,
As though that God had carelessely left all
That being hath on this terrestriall ball,
To fortunes guiding, nor would haue to doe
With man, nor aught that doth belong him to,
Or at the least God hauing giuen more
Power to the Deuill, then he did of yore,
Ouer this world:  the feind as he doth hate 90
The vertuous man; maligning his estate,
All noble things, and would haue by his will,
To be damn’d with him, vsing all his skill,
By his blacke hellish ministers to vexe
All worthy men, and strangely to perplexe
Their constancie, there by them so to fright,
That they should yeeld them wholely to his might. 
But of these things I vainely doe but tell,
Where hell is heauen, and heau’n is now turn’d hell;
Where that which lately blasphemy hath bin, 100
Now godlinesse, much lesse accounted sin;
And a long while I greatly meruail’d why
Buffoons and Bawdes should hourely multiply,
Till that of late I construed it that they
To present thrift had got the perfect way,
When I concluded by their odious crimes,
It was for vs no thriuing in these times. 
As men oft laugh at little Babes, when they
Hap to behold some strange thing in their play,
To see them on the suddaine strucken sad, 110
As in their fancie some strange formes they had,
Which they by pointing with their fingers showe,
Angry at our capacities so slowe,
That by their countenance we no sooner learne
To see the wonder which they so discerne: 
So the celestiall powers doe sit and smile
At innocent and vertuous men the while,
They stand amazed at the world ore-gone,
So farre beyond imagination,
With slauish basenesse, that the silent sit 120
Pointing like children in describing it. 
Then noble friend the next way to controule
These worldly crosses, is to arme thy soule
With constant patience:  and with thoughts as high
As these be lowe, and poore, winged to flye
To that exalted stand, whether yet they
Are got with paine, that sit out of the way
Of this ignoble age, which raiseth none
But such as thinke their black damnation
To be a trifle; such, so ill, that when 130
They are aduanc’d, those few poore honest men
That yet are liuing, into search doe runne
To finde what mischiefe they haue lately done,
Which so preferres them; say thou he doth rise,
That maketh vertue his chiefe exercise. 
And in this base world come what euer shall,
Hees worth lamenting, that for her doth fall.

Vpon the three Sonnes of the Lord SHEFFIELD, drowned in
HVMBER