SIR THOMAS OVERBURY,
OR
THE POYSONED KNIGHTS COMPLAINT.
Within this house of Death, A dead man lies,
Whose blood like Abels up for vengeance cryes:
Time hath revealed what to trueth belongs,
And Justice sword is drawne to right my wrongs:
You poysoned mindes did me with poyson Kill,
Let true Repentance purge you from that ill.
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GReat powerfull God, whom all are bound to love,
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How gracelesse bad, doth Man (thy Creature) prove?
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Thy Supreame Creature over all the rest,
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(In number numberlesse to bee exprest,)
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To whom thou gavest grace to bee his guide,
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Reason with Understanding, and beside,
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Thy Law to be direction for his wayes,
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Which unto Sinners view, thy Judgements layes,
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Those fearefull plagues pronounc'd for ugly Sinne,
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Which with the first created, did beginne,
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Who by the Law of Nature understood,
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To make a difference of bad deedes and good.
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By which enlightening, that is given us,
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No Nation Heathenish, and Barbarous,
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(Farthest remote from true religions light)
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But can distinguish betwixt wrong and right,
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Those that to Christ did never yet belong,
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Can tell they do amisse, when they do wrong,
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And that there is a Justice to be done,
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And shamefull actions, which they are to shun,
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Yet never age, since Nature first began,
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Wherein man was not Devill unto man,
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In practising most opposite to kinde,
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Inhumane actions out of bloody minde.
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Behold the first that in the World was borne,
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With his rejected Sacrifice of Corne,
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Because his Brothers gifts more grace did yeeld,
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Lift up his hand against him in the field,
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And with a cruell hart obdurate ill,
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Did innocent pure-thoughted Abell kill.
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When Joab sent for Abner (as a friend)
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Hee came to Hebron, for a peacefull end,
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Where, as in armes hee lent a cheerefull smile,
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He gave his heart a mortall stab the while.
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Gods holy History hath many more
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Humane records, Innumerable store,
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What intercepting hath there bin of lives,
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By Pistolls, Stabbing, Powder, Daggers, Knives:
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Drowning and Hanging, and strange murthering?
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As second Edward, sometimes Englands King,
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Whom an incarnate Divell did torment,
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With red hot Spit into his fundament.
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Some in their beds have acted tragick Scenes,
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As those two Princes, which by Glosters meanes,
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(Their cruell Uncle, Fathers unkind Brother)
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Villaines betweene the sheetes to death did smother.
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Some in unwonted manner done to death,
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As George the Duke of Clarence lost his breath,
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When with heeles upwards he was strangely put,
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To suffer drowning in a Malmesey But.
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Yet besides all these damned plots to kill,
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And thousands more from Hell transported still,
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The Divell hath a poyson working Art,
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In which of late I shar'd a mortall part.
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A Rapier drawne, and at thy heart aim'd just,
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May be put by and made a broken thrust:
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A Dagger offer'd for anothers paine,
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Hath bin return'd into the stabbers braine:
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A Pistoll shot with an intent to kill,
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Hath mist the marke, and party living still:
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But this life-killing poyson, cureles foe,
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The bodies hopeles, helples overthrowe:
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Brings with it nothing but pale deaths command,
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Depriving life with a remorseles hand.
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Oh sacred Justice! evermore renound
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In thy uprightnes of revenge late found:
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Proceede with vengeance as thou didst begin,
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To punish Caines most bloody crying sinne:
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Let not a murtherer remaine conceal'd,
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Nor breath alive when being once reveal'd:
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This is the suite wrong'd Innocents doe crave,
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This is the Justice that the Heavens will have.
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