Sir Walter Ralegh. "In Commendation of the Steel Glass", 1576. "Sweet were the sauce would please"

WALTER RAWELY OF THE MIDDLE
TEMPLE

IN COMMENDATION OF THE STEEL GLASS.¹

(1576.)

WEET were the sauce would please
each kind of taste ;
The life likewise were pure that
never swerved :
For spiteful tongues in cankered stomachs placed
Deem worst of things which best (percase) deserved.
But what for that? This medicine may suffice
To scorn the rest, and seek to please the wise.

Though sundry minds in sundry sort do deem,
Yet worthiest wights, yield praise for every pain;
But envious brains do nought, or light, esteem,
Such stately steps as they cannot attain :
For whoso reaps renown above the rest,
VVith heaps of hate shall surely be oppressed.

Wherefore, to write my censure of this book,
This Glass of Steel unpartially doth show
Abuses all to such as in it look,
From prince to poor, from high estate to low.
As for the verse, who list like trade to try,
I fear me much, shall hardly reach so high.

¹ Prefixed to George Gascoigne's "Steel Glass," 1576.

Source:
Hannah, J., Ed. The Poems of Sir Walter Raleigh.
London: George Bell and Sons, 1891. 3-4.

to the Works of Sir Walter Ralegh