SIR THOMAS OVERBURY, OR THE POISONED KNIGHTS COMPLAINT.  


TIME REVEALEH·TRUTH   

REVENGE.  
JUSTICE·WIL·RIGHT all ·WRONGS·   

POISONED.   

Within this house of Death, A dead man lies,  
Whose blood like Abel's up for vengeance cries:  
Time hath revealed what to truth belongs,  
And justice sword is drawn toright my wrongs:  
You poisoned minds did me with poison Kill,  
Let true Repentance purge you from that ill.    

GReat powerful God, whom all are bound to love,  
How graceless bad, doth Man (thy Creature) prove?  
Thy Supreme Creature over all the rest,  
(In number numberless to be expressed,)  
To whom thou gavest grace to be his guide,  
Reason with Understanding, and beside,  
Thy Law to be direction for his ways,  
Which unto Sinners view, thy judgements lays,  
Those fearful plagues pronounced for ugly Sin,  
Which with the first created, did begin,  
Who by the Law of Nature understood,  
To make a difference of bad deeds and good.  
By which enlightening, that is given us,  
No Nation Heathenish, and Barbarous,  
(Farthest remote from true religions light)  
But can distinguish betwixt wrong and right,  
Those that to Christ did never yet belong,  
Can tell they do amiss, when they do wrong,  
And that there is a justice to be done,  
And shamefúll actions, which they are to shun,  
Yet never age, since Nature first began,  
Wherein man was not Devil unto man,  
In practising most opposite to kind,  
Inhuman actions out of bloody mind.  
Behold the first that in the World was borne,  
With his rejected Sacrifice of Corn,  
Because his Brother's gifts more grace did yield,  
Lift up his hand against him in the field,  
And with a cruel heart obdurate ill,  
Did innocent pure-thoughted Abel kill.  
When joab sent for Abner (as a friend)  
He came to Hebron, for a peaceful end,  
Where, as in arms he lent a cheerful smile,  
He gave his heart a mortal stab the while.  
God's holy History hath many more  
human records, Innumerable store,  
What intercepting hath there been of lives,  
By Pistols, Stabbing, Powder, Daggers, Knives:  
Drowning and Hanging, and strange murdering?  
As second Edward, sometimes England's King,  
Whom an incarnate Devil did torment,  
With red hot Spit into his fundament.  
Some in their beds have acted tragic Scenes,  
As those two Princes, which by Gloster's means,  
(Their cruel Uncle, Father's unkind Brother)  
Villains between the sheets to death did smother.  
Some in unwonted manner done to death,  
As George the Duke of Clarence lost his breath,  
When with heels upwards he was strangely put,  
To suffer drowning in a Malmsey But.  
Yet besides all these damned plots to kill,  
And thousands more from Hell transported still,  
The Devil hath a poison working Art,  
In which of late I shared a mortal part.  
A Rapier drawn, and at thy heart aimed just,  
May be put by and made a broken thrust:  
A Dagger offered for another's pain,  
Hath been returned into the stabbers brain:  
A Pistol shot with an intent to kill,  
Hath missed the mark, and party living still:  
But this life-killing poison, cureless foe,  
The bodies hopeless, helpless overthrow:  
Brings with it nothing but pale deaths command,  
Depriving life with a remorseless hand.  
Oh sacred justice! evermore renowned  
In thy uprightness of revenge late found:  
proceed with vengeance as thou didst begin,  
To punish Caines most bloody crying sin:  
Let not a murderer remain concealed,  
Nor breath alive when being once revealed:  
This is the suit wronged Innocents' do crave,  
This is the justice that the Heavens will have.   
Samuel rowland's.   

Imprinted at London for john White.