Thou Shalt not Laugh in this Leaf, Muse, nor They by John Donne

Thou shalt not laugh in this leaf, Muse, nor they / Whom any pity warms. He which did lay / Rules to make courtiers-he being understood / May make good courtiers, but who courtiers good? - / Frees from the sting of jests all who in extreme / Are wretched or wicked; of these two a theme / Charity and liberty give me. What is he, / Who officers' rage and suitors' misery / Can write and jest? If all things be in all / -As I think, since all which were, are, and shall / Be, be made of the same elements, / Each thing each thing implies or represents- / Then man is a world; in which officers / Are the vast ravishing seas, and suitors / Springs, now full, now shallow, now dry, which to / That which drowns them run; these self reasons do / Prove the world a man, in which officers / Are the devouring stomach, and suitors / Th' excrements which they void. All men are dust; / How much worse are suitors, who to men's lust / Are made preys? O, worse than dust or worms' meat, / For they do eat you now, whose selves worms shall eat. / They are the mills which grind you, yet you are / The wind which drives them; and a wasteful war / Is fought against you, and you fight it; they / Adulterate law, and you prepare the way; / Like wittols, th' issue your own ruin is. / Greatest and fairest empress, know you this? / Alas, no more than Thames' calm head doth know / Whose meads her arms drown, or whose corn o'erflow. / You, sir, whose righteousness she loves, whom I, / By having leave to serve, am most richly / For service paid, authorized now begin / To know and weed out this enormous sin. / O age of rusty iron! -some better wit / Call it some worse name, if aught equal it- / Th' iron age that was, when justice was sold-now / Injustice is sold dearer-did allow / All claimed fees and duties. Gamesters, anon, / The money which you sweat and swear for is gone / Into other hands. So controverted lands / 'Scape, like Angelica, the striver's hands. / If law be in the judge's heart, and he / Have no heart to resist letter, or fee, / Where wilt thou appeal? power of the courts below / Flows from the first main head, and these can throw / Thee, if they suck thee in, to misery, / To fetters, halters. But if the injury / Steel thee to dare complain; alas, thou goest / Against the stream, upwards, when thou art most / Heavy and most faint; and in these labours they, / 'Gainst whom thou shouldst complain, will in thy way / Become great seas, o'er which, when thou shalt be / Forced to make golden bridges, thou shalt see / That all thy gold was drown'd in them before. / All things follow their like; only who have, may have more. / Judges are gods; he who made and said them so, / Meant not men should be forced to them to go, / By means of angels. When supplications / We send to God; to Dominations, / Powers, Cherubins, and all heaven's courts, if we / Should pay fees as here, daily bread would be / Scarce to kings; so 'tis. Would it not anger / A Stoic, a coward, yea a martyr, / To see a pursuivant come in, and call / All his clothes copes, books primers, and all / His plate chalices, and mistake them away, / And lack a fee for coming? Oh! ne'er may / Fair Law's white reverend name be strumpeted, / To warrant thefts; she is established / Recorder to Destiny on earth, and she / Speaks Fate's words, and but tells us who must be / Rich, who poor; who in chairs, who in gaols. / She is all fair, but yet hath foul long nails, / With which she scratcheth suitors; in bodies / Of men, so in law, nails are extremities. / So officers stretch to more than law can do, / As our nails reach what no else part comes to. / Why barest thou to yon officer? Fool! hath he / Got those goods, for which erst men bared to thee? / Fool! twice, thrice thou hast bought wrong, and now hungrily / Beg'st right, but that dole comes not till these die. / Thou hadst much, and laws Urim and Thummim try / Thou wouldst for more; and for all hast paper / Enough to clothe all the great Carrick's pepper. / Sell that, and by that thou much more shalt leese / Then Hammon if he sold his antiquities. / O wretch, that thy fortunes should moralize / Esop's fables, and make tales prophecies. / Thou art the swimming dog whom shadows cozened, / And divest, near drowning, for what vanished.