fleckled

The gray-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night ,
Check’ring the eastern clouds with streaks of light ,
And fleckled darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day’s path and Titan’s fiery wheels .
Now , ere the sun advance his burning eye ,
The day to cheer and night’s dank dew to dry ,
I must upfill this osier cage of ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juicèd flowers .
The Earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb ;
What is her burying grave , that is her womb ;
And from her womb children of divers kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find ,
Many for many virtues excellent ,
None but for some , and yet all different .
O , mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In plants , herbs , stones , and their true qualities .
For naught so vile that on the Earth doth live
But to the Earth some special good doth give ;
Nor aught so good but , strained from that fair use ,
Revolts from true birth , stumbling on abuse .
Virtue itself turns vice , being misapplied ,
And vice sometime by action dignified .



Within the infant rind of this weak flower
Poison hath residence and medicine power :
For this , being smelt , with that part cheers each
part ;
Being tasted , stays all senses with the heart .
Two such opposèd kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs — grace and rude will ;
And where the worser is predominant ,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant .