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EPISTLE TO HENRY WRIOTHESLEY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, by             Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: He who hath never warred with misery
Last Line: God sets to act the hard'st and constant'st parts.
Subject(s): Death; Fame; Fortune; Wriothesley, Henry. Earl Of Southampton; Dead, The; Reputation


He who hath never warred with misery,
Nor ever tugged with fortune and distress,
Hath had no'occasion nor no field to try
The strength and forces of his worthiness;
Those parts of judgment which felicity
Keeps as concealed, affliction must express;
And only men show their abilities,
And what they are, in their extremities.

The world had never taken so full note
Of what thou art, hadst thou not been undone,
And only thy affliction hath begot
More fame than thy best fortunes could have done;
For ever by adversity are wrought
The greatest works of admiration,
And all the fair examples of renown
Out of distress and misery are grown.

Mucius the fire, the tortures Regulus,
Did make the miracles of faith and zeal;
Exile renowned and graced Rutilius;
Imprisonment and poison did reveal
The worth of Socrates; Fabricius'
Poverty did grace that commonweal
More than all Sulla's riches got with strife;
And Cato's death did vie with Caesar's life.

Not to be'unhappy is unhappiness,
And mis'ry not to have known misery;
For the best way unto discretion is
The way that leads us by adversity;
And men are better showed what is amiss
By th' expert finger of calamity
Than they can be with all that fortune brings,
Who never shows them the true face of things.

How could we know that thou couldst have endured
With a reposed cheer wrong and disgrace,
And with a heart and countenance assured,
Have looked stern death and horror in the face?
How should we know thy soul had been secured
In honest counsels and in ways unbase,
Hadst thou not stood to show us what thou wert
By thy affliction, that descried thy heart?

It is not but the tempest that doth show
The seaman's cunning; but the field that tries
The captain's courage; and we come to know
Best what men are in their worst jeopardies.
For lo, how many have we seen to grow
To high renown from lowest miseries,
Out of the hands of death, and many a one
T' have been undone had they not been undone.

He that endures for what his conscience knows
Not to be ill doth from a patience high
Look only on the cause whereto he owes
Those sufferings, not on his misery;
The more he'endures, the more his glory grows,
Which never grows from imbecility.
Only the best composed and worthiest hearts
God sets to act the hard'st and constant'st parts.





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