- O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
- The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
- That did not better for my life provide
- Than public means which public manners breeds.
- Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
- And almost thence my nature is subdu’d
- To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand:
- Pity me, then, and wish I were renew’d;
- Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink,
- Potions of eisel ’gainst my strong infection;
- No bitterness that I will bitter think,
- Nor double penance, to correct correction.
- Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,
- Even that your pity is enough to cure me.