Employment

If as a flowre doth spread and die,
Thou wouldst extend me to some good,
Before I were frost's extremitie
Nipt in the bud;
The sweetnesse and the praise were thine;
But the extension and the room,
Which in thy garland I should fill, were mine
At thy great doom.
For as thou dost impart thy grace,
The greater shall our glorie be.
The measure of our joyes is in this place,
The stuffe with thee.
Let me not languish then, and spend
A life as barren to thy praise
As is the dust, to which that life doth tend,
But with delaies.
All things are busie; only I
Neither bring hony with the bees,
Nor flowres to make that, nor the husbandrie
To water these.
I am no link of thy great chain,
But all my companie is a weed.
Lord, place me in thy consort; give on strain
To my poore reed.