Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.

Integer Vitae

Thomas Campion (1567–1620)

THE MAN of life upright,

Whose guiltless heart is free

From all dishonest deeds,

Or thought of vanity;

The man whose silent days

In harmless joys are spent,

Whom hopes cannot delude,

Nor sorrow discontent;

That man needs neither towers

Nor armour for defence,

Nor secret vaults to fly

From thunder’s violence:

He only can behold

With affrighted eyes

The horrors of the deep

And terrors of the skies.

Thus, scorning all the cares

That fate or fortune brings,

He makes the heaven his book,

His wisdom heavenly things;

Good thoughts his only friends,

His wealth a well-spent age,

The earth his sober inn

And quiet pilgrimage.