Thomas Urquhart

Epigrams. The Third Booke. ¹ 26. The vertuous speech of a diseased man, most patient in his sicknesse

MY flesh still having beene an enemy
Unto my spirit, it should glad my heart,
That paines, which seize now on my body, may
Be profitable to my better part;
For though Diseases seeme at first unpleasant,
They point us out the way, we ought to goe:
Admonish us exactly of our present
Estate: and t'us at last this favour shew,
That they enlarge us from that ruinous,
Close, and darke prison, which confined us.