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EPIGRAM 28.
"A QUIET NEIGHBOUR."
Accompted our commodities,
Few more commodious reason sees
Than is this one commodity—
Quietly neighboured to be;
Which neighbourhood in thee appears.
For, we two, having ten whole years
Dwelt wall to wall, so joiningly,
That whispering soundeth through wellnigh,
I never heard thy servants brawl
More than thou hadst had none at all.
Nor I can no way make avaunt,
That ever I heard thee give them taunt.
Thou art to them, and they to thee,
More mild than mute; mum ye be.
I hear no noise mine ease to break;
Thy buttery door I hear not creak;
The kitchen cumbreth not by heat;
Thy cooks chop neither herbs nor meat.
I never heard thy fire once spark;
I never heard thy dog once bark;
I never heard once in thy house
So much as one peep of one mouse;
I never heard thy cat once mew—
These praises are not small nor few.
I bear all water of thy soil.
Whereof I feel no filthy foil,
Save water which doth wash thy hands,
Wherein there none annoyance stands.
Of all thy guests set at thy board,
I never heard one speak one word;
I never heard them cough nor hem;
I think, hence to Jerusalem,
For this neighbourly quietness,
Thou art the neighbour neighbourless.
For ere thou wouldest neighbours annoy,
These kinds of quiet to destroy,
Thou rather wouldest to help that matter,
At home alone fast bread and water.
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Source:
Farmer, John S., ed. The Proverbs, Epigrams, and Miscellanies of John Heywood.
London: Early English Drama Society, 1906. 125.
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John Heywood
