comparison The onely measure is and judge opinion HOLY SONNETS La Corona 1. DEigne at my hands this crown of prayer and praise Weav'd in my low devout melancholie Thou which of good hast yea art treasury All changing unchang'd Antient of dayes But doe not with a vile crowne of fraile bayes Reward my muses white sincerity But what thy thorny crowne gain'd that give mee A crowne of Glory which doth flower alwayes The ends crowne our workes but thou crown'st our ends For at our end begins our endlesse rest The first last end now zealously possest With a strong sober thirst my soule attends 'T is time that heart and voice be lifted high Salvation to all that will is nigh ANNVNCIATION 2 Salvation to all that will is nigh That All which alwayes is All every where Which cannot sinne and yet all sinnes must beare Which cannot die yet cannot chuse but die Loe faithfull Virgin yeelds himselfe to lye In prison in thy wombe and though he there Can take no sinne nor thou give yet he'will weare Taken from thence flesh which deaths force may trie Ere by the spheares time was created thou Wast in his minde who is thy Sonne and Brother Whom thou conceiv'st conceiv'd yea thou art now Thy Makers maker and thy Fathers mother Thou'hast light in darke and shutst in little roome Immensity cloysterd in thy deare wombe NATIVITIE 3 Immensitie cloysterd in thy deare wombe Now leaves his welbelov'd imprisonment There he hath made himselfe to his intent Weake enough now into our world to come But Oh for thee for him hath th'Inne no roome Yet lay him in this stall and from the Orient Starres and wisemen will travell to prevent Th' effects of Herods jealous generall doome Seest thou my Soule with thy faiths eyes how he Which fils all place yet none holds him doth lye Was not his pity towards thee wondrous high That would have need to be pittied by thee Kisse him and with him into Egypt goe With his kinde mother who partakes thy woe TEMPLE 4 With his kinde mother who partakes thy woe Ioseph turne backe see where your child doth sit Blowing yea blowing out those sparks of wit Which himselfe on the Doctors did bestow The Word but lately could not speake and loe It sodenly speakes wonders whence comes it That all which was and all which should be writ A shallow seeming child should deeply know His Godhead was not soule to his manhood Nor had time mellowed him to this ripenesse But as for one which hath a long taske 'T is good With the Sunne to beginne his businesse He in his ages morning thus began By miracles exceeding power of man CRVCIFYING 5 By miracles exceeding power of man Hee faith in some envie in some begat For what weake spirits admire ambitious hate In both affections many to him ran But Oh! the worst are most they will and can Alas and do unto the immaculate Whose creature Fate is now prescribe a Fate Measuring selfe-lifes infinity to span Nay to an inch loe where condemned hee Beares his owne crosse with paine yet by and by When it beares him he must beare more and die Now thou art lifted up draw mee to thee And at thy death giving such liberall dole Moyst with one drop of thy blood my dry soule RESVRRECTION 6 Moyst with one drop of thy blood my dry soule Shall though she now be in extreme degree Too stony hard and yet too fleshly bee Freed by that drop from being starv'd hard or foule And life by this death abled shall controule Death whom thy death slue nor shall to mee Feare of first or last death bring miserie If in thy little booke my name thou enroule Flesh in that long sleep is not putrified But made that there of which and for which 't was Nor can by other meanes be glorified May then sinnes sleep and death soone from me passe That wak't from both I againe risen may Salute the last and everlasting day ASCENTION 7 Salute the last and everlasting day Joy at the uprising of this Sunne and Sonne Yee whose just teares or tribulation Have purely washt or burnt your drossie clay Behold the Highest parting hence away Lightens the darke clouds which hee treads upon Nor doth hee by ascending show alone But first hee and hee first enters the way O strong Ramme which hast batter'd heaven for mee Mild lambe which with thy blood hast mark'd the path Bright torch which shin'st that I the way may see Oh with thy owne blood quench thy owne just wrath And if thy holy Spirit my Muse did raise Deigne at my hands this crowne of prayer and praise Holy Sonnets I. AS due by many titles I resigne My selfe to thee O God first I was made By thee and for thee and when I was decay'd Thy blood bought that the which before was thine I am thy sonne made with thy selfe to shine Thy servant whose paines thou hast still repaid Thy sheepe thine Image and till I betray'd My selfe a temple of thy Spirit divine Why doth the devill then usurpe on mee Why doth he steale nay ravish that 's thy right Except thou rise and for thine owne worke fight Oh I shall soone despaire when I doe see That thou lov'st mankind well yet wilt'not chuse me And Satan hates mee yet is loth to lose mee II. Oh my blacke Soule now thou art summoned By sicknesse deaths herald and champion Thou art like a pilgrim which abroad hath done Treason and durst not turne to whence hee is fled Or like a thiefe which till deaths doome be read Wisheth himselfe delivered from prison But damn'd and hal'd to execution Wisheth that still he might be imprisoned Yet grace if thou repent thou canst not lacke But who shall give thee that grace to beginne Oh make thy selfe with holy mourning blacke And red with blushing as thou art with sinne Or wash thee in Christs blood which hath this might That being red it dyes red soules to white III. This is my playes last scene here heavens appoint My pilgrimages last mile and my race Idly yet quickly runne hath this last pace My spans last inch my minutes latest point And gluttonous death will instantly unjoynt My body and my soule and I shall sleepe a space But my'ever-waking part shall see that face Whose feare already shakes my every joynt Then as my soule to'heaven her first seate takes flight And earth borne body in the earth shall dwell So fall my sinnes that all may have their right To where they' are bred and would presse me to hell Impute me righteous thus purg'd of evill For thus I leave the world the flesh the devill IV. At the round earths imagin'd corners blow Your trumpets Angells and arise arise From death you numberlesse infinities Of soules and to your scattred bodies goe All whom the flood did and fire shall o'erthrow All whom warre death age agues tyrannies Despaire law chance hath slaine and you whose eyes Shall behold God and
our land waters teares of passion vent Our waters then above our firmament Teares which our Soule doth for her sins let fall Take all a brackish tast and Funerall And even those teares which should wash sin are sin We after Gods Noe drowne the world againe Nothing but man of all invenom'd things Doth worke upon itselfe with inborne stings Teares are false Spectacles we cannot see Through passions mist what wee are or what shee In her this sea of death hath made no breach But as the tide doth wash the slimie beach And leaves embroderd workes upon the sand So is her flesh refin'd by deaths cold hand As men of China ' after an ages stay Do take up Porcelane where they buried Clay So at this grave her limbecke which refines The Diamonds Rubies Saphires Pearles Mines Of which this flesh was her soule shall inspire Flesh of such stuffe as God when his last fire Annuls this world to recompence it shall Make and name then th'Elixar of this All. They say the sea when it gaines loseth too If carnall Death the yonger brother doe Usurpe the body 'our soule which subject is To th' elder death by sinne is freed by this They perish both when they attempt the just For graves our trophies are and both deaths dust So unobnoxious now she'hath buried both For none to death sinnes that to sinne is loth Nor doe they die which are not loth to die So hath she this and that virginity Grace was in her extremely diligent That kept her from sinne yet made her repent Of what small spots pure white complaines Alas How little poyson cracks a christall glasse She sinn'd but just enough to let us see That extreme truth lack'd little of a lye Making omissions acts laying the touch Of sinne on things that sometimes may be such As Moses Cherubines whose natures doe Surpasse all speed by him are winged too So would her soule already'in heaven seeme then To clyme by teares the common staires of men How fit she was for God I am content To speake that death his vaine hast may repent How fit for us how even and how sweet How good in all her titles and how meet To have reform'd this forward heresie That woman can no parts of friendship bee How Morall how Divine shall not be told Lest they that heare her vertues thinke her old And lest we take Deaths part and make him glad Of such a prey and to his tryumph adde Elegie on Mris Boulstred DEath I recant and say unsaid by mee What ere hath slip'd that might diminish thee Spirituall treason atheisme 't is to say That any can thy Summons disobey Th' earths face is but thy Table there are set Plants cattell men dishes for Death to eate In a rude hunger now hee millions drawes Into his bloody or plaguy or sterv'd jawes Now hee will seeme to spare and doth more wast Eating the best first well preserv'd to last Now wantonly he spoiles and eates us not But breakes off friends and lets us peecemeale rot Nor will this earth serve him he sinkes the deepe Where harmelesse fish monastique silence keepe Who were Death dead by Roes of living sand Might spunge that element and make it land He rounds the aire and breakes the hymnique notes In birds Heavens choristers organique throats Which if they did not dye might seeme to bee A tenth ranke in the heavenly hierarchie O strong and long-liv'd death how cam'st thou in And how without Creation didst begin Thou hast and shalt see dead before thou dyest All the foure Monarchies and Antichrist How could I thinke thee nothing that see now In all this All nothing else is but thou Our births and life vices and vertues bee Wastfull consumptions and degrees of thee For wee to live our bellowes weare and breath Nor are wee mortall dying dead but death And though thou beest O mighty bird of prey So much reclaim'd by God that thou must lay All that thou kill'st at his feet yet doth hee Reserve but few and leaves the most to thee And of those few now thou hast overthrowne One whom thy blow makes not ours nor thine own She was more stories high hopelesse to come To her Soule thou'hast offer'd at her lower roome Her Soule and body was a King and Court But thou hast both of Captaine mist and fort As houses fall not though the King remove Bodies of Saints rest for their soules above Death gets'twixt soules and bodies such a place As sinne insinuates 'twixt just men and grace Both worke a separation no divorce Her Soule is gone to usherup her corse Which shall be'almost another soule for there Bodies are purer then best Soules are here Because in her her virtues did outgoe Her yeares would'st thou O emulous death do so And kill her young to thy losse must the cost Of beauty ' and wit apt to doe harme be lost What though thou found'st her proofe'gainst sins of youth Oh every age a diverse sinne pursueth Thou should'st have stay'd and taken better hold Shortly ambitious covetous when old She might have prov'd and such devotion Might once have stray'd to superstition If all her vertues must have growne yet might Abundant virtue'have bred a proud delight Had she persever'd just there would have bin Some that would sinne mis-thinking she did sinne Such as would call her friendship love and faine To sociablenesse a name profane Or sinne by tempting or not daring that By wishing though they never told her what Thus might'st thou'have slain more soules had'st thou not crost Thy selfe and to triumph thine army lost Yet though these wayes be lost thou hast left one Which is immoderate griefe that she is gone But we may scape that sinne yet weepe as much Our teares are due because we are not such Some teares that knot of friends her death must cost Because the chaine is broke but no linke lost To Sr Henry Goodyere WHo makes the Past a patterne for next yeare Turnes no new leafe but still the same things reads Seene things he sees againe heard things doth heare And makes his life but like a paire of beads A Palace when 't is that which it should be Leaves growing and stands such or else decayes But hee which dwels there is not so for hee Strives to urge upward and his fortune raise So had your body'her morning hath her noone And shall not better her next change is night But her faire larger guest to'whom Sun and Moone Are sparkes and short liv'd claimes another right The noble Soule by age growes lustier Her appetite and her digestion mend Wee must not sterve nor hope to pamper her With womens milke and pappe unto the end Provide you manlyer dyet you have seene All libraries which are Schools Camps Courts But aske your Garners if you have not beene In harvests too indulgent to your sports Would you redeeme it then your selfe transplant A while from hence Perchance outlandish ground Beares no
know my pain As prisoners then are manacled when they' are condem'nd to die What ere shee meant by'it bury it by me For since I am Loves martyr it might breed idolatrie If into others hands these reliques came As 't was humility To afford to it all that a Soule can doe So 't is some bravery That since you would have none of mee I bury some of you The Blossome LIttle think'st thou poore flower Whom I have watch'd sixe or seaven dayes And seene thy birth and seene what every houre Gave to thy growth thee to this height to raise And now dost laugh and triumph on this bough Little think'st thou That it will freeze anon and that I shall To morrow finde thee falne or not at all Little think'st thou poore heart That labours yet to nestle thee And think'st by hovering here to get a part In a forbidden or forbidding tree And hop'st her stiffenesse by long siege to bow Little think'st thou That thou to morrow ere that Sunne doth wake Must with this Sunne and mee a journey take But thou which lov'st to bee Subtile to plague thy selfe wilt say Alas if you must goe what 's that to mee Here lyes my businesse and here I will stay You goe to friends whose love and meanes present Various content To your eyes eares and tast and every part If then your body goe what need your heart Well then stay here but know When thou hast stayd and done thy most A naked thinking heart that makes no show Is to a woman but a kinde of Ghost How shall shee know my heart or having none Know thee for one Practise may make her know some other part But take my word shee doth not know a Heart Meet mee at London then Twenty dayes hence and thou shalt see Mee fresher and more fat by being with men Then if I had staid still with her and thee For Gods sake if you can be you so too I will give you There to another friend whom wee shall finde As glad to have my body as my minde The Primrose VPon this Primrose hill Where it Heav'n would distill A shoure of raine each severall drop might goe To his owne primrose and grow Manna so And where their forme and their infinitie Make a terrestriall Galaxie As the small starres doe in the skie I walke to finde a true Love and I see That 't is not a mere woman that is shee But must or more or lesse then woman bee Yet know I not which flower I wish a sixe or foure For should my true-Love lesse then woman bee She were scarce any thing and then should shee Be more then woman shee would get above All thought of sexe and thinke to move My heart to study her and not to love Both these were monsters Since there must reside Falshood in woman I could more abide She were by art then Nature falsify'd Live Primrose then and thrive With thy true number five And women whom this flower doth represent With this mysterious number be content Ten is the farthest number if halfe ten Belongs unto each woman then Each woman may take halfe us men Or if this will not serve their turne Since all Numbers are odde or even and they fall First into this five women may take us all The Relique WHen my grave is broke up againe Some second ghest to entertaine For graves have learn'd that woman-head To be to more then one a Bed And he that digs it spies A bracelet of bright haire about the bone Will he not let'us alone And thinke that there a loving couple lies Who thought that this device might be some way To make their soules at the last busie day Meet at this grave and make a little stay If this fall in a time or land Where mis-devotion doth command Then he that digges us up will bring Us to the Bishop and the King To make us Reliques then Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalen and I A something else thereby All women shall adore us and some men And since at such time miracles are sought I would have that age by this paper taught What miracles wee harmelesse lovers wrought First we lov'd well and faithfully Yet knew not what wee lov'd nor why Difference of sex no more wee new Then our Guardian Angells doe Comming and going wee Perchance might kisse but not between those meales Our hands ne'r toucht the seales Which nature injur'd by late law sets free These miracles wee did but now alas All measure and all language I should passe Should I tell what a miracle shee was The Dampe WHen I am dead and Doctors know not why And my friends curiositie Will have me cut up to survay each part When they shall finde your Picture in my heart You thinke a sodaine dampe of love Will through all their senses move And worke on them as mee and so preferre Your murder to the name of Massacre Poore victories But if you dare be brave And pleasure in your conquest have First kill th'enormous Gyant your Disdaine And let th'enchantresse Honor next be slaine And like a Goth and Vandall rize Deface Records and Histories Of your owne arts and triumphs over men And without such advantage kill me then For I could muster up as well as you My Gyants and my Witches too Which are vast Constancy and Secretnesse But these I neyther looke for nor professe Kill mee as Woman let mee die As a meere man doe you but try Your passive valor and you shall finde than In that you'have odds enough of any man The Dissolution SHee'is dead And all which die To their first Elements resolve And wee were mutuall Elements to us And made of one another My body then doth hers involve And those things whereof I consist hereby In me abundant grow and burdenous And nourish not but smother My fire of Passion sighes of ayre Water of teares and earthly sad despaire Which my materialls bee But ne'r worne out by loves securitie Shee to my losse doth by her death repaire And I might live long wretched so But that my fire doth with my fuell grow Now as those Active Kings Whose foraine conquest treasure brings Receive more and spend more and soonest breake This which I am amaz'd that I can speake This death hath with my store My use encreas'd And so my soule more earnestly releas'd Will outstrip hers As bullets flowen before A latter bullet may o'rtake the pouder being more A Ieat King sent THou art not so black as my heart Nor halfe so brittle as her heart thou art What would'st thou say shall both our properties by thee bee spoke Nothing more endlesse nothing sooner broke Marriage rings are not of this stuffe Oh why should ought lesse precious or lesse tough Figure our loves Except in thy name thou have bid it say I 'am cheap nought but fashion fling me'away Yet stay with mee since thou art come Circle this fingers top which did'st her thombe Be
not an artificiall day In this you'have made the Court the Antipodes And will'd your Delegate the vulgar Sunne To doe profane autumnall offices Whilst here to you wee sacrificers runne And whether Priests or Organs you wee'obey We sound your influence and your Dictates say Yet to that Deity which dwels in you Your vertuous Soule I now not sacrifice These are Petitions and not Hymnes they sue But that I may survay the edifice In all Religions as much care hath bin Of Temples frames and beauty ' as Rites within As all which goe to Rome doe not thereby Esteeme religions and hold fast the best But serve discourse and curiosity With that which doth religion but invest And shunne th'entangling laborinths of Schooles And make it wit to thinke the wiser fooles So in this pilgrimage I would behold You as you' are vertues temple not as shee What walls of tender christall her enfold What eyes hands bosome her pure Altars bee And after this survay oppose to all Bablers of Chappels you th'Escuriall Yet not as consecrate but merely'as faire On these I cast a lay and country eye Of past and future stories which are rare I finde you all record and prophecie Purge but the booke of Fate that it admit No sad nor guilty legends you are it If good and lovely were not one of both You were the transcript and originall The Elements the Parent and the Growth And every peece of you is both their All So'intire are all your deeds and you that you Must do the same things still you cannot two But these as nice thinne Schoole divinity Serves heresie to furder or represse Tast of Poëtique rage or flattery And need not where all hearts one truth professe Oft from new proofes and new phrase new doubts grow As strange attire aliens the men wee know Leaving then busie praise and all appeale To higher Courts senses decree is true The Mine the Magazine the Commonweale The story of beauty ' in Twicknam is and you Who hath seene one would both As who had bin In Paradise would seeke the Cherubin To Sr Edward Herbert at Iulyers MAn is a lumpe where all beasts kneaded bee Wisdome makes him an Arke where all agree The foole in whom these beasts do live at jarre Is sport to others and a Theater Nor scapes hee so but is himselfe their prey All which was man in him is eate away And now his beasts on one another feed Yet couple'in anger and new monsters breed How happy'is hee which hath due place assign'd To'his beasts and disaforested his minde Empail'd himselfe to keepe them out not in Can sow and dares trust corne where they have bin Can use his horse goate wolfe and every beast And is not Asse himselfe to all the rest Else man not onely is the heard of swine But he 's those devills too which did incline Them to a headlong rage and made them worse For man can adde weight to heavens heaviest curse As Soules they say by our first touch take in The poysonous tincture of Originall sinne So to the punishments which God doth fling Our apprehension contributes the sting To us as to his chickins he doth cast Hemlocke and wee as men his hemlocke taste We do infuse to what he meant for meat Corrosivenesse or intense cold or heat For God no such specifique poyson hath As kills we know not how his fiercest wrath Hath no antipathy but may be good At lest for physicke if not for our food Thus man that might be'his pleasure is his rod And is his devill that might be his God Since then our businesse is to rectifie Nature to what she was wee'are led awry By them who man to us in little show Greater then due no forme we can bestow On him for Man into himselfe can draw All All his faith can swallow ' or reason chaw All that is fill'd and all that which doth fill All the round world to man is but a pill In all it workes not but it is in all Poysonous or purgative or cordiall For knowledge kindles Calentures in some And is to others jcy Opium As brave as true is that profession than Which you doe use to make that you know man This makes it credible you have dwelt upon All worthy bookes and now are such an one Actions are authors and of those in you Your friends finde every day a mart of new To the Countesse of Bedford T' Have written then when you writ seem'd to mee Worst of spirituall vices Simony And not t' have written then seemes little lesse Then worst of civill vices thanklessenesse In this my doubt I seem'd loath to confesse In that I seem'd to shunne beholdingnesse But 't is not soe nothing as I am may Pay all they have and yet have all to pay Such borrow in their payments and owe more By having leave to write so then before Yet since rich mines in barren grounds are showne May not I yeeld not gold but coale or stone Temples were not demolish'd though prophane Here Peter Ioves there Paul have Dian's Fane So whether my hymnes you admit or chuse In me you'have hallowed a Pagan Muse And denizend a stranger who mistaught By blamers of the times they mard hath sought Vertues in corners which now bravely doe Shine in the worlds best part or all in you I have beene told that vertue'in Courtiers hearts Suffers an Ostracisme and departs Profit ease fitnesse plenty bid it goe But whither only knowing you I know Your or you vertue two vast uses serves It ransomes one sex and one Court preserves There 's nothing but your worth which being true Is knowne to any other not to you And you can never know it To admit No knowledge of your worth it some of it But since to you your praises discords bee Stop others ills to meditate with mee Oh! to confesse wee know not what we sould Is halfe excuse wee know not what we would Lightnesse depresseth us emptinesse fills We sweat and faint yet still goe downe the hills As new Philosophy arrests the Sunne And bids the passive earth about it runne So wee have dull'd our minde it hath no ends Onely the bodie 's busie and pretends As dead low earth ecclipses and controules The quick high Moone so doth the body Soules In none but us are such mixt engines found As hands of double office For the ground We till with them and them to heav'n wee raise Who prayer-lesse labours or without this prayes Doth but one halfe that 's none He which said Plough And looke not back to looke up doth allow Good sced degenerates and oft obeyes The soyles disease and into cockle strayes Let the minds thoughts be but transplanted so Into the body ' and bastardly they grow What hate could hurt our bodies like our love Wee but no forraigne tyrans could remove These not ingrav'd but inborne dignities Caskets of soules Temples and Palaces For bodies shall from death redeemed bee Soules but
come Full of the common joy I utter'd some Reade then this nuptiall song which was not made Either the Court or mens hearts to invade But since I 'am dead and buried I could frame No Epitaph which might advance my fame So much as this poore song which testifies I did unto that day some sacrifice I. The time of the Mariage THou art repriv'd old yeare thou shalt not die Though thou upon thy death bed lye And should'st within five dayes expire Yet thou art rescu'd by a mightier fire Then thy old Soule the Sunne When he doth in his largest circle runne The passage of the West or East would thaw And open wide their easie liquid jawe To all our ships could a Promethean art Either unto the Northerne Pole impart The fire of these inflaming eyes or of this loving heart II. Equality of persons But undiscerning Muse which heart which eyes In this new couple dost thou prize When his eye as inflaming is As hers and her heart loves as well as his Be tryed by beauty and than The bridegroome is a maid and not a man If by that manly courage they be tryed Which scornes unjust opinion then the bride Becomes a man Should chance or envies Art Divide these two whom nature scarce did part Since both have th'enflaming eye and both the loving heart III. Raysing of the Bridegroome Though it be some divorce to thinke of you Single so much one are you two Let me here contemplate thee First cheerfull Bridegroome and first let mee see How thou prevent'st the Sunne And his red foming horses dost outrunne How having laid downe in thy Soveraignes brest All businesses from thence to reinvest Them when these triumphs cease thou forward art To shew to her who doth the like impart The fire of thy inflaming eyes and of thy loving heart IIII. Raising of the Bride But now to Thee faire Bride it is some wrong To thinke thou wert in Bed so long Since Soone thou lyest downe first t is fit Thou in first rising should'st allow for it Pouder thy Radiant haire Which if without such ashes thou would'st weare Thou which to all which come to looke upon Are meant for Phoebus would'st be Phaëton For our ease give thine eyes th'unusuall part Of joy a Teare so quencht thou maist impart To us that come thy inflaming eyes to him thy loving heart V. Her Apparrelling Thus thou descend'st to our infirmitie Who can the Sun in water see Soe dost thou when in silke and gold Thou cloudst thy selfe since wee which doe behold Are dust and wormes 't is just Our objects be the fruits of wormes and dust Let every Jewell be a glorious starre Yet starres are not so pure as their spheares are And though thou stoope t o'appeare to us in part Still in that Picture thou intirely art Which thy inflaming eyes have made within his loving heart VI. Going to the Chappell Now from your Easts you issue forth and wee As men which through a Cipres see The rising sun doe thinke it two Soe as you goe to Church doe thinke of you But that vaile being gone By the Church rites you are from thenceforth one The Church Triumphant made this match before And now the Militant doth strive no more Then reverend Priest who Gods Recorder art Doe from his Dictates to these two impart All blessings which are seene Or thought by Angels eye or heart VII The Benediction Blest payre of Swans Oh may you interbring Daily new joyes and never sing Live till all grounds of wishes faile Till honor yea till wisedome grow so stale That new great heights to trie It must serve your ambition to die Raise heires and may here to the worlds end live Heires from this King to take thankes you to give Nature and grace doe all and nothing Art May never age or error overthwart With any West these radiant eyes with any North this heart VIII Feasts and Revells But you are over-blest Plenty this day Injures it causeth time to stay The tables groane as though this feast Would as the flood destroy all fowle and beast And were the doctrine new That the earth mov'd this day would make it true For every part to dance and revell goes They tread the ayre and fal not where they rose Though six houres since the Sunne to bed did part The masks and banquets will not yet impart A sunset to these weary eyes A Center to this heart IX The Brides going to bed What mean'st thou Bride this companie to keep To sit up till thou faine wouldst sleep Thou maist not when thou art laid doe so Thy selfe must to him a new banquet grow And you must entertaine And doe all this daies dances o'r againe Know that if Sun and Moone together doe Rise in one point they doe not set so to Therefore thou maist faire Bride to bed depart Thou art not gone being gone where e'r thou art Thou leav'st in him thy watchfull eyes in him thy loving heart X. The Bridegroomes comming As he that sees a starre fall runs apace And findes a gellie in the place So doth the Bridegroome hast as much Being told this starre is falne and findes her such And as friends may looke strange By a new fashion or apparrells change Their soules though long acquainted they had beene These clothes their bodies never yet had seene Therefore at first shee modestly might start But must forthwith surrender every part As freely as each to each before gave either eye or heart XI The good night Now as in Tullias tombe one lampe burnt cleare Unchang'd for fifteene hundred yeare May these love-lamps we here enshrine In warmth light lasting equall the divine Fire ever doth aspire And makes all like it selfe turnes all to fire But ends in ashes which these cannot doe For none of these is fuell but fire too This is joyes bonfire then where loves strong Arts Make of so noble individuall parts One fire of foure inflaming eyes and of two loving hearts Idios As I have brought this song that I may doe A perfect sacrifice I 'll burne it too Allophanes No Sr. This paper I have justly got For in burnt incense the perfume is not His only that presents it but of all What ever celebrates this Festivall Is common since the joy thereof is so Nor may your selfe be Priest But let me goe Backe to the Court and I will lay'it upon Such Altars as prize your devotion Epithalamion made at Lincolnes Inne THe Sun-beames in the East are spred Leave leave faire Bride your solitary bed No more shall you returne to it alone It nourseth sadnesse and your bodies print Like to a grave the yielding downe doth dint You and your other you meet there anon Put forth put forth that warme balme-breathing thigh Which whē next time you in these sheets wil smother There it must meet another Which never was but must be oft more nigh Come glad from thence goe gladder then you came To day put
Wardship to thine Angels be Native in heavens faire Palaces Where we shall be but denizen'd by thee As th' earth conceiving by the Sunne Yeelds faire diversitie Yet never knowes which course that light doth run So let mee study that mine actions bee Worthy their sight though blinde in how they see VII The Patriarches And let thy Patriarches Desire Those great Grandfathers of thy Church which saw More in the cloud then wee in fire Whom Nature clear'd more then us grace and law And now in Heaven still pray that wee May use our new helpes right Be sanctified and fructifie in mee Let not my minde be blinder by more light Nor Faith by Reason added lose her sight VIII The Prophets Thy Eagle-sighted Prophets too Which were thy Churches Organs and did sound That harmony which made of two One law and did unite but not confound Those heavenly Poëts which did see Thy will and it expresse In rythmique feet in common pray for mee That I by them excuse not my excesse In seeking secrets or Poëtiquenesse IX The Apostles And thy illustrious Zodiacke Of twelve Apostles which ingirt this All From whom whosoever do not take Their light to darke deep pits throw downe and fall As through their prayers thou'hast let mee know That their bookes are divine May they pray still and be heard that I goe Th' old broad way in applying O decline Mee when my comment would make thy word mine X. The Martyrs And since thou so desirously Did'st long to die that long before thou could'st And long since thou no more couldst dye Thou in thy scatter'd mystique body wouldst In Abel dye and ever since In thine let their blood come To begge for us a discreet patience Of death or of worse life for Oh to some Not to be Martyrs is a martyrdome XI The Confessors Therefore with thee triumpheth there A Virgin Squadron of white Confessors Whose bloods betroth'd not marryed were Tender'd not taken by those Ravishers They know and pray that wee may know In every Christian Hourly tempestuous persecutions grow Tentations martyr us alive A man Is to himselfe a Dioclesian XII The Virgins The cold white snowie Nunnery Which as thy mother their high Abbesse sent Their bodies backe againe to thee As thou hadst lent them cleane and innocent Though they have not obtain'd of thee That or thy Church or I Should keep as they our first integrity Divorce thou sinne in us or bid it die And call chast widowhead Virginitie XIII The Doctors Thy sacred Academie above Of Doctors whose paines have unclasp'd and taught Both bookes of life to us for love To know thy Scriptures tells us we are wrought In thy other booke pray for us there That what they have misdone Or mis-said wee to that may not adhere Their zeale may be our sinne Lord let us runne Meane waies and call them stars but not the Sunne XIV And whil'st this universall Quire That Church in triumph this in warfare here Warm'd with one all-partaking fire Of love that none be lost which cost thee deare Prayes ceaslesly ' and thou hearken too Since to be gratious Our taske is treble to pray beare and doe Heare this prayer Lord O Lord deliver us FroÌ„ trusting in those prayers though powr'd out thus XV. From being anxious or secure Dead clods of sadnesse or light squibs of mirth From thinking that great courts immure All or no hâ—ppinesse or that this earth Is only for our prison fram'd Or that thou art covetous To them whom thou lovest or that they are maim'd From reaching this worlds sweet who seek thee thus With all their might Good Lord deliver us XVI From needing danger to bee good From owing thee yesterdaies teares to day From trusting so much to thy blood That in that hope wee wound our soule away From bribing thee with Almes to excuse Some sinne more burdenous From light affecting in religion newes From thinking us all soule neglecting thus Our mutuall duties Lord deliver us XVII From tempting Satan to tempt us By our connivence or slack companie From measuring ill by vitious Neglecting to choake sins spawne Vanitie From indiscreet humilitie Which might be scandalous And cast reproach on Christianitie From being spies or to spies pervious From thirst or scorne of flame deliver us XVIII Deliver us for thy descent Into the Virgin whose wombe was a place Of midle kind and thou being sent To'ungratious us staid'st at her full of grace And through thy poore birth where first thou Glorifiedst Povertie And yet soone after riches didst allow By accepting Kings gifts in the Epiphanie Deliver and make us to both waies free XIX And though that bitter agonie Which is still the agonie of pious wits Disputing what distorted thee And interrupted evennesse with fits And through thy free confession Though thereby they were then Made blind so that thou might'st from theÌ„ have gone Good Lord deliver us and teach us when Wee may not and we may blinde unjust men XX. Through thy submitting all to blowes Thy face thy clothes to spoile thy fame to scorne All waies which rage or Justice knowes And by which thou could'st shew that thou wast born And through thy gallant humblenesse Which thou in death did'st shew Dying before thy soule they could expresse Deliver us from death by dying so To this world ere this world doe bid us goe XXI When senses which thy souldiers are Wee arme against thee and they fight for sinne When want sent but to tame doth warre And worke despaire a breach to enter in When plenty Gods image and seale Makes us Idolatrous And love it not him whom it should reveale When wee are mov'd to seeme religious Only to vent wit Lord deliver us XXII In Churches when the'infirmitie Of him which speakes diminishes the Word When Magistrates doe mis-apply To us as we judge lay or ghostly sword When plague which is thine Angell raignes Or wars thy Champions swaie When Heresie thy second deluge gaines In th' houre of death the'Eve of last judgement day Deliver us from the sinister way XXIII Heare us O heare us Lord to thee A sinner is more musique when he prayes Then spheares or Angels praises bee In Panegyrique Allelujaes Heare us for till thou heare us Lord We know not what to say Thine eare to'our sighes teares thoughts gives voice and word O Thou who Satan heard'st in Jobs sicke day Heare thy selfe now for thou in us dost pray XXIV That wee may change to evennesse This intermitting aguish Pietie That snatching cramps of wickednesse And Apoplexies of fast sin may die That musique of thy promises Not threats in Thunder may Awaken us to our just offices What in thy booke thou dost or creatures say That we may heare Lord heare us when wee pray XXV That our eares sicknesse wee may cure And rectifie those Labyrinths aright That wee by harkning not procure Our praise nor others dispraise so invite That wee get not a slipperinesse And senslesly decline
mee The Canonization FOr Godsake hold your tongue and let me love Or chide my palsie or my gout My five gray haires or ruin'd fortune flout With wealth your state your minde with Arts improve Take you a course get you a place Observe his honour or his grace Or the Kings reall or his stamped face Contemplate what you will approve So you will let me love Alas alas who 's injur'd by my love What merchants ships have my sighs drown'd Who saies my teares have overflow'd his ground When did my colds a forward spring remove When did the heats which my veines fill Adde one more to the plaguie Bill Soldiers finde warres and Lawyers finde out still Litigious men which quarrels move Though she and I do love Call us what you will wee are made such by love Call her one mee another flye We' are Tapers too and at our owne cost die And wee in us finde the'Eagle and the dove The Phoenix ridle hath more wit By us we two being one are it So to one neutrall thing both sexes fit Wee dye and rise the same and prove Mysterious by this love Wee can dye by it if not live by love And if unfit for tombes and hearse Our legends bee it will be fit for verse And if no peece of Chronicle wee prove We 'll build in sonnets pretty roomes As well a well wrought urne becomes The greatest ashes as halfe-acre tombes And by these hymnes all shall approve Us Canoniz'd for Love And thus invoke us You whom reverend love Made one anothers hermitage You to whom love was peace that now is rage Who did the whole worlds soule contract drove Into the glasses of your eyes So made such mirrors and such spies That they did all to you epitomize Countries Townes Courts Beg frow above A patterne of our love The triple Foole. I am two fooles I know For loving and for saying so In whining Poëtry But where 's that wise man that would not be I If she would not deny Then as th' earths inward narrow crooked lanes Do purge sea waters fretfull salt away I thought if I could draw my paines Through Rimes vexation I should them allay Griefe brought to numbers cannot be so fierce For he tames it that fetters it in verse But when I have done so Some man his art and voice to show Doth Set and sing my paine And by delighting many frees againe Griefe which verse did restraine To Love and Griefe tribute of Verse belongs But not of such as pleases when'tis read Both are increased by such songs For both their triumphs so are published And I which was two fooles do so grow three Who are a little wise the best fooles bee Lovers infinitenesse IF yet I have not all thy love Deare I shall never have it all I cannot breath one other sigh to move Nor can intreat one other teare to fall And all my treasure which should purchase thee Sighs teares and oathes and letters I have spent Yet no more can be due to mee Then at the bargaine made was ment If then thy gift of love were partiall That some to mee some should to others fall Deare I shall never have Thee All. Or if then thou gavest mee all All was but All which thou hadst then But if in thy heart since there be or shall New love created bee by other men Which have their stocks intire and can in teares In sighs in oathes and letters outbid mee This new love may beget new feares For this love was not vowed by thee And yet is was thy gift being generall The ground thy heart is mine what ever shall Grow there deare I should have it all Yet I would not have all yet Hee that hath all can have no more And since my love doth every day admit New growth thou shouldst have new rewards in store Thou canst not every day give me thy heart If thou canst give it then thou never gavest it Loves riddles are that though thy heart depart It stayes at home and thou with losing savest it But wee will have a way more liberall Then changing hearts to joyne them so wee shall Be one and one anothers All. Song SWeetest love I do not goe For wearinesse of thee Nor in hope the world can show A fitter Love for mee But since that I Must dye at last 't is best To use my selfe in jest Thus by fain'd deaths to dye Yesternight the Sunne went hence And yet is here to day He hath no desire nor sense Nor halfe so short a way Then feare not mee But beleeve that I shall make Speedier journeyes since I take More wings and spurres then hee O how feeble is mans power That if good fortune fall Cannot adde another houre Nor a lost houre recall But come bad chance And wee joyne to'it our strength And wee teach it art and length It selfe o'r us to'advance When thou sigh'st thou sigh'st not winde But sigh'st my soule away When thou weep'st unkindly kinde My lifes blood doth decay It cannot bee That thou lov'st mee as thou say'st If in thine my life thou waste Thou art the best of mee Let not thy divining heart Forethinke me any ill Destiny may take thy part And may thy feares fulfill But thinke that wee Are but turn'd aside to sleepe They who one another keepe Alive ne'r parted bee The Legacie VVHen I dyed last and Deare I dye As often as from thee I goe Though it be but an houre agoe And Lovers houres be full eternity I can remember yet that I Something did say and something did bestow Though I be dead which sent mee I should be Mine owne executor and Legacie I heard mee say Tell her anon That my selfe that 's you not I Did kill me and when I felt mee dye I bid mee send my heart when I was gone But I alas could there finde none When I had ripp'd me ' and search'd where hearts did lye It kill'd mee againe that I who still was true In life in my last Will should cozen you Yet I found something like a heart But colours it and corners had It was not good it was not bad It was intire to none and few had part As good as could be made by art It seem'd and therefore for our losses sad I meant to send this heart in stead of mine But oh no man could hold it for t was thine A Feaver OH doe not die for I shall hate All women so when thou art gone That thee I shall not celebrate When I remember thou wast one But yet thou canst not die I know To leave this world behinde is death But when thou from this world wilt goe The whole world vapors with thy breath Or if when thou the worlds soule goest It stay t is but thy carkasse then The fairest woman but thy ghost But corrupt wormes the worthyest men O wrangling schooles that search what fire Shall burne this world had none the wit Unto this knowledge
influence all impression came But by receivers impotencies lame Who though she could not transubstantiate All states to gold yet guilded every state So that some Princes have some temperance Some Counsellers some purpose to advance The common profit and some people have Some stay no more then Kings should give to crave Some women have some taciturnity Some nunneries some graines of chastitie She that did thus much and much more could doe But that our age was Iron and rustie too Shee she is dead she 's dead when thou knowst this Thou knowst how drie a Cinder this world is And learn'st thus much by our Anatomy That 't is in vaine to dew or mollifie It with thy teares or sweat or blood nothing Is worth our travaile griefe or perishing But those rich joyes which did possesse her heart Of which she 's now partaker and a part But as in cutting up a man that 's dead The body will not last out to have read On every part and therefore men direct Their speech to parts that are of most effect So the worlds carcasse would not last if I Were punctuall in this Anatomy Nor smels it well to hearers if one tell Them their disease who faine would think thy're well Here therefore be the end and blessed maid Of whom is meant what ever hath been said Or shall be spoken well by any tongue Whose name refines course lines and makes prose song Accept this tribute and his first yeares rent Who till his darke short tapers end be spent As oft as thy feast sees this widowed earth Will yearely celebrate thy second birth That is thy death for though the soule of man Be got when man is made 't is borne but than When man doth die our body 's as the wombe And as a Mid-wife death directs it home And you her creatures whom she workes upon And have your last and best concoction From her example and her vertue if you In reverence to her do thinke it due That no one should her praises thus rehearse As matter fit for Chronicle not verse Vouchsafe to call to minde that God did make A last and lasting'st peece a song He spake To Moses to deliver unto all That song because hee knew they would let fall The Law the Prophets and the History But keepe the song still in their memory Such an opinion in due measure made Me this great office boldly to invade Nor could incomprehensiblenesse deterre Mee from thus trying to emprison her Which when I saw that a strict grave could doe I saw not why verse might not do so too Verse hath a middle nature heaven keepes Soules The Grave keepes bodies Verse the Fame enroules A Funerall ELEGIE 'T Is lost to trust a Tombe with such a guest Or to confine her in a marble chest Alas what 's Marble Jeat or Porphyrie Priz'd with the Chrysolite of either eye Or with those Pearles and Rubies which she was Joyne the two Indies in one Tombe 't is glasse And so is all to her materials Though every inch were ten Escurials Yet she 's demolish'd can wee keepe her then In works of hands or of the wits of men Can these memorials ragges of paper give Life to that name by which name they must live Sickly alas short-liv'd aborted bee Those carcasse verses whose soule is not shee And can shee who no longer would be shee Being such a Tabernacle stoop to be In paper wrapt or when shee would not lie In such a house dwell in an Elegie But'tis no matter wee may well allow Verse to live so long as the world will now For her death wounded it The world containes Princes for armes and counsellors for braines Lawyers for tongues Divines for hearts and more The rich for stomackes and for backs the poore The officers for hands merchants for feet By which remote and distant Countries meet But those fine spirits which do tune and set This Organ are those peeces which beget Wonder and love and these were shee and shee Being spent the world must needs decrepit bee For since death will proceed to triumph still He can finde nothing after her to kill Except the world it selfe so great was shee Thus brave and confident may Nature bee Death cannot give her such another blow Because shee cannot such another show But must wee say she 's dead may 't not be said That as a sundred clocke is peecemeale laid Not to be lost but by the makers hand Repollish'd without errour then to stand Or as the Affrique Niger streame enwombs It selfe into the earth and after comes Having first made a naturall bridge to passe For many leagues farre greater then it was May 't not be said that her grave shall restore Her greater purer firmer then before Heaven may say this and joy in 't but can wee Who live and lacke her here this vantage see What is 't to us alas if there have beene An Angell made a Throne or Cherubin Wee lose by 't and as aged men are glad Being tastlesse growne to joy in joyes they had So now the sick starv'd world must feed upon This joy that we had her who now is gone Rejoyce then Nature and this World that you Fearing the last fires hastning to subdue Your force and vigour ere it were neere gone Wisely bestow'd and laid it all on one One whose cleare body was so pure and thinne Because it need disguise no thought within 'T was but a through-light scarfe her minde t'inroule Or exhalation breath'd out from her Soule One whom all men who durst no more admir'd And whom who ere had worke enough desir'd As when a Temple 's built Saints emulate To which of them it shall be consecrate But as when heaven lookes on us with new eyes Those new starres every Artist exercise VVhat place they should assigne to them they doubt Argue ' and agree not till those starres goe out So the world studied whose this peece should be Till shee can be no bodies else nor shee But like a Lampe of Balsamum desir'd Rather t' adorne then last she soone expir'd Cloath'd in her virgin white integritie For marriage though it doth not staine doth die To scape th'infirmities which wait upon VVoman she went away before sh'was one And the worlds busie noyse to overcome Tooke so much death as serv'd for opium For though she could not nor could chuse to dye She'ath yeelded to too long an extasie Hee which not knowing her said History Should come to reade the booke of destiny How faire and chast humble and high she'ad been Much promis'd much perform'd at not fifteene And measuring future things by things before Should turne the leafe to reade and reade no more VVould thinke that either destiny mistooke Or that some leaves were torne out of the booke But 't is not so Fate did but usher her To yeares of reasons use and then inferre Her destiny to her selfe which liberty She tooke but for thus much thus much
bee Division and thy happyest Harmonie Thinke thee laid on thy death-bed loose and slacke And thinke that but unbinding of a packe To take one precious thing thy soule from thence Thinke thy selfe patch'd with fevers violence Anger thine ague more by calling it Thy Physicke chide the slacknesse of the fit Thinke that thou hear'st thy knell and think no more But that as Bels cal'd thee to Church before So this to the Triumphant Church calls thee Thinke Satans Sergeants round about thee bee And thinke that but for Legacies they thrust Give one thy Pride to'another give thy Lust Give them those sinnes which they gave thee before And trust th' immaculate blood to wash thy score Thinke thy friends weeping round thinke that they Weepe but because they goe not yet thy way Thinke that they close thine eyes and thinke in this That they confesse much in the world amisse Who dare not trust a dead mans eye with that Which they from God and Angels â—â—er not Thinke that they shroud thee up think from thence They reinvest thee in white innocence Thinke that thy body rots and if so low Thy soule exalted so thy thoughts can goe Think thee a Prince who of themselves create Wormes which insensibly devoure their State Thinke that they bury thee and thinke that right Laies thee to sleepe but a Saint Lucies night Thinke these things cheerefully and if thou bee Drowsie or slacke remember then that shee Shee whose complexion was so even made That which of her ingredients should invade The other three no Feare no Art could guesse So far were all remov'd from more or lesse But as in Mithridate or just perfumes Where all good things being met no one presumes To governe or to triumph on the rest Only because all were no part was best And as though all doe know that quantities Are made of lines and lines from Points arise None can these lines or quantities unjoynt And say this is a line or this a point So though the Elements and Humors were In her one could not say this governes there Whose even constitution might have woon Any disease to venter on the Sunne Rather then her and make a spirit feare That hee too disuniting subject were To whose proportions if we would compare Cubes th' are unstable Circles Angular She who was such a chaine as Fate employes To bring mankinde all Fortunes it enjoyes So fast so even wrought as one would thinke No accident could threaten any linke Shee shee embrac'd a sicknesse gave it meat The purest blood and breath that e'r it eate And hath taught us that though a good man hath Title to heaven and plead it by his Faith And though he may pretend a conquest since Heaven was content to suffer violence Yea though hee plead a long possession too For they 're in heaven on earth who heavens workes do Though hee had right and power and place before Yet death must usher and unlocke the doore Thinke further on thy selfe my Soule and thinke How thou at first wast made but in a sinke Thinke that it argued some infirmitie That those two soules which then thou foundst in me Thou fedst upon and drewst into thee both My second soule of sense and first of growth Thinke but how poore thou wast how obnoxious Whom a small lumpe of flesh could poyson thus This curded milke this poore unlittered whelpe My body could beyond escape or helpe Infect thee with Originall sinne and thou Couldst neither then refuse nor leave it now Thinke that no stubborne sullen Anchorit Which fixt to a pillar or a grave doth sit Bedded and bath'd in all his ordures dwels So fowly as our Soules in their first built Cels. Thinke in how poore a prison thou didst lie After enabled but to suck and crie Thinke when 't was growne to most 't was a poore Inne A Province pack'd up in two yards of skinne And that usurp'd or threatned with a rage Of sicknesses or their true mother Age. But thinke that death hath now enfranchis'd thee Thou hast thy'expansion now and libertie Thinke that a rustie Peece discharg'd is flowne In peeces and the bullet is his owne And freely flies this to thy Soule allow Thinke thy shell broke thinke thy Soule hatch'd but now And think this slow-pac'd soule which late did cleave To'a body and went but by the bodies leave Twenty perchance or thirty mile a day Dispatches in a minute all the way Twixt heaven and earth she stayes not in the ayre To looke what Meteors there themselves prepare She carries no desire to know nor sense Whether th'ayres middle region be intense For th' Element of fire she doth not know Whether she past by such a place or no She baits not at the Moone nor cares to trie Whether in that new world men live and die Venus retards her not to'enquire how shee Can being one starre Hesper and Vesper bee Hee that charm'd Argus eyes sweet Mercury Workes not on her who now is growne all eye Who if she meet the body of the Sunne Goes through not staying till his course be runne Who findes in Mars his Campe no corps of Guard Nor is by Iove nor by his father bard Bee ere she can consider how she went At once is at and through the Firmament And as these starres were but so many beads Strung on one string speed undistinguish'd leads Her through those Spheares as through the beads a string Whose quick successioÌ„ makes it still one thing As doth the pith which lest our bodies slacke Strings fast the little bones of necke and backe So by the Soule doth death string Heaven and Earth For when our Soule enjoyes this her third birth Creation gave her one a second grace Heaven is as neare and present to her face As colours are and objects in a roome Where darknesse was before when Tapers come This must my Soule thy long-short Progresse bee To'advance these thoughts Remember then that she She whose faire body no such prison was But that a Soule might well be pleas'd to passe An age in her she whose rich beauty lent Mintage to other beauties for they went But for so much as they were like to her Shee in whose body if we dare preferre This low world to so high a marke as shee The Westerne treasure Easterne spicetie Europe and Afrique and the unknowne rest Were easily found or what in them was best And when w'have made this large discoverie Of all in her some one part then will bee Twenty such parts whose plenty and riches is Enough to make twenty such worlds as this Shee whom had they knowne who did first betroth The Tutelar Angels and assigned one both To Nations Cities and to Companies To Functions Offices and dignities And to each severall man to him and him They would have given her one for every limbe She of whose soule if wee may say 't was gold Her body was th'Electrum and did hold Many degrees of that
by the Makers will from pulling free IX Prince of the orchard faire as dawning morne Fenc'd with the law and ripe as soone as borne That apple grew which this Soule did Till the then climing serpent that now creeps For that offence for which all mankinde weepes Tooke it and t' her whom the first man did wive Whom and her race only forbiddings drive He gave it she t' her husband both did eate So perished the eaters and the meate And wee for treason taints the blood thence die and sweat X. Man all at once was there by woman slaine And one by one we' are here slaine o'er againe By them The mother poisoned the well-head The daughters here corrupts us No smalnesse scapes no greatnesse breake their nets She thrust us out and by them we are led Astray from turning to whence we are fled Were prisoners Judges t' would seeme rigorous Shee sinn'd we here part of our paine is thus To love them whose fault to this painfull love yoak'd us XI So fast in us doth this corruption grow That now wee dare aske why wee should be so Would God disputes the curious Rebell make A law and would not have it kept Or can His creatures will crosse his Of every man For one will God and be just vengeance take Who sinn'd t' was not forbidden to the snake Nor her who was not then made nor i' st writ That Adam cropt or knew the apple yet The worme and she and he and wee endure for it XII But snatch mee heavenly Spirit from this vaine Reckoning their vanities lesse is their gaine Then hazard still to meditate on ill Though with good minde their reasons like those toyes Of glassie bubles with the gamesome boyes Stretch to so nice a thinnes through a quill That they themselves breake doe themselves spill Arguing is heretiques game and Exercise As wrastlers perfect them Not liberties Of speech but silence hands not tongues end heresies XIII Just in that instant when the serpents gripe Broke the slight veines and tender conduit-pipe Through which this soule from the trees root did draw Life and growth to this apple fled away This loose soule old one and another day As lightning which one scarce dares say he saw 'T is so soone gone and better proofe the law Of sense then faith requires swiftly she flew To a darke and foggie Plot Her her fates threw There through th'earth-pores and in a Plant hous'd her a new XIV The plant thus abled to it selfe did force A place where no place was by natures course As aire from water water fleets away From thicker bodies by this root thronged so His spungie confines gave him place to grow Just as in our streets when the people stay To see the Prince and so fill'd the way That weesels scarce could passe when she comes nere They throng and cleave up and a passage cleare As if for that time their round bodies flatned were XV. His right arme he thrust out towards the East West-ward his left th' ends did themselves digest Into ten lesser strings these fingers were And as a slumberer stretching on his bed This way he this and that way scattered His other legge which feet with toes upbeare Grew on his middle parts the first day haire To show that in loves businesse hee should still A dealer bee and be us'd well or ill His apples kinde his leaves force of conception kill XVI A mouth but dumbe he hath blinde eyes deafe eares And to his shoulders dangle subtile haires A young Colossus there hee stands upright And as that ground by him were conquered A leafie garland weares he on his head Enchas'd with little fruits so red and bright That for them you would call your Loves lips white So of a lone unhaunted place possest Did this soules second Inne built by the guest This living buried man this quiet mandrake rest XVII No lustfull woman came this plant to grieve But t' was because there was none yet but Eve And she with other purpose kill'd it quite Her sinne had now brought in infirmities And so her cradled child the moist red eyes Had never shut nor sleept since it saw light Poppie she knew she knew the mandrakes might And tore up both and so coold her childs blood Unvirtuous weeds might long unvex'd have stood But hee 's short liv'd that with his death can doe most good XVIII To an unfetterd soules quick nimble hast Are falling stars and hearts thoughts but slow pac'd Thinner then burnt aire flies this soule and she Whom foure new comming and foure parting Suns Had found and left the Mandrakes tenant runnes Thought lesse of change when her firme destiny Confin'd and enjayld her that seem'd so free Into a small blew shell the which a poore Warme bird orespread and sat still evermore Till her uncloath'd child kickt and pick'd it selfe a dore XIX Outcrept a sparrow this soules moving Inne On whose raw armes stiffe feathers now begin As childrens teeth through gummes to breake with paine His flesh is jelly yet and his bones threds All downy a new mantle overspreads A mouth he opes which would as much containe As his late house and the first houre speaks plaine And chirps alowd for meat Meat fit for men His father steales for him and so feeds then One that within a moneth will beate him from his hen XX In this worlds youth wise nature did make hast Things ripened sooner and did longer last Already this hot cocke in bush and tree In field and tent oreflutters his next hen He asks her not who did so tast nor when Nor if his sister or his neece shee be Nor doth she pule for his inconstancie If in her sight he change nor doth refuse The next that calls both liberty doe use Where store is of both kindes both kindes may freely chuse XXI Men till they tooke laws which made freedome lesse Their daughters and their sisters did ingresse Till now unlawfull therefore ill t' was not So jolly that it can move this soule Is The body so free of his kindnesses That selfe preserving it hath now forgot And slackneth so the soules and bodies knot Which tēperance streightens freely on his she friends He blood and spirit pith and marrow spends Ill steward of himself himselfe in three yeares ends XXII Else might he long have liv'd man did not know Of gummie blood which doth in holly grow How to make bird-lime nor how to deceive With faind calls his nets or enwrapping snare The free inhabitants of the Plyant aire Man to beget and woman to conceive Askt not of rootes nor of cock-sparrowes leave Yet chuseth hee though none of these he feares Pleasantly three then streightned twenty yeares To live and to encrease himselfe outweares XXIII This cole with overblowing quench'd and dead The Soule from her too active organs fled T' a brooke a female fishes sandie Roe With the males jelly newly lev'ned was For they intertouched as they did passe
should so soone downe beat So great a castle And having for her house Got the streight cloyster of a wreched mouse As basest men that have not what to eate Nor enjoy ought doe farre more hate the great Then they who good repos'd estates possesse This Soule late taught that great things might by lesse Be slain to gallant mischiefe doth herselfe addresse XXXIX Natures great master-peece an Elephant The onely harmlesse great thing the giant Of beasts who thought no more had gone to make one wise But to be just and thankfull loth to offend Yet nature hath given him no knees to bend Himselfe he up-props on himselfe relies And foe to none suspects no enemies Still sleeping stood vex't not his fantasie Blacke dreames like an unbent bow carelesly His sinewy Proboscis did remisly lie XL. In which as in a gallery this mouse Walk'd and surveid the roomes of this vast house And to the braine the soules bed chamber went And gnaw'd the life cords there Like a whole towne Cleane undermin'd the slaine beast tumbled downe With him the murtherer dies whom envy sent To kill not scape for only hee that ment To die did ever kill a man of better roome And thus he made his foe his prey and tombe Who cares not to turn back may any whither come XLI Next hous'd this Soule a Wolves yet unborne whelp Till the best midwife Nature gave it helpe To issue It could kill as soone as goe Abel as white and milde as his sheepe were Who in that trade of Church and kingdomes there Was the first type was still infested soe With this wolfe that it bred his losse and woe And yet his bitch his sentinell attends The flocke so neere so well warnes and defends That the wolfe hopelesse else to corrupt her intends XLII Hee tooke a course which since succesfully Great men have often taken to espie The counsels or to breake the plots of foes To Abels tent he stealeth in the darke On whose skirts the bitch slept ere she could barke Attach'd her with streight gripes yet hee call'd those Embracements of love to loves worke he goes Where deeds move more then words nor doth she show Nor much resist nor needs hee streighten so His prey for were shee loose she would not barke nor goe XLIII Hee hath engag'd her his she wholy bides Who not her owne none others secrets hides If to the flocke he come and Abell there She faines hoarse barkings but she biteth not Her faith is quite but not her love forgot At last a trap of which some every where Abell had plac'd ends all his losse and feare By the Wolves death and now just time it was That a quicke soule should give life to that masse Of blood in Abels bitch and thither this did passe XLIV Some have their wives their sisters some begot But in the lives of Emperours you shall not Reade of a lust the which may equall this This wolfe begot himselfe and finished What he began alive when hee was dead Sonne to himselfe and father too hee is A ridling lust for which Schoolemen would misse A proper name The whelpe of both these lay In Abels tent and with soft Moaba His sister being yong it us'd to sport and play XLV Hee soone for her too harsh and churlish grew And Abell the dam dead would use this new For the field being of two kindes made He as his dam from sheepe drove wolves away And as his Sire he made them his owne prey Five yeares he liv'd and cosened with his trade Then hopelesse that his faults were hid betraid Himselfe by flight and by all followed From dogges a wolfe from wolves a dogge he fled And like a spie to both sides false he perished XLVI It quickned next a toyfull Ape and so Gamesome it was that it might freely goe From tent to tent and with the children play His organs now so like theirs hee doth finde That why he cannot laugh and speake his minde He wonders Much with all most he doth stay With Adams fift daughter Siphatecia Doth gaze on her and where she passeth passe Gathers her fruits and tumbles on the grasse And wisest of that kinde the first true lover was XLVII He was the first that more desir'd to have One then another first that ere did crave Love by mute signes and had no power to speake First that could make love faces or could doe The valters sombersalts or us'd to wooe With hoiting gambolls his owne bones to breake To make his mistresse merry or to wreake Her anger on himselfe Sinnes against kinde They easily doe that can let feed their minde With outward beauty beauty they in boyes and beasts do find XLVIII By this misled too low things men have prov'd And too high beasts and angels have beene lov'd This Ape though else through-vaine in this was wise He reach'd at things too high but open way There was and he knew not she would say nay His toyes prevaile not likelier meanes he tries He gazeth on her face with teare-shot eyes And up lifts subtly with his russet pawe Her kidskinne apron without feare or awe Of nature nature hath no gaole though shee hath law XLIX First she was silly and knew not what he ment That vertue by his touches chaft and spent Succeeds an itchie warmth that melts her quite She knew not first now cares not what he doth And willing halfe and more more then halfe Tooth She neither puls nor pushes but outright Now cries and now repents when Tethelemite Her brother entred and a great stone threw After the Ape who thus prevented flew This house thus batter'd downe the Soule possest a new L. And whether by this change she lose or win She comes out next where the Ape would have gone in Adam and Eve had mingled bloods and now Like Chimiques equall fires her temperate wombe Had stew'd and form'd it and part did become A spungie liver that did richly allow Like a free conduit on a high hils brow Life keeping moisture unto every part Part hardned it selfe to a thicker heart Whose busie furnaces lifes spirits do impart LI. Another part became the well of sense The tender well arm'd feeling braine from whence Those sinowie strings which do our bodies tie Are raveld out and fast there by one end Did this Soule limbes these limbes a soule attend And now they joyn'd keeping some quality Of every past shape she knew treachery Rapine deceit and lust and ills enow To be a woman Themech she is now Sister and wife to Caine Caine that first did plow LII Who ere thou beest that read'st this sullen Writ Which just so much courts thee as thou dost it Let me arrest thy thoughts wonder with mee Why plowing building ruling and the rest Or most of those arts whence our lives are blest By cursed Cains race invented be And blest Seth vext us with Astronomie Ther 's nothing simply good nor ill alone Of every quality
never tast deaths woe But let them sleepe Lord and mee mourne a space For if above all these my sinnes abound 'T is late to aske abundance of thy grace When wee are there here on this lowly ground Teach mee how to repent for that 's as good As if thou'hadst seal'd my pardon with thy blood V. If poysonous mineralls and if that tree Whose fruit threw death on else immortall us If lecherous goats if serpents envious Cannot be damn'd Alas why should I bee Why should intent or reason borne in mee Make sinnes else equall in mee more heinous And mercy being easie and glorious To God in his sterne wrath why threatens hee But who am I that dare dispute with thee O God Oh! of thine onely worthy blood And my teares make a heavenly Lethean flood And drowne in it my sinnes blacke memorie That thou remember them some claime as debt I thinke it mercy if thou wilt forget VI. Death be not proud though some have called thee Mighty and dreadfull for thou art not soe For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not poore death nor yet canst thou kill mee From rest and sleepe which but thy pictures bee Much pleasure then from thee much more must flow And soonest our best men with thee doe goe Rest of their bones and soules deliverie Thou art slave to Fate chance kings and desperate men And doth with poyson warre and sicknesse dwell And poppie or charmes can make us sleepe as well And better then thy stroake why swell'st thou then One short sleepe past wee wake eternally And death shall be no more death thou shalt die VII Spit in my face you Jewes and pierce my side Buffet and scoffe scourge and crucifie mee For I have sinn'd and sinn'd and onely hee Who could do no iniquitie hath dyed But by my death can not be satisfied My sinnes which passe the Jewes impiety They kill'd once an inglorious man but I Crucifie him daily being now glorified Oh let mee then his strange love still admire Kings pardon but he bore our punishment And Iacob came cloth'd in vile harsh attire But to supplant and with gainfull intent God cloth'd himselfe in vile mans flesh that so Hee might be weake enough to suffer woe VIII Why are wee by all creatures waited on Why doe the prodigall elements supply Life and food to mee being more pure then I Simple and further from corruption Why brook'st thou ignorant horse subjection Why dost thou bull and bore so seelily Dissemble weaknesse and by'one mans stroke die Whose whole kinde you might swallow feed upon Weaker I am woe is mee and worse then you You have not sinn'd nor need be timorous But wonder at a greater wonder for to us Created nature doth these things subdue But their Creator whom sin nor nature tyed For us his Creatures and his foes hath dyed IX What if this present were the worlds last night Marke in my heart O Soule where thou dost dwell The picture of Christ crucified and tell Whether his countenance can thee affright Teares in his eyes quench the amasing light Blood fills his frownes which from his pierc'd head fell And can that tongue adjudge thee unto hell Which pray'd forgivenesse for his foes fierce spight No no but as in my idolatrie I said to all my profane mistresses Beauty of pitty foulnesse onely is A signe of rigour so I say to thee To wicked spirits are horrid shapes assign'd This beauteous forme assumes a pitious minde X. Batter my heart three person'd God for you As yet but knocke breathe shine and seeke to mend That I may rise and stand o'erthrow mee ' and bend Your force to breake blowe burn and make me new I like an usurpt towne to'another due Labour to'admit you but Oh to no end Reason your viceroy in mee mee should defend But is captiv'd and proves weake or untrue Yet dearely'I love you and would be lov'd faine But am betroth'd unto your enemie Divorce mee ' untie or breake that knot againe Take mee to you imprison mee for I Except you'enthral mee never shall be free Nor ever chast except you ravish mee XI Wilt thou love God as he thee then digest My Soule this wholsome meditation How God the Spirit by Angels waited on In heaven doth make his Temple in thy brest The Father having begot a Sonne most blest And still begetting for he ne'r begonne Hath deign'd to chuse thee by adoption Coheire to'his glory ' and Sabbaths endlesse rest And as a robb'd man which by search doth finde His stolne stuffe sold must lose or buy'it againe The Sonne of glory came downe and was slaine Us whom he'had made and Satan stolne to unbinde 'T was much that man was made like God before But that God should be made like man much more XII Father part of his double interest Unto thy kingdome thy Sonne gives to mee His joynture in the knottie Trinitie Hee keepes and gives to me his deaths conquest This Lambe whose death with life the world hath blest Was from the worlds beginning slaine and he Hath made two Wills which with the Legacie Of his and thy kingdome doe thy Sonnes invest Yet such are these laws that men argue yet Whether a man those statutes can fulfill None doth but thy all-healing grace and Spirit Revive againe what law and letter kill Thy lawes abridgement and thy last command Is all but love Oh let this last Will stand EPIGRAMS Hero and Leander BOth rob'd of aire we both lye in one ground Both whom one fire had burnt one water drownd Pyramus and Thisbe Two by themselves each other love and feare Slaine cruell friends by parting have joyn'd here Niobe By childrens births and death I am become So dry that I am now mine owne sad tombe A burnt ship Out of a fired ship which by no way But drowning could be rescued from the flame Some men leap'd forth and ever as they came Neere the foes ships did by their shot decay So all were lost which in the ship were found They in the sea being burnt they in the burnt ship drown'd Fall of a wall Under an undermin'd and shot-bruis'd wall A too-bold Captaine perish'd by the fall Whose brave misfortune happiest men envi'd That had a towne for tombe his bones to hide A lame begger I am unable yonder begger cries To stand or moue if he say true hee lies A selfe accuser Your mistris that you follow whores still taxeth you 'T is strange that she should thus confesse it though'it be true A licentious person Thy sinnes and haires may no man equall call For as thy sinnes increase thy haires doe fall Antiquary If in his Studie he hath so much care To'hang all old strange things let his wife beware Disinherited Thy father all from thee by his last Will Gave to the poore Thou hast good title still Phryne Thy flattering picture Phryne is like thee Onely in this that you both painted be An obscure writer
nature put thee in And to deliver up to God that state Of which he gave thee the vicariate Which is thy soule and body as intire As he who takes endeavours doth require But didst not stay t' enlarge his kingdome too By making others what thou didst to doe Why shouldst thou Triumph now when Heav'n no more Hath got by getting thee then t 'had before For Heav'n and thou even when thou livedst here Of one another in possession were But this from Triumph most disables thee That that place which is conquered must bee Left safe from present warre and likely doubt Of imminent commotions to breake out And hath he left us so or can it bee His territory was no more then Hee No we were all his charge the Diocis Of ev'ry exemplar man the whole world is And he was joyned in commission With Tutelar Angels sent to every one But though this freedome to upbraid and chide Him who Triumph'd were lawfull it was ty'd With this that it might never reference have Unto the Senate who this triumph gave Men might at Pompey jeast but they might not At that authoritie by which he got Leave to Triumph before by age he might So though triumphant soule I dare to write Mov'd with a reverentiall anger thus That thou so earely wouldst abandon us Yet I am farre from daring to dispute With that great soveraigntie whose absolute Prerogative hath thus dispens'd with thee ' Gainst natures lawes which just impugners bee Of early triumphs And I though with paine Lessen our losse to magnifie thy gaine Of triumph when I say It was more fit That all men should lacke thee then thou lack it Though then in our time be not suffered That testimonie of love unto the dead To die with them and in their graves be hid As Saxon wives and French soldarii did And though in no degree I can expresse Griefe in great Alexanders great excesse Who at his friends death made whole townes devest Their walls and bullwarks which became them best Doe not faire soule this sacrifice refuse That in thy grave I doe interre my Muse Who by my griefe great as thy worth being cast Behind hand yet hath spoke and spoke her last Elegie AS the sweet sweat of Roses in a Still As that which frō chaf'd muskats pores doth trill As the Almighty Balme of th' early East Such are the sweat drops of my Mistris breast And on her necke her skin such lustre sets They seeme no sweat drops but pearle coronets Ranke sweaty froth thy Mistresse's brow defiles Like spermatique issue of ripe menstruous boiles Or like the skumme which by needs lawlesse law Enforc'd Sanserra's starved men did draw From parboild shooes and bootes and all the rest Which were with any soveraigne fatnes blest And like vile stones lying in saffrond tinne Or warts or wheales it hangs upon her skinne Round as the world 's her head on every side Like to the fatall Ball which fell on Ide Or that whereof God had such jealousie As for the ravishing thereof we die Thy head is like a rough-hewne statue of jeat Where marks for eyes nose mouth are yet scarce set Like the first Chaos or flat seeming face Of Cynthia when th' earths shadowes her embrace Like Proserpines white beauty-keeping chest Or Joues best fortunes urne is her faire brest Thine's like worme eaten trunkes cloth'd in seals skin Or grave that 's dust without and stinke within And like that slender stalke at whose end stands The wood-bine quivering are her armes and hands Like rough bark'd elmboughes or the russet skin Of men late scurg'd for madnes or for sinne Like Sun-parch'd quarters on the citie gate Such is thy tann'd skins lamentable state And like a bunch of ragged carrets stand The short swolne fingers of her gouty hand Then like the Chymicks masculine equall fire Which in the Lymbecks warme wombe doth inspire Into th' earths worthlesse part a soule of gold Such cherishing heat her best lov'd part doth hold Thine's like the dread mouth of a fired gunne Or like hot liquid metalls newly runne Into clay moulds or like to that Aetna Where round about the grasse is burnt away Are not your kisses then as filthy and more As a worme sucking an invenom'd sore Doth not thy fearefull hand in feeling quake As one which gath'ring flowers still feares a snake Is not your last act harsh and violent As where a Plough a stony ground doth rent So kisse good Turtles so devoutly nice Are Priests in handling reverent sacrifice And nice in searching wounds the Surgeon is As wee when wee embrace or touch or kisse Leave her and I will leave comparing thus She and comparisons are odious Elegie The Autumnall NO Spring nor Summer Beauty hath such grace As I have seen in one Autumnall face Yong Beauties force our love and that 's a Rape This doth but counsaile yet you cannot scape If t' were a shame to love here t' were no shame Affections here take Reverences name Were her first yeares the Golden Age That 's true But now they' are gold oft tried and ever new That was her torrid and inflaming time This is her tolerable Tropique clyme Faire eyes who askes more heate then comes from hence He in a fever wishes pestilence Call not these wrinkles graves If graves they were They were Loves graves for else he is no where Yet lies not love dead here but here doth sit Vow'd to this trench like an Anachorit And here till hers which must be his death come He doth not digge a Grave but build a Tombe Iere dwells he though he sojourne ev'ry where In Progresse yet his standing house is here Iere where still Evening is not noone nor night Where no voluptuousnesse yet all delight In all her words unto all hearers fit You may at Revels you at counsaile sit This is loves timber youth his under-wood There he as wine in Iune enrages blood Which then comes seasonabliest when our tast And appetite to other things is past Xerxes strange Lydian love the Platane tree Was lov'd for age none being so large as shee Or else because being yong nature did blesse Her youth with ages glory Barrennesse If we love things long sought Age is a thing Which we are fifty yeares in compassing If transitory things which soone decay Age must be lovelyest at the latest day But name not Winter-faces whose skin 's slacke Lanke as an unthrifts purse but a soules sacke Whose Eyes seeke light within for all here 's shade Whose mouthes are holes rather worne out then made Whos 's every tooth to a severall place is gone To vexe their soules at Resurrection Name not these living Deaths-heads unto mee For these not Ancient but Antique be I hate extreames yet I had rather stay With Tombs then Cradles to weare out a day Since such loves motion natural is may still My love descend and journey downe the hill Not panting after growing beauties so I shall ebbe out
From hearing bold wits jeast at Kings excesse To'admit the like of majestie divine That we may locke our eares Lord open thine XXVI That living law the Magistrate Which to give us and make us physicke doth Our vices often aggravate That Preachers taxing sinne before her growth That Satan and invenom'd men Which well if we starve dine When they doe most accuse us may see then Us to amendment heare them thee decline That we may open our eares Lord lock thine XXVII That learning thine Ambassador From thine allegeance wee never tempt That beauty paradises flower For physicke made from poyson be exempt That wit borne apt high good to doe By dwelling lazily On Natures nothing be not nothing too That our affections kill us not nor dye Heare us weake ecchoes O thou eare and cry XXVIII Sonne of God heare us and since thou By taking our blood owest it us againe Gaine to thy selfe or us allow And let not both us and thy selfe be slaine O lambe of God which took'st our sinne Which could not stick to thee O let it not returne to us againe But Patient and Physition being free As sinne is nothing let it no where be SEnd home my long strayd eyes to mee Which Oh too long have dwelt on thee Yet since there they have learn'd such ill Such forc'd fashions And false passions That they be Made by thee Fit for no good sight keep them still Send home my harmlesse heart againe Which no unworthy thought could staine Which if it be taught by thine To make jestings Of protestings And breake both Word and oath Keepe it for then 't is none of mine Yet send me back my heart and eyes That I may know and see thy lyes And may laugh and joy when thou Art in anguish And dost languish For some one That will none Or prove as false as thou art now A nocturnall upon S. Lucies day Being the shortest day T Is the yeares midnight and it is the dayes Lucies who scarce seaven houres herself unmaskes The Sunne is spent and now his flasks Send forth light squibs no constant rayes The worlds whole sap is sunke The generall balme th'hydroptique earth hath drunk Whither as to the beds-feet life is shrunke Dead and enterr'd yet all these seeme to laugh Compar'd with mee who am their Epitaph Study me then you who shall lovers bee At the next world that is at the next Spring For I am every dead thing In whom love wrought new Alchimie For his art did expresse A quintessence even from nothingnesse From dull privations and leane emptinesse He ruin'd mee and I am re-begot Of absence darknesse death things which are not All others from all things draw all that 's good Life soule forme spirit whence they beeing have I by loves limbecke am the grave Of all that 's nothing Oft a flood Have wee two wept and so Drownd the whole world us two oft did we grow To be two Chaosses when we did show Care to ought else and often absences Withdrew our soules and made us carcasses But I am by her death which word wrongs her Of the first nothing the Elixer grown Were I a man that I were one I needs must know I should preferre If I were any beast Some ends some means Yea plants yea stones detest And love all all some properties invest If I an ordinary nothing were As shadow a light and body must be here But I am None nor will my Sunne renew You lovers for whose sake the lesser Sunne At this time to the Goat is runne To fetch new lust and give it you Enjoy your summer all Since shee enjoyes her long nights festivall Let mee prepare towards her and let mee call This houre her Vigill and her eve since this Both the yeares and the dayes deep midnight is Witchcraft by a picture I Fixe mine eye on thine and there Pitty my picture burning in thine eye My picture drown'd in a transparent teare When I looke lower I espie Hadst thou the wicked skill By pictures made and mard to kill How many wayes mightst thou performe thy will But now I have drunke thy sweet salt teares And though thou poure more I 'll depart My picture vanish'd vanish feares That I can be endamag'd by that art Though thou retaine of mee One picture more yet that will bee Being in thine owne heart from all malice free COme live with mee and bee my love And wee will some new pleasures prove Of golden sands and christall brookes With silken lines and silver hookes There will the river whispering runne Warm'd by thy eyes more then the Sunne And there the'inamor'd fish will stay Begging themselves they may betray When thou wilt swimme in that live bath Each fish which every channell hath Will amorously to thee swimme Gladder to catch thee then thou him If thou to be so seene beest loath By Sunne or Moone thou darknest both And if my selfe have leave to see I need not their light having thee Let others freeze with angling reeds And cut their legges which shells and weeds Or treacherously poore fish beset With strangling snare or windowie net Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest The bedded fish in banks out-wrest Or curious traitors sleavesicke flies Bewitch poore fishes wandring eyes For thee thou needst no such deceit For thou thy selfe art thine owne bait That fish that is not catch'd thereby Alas is wiser farre then I. The Apparition WHen by thy scorne O murdresse I am dead And that thou thinkst thee free From all solicitation from mee Then shall my ghost come to thy bed And thee fain'd vestall in worse armes shall see Then thy sicke taper will begin to winke And he whose thou art then being tyr'd before Will if thou stirre or pinch to wake him thinke Thou call'st for more And in false sleepe will from thee shrinke And then poore Aspen wretch neglected thou Bath'd in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lye A veryer ghost then I What I will say I will not tell thee now Lest that preserve thee ' and since my love is spent I 'had rather thou shouldst painfully repent Then by my threatnings rest still innocent Dull sublunary lovers love Whose soule is sense cannot admit Absence because it doth remove Those things which elemented it But we by a love so much refin'd That our selves know not what it is Inter-assured of the mind Care lesse eyes lips hands to misse Our two soules therefore which are one Though I must goe endure not yet A breach but an expansion Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate If they be two they are two so As stiffe twin compasses are two Thy soule the fixt foot makes no show To move but doth if the'other doe And though it in the center sit Yet when the other far doth rome It leanes and hearkens after it And growes erect as that comes home Such wilt thou be to mee who must Like th' other foot obliquely runne Thy firmnes makes my circle just
to aspire That this her feaver might be it And yet she cannot wast by this Nor long beare this torturing wrong For much corruption needfull is To fuell such a feaver long These burning fits but meteors bee Whose matter in thee is soone spent Thy beauty ' and all parts which are thee Are unchangeable firmament Yet t' was of my minde seising thee Though it in thee cannot persever For I had rather owner bee Of thee one houre then all else ever Aire and Angels Twice or thrice had I loved thee Before I knew thy face or name So in a voice so in a shapelesse flame Angells affect us oft and worship'd bee Still when to where thou wert I came Some lovely glorious nothing I did see But since my soule whose child love is Takes limmes of flesh and else could nothing doe More subtile then the parent is Love must not be but take a body too And therefore what thou wert and who I bid Love aske and now That it assume thy body I allow And fixe it selfe in thy lip eye and brow Whilst thus to ballast love I thought And so more steddily to have gone With wares which would sinke admiration I saw I had loves pinnace overfraught Ev'ry thy haire for love to worke upon Is much too much some fitter must be sought For nor in nothing nor in things Extreme and scattring bright can love inhere Then as an Angell face and wings Of aire not pure as it yet pure doth weare So thy love may be my loves spheare Just such disparitie As is twixt Aire and Angells puritie 'Twixt womens love and mens will ever bee Breake of day 'T Is true 't is day what though it be O wilt thou therefore rise from me Why should we rise because 't is light Did we lie downe because 't was night Love which in spight of darknesse brought us hether Should in despight of light keepe us together Light hath no tongue but is all eye If it could speake as well as spie This were the worst that it could say That being well I faine would stay And that I lov'd my heart and honor so That I would not from him that had them goe Must businesse thee from hence remove Oh that 's the worst disease of love The poore the foule the false love can Admit but not the busied man He which hath businesse and makes love doth doe Such wrong as when a maryed man doth wooe The Anniversarie ALL Kings and all their favorites All glory of honors beauties wits The Sun it selfe which makes times as they passe Is elder by a yeare now then it was When thou and I first one another saw All other things to their destruction draw Only our love hath no decay This no to morrow hath nor yesterday Running it never runs from us away But truly keepes his first last everlasting day Two graves must hide thine and my coarse If one might death were no divorce Alas as well as other Princes wee Who Prince enough in one another bee Must leave at last in death these eyes and eares Oft fed with true oathes and with sweet salt teares But soules where nothing dwells but love All other thoughts being inmates then shall prove This or a love increased there above When bodies to their graves soules from their graves remove And then wee shall be throughly blest But now no more then all the rest Here upon earth we' are Kings and none but wee Can be such Kings nor of such subjects bee Who is so safe as wee where none can doe Treason to us except one of us two True and false feares let us refraine Let us love nobly and live and adde againe Yeares and yeares unto yeares till we attaine To write threescore this is the second of our raigne A Valediction of my name in the window I. MY name engrav'd herein Doth contribute my firmnesse to this glasse Which ever since that charme hath beene As hard as that which grav'd it was Thine eye will give it price enough to mock The diamonds of either rock II. 'T is much that Glasse should bee As all confessing and through-shine as I 'T is more that it shewes thee to thee And cleare reflects thee to thine eye But all such rules loves magique can undoe Here you see mee and I am you III. As no one point nor dash Which are but accessaries to this name The showers and tempests can outwash So shall all times finde mee the same You this intirenesse better may fulfill Who have the patterne with you still IIII. Or if too hard and deepe This learning be for a scratch'd name to teach It as a given deaths head keepe Lovers mortalitie to preach Or thinke this ragged bony name to bee My ruinous Anatomie V. Then as all my soules bee Emparadis'd in you in whom alone I understand and grow and see The rafters of my body bone Being still with you the Muscle Sinew and Veine Which tile this house will come againe VI. Till my returne repaire And recompact my scattered body so As all the vertuous powers which are Fix'd in the starres are said to flow Into such characters as graved bee When these starres have supremacie VII So since this name was cut When love and griefe their exaltation had No doore'gainst this names influence shut As much more loving as more sad 'T will make thee and thou shouldst till I returne Since I die daily daily mourne VIII When thy inconsiderate hand Flings ope this casement with my trembling name To looke on one whose wit or land New battry to thy heart may frame Then thinke this name alive and that thou thus In it offendst my Genius IX And when thy melted maid Corrupted by thy Lover's gold and page His letter at thy pillow'hath laid Disputed it and tam'd thy rage And thou begin'st to thaw towards him for this May my name step in and hide his X. And if this treason goe To an overt act and that thou write againe In superscribing this name flow Into thy fancy from the pane So in forgetting thou remembrest right And unaware to mee shalt write XI But glasse and lines must bee No meanes our firme substantiall love to keepe Neere death inflicts this lethargie And this I murmure in my sleepe Impute this idle talke to that I goe For dying men talke often so Twicknam garden BLasted with sighs and surrounded with teares Hither I come to seeke the spring And at mine eyes and at mine eares Receive such balmes as else cure every thing But O selfe traytor I do bring The spider love which transubstantiates all And can convert Manna to gall And that this place may thoroughly be thought True Paradise I have the serpent brought 'T were wholsomer for mee that winter did Benight the glory of this place And that a grave frost did forbid These trees to laugh and mocke mee to my face But that I may not this disgrace Indure nor yet leave loving
do die Her modestie not suffering her to bee Fellow-Commissioner with Destinie She did no more but die if after her Any shall live which dare true good prefer Every such person is her deligate T' accomplish that which should have beene her Fate They shall make up that Booke and shall have thanks Of Fate and her for filling up their blankes For future vertuous deeds are Legacies VVhich from the gift of her example rise And 't is in heav'n part of spirituall mirth To see how well the good play her on earth OF THE PROGRESSE OF THE SOULE Wherein By occasion of the Religious death of Mistris ELIZABETH DRVRY the incommodities of the Soule in this life and her exaltation in the next are contemplated The second Anniversary The Harbinger to the PROGRESSE TWo Soules move here and mine a third must move Paces of admiration and of love Thy Soule deare virgin whose this tribute is Mov'd from this mortall Spheare to lively blisse And yet moves still and still aspires to see The worlds last day thy glories full degree Like as those starres which thou o'r-lookest farre Are in their place and yet still moved are No soule whiles with the luggage of this clay It clogged is can follow thee halfe way Or see thy flight which doth our thoughts outgoe So fast that now the lightning moves but slow But now thou art as high in heaven flowne As heaven's from us what soule besides thine owne Can tell thy joyes or say he can relate Thy glorious Journals in that blessed state I envie thee Rich soule I envy thee Although I cannot yet thy glory see And thou great spirit which hers follow'd hast So fast as none can follow thine so fast So far as none can follow thine so farre And if this flesh did not the passage barre Hadst caught her let me wonder at thy flight Which long agone hadst lost the vulgar sight And now mak'st proud the better eyes that they Can see thee less'ned in thine ayery way So while thou mak'st her soule by progresse knowne Thou mak'st a noble progresse of thine owne From this worlds carkasse having mounted high To that pure life of immortalitie Since thine aspiring thoughts themselves so raise That more may not beseeme a creatures praise Yet still thou vow'st her more and every yeare Mak'st a new progresse while thou wandrest here Still upward mount and let thy Makers praise Honor thy Laura and adorne thy laies And since thy Muse her head in heaven shrouds Oh let her never stoope below the clouds And if those glorious sainted soules may know Or what wee doe or what wee sing below Those acts those songs shall still content them best Which praise those awfull Powers that make them blest OF THE PROGRESSE OF THE SOULE The second Anniversarie NOthing could make me sooner to confesse That this world had an everlastingnesse Then to consider that a yeare is runne Since both this lower world 's and the Sunnes Sunne The Lustre and the vigor of this all Did set 't were blasphemie to say did fall But as a ship which hath strooke saile doth runne By force of that force which before it wonne Or as sometimes in a beheaded man Though at those two Red seas which freely ranne One from the Trunke another from the Head His soule he sail'd to her eternall bed His eyes will twinckle and his tongue will roll As though he beckned and cal'd backe his soule He graspes his hands and he pulls up his feet And seemes to reach and to step forth to meet His soule when all these motions which we saw Are but as Ice which crackles at a thaw Or as a Lute which in moist weather rings Her knell alone by cracking of her strings So struggles this dead world now shee is gone For there is motion in corruption As some daies are at the Creation nam'd Before the Sunne the which fram'd daies was fram'd So after this Sunne 's set some shew appeares And orderly vicissitude of yeares Yet a new deluge and of Lethe flood Hath drown'd us all All have forgot all good Forgetting her the maine reserve of all Yet in this deluge grosse and generall Thou seest me strive for life my life shall bee To be hereafter prais'd for praysing thee Immortall maid who though thou would'st refuse The name of Mother be unto my Muse A Father since her chast Ambition is Yearely to bring forth such a child as this These Hymnes may worke on future wits and so May great Grand children of thy prayses grow And so though not revive embalme and spice The world which else would putrisie with vice For thus Man may extend thy progeny Untill man doe but vanish and not die These Hymnes thy issue may encrease so long As till Gods great Venite change the song Thirst for that time O my insatiate soule And serve thy thirst with Gods safe-fealing Bowle Be thirstie still and drinke still till thou goe To th' only Health to be Hydroptique so Forget this rotten world And unto thee Let thine owne times as an old storie bee Be not concern'd studie not why nor when Doe not so much as not beleeve a man For though to erre be worst to try truths forth Is far more businesse then this world is worth The world is but a carkasse thou art fed By it but as a worme that carkasse bred And why should'st thou poore worme consider more When this world will grow better then before Then those thy fellow wormes doe thinke upon That carkasses last resurrection Forget this world and scarce thinke of it so As of old clothes cast off a yeare agoe To be thus stupid is Alacritie Men thus Lethargique have best Memory Look upward that 's towards her whose happy state We now lament not but congratulate Shee to whom all this world was but a stage Where all sat harkning how her youthfull age Should be emploi'd because in all shee did Some Figure of the Golden times was hid Who could not lacke what e'r this world could give Because shee was the forme that made it live Nor could complaine that this world was unfit To be staid in then when shee was in it Shee that first tried indifferent desires By vertue and vertue by religious fires Shee to whose person Paradise adher'd As Courts to Princes shee whose eyes ensphear'd Star-light enough t' have made the South controule Had shee beene there the Star-full Northerne Pole Shee she is gone she is gone when thou knowest this What fragmentary rubbidge this world is Thou knowest and that it is not worth a thought He honors it too much that thinkes it nought Thinke then my soule that death is but a Groome Which brings a Taper to the outward roome Whence thou spiest first a little glimmering light And after brings it nearer to thy sight For such approaches doth heaven make in death Thinke thy selfe labouring now with broken breath And thinke those broken and soft Notes to
wee understood Her by her sight her pure and eloquent blood Spoke in her cheekes and so distinctly wrought That one might almost say her body thought Shee shee thus richly and largely hous'd is gone And chides us slow-pac'd snailes who crawle upon Our prisons prison earth nor thinke us well Longer then whil'st wee beare our brittle shell But 't were but little to have chang'd our roome If as we were in this our living Tombe Oppress'd with ignorance wee still were so Poore soule in this thy flesh what dost thou know Thou know'st thy selfe so little as thou know'st not How thou didst die nor how thou wast begot Thou neither know'st how thou at first cam'st in Nor how thou took'st the poyson of mans sinne Nor dost thou though thou know'st that thou art so By what way thou art made immortall know Thou art too narrow wretch to comprehend Even thy selfe yea though thou wouldst but bend To know thy body Have not all soules thought For many ages that our body is wrought Of aire and fire and other Elements And now they thinke of new ingredients And one Soule thinkes one and another way Another thinkes and 't is an even lay Knowst thou but how the stone doth enter in The bladders cave and never brake the skinne Know'st thou how blood which to the heart doth flow Doth from one ventricle to th' other goe And for the putrid stuffe which thou dost spit Know'st thou how thy lungs have attracted it There are no passages so that there is For ought thou know'st piercing of substances And of those many opinions which men raise Of Nailes and Haires dost thou know which to praise What hope have wee to know our selves when wee Know not the least things which for our use be Wee see in Authors too stiffe to recant A hundred controversies of an Ant And yet one watches starves freeses and sweats To know but Catechismes and Alphabets Of unconcerning things matters of fact How others on our stage their parts did Act What Caesar did yea and what Cicero said Why grasse is greene or why our blood is red Are mysteries which none have reach'd unto In this low forme poore soule what wilt thou doe When wilt thou shake off this Pedantery Of being taught by sense and Fantasie Thou look'st through spectacles small things seeme great Below But up unto the watch-towre get And see all things despoyl'd of fallacies Thou shalt not peepe through lattices of eyes Nor heare through Labyrinths of eares nor learne By circuit or collections to discerne In heaven thou straight know'st all concerning it And what concernes it not shalt straight forget There thou but in no other schoole maist bee Perchance as learned and as full as shee Shee who all libraries had throughly read At home in her owne thoughts and practised So much good as would make as many more Shee whose example they must all implore Who would or doe or thinke well and confesse That all the vertuous Actions they expresse Are but a new and worse edition Of her some one thought or one action She who in th' art of knowing Heaven was growne Here upon earth to such perfection That she hath ever since to Heaven she came In a far fairer point but read the same Shee shee not satisfied with all this waight For so much knowledge as would over-fraight Another did but ballast her is gone As well t' enjoy as get perfection And cals us after her in that shee tooke Taking her selfe our best and worthiest booke Returne not my Soule from this extasie And meditation of what thou shalt bee To earthly thoughts till it to thee appeare With whom thy conversation must be there With whom wilt thou converse what station Canst thou chose out free from infection That will not give thee theirs nor drinke in thine Shalt thou not finde a spungie slacke Divine Drinke and sucke in th' instructions of great men And for the word of God vent them agen Are there not some Courts and then no things bee So like as Courts which in this let us see That wits and tongues of Libellers are weake Because they do more ill then these can speake The poyson's gone through all poysons affect Chiefly the chiefest parts but some effect In nailes and haires yea excrements will show So lyes the poyson of sinne in the most low Up up my drowsie Soule where thy new eare Shall in the Angels songs no discord heare Where thou shalt see the blessed Mother-maid Joy in not being that which men have said Where she is exalted more for being good Then for her interest of Mother-hood Up to those Patriarchs which did longer sit Expecting Christ then they'have enjoy'd him yet Up to those Prophets which now gladly see Their Prophesies growne to be Historie Up to th'Apostles who did bravely runne All the Suns course with more light then the Sunne Up to those Martyrs who did calmly bleed Oyle to th'Apostles Lamps dew to their seed Up to those Virgins who thought that almost They made joyntenants with the Holy Ghost If they to any should his Temple give Up up for in that squadron there doth live She who hath carried thither new degrees As to their number to their dignities Shee who being to her selfe a State injoy'd All royalties which any State employ'd For shee made warres and triumph'd reason still Did not o'rthrow but rectifie her will And she made peace for no peace is like this That beauty and chastity together kisse She did high justice for she crucified Every first motion of rebellious pride And she gave pardons and was liberall For onely her selfe except she pardon'd all Shee coy'nd in this that her impression gave To all our actions all the worth they have She gave protections the thoughts of her brest Satans rude Officers could ne'r arrest As these prerogatives being met in one Made her a soveraigne State religion Made her a Church and these two made her all She who was all this All and could not fall To worse by company for she was still More Antidote then all the world was ill Shee shee doth leave it and by Death survive All this in Heaven whether who doth not strive The more because shee s there he doth not know That accidentall joyes in Heaven doe grow But pause my soule And study ere thou fall On accidentall joyes th'essentiall Still before Accessories doe abide A triall must the principall be tride And what essentiall joy can'st thou expect Here upon earth what permanent effect Of transitory causes Dost thou love Beauty And beauty worthy'st is to move Poore cousened cousenor that she and that thou Which did begin to love are neither now You are both fluid chang'd since yesterday Next day repaires but ill last dayes decay Nor are although the river keepe the name Yesterdaies waters and to daies the same So flowes her face and thine eyes neither now That Saint nor Pilgrime which your loving vow Concern'd remaines
in Sion which hath power To eate and her foundations to devour 12 Nor would the Kings of the earth nor all which live In the inhabitable world beleeve That any adversary any foe Into Ierusalem should enter so 13 For the Priests sins and Prophets which have shed Blood in the streets and the just murthered 14 Which when those men whom they made blinde did stray Thorough the streets defiled by the way With blood the which impossible it was Their garments should scape touching as they passe 15 Would cry aloud depart defiled men Depart depart and touch us not and then They fled and strayd and with the Gentiles were Yet told their friends they should not long dwell there 16 For this they are scattered by Jehovahs face VVho never will regard them more No grace Unto their old men shall the foe afford Nor that they are Priests redeeme them from the sword 17 And wee as yet for all these miseries Desiring our vaine helpe consume our eyes And such a nation as cannot save VVe in desire and speculation have 18 They hunt our steps that in the streets wee feare To goe our end is now approached neere Our dayes accomplish'd are this the last day Eagles of heaven are not so swift as they 19 VVhich follow us o'r mountaine tops they flye At us and for us in the desart lye 20 The annointed Lord breath of our nostrils hee Of whom we said under his shadow wee Shall with more ease under the Heathen dwell Into the pit which these men digged fell 21 Rejoyce O Edoms daughter joyfull bee Thou which inhabitst her for unto thee This cup shall passe and thou with drunkennesse Shalt fill thy selfe and shew thy nakednesse 22 And then they sinnes O Sion shall be spent The Lord will not leave thee in banishment Thy sinnes O Edoms daughter hee will see And for them pay thee with captivitie CAP. V. 1 REmember O Lord what is fallen on us See and marke how we are reproached thus 2 For unto strangers our possession Is turn'd our houses unto Aliens gone 3 Our mothers are become as widowes wee As Orphans all and without fathers be 4 Waters which are our owne wee drunke and pay And upon our owne wood a price they lay 5 Our persecutors on our necks do sit They make us travaile and not intermit 6 We stretch our hands unto th' Egyptians To get us bread and to the Assyrians 7 Our Fathers did these sinnes and are no more But wee do beare the sinnes they did before 8 They are but servants which do rule us thus Yet from their hands none would deliver us 9 With danger of our life our bread wee gat For in the wildernesse the sword did wait 10 The tempests of this famine wee liv'd in Black as an Ocean colour'd had our kinne 11 In Iudaes cities they the maids abus'd By force and so women in Sion us'd 12 The Princes with their hands they hung no grace Nor honour gave they to the Elders face 13 Unto the mill our yong men carried are And children fell under the wood they bare 14 Elders the gates youth did their songs forbeare Gone was our joy our dancings mournings were 15 Now is the crowne falne from our head and woe Be unto us because we'have sinned so 16 For this our hearts do languish and for this Over our eyes a cloudy dimnesse is 17 Because mount Sion desolate doth lye And foxes there do goe at libertie 18 But thou O Lord art ever and thy throne From generation to generation 19 Why should'st thou forget us eternally Or leave us thus long in this misery 20 Restore us Lord to thee that so we may Returne and as of old renew our day 21 For oughtest thou O Lord despise us thus 22 And to be utterly enrag'd at us SATYRES Satyre I. AWay thou fondling motley humorist Leave mee and in this standing woodden chest Consorted with these few bookes let me lye In prison and here be coffin'd when I dye Here are Gods conduits grave Divines and here Natures Secretary the Philosopher And jolly Statesmen which teach how to tie The sinewes of a cities mistique bodie Here gathering Chroniclers and by them stand Giddie fantastique Poëts of each land Shall I leave all this constant company And follow headlong wild uncertaine thee First sweare by thy best love in earnest If thou which lov'st all canst love any best Thou wilt not leave mee in the middle street Though some more spruce companion thou dost meet Not though a Captaine do come in thy way Bright parcell gilt with forty dead mens pay Not though a briske perfum'd piert Courtier Deigne with a nod thy courtesie to answer Nor come a velvet Justice with a long Great traine of blew coats twelve or fourteen strong Wilt thou grin or fawne on him or prepare A speech to Court his beautious sonne and heire For better or worse take mee or leave mee To take and leave mee is adultery Oh monstrous superstitious puritan Of refin'd manners yet ceremoniall man That when thou meet'st one with enquiring eyes Dost search and like a needy broker prize The silke and gold he weares and to that rate So high or low dost raise thy formall hate That wilt consort none untill thou have knowne What lands hee hath in hope or of his owne As though all thy companions should make thee Jointures and marry thy deare company Why should'st thou that dost not onely approve But in ranke it chie lust desire and love The nakednesse and barrennesse to enjoy of thy plumpe muddy whore or prostitute boy Hate vertue though shee be naked and bare At birth and death our bodies naked are And till our Soules be unapparrelled Of bodies they from blisse are banished Mans first blest state was naked when by sinne Hee lost that yet hee was cloath'd but in beasts skin And in this course attire which I now weare With God and with the Muses I conferre But since thou like a contrite penitent Charitably warm'd of thy sinnes dost repent These vanities and giddinesses loe I shut my chamber doore and come le ts goe But sooner may a cheape whore who hath beene Worne by as many severall men in sinne As are black feathers or musk-colour hose Name her childs right true father ' mongst all those Sooner may one guesse who shall beare away The infant of London Heire to an India And sooner may a gulling weather Spie By drawing forth heavens Sceanes tell certainly What fashioned hats or ruffes or suits next yeare Our subtile wittied antique youths will weare Then thou when thou depart'st from mee can show Whither why when or with whom thou wouldst go But how shall I be pardon'd my offence That thus have sinn'd against my conscience Now we are in the street He first of all Improvidently proud creepes to the wall And so imprisoned and hem'd in by mee Sells for a little state high libertie Yet though he cannot skip forth now to greet
of all our Soules devotion As vertue was in the first blinded age Are not heavens joyes as valiant to asswage Lusts as earths honour was to them Alas As wee do them in meanes shall they surpasse Us in the end and shall thy fathers spirit Meete blinde Philosophers in heaven whose merit Of strict life may be imputed faith and heare Thee whom hee taught so easie wayes and neare To follow damn'd O if thou dar'st feare this This feare great courage and high valour is Dar'st thou ayd mutinous-Dutch and dar'st thou lay Thee in ships woodden Sepulchers a prey To leaders rage to stormes to shot to dearth Dar'st thou dive seas and dungeons of the earth Hast thou couragious fite to thaw the ice Of frozen North discoueries and thrise Colder then Salamanders like divine Children in th'oven fires of Spaine and the line Whose countries limbecks to our bodies bee Canst thou for gaine beare and must every hee Which cryes not Goddesse to thy Mistresse draw Or eate thy poysonous words courage of straw O desperate coward wilt thou seeme bold and To thy foes and his who made thee to stand Sentinell in his worlds garrison thus yeeld And for forbidden warres leave th' appointed field Know thy foe the foule devill h 'is whom thou Strivest to please for hate not love would allow Thee faine his whole Realme to be quit and as The world 's all parts wither away and passe So the worlds selfe thy other lov'd foe is In her decrepit wayne and thou loving this Dost love a withered and worne strumpet last Flesh it selfe death and joyes which flesh can taste Thou lovest and thy faire goodly soule which doth Give this flesh power to taste joy thou dost loath Seeke true religion O where Mirreus Thinking her unhous'd her and fled from us Seekes her at Rome there because hee doth know That shee was there a thousand yeares agoe He loves the ragges so as wee here obey The statecloth where the Prince sate yesterday Crants to such brave Loves will not be inthrall'd But loves her onely who at Geneva is call'd Religion plaine simple sullen yong Contemptuous yet unhansome As among Lecherous humors there is one that judges No wenches wholsome but course country drudges Graius stayes still at home here and because Some Preachers vile ambitious bauds and lawes Still new like fashions bids him thinke that shee Which dwels with us is onely perfect hee Imbraceth her whom his Godfathers will Tender to him being tender as Wards still Take such wives as their Guardians offer or Pay valewes Carelesse Phrygius doth abhorre All because all cannot be good as one Knowing some women whores dares marry none Graccus loves all as one and thinkes that so As women do in divers countries goe In divers habits yet are still one kinde So doth so is Religion and this blindnesse too much light breeds but unmoved thou Of force must one and forc'd but one allow And the right aske thy father which is shee Let him aske his though truth and falshood bee Neare twins yet truth a little elder is Be busie to seeke her beleeve mee this Hee 's not of none nor worst that seekes the best To adore or scorne an image or protest May all be bad doubt wisely in strange way To stand inquiring right is not to stray To sleepe or runne wrong is on a huge hill Cragg'd and steep Truth stands and hee that will Reach her about must and about must goe And what the hills suddennes resists winne so Yet strive so that before age deaths twilight Thy Soule rest for none can worke in that night To will implyes delay therefore now doe Hard deeds the bodies paines hard knowledge to The mindes indeavours reach and mysteries Are like the Sunne dazling yet plaine to all eyes Keepe the truth which thou hast found men do not stand In so ill case that God hath with his hand Sign'd Kings blanck-charters to kill whom they hate Nor are they Vicars but hangmen to Fate Foole and wretch wilt thou let thy Soule be tyed To mans lawes by which she shall not be tryed At the last day Will it then boot thee To say a Philip or a Gregory A Harry or a Martin taught thee this Is not this excuse for mere contraries Equally strong cannot both sides say so That thou mayest rightly obey power her bounds know Those past her nature name is chang'd to be Then humble to her is idolatrie As streames are Power is those blest flowers that dwell At the rough streames calme head thrive and do well But having left their roots and themselves given To the streames tyrannous rage alas are driven Through mills rockes woods and at last almost Consum'd in going in the sea are lost So perish Soules which more chuse mens unjust Power from God claym'd then God himselfe to trust Satyre IIII. WEll I may now receive and die My sinne Indeed is great but I have beene in A Purgatorie such as fear'd hell is A recreation and scant map of this My minde neither with prides itch nor yet hath been Poyson'd with love to see or to bee seene I had no suit there nor new suite to shew Yet went to Court But as Glaze which did goe To Masse in jest catch'd was faine to disburse The hundred markes which is the Statutes curse Before he scapt So'it pleas'd my destinie Guilty of my sin of going to thinke me As prone to all ill and of good as forgetfull as proud as lustfull and as much in debt As vaine as witlesse and as false as they Which dwell in Court for once going that way Therefore I suffered this Towards me did runne A thing more strange then on Niles slime the Sunne E'r bred or all which into Noahs Arke came A thing which would have pos'd Adam to name Stranger then seaven Antiquaries studies Then Africks Monsters Guianaes rarities Stranger then strangers One who for a Dane In the Danes Massacre had sure beene slaine If he had liv'd then And without helpe dies When next the Prentises'gainst Strangers rise One whom the watch at noone lets scarce goe by One to whom the examining Justice sure would cry Sir by your priesthood tell me what you are His cloths were strāge though coarse black though bare Sleevelesse his jerkin was and it had beene Velvet but 't was now so much ground was seene Become Tufftaffatie and our children shall See it plaine Rashe awhile then nought at all This thing hath travail'd and saith speakes all tongues And only knoweth what to all States belongs Made of th' Accents and best phrase of all these He speakes one language If strange meats displease Art can deceive or hunger force my tast But Pedants motley tongue souldiers bumbast Mountebankes drugtongue nor the termes of law Are strong enough preparatives to draw Me to beare this yet I must be content With his tongue in his tongue call'd complement In which he can win widdowes and
forbeare To come abroad knowing Thou art not here Late her great Patron Whose Prerogative Maintain'd and cloth'd her so as none alive Must now presume to keepe her at thy rate Though he the Indies for her dowre estate Or else that awfull fire which once did burne In thy cleare Braine now falne into thy Urne Lives there to fright rude Empiricks from thence Which might prophane thee by their Ignorance Who ever writes of Thee and in a stile Unworthy such a Theme does but revile Thy precious Dust and wake a learned Spirit Which may revenge his Rapes upon thy Merit For all a low pitch't phansie can devise Will prove at best but Hallow'd Injuries Thou like the dying Swanne didst lately sing Thy Mournfull Dirge in audience of the King When pale lookes and faint accents of thy breath Presented so to life that peece of death That it was fear'd and prophesi'd by all Thou thither cam'st to preach thy Funerall O! had'st Thou in an Elegiacke Knell Rung out unto the world thine owne farewell And in thy High Victorious Numbers beate The solemne measure of thy griev'd Retreat Thou might'st the Poets service now have mist As well as then thou did'st prevent the Priest And never to the world beholding bee So much as for an Epitaph for thee I doe not like the office Nor is 't fit Thou who did'st lend our Age such summes of wit Should'st now re-borrow from her bankrupt Mine That Ore to Bury Thee which once was Thine Rather still leave us in thy debt And know Exalted Soule more glory 't is to owe Unto thy Hearse what we can never pay Then with embased Coine those Rites defray Commit we then Thee to Thy selfe Nor blame Our drooping loves which thus to thy owne Fame Leave Thee Executour Since but thine owne No pen could doe Thee Justice nor Bayes Crowne Thy vast desert Save that wee nothing can Depute to be thy Ashes Guardian So Jewellers no Art or Metall trust To forme the Diamond but the Diamonds dust H. K. To the deceased Author Upon the Promiscuous printing of his Poems the Looser sort with the Religious WHen thy Loose raptures Donne shall meet with Those That doe confine Tuning unto the Duller line And sing not but in Sanctified Prose How will they with sharper eyes The Fore-skinne of thy phansie circumcise And feare thy wantonnesse should now begin Example that hath ceased to be Sin And that Feare fannes their Heat whilst knowing eyes Will not admire At this Strange Fire That here is mingled with thy Sacrifice But dare reade even thy Wanton Story As thy Confession not thy Glory And will so envie Both to future times That they would buy thy Goodnesse with thy Crimes Tho Browne On the death of Dr DONNE I Cannot blame those men that knew thee well Yet dare not helpe the world to ring thy knell In tunefull Elegies there 's not language knowne Fit for thy mention but 't was first thy owne The Epitaphs thou writst have so bereft Our tongue of wit there is not phansie left Enough to weepe thee what henceforth we see Of Art or Nature must result from thee There may perchance some busie gathering friend Steale from thy owne workes and that varied lend Which thou bestow'st on others to thy Hearse And so thou shalt live still in thine owne verse Hee that shall venture farther may commit A pitied errour shew his zeale not wit Fate hath done mankinde wrong vertue may aime Reward of conscience never can of fame Since her great trumpet's broke could onely give Faith to the world command it to beleeve Hee then must write that world define thy parts Here lyes the best Divinitie All the Arts. Edw. Hyde On Doctor Donne By Dr C. B. of O. HEe that would write an Epitaph for thee And do it well must first beginne to be Such as thou wert for none can truly know Thy worth thy life but he that hath liv'd so He must have wit to spare and to hurle downe Enough to keepe the gallants of the towne He must have learning plenty both the Lawes Civill and Common to judge any cause Divinity great store above the rest Not of the last Edition but the best Hee must have language travaile all the Arts Judgement to use or else he wants thy parts He must have friends the highest able to do Such as Mecoenas and Augustus too He must have such a sicknesse such a death Or else his vaine descriptions come beneath Who then shall write an Epitaph for thee He must be dead first let'it alone for mee An Elegie upon the incomparable Dr DONNE ALl is not well when such a one as I Dare peepe abroad and write an Elegie When smaller Starres appeare and give their light Phoebus is gone to bed Were it not night And the world witlesse now that DONNE is dead You sooner should have broke then seene my head Dead did I say Forgive this Injury I doe him and his worthes Infinity To say he is but dead I dare averre It better may be term'd a Massacre Then Sleepe or Death See how the Muses mourne Upon their oaten Reeds and from his Vrne Threaten the World with this Calamity They shall have Ballads but no Poetry Language lyes speechlesse and Divinity Lost such a Trump as even to Extasie Could charme the Soule and had an Influence To teach best judgements and please dullest Sense The Court the Church the Vniversitie Lost Chaplaine Deane and Doctor All these Three It was his Merit that his Funerall Could cause a losse so great and generall If there be any Spirit can answer give Of such as hence depart to such as live Speake Doth his body there vermiculate Crumble to dust and feele the lawes of Fate Me thinkes Corruption Wormes what else is foule Should spare the Temple of so faire a Soule I could beleeve they doe but that I know What inconvenience might hereafter grow Succeeding ages would Idolatrize And as his Numbers so his Reliques prize If that Philosopher which did avow The world to be but Mores was living now He would affirme that th' Atomes of his mould Were they in severall bodies blended would Produce new worlds of Travellers Divines Of Linguists Poets sith these severall Lines In him concentred were and flowing thence Might fill againe the worlds Circumference I could beleeve this too and yet my faith Not want a President The Phoenix hath And such was He a power to animate Her ashes and herselfe perpetuate But busie Soule thou dost not well to pry Into these Secrets Griefe and Iealousie The more they know the further still advance And finde no way so safe as Ignorance Let this suffice thee that his Soule which flew A pitch of all admir'd known but of few Save those of purer mould is now translated From Earth to Heavên and there Constellated For if each Priest of God shine as a Starre His Glory is as his Gifts 'bove others farre HEN. VALENTINE An Elegie upon
Dr Donne IS Donne great Donne deceas'd then England say Thou'hast lost a man where language chose to stay And shew it's gracefull power I would not praise That and his vast wit which in these vaine dayes Make many proud but as they serv'd to unlock That Cabinet his minde where such a stock Of knoweledge was repos'd as all lament Or should this generall cause of discontent And I rejoyce I am not so severe But as I write a line to weepe a teare For his decease Such sad extremities May make such men as I write Elegies And wonder not for when a generall losse Falls on a nation and they slight the crosse God hath rais'd Prophets to awaken them From stupifaction witnesse my milde pen Not us'd to upbraid the world though now it must Freely and boldly for the cause is just Dull age Oh I would spare thee but th' art worse Thou art not onely dull but hast a curse Of black ingratitude if not couldst thou Part with miraculous Donne and make no vow For thee and thine successively to pay A sad remembrance to his dying day Did his youth scatter Poetrie wherein Was all Philosophie Was every sinne Character'd in his Satyres made so foule That some have fear'd their shapes kept their soule Freer by reading verse Did he give dayes Past marble monuments to those whose praise He would perpetuate Did hee I feare The dull will doubt these at his twentieth yeare But more matur'd Did his full soule conceive And in harmonious-holy-numbers weave A Crowme of sacred sonets fit to adorne A dying Martyrs brow or to be worne On that blest head of Mary Magdalen After she wip'd Christs feet but not till then Did hee fit for such penitents as shee And hee to use leave us a Litany Which all devout men love and sure it shall As times grow better grow more classicall Did he write Hymnes for piety and wit Equall to those great grave Prudentius writ Spake he all Languages knew he all Lawes The grounds and use of Physicke but because 'T was mercenary wav'd it Went to see That blessed place of Christs nativity Did he returne and preach him preach him so As none but hee did or could do They know Such as were blest to heare him know 't is truth Did he confirme thy age convert thy youth Did he these wonders And is this deare losse Mourn'd by so few few for so great a crosse But sure the silent are ambitious all To be Close Mourners at his Funerall If not In common pitty they forbare By repetitions to renew our care Or knowing griefe conceiv'd conceal'd consumes Man irreparably as poyson'd fumes Do waste the braine make silence a fafe way To'inlarge the Soule from these walls mud and clay Materialls of this body to remaine With Donne in heaven where no promiscuous paine Lessens the joy wee have for with him all Are satisfyed with joyes essentiall My thoughts Dwell on this Ioy and do not call Griefe backe by thinking of his Funerall Forget he lov'd mee Waste not my sad yeares Which haste to Davids seventy fill'd with feares And sorrow for his death Forget his parts Which finde a living grave in good mens hearts And for my first is daily paid for sinne Forget to pay my second sigh for him Forget his powerfull preaching and forget I am his Convert Oh my frailtie let My flesh be no more heard it will obtrude This lethargie so should my gratitude My vowes of gratitude should so be broke Which can no more be then Donnes vertues spoke By any but himselfe for which cause I Write no Encomium but an Elegie IZ WA An Elegie upon the death of the Deane of Pauls Dr. Iohn Donne By Mr. Tho Carie. CAn we not force from widdowed Poetry Now thou art dead Great DONNE one Elegie To crowne thy Hearse Why yet dare we not trust Though with unkneaded dowe-bak't prose thy dust Such as the uncisor'd Churchman from the flower Of fading Rhetorique short liv'd as his houre Dry as the sand that measures it should lay Upon thy Ashes on the funerall day Have we no voice no tune Did'st thou dispense Through all our language both the words and sense 'T is a sad truth The Pulpit may her plaine And sober Christian precepts still retaine Doctrines it may and wholesome Uses frame Grave Homilies and Lectures But the flame Of thy brave Soule that shot such heat and light As burnt our earth and made our darknesse bright Committed holy Rapes upon our Will Did through the eye the melting heart distill And the deepe knowledge of darke truths so teach As sense might judge what phansie could not reach Must be desir'd for ever So the fire That fills with spirit and heat the Delphique quire Which kindled first by thy Promethean breath Glow'd here a while lies quench't now in thy death The Muses garden with Pedantique weedes O'rspred was purg'd by thee The lazie seeds Of servile imitation throwne away And fresh invention planted Thou didst pay The debts of our penurious bankrupt age Licentious thefts that make poëtique rage A Mimique fury when our soules must bee Possest or with Anacreons Extasie Or Pindars not their owne The subtle cheat Of slie Exchanges and the jugling feat Of two-edg'd words or whatsoever wrong By ours was done the Greeke or Latine tongue Thou hast redeem'd and open'd Us a Mine Of rich and pregnant phansie drawne a line Of masculine expression which had good Old Orpheus seene Or all the ancient Brood Our superstitious fooles admire and hold Their lead more precious then thy burnish't Gold Thou hadst beene their Exchequer and no more They each in others dust had rak'd for Ore Thou shalt yield no precedence but of time And the blinde fate of language whose tun'd chime More charmes the outward sense Yet thou maist claime From so great disadvantage greater fame Since to the awe of thy imperious wit Our stubborne language bends made only fit With her tough-thick-rib'd hoopes to gird about Thy Giant phansie which had prov'd too stout For their soft melting Phrases As in time They had the start so did they cull the prime Buds of invention many a hundred yeare And left the rifled fields besides the feare To touch their Harvest yet from those bare lands Of what is purely thine thy only hands And that thy smallest worke have gleaned more Then all those times and tongues could reape before But thou art gone and thy strict lawes will be Too hard for Libertines in Poetrie They will repeale the goodly exil'd traine Of gods and goddesses which in thy just raigne Were banish'd nobler Poems now with these The silenc'd tales o'th'Metamorphoses Shall stuffe their lines and swell the windy Page Till Verse refin'd by thee in this last Age Turne ballad rime Or those old Idolls bee Ador'd againe with new apostasie Oh pardon mee that breake with untun'd verse The reverend silence that attends thy herse Whose awfull solemne murmures were
his Clergie not to pray Though of the learn'dst sort Me thinkes that they Of the same trade are Judges not so fit There 's no such emulation as of wit Of such the Envy might as much perchance Wrong him and more then th' others ignorance It was his Fate I know 't to be envy'd As much by Clerkes as lay men magnifi'd And why but ' cause he came late in the day And yet his Penny earn'd and had as they No more of this least some should say that I Am strai'd to Satyre meaning Elegie No no had DONNE need to be judg'd or try'd A Jury I would summon on his side That had no sides nor factions past the touch Of all exceptions freed from Passion such As nor to feare nor fratter e'r were bred These would I bring though called from the dead Southampton Hambleton Pēbrooke Dorsets Earles Huntingdon Bedfords Countesses the Pearles Once of each sexe If these suffice not I Ten decem tales have of Standers by All which for DONNE would such a verdict give As can belong to none that now doth live But what doe I A diminution 't is To speake of him in verse so short of his Whereof he was the master All indeed Compar'd with him pip'd on an Oaten reed O that you had but one ' mongst all your brothers Could write for him as he hath done for others Poets I speake to When I see 't I 'll say My eye-sight betters as my yeares decay Meane time a quarrell I shall ever have Against these doughty keepers from the grave Who use it seemes their old Authoritie When Verses men immortall make they cry Which had it been a Recipe true tri'd Probatum esset DONNE had never dy'd For mee if e'r I had least sparke at all Of that which they Poetique fire doe call Here I confesse it fetched from his hearth Which is gone out now he is gone to earth This only a poore flash a lightning is Before my Muses death as after his Farewell faire soule and deigne receive from mee This Type of that devotion I owe thee From whom while living as by voice and penne I learned more then from a thousand men So by thy death am of one doubt releas'd And now beleeve that miracles are ceas'd Epitaph HEere lies Deane Donne Enough Those words Shew him as fully as if all the stone His Church of Pauls contains were through inscrib'd alone Or all the walkers there to speake him brib'd None can mistake him for one such as Hee DONNE Deane or Man more none shall ever see Not man No though unto a Sunne each eye Were turn'd the whole earth so to overspie A bold brave word Yet such brave Spirits as knew His Spirit will say it is lesse bold then true Epitaph upon Dr. DONNE By Endy Porter THis decent Urne a sad inscription weares Of Donnes departure from us to the spheares And the dumbe stone with silence seemes to tell The changes of this life wherein is well Exprest A cause to make all joy to cease And never let our sorrowes more take ease For now it is impossible to finde One fraught with vertues to inrich a minde But why should death with a promiscuous hand At one rude stroke impoverish a land Thou strict Attorney unto stricter Fate Didst thou confiscate his life out of hate To his rare Parts Or didst thou throw thy dart With envious hand at some Plebeyan heart And he with pious vertue stept betweene To save that stroke and so was kill'd unseene By thee O 't was his goodnesse so to doe Which humane kindnesse never reacht unto Thus the hard lawes of death were satisfi'd And he left us like Orphan friends and di'de Now from the Pulpit to the peoples eares Whose speech shall send repentant sighes and teares Or tell mee if a purer Virgin die Who shall hereafter write her Elegie Poets be silent let your numbers sleepe For he is gone that did all phansie keepe Time hath no Soule but his exalted verse Which with amazements we may now reherse FINIS The sicknes of the World Impossibility of health Shortnesse of life Smalnesse of stature Decay of nature in other parts Disformity of parts Disorder in the world Weaknesse in the want of correspondence of heaven and earth Conclusion A iust disestimation of this world Contemplation of our state in our death-bed Her liberty by death Of our company in this life and in the next Of essentiall joy in this life and in the next Of accidentall joyes in both places Conclusion La Corona