affected if there were nothing to come whence she would not be able so sensibly to discover to her self her own Hypocrisie or sinceritie Lastly that loving adherence and affectionate cleaving to God by Faith and divine sense would be forestall'd by such undeniable evidence of Reason and Nature Which though it would very much gratifie the naturall man yet it would not prove so profitable to us as in things appertaining to God For seeing our most palpable evidence of the souls immortality is from an inward sense and this inward sense is kept alive the best by devotion and purity by freedome from worldly care and sorrow and the grosser pleasures of the body otherwise her ethereall vehicle will drink in so much of earthy and mortall dregs that the sense of the soul will be changed being outvoted as it were by the overswaying number of terrene particles which that ethereal nature hath so plentifully imbib'd and incorporated with she will become in a manner corporeall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Jamblichus speaks and in the extremity of this weaknesse and dotage will be easily drawn off to pronounce her self such as the body is dissolvable and mortall therefore it is better for us that we become doubtfull of our immortall condition when we stray from that virgin-purity and unspottednesse that we may withdraw our feet from these paths of death then that Demonstration and Infallibility should permit us to proceed so farre that our immortality would prove an heavy disadvantage But this is meant onely to them that are lovers of God and their own souls For they that are at enmity with him desire no such instructions but rather embrace all means of laying asleep that disquieting truth that they bear about with them so precious a charge as an immortall Spirit To the Reader REader sith it is the fashion To bestow some salutation I greet thee give free leave to look And nearly view my opened Book But see then that thine eyes be clear If ought thou wouldst discover there Expect from me no Teian strain No light wanton Lesbian vein Though well I wot the vulgar spright Such Harmony doth more strongly smite Silent Secesse wast Solitude Deep searching thoughts often renew'd Stiffe conflict 'gainst importunate vice That daily doth the Soul entice From her high throne of circuling light To plunge her in infernall Night Collection of the mind from stroke Of this worlds Magick that doth choke Her with foul smothering mists and stench And in Lethaean waves her drench A daily Death drad Agony Privation dry Sterility Who is well entred in those wayes Fitt'st man to read my lofty layes But whom lust wrath and fear controule Scarce know their body from their soul If any such chance hear my verse Dark numerous Nothings I rehearse To them measure out an idle sound In which no inward sense is found Thus sing I to cragg'd clifts and hils To sighing winds to murmuring rills To wastefull woods to empty groves Such things as my dear mind most loves But they heed not my heavenly passion Fast fixt on their own operation On chalky rocks hard by the Sea Safe guided by fair Cynthia I strike my silver-sounded lyre First struck my self by some strong fire And all the while her wavering ray Reflected from fluid glasse doth play On the white banks But all are deaf Vnto my Muse that is most lief To mine own self So they nor blame My pleasant notes nor praise the same Nor do thou Reader rashly brand My rhythmes 'fore thou them understand H. M. PSYCHOZOIA OR The first part of the Song of the SOUL Containing A Christiano-Platonicall display of LIFE By H. M. Master of Arts and Fellow of Christs Colledge in Cambridge Tot vitae gradus cognoscimus quot in nobismetipsis expedimus Mars Ficin CAMBRIDGE Printed by Roger Daniel Printer to the Universitie 1647. TO THE READER Upon the first Canto of PSYCHOZOIA THis first Canto as you may judge by the names therein was intended for a mere Platonicall description of Universall life or life that is omnipresent though not alike omnipresent As in Noahs Deluge the water that overflowed the earth was present in every part thereof but every part of the water was not in every part of the earth or all in every part so the low Spirit of the Universe though it go quite through the world yet it is not totally in every part of the world Else we should heare our Antipodes if they did but whisper Because our lower man is a part of the inferiour Spirit of the Universe Ahad Aeon and Psyche are all omnipresent in the World after the most perfect way that humane reason can conceive of For they are in the world all totally and at once every where This is the famous Platonicall Triad which though they that slight the Christian Trinity do take for a figment yet I think it is no contemptible argument that the Platonists the best and divinest of Philosophers and the Christians the best of all that do professe religion do both concur that there is a Trinity In what they differ I leave to be found out according to the safe direction of that infallible Rule of Faith the holy Word In the mean time I shall not be blamed by any thing but ignorance and malignity for being invited to sing of the second Unity of the Platonicall Triad in a Christian and Poeticall scheme that which the holy Scripture witnesseth of the second Person of the Christian Trinity As that his patrimony is the possession of the whole earth For if it be not all one with Christ according to his Divinity yet the Platonists placing him in the same order and giving him the like attributes with the Person of the Sonne in Christianity it is nothing harsh for me to take occasion from hence to sing a while the true Christian Autocalon whose beauty shall adorn the whole Earth in good time if we believe the Prophets For that hath not as yet happened For Christ is not where ever his Name is but as he is the Truth so will he be truely displayed upon the face of the whole Earth For God doth not fill the World with his Glory by words and sounds but by Spirit and Life and Reality Now this Eternall life I sing of even in the middest of Platonisme for I cannot conceal from whence I am viz. of Christ but yet acknowledging that God hath not left the Heathen Plato especially without witnesse of himself Whose doctrine might strike our adulterate Christian Professors with shame astonishment their lives falling so exceeding short of the better Heathen How far short are they then of that admirable and transcendent high mystery of true Christianisme To which Plato is a very good subservient Minister whose Philosophy I singing here in a full heat why may it not be free for me to break out into an higher strain and under it to touch upon some points of Christianity as well as
being think they can never have security enough for this so pleasing hope and expectation and so even with anxiety of mind busie themselves to prove the truth of that strongly which they desire vehemently to be true And this body which dissolution waits upon helpeth our infidelity exceedingly For the soul not seeing it self judgeth it self of such a nature as those things are to which she is nearest united Falsely saith but yet ordinarily I am sick I am weak I faint I die when it is nought but the perishing life of the body that is in such plight to which she is so close tyed in most intimate love and sympathy So a tender mother if she see a knife struck to her childs heart would shreek and swound as if her selfe had been smit when as if her eye had not beheld that spectacle she had not been moved though the thing were surely done So I do verily think that the mind being taken up in some higher contemplation if it should please God to keep it in that ecstasie the body might be destroyed without any disturbance to the soul for how can there be or sense or pain without animadversion But while we have such continuall commerce with this frail body it is not to be expected but that we shall be assaulted with the fear of death and darknesse For alas how few are there that do not make this visible world their Adonai their stay and sustentation of life the prop of their soul their God How many Christians are not prone to whisper that of the Heathen Poet Soles occidere redire possunt Nobis cùm semel occidit brevis lux Nox est perpetua una dormienda The Sunne may set and rise again If once sets our short light Deep sleep us binds with iron chain Wrapt in eternall Night But I would not be so injurious as to make men worse then they are that my little work may seem of greater use and worth then it is Admit then that men are most what perswaded of the souls immortality yet here they may read reasons to confirm that perswasion and be put in mind as they reade of their end and future condition which cannot be but profitable at least For the pleasure they 'll reap from this Poem it will be according as their Genius is fitted for it For as Plato speaks in his Io 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or according to the more usuall phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The spirit of every Poet is not alike nor his writings alike suitable to all dispositions As Io the reciter of Homers verses professeth himself to be snatcht away with an extradodinary fury or ecstasie at the repeating of Homers Poesie but others so little to move him that he could even fall asleep So that no man is rashly to condemn another mans labour in this kind because he is not taken with it As wise or wiser then himselfe may But this is a main piece of idolatry and injustice in the world that every man would make his private Genius an universall God and would devour all mens apprehensions by his own fire that glowes so hot in him and as he thinks shines so clear As for this present song of the Immortality of the soul it is not unlikely but that it will prove sung Montibus Sylvis to the waste woods and solitary mountains For all men are so full of their own phansies and idiopathies that they scarce have the civility to interchange any words with a stranger If they chance to hear his exotick tone they entertain it with laughter a passion very incident upon that occasion to children and clowns But it were much better neither to embosome nor reject any thing though strange till we were well acquainted with it Exquisite disquisition begets diffidence diffidence in knowledge humility humility good manners and meek conversation For mine own part I desire no man to take any thing I write upon trust without canvasing and would be thought rather to propound then to assert what I have here or elsewhere written But continually to have exprest my diffidence in the very tractates themselves had been languid and ridiculous It were a piece of injustice to expect of others that which I could never indure to stoop to my self That knowledge which is built upon humane authority is no better then a Castle in the Aire For what man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or at least can be proved to us to be so Wherefore the foundation of that argument will but prove precarious that is so built And we have rather a sound of words signifying the thing is so then any true understanding that the thing is so indeed What ever may seeme strange in this Poem condemne it not till thou findest it dissonant to Plato's School or not deducible from it But there be many arguments that have no strangenesse at all to prove the Souls immortality so that no man that is not utterly illiterate shall lose his labour in reading this short Treatise I must confesse I intended to spin it out to a greater length but things of greater importance then curious Theory take me off beside the hazard of speaking hard things to a multitude I make no question but those that are rightly acquainted with Platonisme will accept of that small pains and make a good construction of my labours For I well assure thee Reader that it will be nothing but ignorance of my scope that shall make any do otherwise I fly too high to take notice of lesser flaws If thou seest them I give thee free liberty to mend them But if thou regardest not lesser trifles we be well met Farewell H. M. The Argument of PSYCHATHANASIA Or The Immortality of the Soul BOOK I. CANT I. Struck with strong sense of Gods good will The immortality Of Souls I sing Praise with my quill Plato's Philosophy 1 WHatever man he be that dares to deem True Poets skill to spring of earthly race I must him tell that he doth misesteem Their strange estate and eke himselfe disgrace By his rude ignorance For there 's no place For forced labour or slow industry Of flagging wits in that high fiery chace So soon as of the Muse they quickned be At once they rise and lively sing like Lark in skie 2 Like to a Meteor whose materiall Is low unwieldy earth base unctuous slime Whose inward hidden parts ethereall Ly close upwrapt in that dull sluggish fime Ly fast asleep till at some fatall time Great Phoebus lamp has fir'd its inward spright And then even of it self on high doth climb That earst was dark becomes all eye all sight Bright starre that to the wise of future things gives light 3 Even so the weaker mind that languid lies Knit up in rags of dirt dark cold and blind So soon that purer flame of Love unties Her clogging chains and doth her spright unbind Shee sores aloft for shee her self doth find Well plum'd so
find and that men call Mortality Plain death 's as good as such a Psychopannychie 4 What profiteth this bare existency If I perceive not that I do exist Nought longs to such nor mirth nor misery Such stupid beings write into one list With stocks and stones But they do not persist You 'll say in this dull dead condition But must revive shake off this drowsie mist At that last shrill loud-sounding clarion Which cleaves the trembling earth rives monuments of stone 5 Has then old Adam snorted all this time Under some senselesse sod with sleep ydead And have those flames that steep Olympus climbe Right nimbly wheeled or'e his heedlesse head So oft in heaps of years low buried And yet can ken himself when he shall rise Wakend by piercing trump that farre doth shed Its searching sound If we our memories And wit do lose by sicknesse falls sloth lethargies 6 If all our childhood quite be waste away With its impressions so that we forget What once we were so soon as age doth sway Our bowed backs sure when base worms have eat His mouldring brains and spirits have retreat From whence they came spread in the common fire And many thousand sloping sunnes have set Since his last fall into his ancient mire How he will ken himself reason may well admire 7 For he must know himself by some impression Left in his ancient body unwash'd out Which seemeth strange For can so long succession Of sliding years that great Colosses mought Well moulder into dust spare things ywrought So slightly as light phantasms in our brain Which oft one yeare or moneth have wrenched out And left no footsteps of that former stain No more then 's of a cloud quite melted into rain 8 And shall not such long series of time When Nature hath dispread our vitall spright And turn'd our body to its ancient slime Quite wash away what ever was empight In that our spirit If flesh and soul unite Lose such impressions as were once deep seald And fairly glistered like to comets bright In our blew Chaos if the soul congeald With her own body lose these forms as I reveald 9 Then so long time of their disjunction The body being into dust confract The spright diffus'd spread by dispersion And such Lethean sleep that doth contract The souls hid rayes that it did nothing act Must certainly wipe all these forms away That sense or phansie ever had impact So that old Adam will in vain assay To find who here he was he 'll have no memorie 10 Nor can he tell that ere he was before And if not tell he 's as if then first born If as first born his former life's no store Yet when men wake they find themselves at morn But if their memory away were worn With one nights sleep as much as doth respect Themselves these men they never were beforn This day 's their birth day they cannot conject They ever liv'd till now much lesse the same detect 11 So when a man goes hence thus may he say As much as me concerns I die now quite Adiew good self for now thou goest away Nor can I possibly thee ever meet Again nor ken thy face nor kindly greet Sleep and dispersion spoyls our memory So my dear self henceforth I cannot weet Wherefore to me it 's perfectly to die Though subtiler Wits do call 't but Psychopannychie 12 Go now you Psychopannychites perswade To comely virtues and pure piety From hope of ioy or fear of penance sad Men promptly may make answer Who shall try That pain or pleasure When death my dim eye Shall close I sleep not sensible of ought And tract of time at least all memory Will quiâ—e debarre that reacquainten mought My self with mine own self if so my self I sought 13 But I shall neither seek my self nor find My self unsought Therefore not deprehend My self in joy or wo. Men ought to mind What longs unto them But when once an end Is put unto this life and fate doth rend Our retinence what follows nought at all Belongs to us what need I to contend And my frail spright with present pain to gall For what I nere shall judge my self did ere befall 14 This is the uncouth state of sleeping soul Thus weak of her own self without the prop Of the base body that she no'te out-roll Her vitall raies those raies Death down doth lop And all her goodly beauty quite doth crop With his black claws Wisdome love piety Are straight dried up Death doth their fountain stop This is those sleepers dull Philosophy Which fairly men invites to foul impiety 15 But if we grant which in my former song I plainly prov'd that the souls energie Pends not on this base corse but that self-strong She by her self can work then when we fly The bodies commerce no man can deny But that there is no interruption Of life where will puts on there doth she hie Or if she 's carried by coaction That force yet she observes by presse adversion 16 And with most lively touch doth feel and find Her self For either what she most doth love She then obtains or else with crosse unkind Contrary life since her decease sh ' hath strove That keeps her wake and with like might doth move To think upon her self and in what plight She 's fallen And nothing able to remove Deep searching vengeance groans in this sad Night And rores and raves and storms and with her self doth fight 17 But hearty love of that great vitall spright The sacred fount of holy sympathy Prepares the soul with its deep quickning might To leave the bodies vain mortality Away she flies into Eternity Finds full accomplishment of her desire Each thing would reach its own centrality So Earth with Earth and Moon with Moon conspire Our selves live most when most we feed our Centrall fire 18 Thus is the soul continually in life Withouten interruption if that she Can operate after the fatall knife Hath cut the cords of lower sympathy Which she can do if that some energie She exercise immur'd in this base clay Which on frail flesh hath no dependency For then the like she 'll do that done away These independent acts t is time now to display 19 All comprehending Will proportionate To whatsoever shall fall by Gods decree Or prudent sufferance sweetly spread dilate Stretch'd out t' embrace each act or entity That creep from hidden cause that none can see With outward eyes Next Intellect whose hight Of working 's then when as it stands most free From sense and grosser phansie deep empight In this vild corse which to purg'd minds yields small delight 20 Both Will and Intellect then worketh best When Sense and Appetite be consopite And grosser phansie lull'd in silent rest Then Will grown full with a mild heavenly light Shines forth with goodly mentall rayes bedight And finds and feels such things as never pen Can setten down so that unexpert wight May reade and
So full of one great light she hath no time To such low trifles as past sights to dive Such as she gathered up in earthly slime Foreknowledge of herself is lost in light divine 35 But can she here forget our radiant Sunne Of which its maker is the bright Idee This is His shadow or what she hath done Now she 's rewarded with the Deitie Suppose it Yet her hid Centralitie So sprightly's quickned with near Union With God that now life 's wished liberty Is so encreas'd that infinitely sh ' has fun Herself her deep'st desire unspeakably hath wonne 36 And deep desire is the deepest act The most profound and centrall energie The very selfnesse of the soul which backt With piercing might she breaks out forth doth flie From dark contracting death and doth descry Herself unto herself so thus unfold That actuall life she straightwayes saith is I. Thus while she in the body was infold Of this low life as of herself oft tales she told 37 In dangerous sicknesse often saith I die When nought doth die but the low plantall man That falls asleep and while Nature doth tie The soul unto the body she nere can Avoid it but must feel the self-same pain The same decay if hereto she her mind Do bend When stupid cold her corse oreran She felt that cold but when death quite doth bind The sense then she herself doth dead and senselesse find 38 Or else at least just at the entrance Of death she feels that slie privation How now it spreads ore all so living sense Perceives how sleep creeps on till quite o'recome With drousinesse animadversion Doth cease but lower sense then fast ybound The soul bestoweth her adversion On something else So oft strange things hath found In sleep from this dull carcase while she was unbound 39 So though the soul the time she doth advert The bodies passions takes her self to die Yet death now finish'd she can well convert Herself to other thoughts And if the eye Of her adversion were fast fixt on high In midst of death 't were no more fear or pain Then 't was unto Elias to let flie His uselesse mantle to that Hebrew Swain While he rode up to heaven in a bright fiery wain 40 Thus have I stoutly rescued the soul From centrall death or pure mortalitie And from the listlesse flouds of Lethe dull And from the swallow of drad Unitie And from an all-consuming Deitie What now remains but since we are so sure Of endlesse life that to true pietie We bend our minds and make our conscience pure Lest living Night in bitter darknesse us immure FINIS THE ORACLE OR A Paraphrasticall Interpretation of the answer of Apollo when he was consulted by Amelius whither Plotinus soul went when he departed this life I Tune my strings to sing some sacred verse Of my dear friend in an immortall strain His mighty praise I loudly will rehearse With hony-dewed words some golden vein The strucken chords right sweetly shall resound Come blessed Muses let 's with one joynt noise With strong impulse and full harmonious sound Speak out his excellent worth Advance your voice As once you did for great Aeacides Rapt with an heavenly rage in decent dance Mov'd at the measures of Meonides Go to you holy Quire let 's all at once Begin and to the end hold up the song Into one heavenly harmony conspire I Phoebus with my lovely locks ymong The midst of you shall sit and life inspire Divine Plotinus yet now more divine Then when thy noble soul so stoutly strove In that dark prison where strong chains confine Keep down the active mind it cannot move To what it loveth most Those fleshly bands Thou now hast loos'd broke from Necessitie From bodies storms and frothie working sands Of this low restlesse life now setten free Thy feet do safely stand upon a shore Which foaming waves beat not in swelling rage Nor angry seas do threat with fell uprore Well hast thou swommen out and left that stage Of wicked Actours that tumultuous rout Of ignorant men Now thy pure steps thou stay'st In that high path where Gods light shines about And perfect Right its beauteous beams displayes How oft when bitter wave of troubled flesh And whirl-pool-turnings of the lower spright Thou stoutly strov'st with Heaven did thee refresh Held out a mark to guide thy wandring flight While thou in tumbling seas didst strongly toyl To reach the steddie Land struckst with thy arms The deasing surges that with rage do boyl Stear'd by that signe thou shunn'st those common harms How oft when rasher cast of thy souls eye Had thee misguided into crooked wayes Wast thou directed by the Deitie They held out to thee their bright lamping rayes Dispers'd the mistie darknesse safely set Thy feeble feet in the right path again Nor easie sleep so closely ere beset Thy eyelids nor did dimnesse ere so stain Thy radiant sight but thou such things didst see Even in that tumult that few can arrive Of all are named from Philosophie To that high pitch or to such secrets dive But sith this body thy pure soul divine Hath left quite risen from her rotten grave Thou now among those heavenly wights dostâ—shine Whose wonne this glorious lustre doth embrave There lovely Friendship mild-smiling Cupid's there With lively looks and amorous suavitie Full of pure pleasure and fresh flowring chear Ambrosian streams sprung from the Deitie Do frankly flow and soft love-kindling winds Do strike with a delicious sympathie Those tender spirits and fill up their minds With satisfying joy The puritie Of holy fire their heart doth then invade And sweet Perswasion meek Tranquillitie The gentle-breathing Air the Heavens nought sad Do maken up this great felicitie Here Rhadamanthus and just Aeacus Here Minos wonnes with those that liv'd of yore I' th' golden age here Plato vigorous In holy virtue and fair Pythagore These been the goodly Off-spring of Great Jove And liven here and who so fill'd the Quire And sweet assembly of immortall Love Purging their spirits with refining fire These with the happy Angels live in blisse Full fraught with joy and lasting pure delight In friendly feasts and life-outfetching kisse But ah dear Plotin what smart did thy sprite Indure before thou reach'st this high degree Of happinesse what agonies what pains Thou underwent'st to set thy soul so free From baser life She now in heaven remains Mongst the pure Angels O thrice-happy wight That now art got into the Land of Life Fast plac'd in view of that Eternall Light And sitt'st secure from the foul bodies strife But now you comely virgins make an end Break off this musick and deft seemly Round Leave off your dance For Plotin my dear friend Thus much I meant my golden harp should sound AN ADDITION of some few smaller POEMS BY HENRY MORE Master of Arts and Fellow of CHRISTS COLLEDGE in CAMBRIDGE CAMBRIDGE Printed by Roger Daniel Printer to the Universitie 1647. Cupids Conflict
quit the place The skie did rattle with his wings ytorn Like to rent silk ' But I in the mean space Sent after him this message by the wind Be 't so I 'm mad yet sure I am thou' rt blind By this the out-stretch'd shadows of the trees Pointed me home-ward and with one consent Foretold the dayes descent So straight I rise Gathering my limbs from off the green pavement Behind me leaving then the slooping Light Gl. And now let 's up Vesper brings on the Night Fides Fluctuans O Deus aeterno lucis qui absconditus Orbe Humanos fugis aspectus da cernere verum Da magnum spectare diem non mobilis Aevi Da contemplari nullius in infera noctis Lapsurum solem Spissas caliginis umbras Adventu dispelle tuo Pernicibus alis Ocyus advolitans animam tu siste solutam Mobilitate sua rapidae quam cursus aquai Deturbat secum atque in caeco gurgite condit Sed tamen ex fluxu hoc rerum miseroque tumultu En vultus attollo meos tu porrige dextram Exime ut excelso figam vestigia saxo O Deus O Centrum rerum te percita motu Arcano circumvolitant cuncta atque requirunt Nequicquam quoniam aeterna te contegis umbra Attamen insano exerces mea pectora amore Et suspirantem volupe est tibi ludere mentem Ignibus occultis Non talibus aestuat Aetna Intima cùm accensas eructet flamma favillas Pleniùs lato spargat sua viscera campo Omnia solicita mecum quae mente revolvi Somnia sunt stultéque animi satagentis inane Figmentum spes nostra perit radicitùs omnis Expectata diu vacuas vita exit in auras Hei mihi quam immensae involvor caligine noctis Subsido pereo repeto jam materiaï Infensas tenebras ahenae vincula mortis Quae me intemperies agitat Rescindito coelos Summe Deûm tantósque animi componito fluctus Resolution WHere 's now the objects of thy fears Needlesse sighs and fruitlesse tears They be all gone like idle dream Suggested from the bodies steam O Cave of horrour black as pitch Dark Den of Spectres that bewitch The weakned phansy sore affright With the grim shades of grisely Night What 's Plague and Prison Losse of friends Warre Dearth and Death that all things ends Mere Bug-bears for the childish mind Pure Panick terrours of the blind Collect thy soul into one sphear Of light and 'bove the earth it rear Those wild scattered thoughts that erst Lay losely in the World disperst Call in thy spirit thus knit in one Fair lucid orb those fears be gone Like vain impostures of the Night That fly before the Morning bright Then with pure eyes thou shalt behold How the first Goodnesse doth infold All things in loving tender armes That deemed mischiefs are no harms But sovereign salves and skilfull cures Of greater woes the world endures That mans stout soul may win a state Far rais'd above the reach of fate Then wilt thou say God rules the World Though mountain over mountain hurl'd Be pitch'd amid the foaming Maine Which busie winds to wrath constrain His fall doth make the billowes start And backward skip from every part Quite sunk then over his senselesse side The waves in triumph proudly ride Though inward tempests fiercely rock The tottering Earth that with the shock High spires and heavie rocks fall down With their own weight drove into ground Though pitchy blasts from Hell up-born Stop the outgoings of the Morn And Nature play her fiery games In this forc'd Night with fulgurant flames Baring by fits for more affright The pale dead visages ghastly sight Of men astonish'd at the stoure Of Heavens great rage the rattling showers Of hail the hoarse bellowing of thunder Their own loud shreekes made mad with wonder All this confusion cannot move The purged mind freed from the love Of commerce with her body dear Cell of sad thoughts sole spring of fear What ere I feel or heare or see Threats but these parts that mortall be Nought can the honest heart dismay Unlesse the love of living clay And long acquaintance with the light Of this Outworld and what to sight Those two officious beams discover Of forms that round about us hover Power Wisedome Goodnesse sure did fra This Universe and still guide the same But thoughts from passions sprung decei◠Vain mortalls No man can contrive A better course then what 's been run Since the first circuit of the Sun He that beholds all from on high Knowes better what to do then I. I 'm not mine own should I repine If he dispose of what 's not mine Purge but thy soul of blind self-will Thou streight shalt see God doth no ill The world He fills with the bright rayes Of his free goodnesse He displayes Himself throughout Like common aire That spirit of life through all doth fare Suck'd in by them as vitall breath That willingly embrace not death But those that with that living Law Be unacquainted cares do gnaw Mistrust of Gods good providence Doth daily vex their wearied sense Now place me on the Libyan soil With scorching sun and sands to toil Far from the view of spring or tree Where neither man nor house I see Place me by the fabulous streams Of Hydaspes In the Realms Where Caucasus his lofty back Doth raise in wreaths and endlesse tract Commit me at my next remove To icy Hyperborean Jove Confine me to the Arctick Pole Where the numbd heavens do slowly roll To lands where cold raw heavie mist Sols kindly warmth and light resists Where louring clouds full fraught with snow Do sternly scoul where winds do blow With bitter blasts and pierce the skin Forcing the vitall spirits in Which leave the body thus ill bested In this chill plight at least half dead Yet by an Antiperistasis My inward heat more kindled is And while this flesh her breath expires My spirit shall suck celestiall fires By deep-fetchd sighs and pure devotion Thus waxen hot with holy motion A◠once I 'll break forth in a flame Above this world and worthlesse fame I 'll take my flight carelesse that men Know not how where I die or when Yea though the Soul should mortall prove So be Gods life but in me move To my last breath I 'm satisfide A lonesome mortall God t' have dide Devotion GOod God! when thou thy inward grace dost shower Into my brest How full of light and lively power Is then my soul How am I blest How can I then all difficulties devour Thy might Thy spright With ease my combrous enemy controll If thou once turn away thy face and hide Thy chearfull look My feeble flesh may not abide That dreadfull stound I cannot brook Thy absence My heart with care and grief then gride Doth fail Doth quail My life steals from me at that hidden wound My phansie's then a burden to my mind Mine anxious thought Betrayes my reason makes me blind Near
this sensible world of it self can make us know things at distance though Plotinus seem inclinable to that Opinion See Psychathan lib. 3. Cant. 1. STANZ 55. All Sense doth in proportion consist Something 's are so light that the weight is indiscernable to some as the Flie that sat upon the Bulls horns and apologized for her self as having wearied him as it is in the Arabian fable some smells too weak to strike the nostrills of others and some objects too obscure to be seen of the eyes of othersome But Arachne is proportioned to all whatsoever is any way sensible to any because Psyche doth inact this All or Universe as a particular Soul doth the body Vers 9. All life of Sense is in great Haphe's lift It must needs be so For no living soul is sensible of ought in this out-World but by being joyned in a living manner to it Therefore Psyche being joyned to it all must needs perceive all forms and motions in it that are presented to any particular soul For these representations be made in some particular body which is but a part of the whole a knot as it were of Psyches outward stole but the universall body of the World is one undivided peece wherefore nor Owl nor Bat nor Cat nor any thing else can possibly see but Psyche seeth ipso facto for 't is part of her body that hath those representations in it wherefore man is transfixt through and through by the rayes of the divine Light besides that more incomprehensible way of omnisciency in God STANZ 5.6 Sense and Consent c. As Psyche sees all naturall things so she doth allow of them For contrariety of Spirits is onely betwixt particulars and uglinesse and ill-favourednesse are but such to some kinds nor is poyson poyson to all else would the Spider be her own death and all venomous monsters would save man the labour of encounter STANZ 57. Rich Semele display Till we come to Psyches self motion and mutabilitie have place But in Aeon and Ahad is steddy and unalterable rest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And there hath Psyche the one eye plac'd as well as the other below beholding all things and that which is above all things as also the shadows and projections of all things without distraction at once as easily as our eyes discern many colours at once in one thing STANZ 59. The mother of each Semele How she is the mother of them see the second Canto of this book at the 23. Stanz Vers 3. But she grasps all The Mundane spirit of which every body hath its part inacted by Psyche if any particular soul exert any imaginative act needs must for a time at least be coloured as it were or stained with that impression so that Psyche must needs perceive it sith it affects her own spirit See Psychath lib. 3. Cant. 2. Stanz 46.47 Besides this euery particular soul as all things else depending so intimately on Psyche as being effluxes from her it is inconceivable that the least motions of the mind or stillest thought should escape her But if any man be puzled how the phantasie of a mans soul should make an impression upon any part of the universall spirit of the world and Semele should not let him consider that the imaginative operations of Psyche are more high more hovering and suspense from immersion into the grosser spirits of this body which is little or nothing conscious of what 's done so farre above and so not receiving the impresse of so high acts it ordinarily happens even in the exaltation of our own phansie that memory fails And besides this as the vigour of sense debilitates or quite extinguisheth the ordinary imaginations of the soul so doth her ordinary imaginations or sense or both hinder the animadversion of the impresses of Semele But particular imaginations and the vigour of sense weakened or extinct in sleep or near death the energies of the soul of the world are then more perceptible probably even in the very spirit of our body as well as in the naked soul hence come prophetick dreams and true predictions before death But to go back to the apprehensions of Psyche Every sensible object and every sensitive and imaginative act appear before her and whatsoever is in her sight is also in the sight of Aeon Because the union betwixt Aeon and Psyche is much more near then between Psyche and the Mundane spirit And whatsoever is represented in Aeon is also clearly in the view of Ahad by reason of the unexpresseable close unity of these two so that Ahad knowes every individuall thing and motion as clearly nay more clearly then any mortall eye can view any one thing let it look never so steddily on it Thus the thoughts of all mens minds and motions of heart arise up into the sight and presence of the all-comprehending Divinity as necessarily and naturally as reek or fume of frankincense rouls up into the open air For the spirit of the Lord fills all the world and that which conteineth all things hath knowledge of the voyce yea of the outward shape gestures and thoughts too Wisd 1 7. Nor is Eternity changed or obscured by the projection of these low shadows For infinite animad version can discern all things unmixtly and undisturbedly not at all loosing it self though gaining nothing by the sight of inferiour things Nor can I assent to that passage in Plotin taken in one sense nor is it I think necessary to take it in that sense the words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is But that such a kind of inclining himself to himself being as it were his energie and abode in himself makes him to be what he is the contrary supposed doth argue For if he should incline to that which is without him he would lose that being which he is But this is to be considered that God being infinitely infinite without stooping or inclining can produce all things and view alwayes his work keeping his own seat that is himself for so saith the Philosopher in another place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is That Intellect or On or the Intellectuall world is the first energie of God is the first substance from him he abiding in himself See Plotin Ennead 6. lib. 8. cap. 16. also Ennead 1. lib. 8. c. 2. But now to take a short view of what I have runne through in my notes on this Canto Ahad Aeon Psyche the Platonick Triad is rather the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Divinity rather then the Deity For God is but one indivisible unmovable self-born Unity and his first born creature is Wisdome Intellect Aeon On or Autocalon or in a word the Intellectuall world whose measure himself is that is simple and perfect Goodnesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is For he is without need self-sufficient wanting nothing the measure and term of all things yielding out of himself Intellect or On and Psyche And speaking
vests be seats of Gods vitality 16 Now deem this universall Round alone And rayes no rayes but a first all-spred light And centrick all like one pellucid Sun A Sun that 's free not bound by Natures might That where he lists exerts his rayes outright Both when he lists and what and eke how long And then retracts so as he thinketh meet These rayes be that particular creature-throng Their number none can tell but that all-making tongue 17 Now blundring Naturalist behold the spring Of thy deep-searching soul that fain would know Whether a mortall or immortall thing It be and whence at first it 'gan to flow And that which chiefest is where it must go Some fixt necessity thou fain wouldst find But no necessity where there 's no law But the good pleasure of an unty'd mind Therefore thy God seek out and leave Nature behind 18 He kills He makes alive the keys of Hell And Death he hath He can keep souls to wo When cruell hands of Fate them hence expell Or He in Lethe's lake can drench them so That they no act of life or sense can show They march out at His word and they retreat March out with joy retreat with footing flow In gloomy shade benumm'd with pallid sweat And with their feeble wings their fainting breasts they beat 19 But souls that of his own good life partake He loves as his own self dear as His eye They are to Him He 'll never them forsake When they shall dye then God himself shall die They live they live in blest Eternity The wicked are not so but like the dirt Trampled by man and beast in grave they lye Filth and corruption is their rufull sort Themselves with death and wormes in darknesse they disport 20 Their rotten relicks lurk close under ground With living wâ—ight no sense or sympathy They have at all nor hollow thundring sound Of roring winds that cold mortality Can â—ake ywrapt in sad Fatality To horses hoof that beats his grassie dore He answers not The Moon in silency Doth passe by night and all bedew him or'e With her cold humid rayes but he feels not Heavens power 21 O dolefull lot of disobedience If God should souls thus drench in Lethe lake But O unspeakable torture of sense When sinfull souls do life and sense partake That those damn'd Spirits may them anvils make Of their fell cruelty that lay such blows That very ruth doth make my heart to quake When I consider of the dreâ—y woes And tearing torment that each soul then undergoes 22 Hence the souls nature we may plainly see A beam it is of th' Intellectuall Sun A ray indeed of that Aeternity But such a ray as when it first out shone From a free light its shining date begun And that same light when 't list can call it in Yet that free light hath given a free wonne To this dependent ray Hence comethsin From sin dred Death and Hell these wages doth it win 23 Each life a severall ray is from that Sphear That Sphear doth every life in it contain Arachne Semel and the rest do bear Their proper virtue and with one joynt strain And powerfull sway they make impression plain And all their rayes be joyned into one By Ahad so this womb withouten pain Doth flocks of souls send out that have their won Where they list most to graze as I shall tell anon 24 The countrey where they live Psychania hight Great Psychany that hath so mighty bounds If bounds it have at all So infinite It is of bignesse that it me confounds To think to what a vastnesse it amounds The Sun Saturnus Saturn the Earth exceeds The Earth the Moon but all those fixed Rounds But Psychany those fixed Rounds exceeds As farre as those fix'd Rounds excell small mustard-seeds 25 Two mighty Kingdomes hath this Psychany The one self-feeling Autaesthesia The other hight god-like Theoprepy Autaesthesy's divided into tway One province cleped is great Adamah Which also hight Beirah of brutish fashion The other Providence is Dizoia There you may see much mungrill transformation Such monstrous shapes proceed from Niles foul inundation 26 Great Michael ruleth Theoprepia A mighty Prince King of Autaesthesy Is that great Giant who bears mighty sway Father of Discord Falshood Tyranny His name is Daemon not from Sciency Although he boasteth much of skilfull pride But he 's the fount of foul duality That wicked witch Duessa is his bride From his dividing force this name to him betide 27 Or for that he himself is quite divided Down to the belly there 's some unity But head and tongue and heart be quite discided Two heads two tongues and eke two hearts there be This head doth mischief plot that head doth see Wrong fairly to o'reguild One tongue doth pray The other curse The hearts do ne're agree But felly one another do upbray An ugly cloven foot this monster doth upstay 28 Two sons great Doemon and Duessa hath Autophilus the one ycleeped is In Dizoie he worketh wondrous scath He is the cause what so there goes amisse In Psyches stronger plumed progenies But Philosomatus rules Beirah This proud puft Giant whilom did arise Born of the slime of Autaesthesia And bred up these two sons yborn of Duessa 29 Duessa first invented magick lore And great skill hath to joyn and disunite This herb makes love that hearb makes hatred sore And much she can against an Edomite But nought she can against an Israelite Whose heart 's upright and doth himself forsake For he that 's one with God no magick might Can draw or here or there through blind mistake Magick can onely quell natures Doemoniake 30 But that I may in time my self betake To straighter course few things I will relate Of which old Mnemon mention once did make A jolly Swain he was in youthfull state When he mens natures gan to contemplate And kingdomes view But he was aged then When I him saw his years bore a great date He numbred had full ten times ten times ten There 's no Pythagorist but knows well what I mean 31 Old Mnemons head and beard was hoary white But yet a chearfull countenance he had His vigorous eyes did shine like starres bright And in good decent freez he was yclad As blith and buxom as was any lad Of one and twenty cloth'd in forrest green Both blith he was and eke of counsell sad Like winter-morn bedight with snow and rine And sunny rayes so did his goodly Eldship shine 32 Of many famous towns in Beïrah And many famous Laws and uncouth Rites He spake but vain it is for to assay To reckon up such numbers infinite And much he spake where I had no insight But well I wot that some there present had For words to speak to uncapable wight Of foolishnesse proceeds or phrensie mad So alwayes some I wis could trace his speeches pad 33 But that which I do now remember best Is that which he of Psittacusa lond Did
not repeat Some foul some fair to th' fair the name they give Of holy virtues but 't is but deceit None in Beiron virtuously do live None in that land so much as ever strive For truth of virtue though sometimes they wont As Swine do Swine their own blood to relieve Beiron's all bruits the true manhood they want If outward form you pierce with phansie fulminant 138 So having got experience enough Of this ill land for nothing there was new My purpose I held on and rode quite through That middle way and did th' extremes eschew When I came near the end there was in view No passage for the wall was very high But there no doore to me it self did shew Looking about at length I did espy A lively youth to whom I presently gan cry 139 More willing he 's to come then I to call Simon he hight who also's cal'd a Rock Simon is that obedientiall Nature who boysterous seas and winds doth mock No tempest can him move with fiercest shock The house that 's thereon built doth surely stand Nor blustring storm nor rapid torrents stroke Can make it fall it easily doth withstand The gates of Death and Hell and all the Stygian band 140 When I gan call forthwith in seemly sort He me approch'd in decent russet clad More fit for labour then the flaunting Court. When he came near in chearfull wise he bad Tell what I would then I unto the lad Gan thus reply alas too long astray Here have I trampled foul Behirons pad Out of this land I thought this the next way But I no gate can find so vain is mine assay 141 Then the wise youth Good Sir you look too high The wall aloft is rais'd but that same doore Where you must passe in deep descent doth lie But he bad follow he would go before Hard by there was a place all covered o're With stinging nettles and such weedery The pricking thistles the hard'st legs would gore Under the vvall a straight doore we descry The wall hight Self-conceit the doore Humility 142 When we came at the doore fast lockt it was And Simon had the key but he nould grant That I into that other land should passe Without I made him my Concomitant It pleas'd me well I mus'd not much upon 't But straight accord for why a jolly Swain Me thought he was meek chearfull and pleasant When he saw this he thus to me again Sir See you that sad couple Then I I see those twain 143 A sorry couple certainly they be The man a bloudy knife holds at his heart With chearlesse countenance as sad is she Or eld or else intolerable smart Which she can not decline by any Art Doth thus distort and writh her wrinkled face A leaden Quadrate swayes hard on that part That 's fit for burdens foulnesse doth deface Her aged looks with a strait staff her steps she stayes 144 Right well you say then said that lusty Swain Yet this poore couple be my Parents dear Nor can I hence depart without these twain These twain give life to me though void of chear They be themselves Then let 's all go yfere The young mans speech caus'd sad perplexity Within my brest but yet I did forbear And faitly ask'd their names He answered me He Autaparnes hight but she Hypomone 145 I Simon am the son of this sad pair Who though full harsh they seem to outward sight Yet when to Dizoie men forth do fare No company in all the land so meet They find as these Their pace full well I weet Is very flow and so to youthfull haste Displeasing and their counsels nothing sweet To any Beironite but sweetest taste Doth bitter choler breed and haste doth maken waste 146 Nor let that breast impierc'd with weeping wound An uncouth spectacle disturb your mind His blood 's my food If he his life effund To utmost death the high God hath design'd That we both live He in my heart shall find A seat for his transfused soul to dwell And when that 's done this death doth eke unbind That heavie weight that doth Hypom'ne quell Then I Anautaesthetus hight which seems me well 147 So both their lives do vanish into mine And mine into Atuvus life doth melt Which fading flux of time doth not define Nor is by any Autaesthesian felt This life to On the good Atuvus delt In it 's all Joy Truth Knowledge Love and Force Such force no weight created can repel't All strength and livelyhood is from this sourse All Lives to this first spring have circular recourse 148 A lecture strange he seem'd to read to me And though I did not rightly understand His meaning yet I deemed it to be Some goodly thing and weary of that land Where then I stood I did not him withstand In his request although full loth I were Slow-footed eld the journey should command Yet we were guided by that sorry pair And so to Dizoie full softly we do fare The Argument of PSYCHOZOIA Or The life of the Soul CANT III. Strange state of Dizoie Mnemons skill Here wisely doth explain Ida's strong charms and Eloim-hill With the drad dale of Ain 1 BUt now new Stories I 'gin to relate Which aged Mnemon unto us did tell Whiles we on grassie bed did lie prostrate Under a shady Beach which did repell The fiery scorching shafts which Uriel From Southern quarter darted with strong hand No other help we had for Gabriel His wholesome cooling blasts then quite restrain'd The Lions flaming breath with heat parch'd all the Land 2 Here seemly sitting down thus gan that Sage Last time we were together here ymet Beirah wall that was the utmost stage Of our discourse if I do not forget When we departed thence the Sun was set Yet nathelesse we past that lofty wall That very Evening The Nights nimble net That doth encompasse every opake ball That swim's in liquid aire did Simon nought apall 3 When we that stately wall had undercrept We straightway found our selves in Dizoie The melting clouds chill drizzeling tears then wept The mistie aire swet for deep agony Swet a cold sweat and loose frigiditie Fill'd all with a white smoke pale Cynthia Did foul her silver limbs with filthy die Whiles wading on she measured out her way And cut the muddy heavens defil'd with whitish clay 4 No light to guide but the Moons pallid ray And that even lost in mistie troubled aire No tract to take there was no beaten way No chearing strength but that which might appear From Dians face her face then shin'd not clear And when it shineth clearest little might She yieldeth yet the goddesse is severe Hence wrathfull dogs do bark at her dead light Christ help the man thus clos'd and prison'd in drad Night 5 O'rewhelm'd with irksome toyl of strange annoyes In stony stound like senselesse stake I stood Till the vast thumps of massie hammers noise That on the groning steel laid on such
Straight all night-trifling sprights doth chase away with fear 12 Long have I swonk with anxious assay To finden out what this hid soul may be That doth her self so variously bewray In different motions Other we her see When she so fairly spreads the branching tree Other when as sh ' hath loos'd her self from ground And opes her root and breaths in heaven free And doth her wants in the wide air resound Speaks out her joy no longer whispers under-ground 13 Such is the noise of chearfull chirping birds That tell the sweet impressions of the Spring Or 'fore some storm when their quick sprights be stird With nearer strong appulse and hid heaving That fills their little souls and makes them sing Puft up with joy and o'rflowing delight Estsoons with ratling winds the air doth ring The sturdy storm doth make them take their flight Into thick bush or hedge to save them from heavens spight 14 From this same sourse of sense are murmuring moans Of bellowing bullocks when sharp hunger bites Hence whining dog so pittifully groans When as with knotted whip his Lord him smites And every beast when with Deaths pangs he fights But senslesse trees nor feel the bleaker wind That nip their sides nor the Suns scorching might Nor the sharp ax piercing their ruggid rind Yet have they soul whose life in their sweet growth we find 15 So plants spring up flourish and fade away Not marking their own state they never found Themselves when first they ' pear'd in sunny day Nor ever sought themselves though in the ground They search full deep Nor are they wak'd by wound Of biting iron to nought are attent That them befalls when cold humours abound And clog their vitall heat or when they 're brent With Sirius flame or when through eld they waxen faint 16 Or whatsoever diseases them betide That basten death they nought at all regard But when to plantall life quick sense is ti'd And progging phansie then upon her guard She gins to stand and well her self to ward From foes she plainly feels pursues her joy Remembers where she well or ill hath far'd Or swiftly flies from that that doth annoy Or stoutly strives her fierce destroyer to destroy 17 Thus have we run thorow these two degrees Of the souls working seen in beast and plant Reason's the third of common qualities The best Of this the humane race doth vaunt As proper to themselves But if we skan't Sans prejudice it 's not in them alone The Dog the Horse the Ape the Elephant Will all rush in striving to make up one And sternly claim their share in use of right reason 18 But whether brutes do reason and reflect Upon their reasoning I 'll not dispute Nor care I what brisk boyes will here object Long task it were all fondlings to confute But I 'll lay down that which will better sute With that high heavenly spark the soul of man His proper character I would he knew 't Is that which Adam lost by wily train Of th' old sly snake that â—â—ve beguil'd with speeches vain 19 This was the Image of the highest God Which brutes partake not of This Image hight True Justice that keeps ever th' even trod True Piety that yields to man the sight Of heavenly beauty those fair beams so bright Of th' everlasting Deity that shed Their sacred fire within the purer spright The fruit of Eden wherewith souls be fed Mans awfull majesty of every beast ydred 20 Nor is that radiant force in humane kind Extinguisht quite he that did them create Can those dull rusty chains of fleep unbind And rear the soul unto her pristin state He can them so inlarge and elevate And spreaden out that they can compasse all When they no longer be incarcerate In this dark dungeon this foul fleshly wall Nor be no longer wedg'd in things corporeall 21 But rais'd aloft into their proper sphere That sphere that hight th' Orb Intellectuall They quiet sit as when the flitting fire That Natures mighty Magick down did call Into the oyly wood at its own fall Grows full of wrath and rage and gins to fume And roars and strives ' gainst its disquietall Like troubled Ghost forc'd some shape to assume But it its holding foe at last doth quite consume 22 And then like gliding spright doth straight dispear That earst was forc'd to take a fiery form Full lightly it ascends into the clear And subtile aire devoid of cloudy storm Where it doth steddy stand all-uniform Pure pervious immixt innocuous mild Nought scorching nought glowing nothing enorm Nought destroying not destroy'd not defil'd Foul fume being spent just 'fore its flight it faicly smil'd 23 Thus have I trac'd the soul in all her works And severall conditions have displaid And show'd all places where so e'r she lurks Even her own lurking's of her self bewray'd In plants in beasts in men while here she staid And freed from earth how then she spreads on high Her heavenly rayes that also hath been said Look now my Muse and cast thy piercing eye On every kind and tell wherein all souls agree 24 Here dare I not define't th' Entelechie Of organized bodies For this life This centrall life which men take souls to be Is not among the beings relative And sure some souls at least are self-active Withouten body having Energie Many put out their force informative In their ethereall corporeity Devoid of heterogenâ—all organity 25 Self-moving substance that be th' definition Of souls that longs to them in generall This well expresseth that common condition Of every vitall centre creaturall For why both what hight form spermaticall Hath here a share as also that we term Soul sensitive I 'll call 't form bestiall It makes a beast added to plantall sperm Adde rationall form it makes a man as men affirm 26 All these be substances self-moveable And that we call virtue magneticall That what 's defin'd be irreprovable I comprehend it in the life plantall Mongst trees ther 's found life Sympatheticall Though trees have not animadversive sense Therefore the soul 's Autokineticall Alone What ere 's in this defining sense Is soul what ere 's not soul is driven far from hence 27 But that each soul 's Autokineticall Is easly shown by sifting all degrees Of souls The first are forms Spermaticall That best be seen in shaping armed trees Which if they want their fixt Centreities By which they fairly every part extend And gently inact with spred vitalities The flowring boughs How Natures work doth wend Who knows or from what inward stay it doth depend 28 Forthy let first an inward centre hid Be put That 's nought but Natures fancie ti'd In closer knot shut up into the mid Of its own self so our own spirits gride With piercing wind in storming Winter tide Contract themselves and shrivell up together Like snake the countrey man in snow espi'd Whose spright was quite shrunk in by nipping weather From whence things come by fo-man
low'st do make us subject to disturbing fate 15 But low'st gins first to work the soul doth frame This bodies shape imploy'd in one long thought So wholy taken up that she the same Observeth not till she it quite hath wrought So men asleep some work to end have brought Not knowing of it yet have found it done Or we may say the matter that she raught And suck'd unto her self to work upon Is of one warmth with her own spright feels as one 16 And thus the body being the souls work From her own centre so entirely made Seated i' th' heart for there this spright doth lurk It is no wonder 't is so easly sway'd At her command But when this work shall fade The soul dismisseth it as an old thought 'T is but one form but many be display'd Amid her higher rayes dismist and brought Back as she list many come that ne're were sought 17 The soul by making this strange edifice Makes way unto herself to exercise Functions of life and still more waked is The more she has perfected her fine devise Hath wrought her self into sure sympathies With this great world Her ears like hollow caves Resound to her own spright the energies Of the worlds spright If it ought suffered have Then presentifick circles to her straight notice gave 18 We know this world because our soul hath made Our bodie of this sensible worlds spright And body Therefore in the glassie shade Of our own eyes they having the same might That glasse or water hath we have the sight Of what the Mundane spirit suffereth By colours figures or inherent light Sun stars and all on earth it hurrieth To each point of it self so far as 't circuleth 19 And where he lighteth on advantages His circulings grow sensible So hills That hollow be do audible voices Resound The soul doth imitate that skill In framing of the eare that sounds may swell In that concavitie The crystall springs Reflect the light of heaven if they be still And clear the soul doth imitate and bring The eye to such a temper in her shapening 20 So eyes and ears be not mere perforations But a due temper of the Mundane spright And ours together else the circulations Of sounds would be well known by outward sight And th' eare would colours know figures light So that it 's plain that when this bodie 's gone This world to us is clos'd in darknesse quite And all to us is in dead silence drown Thus in one point of time is this worlds glory flown 21 But if 't be so how doth Psyche hear or see That hath nor eyes nor eares She sees more clear Then we that see but secondarily We see at distance by a circular Diffusion of that spright of this great sphear Of th' Universe Her sight is tactuall The Sun and all the starres that do appear She feels them in herself can distance all For she is at each one purely presentiall 22 To us what doth diffusion circular And our pure shadowed eyes bright crystalline But vigorously our spright particular Affect while things in it so clearly shine That 's done continually in the heavens sheen The Sun the Moon the Earth blew-glimmering Hel Scorch'd Aetna's bowels each shape you 'l divine To be in Nature every dern cell With fire-eyed dragons or what else therein doth dwel 23 These be all parts of the wide worlds excesse They be all seated in the Mundane spright And shew just as they are in their bignesse To her But circulation shews not right The magnitude of things for distant site Makes a deficience in these circulings But all things lie opeâ—right unto the sight Of heavens great eye their thin shot shadowings And lightned sides All this we find in Natures springs 24 The worlds great soul knows by Protopathie All what befalls this lower sprite but we Can onely know 't by Deuteropathie At least in sight and hearing She doth see In our own eyes by the close unitie Of ours and the worlds life our passion Plainly perceives our Idiopathie As we do hers by the same union But we cannot see hers in that perfection 25 Fresh varnish'd groves tall hills and gilded clouds Arching an eyelid for the gloring Morn Fair clustred buildings which our sight so crouds At distance with high spires to heaven yborn Vast plains with lowly cottages forlorn Rounded about with the low wavering skie Cragg'd vapours like to ragged rocks ytorn She views those prospects in our distant eye These and such like be the first centres mysterie 26 Or if you will the first low energie Of that one centre which the soul is hight Which knows this world by the close unitie Concorporation with the Mundane sprite Unloos'd from this she wants a certain light Unlesse by true regeneration She be incorporate with God unite With his own spright so a new mansion Sh' has got oft saught with deepest suspiration 27 But robb'd of her first clothing by hard fate If she fall short of this wo's me what pains She undergoes when this lost former state So kindled hath lifes thirst that still remains Thus her eternitie her nothing gains But hungry flames raging voracitie Feeding on its own self The heavens she stains With execrations and foul blasphemie Thus in fell discontent and smoth'ring fire they frie. 28 Vain man that striv'st to have all things at will What wilt thou do in this sterilitie Whom canst thou then command or what shall fill Thy gaping soul O depth of miserie Prepare thy self by deep humilitie Destroy that fretting fire while thou art here Forsake this worlds bewitching vanitie Nor death nor hell then shalt thou need to fear Kill and cast down thy self to heaven God shall thee rear 29 This middle centrall essence of the soul Is that which still survives asleep or waking The life she shed in this grosse earthly moul Is quite shrunk up lost in the bodies breaking Now with slight phantasms of her own fond making She 's clad so is her life drie and jejune But all flit souls be not in the same taking That state this lifes proportion doth tune So as thou livest here such measure must ensuen 30 But they whose souls deiform summitie Is waken'd in this life and so to God Are nearly joyn'd in a firm Unitie This outward bodie is but earthie clod Digested having life transfus'd abroad The worlds life and our lower vitalitie Unite in one their souls have their aboad In Christs own body are eternally One with our God by true and strong communitie 31 When we are clothed with this outward world Feel the soft air behold the glorious Sunne All this we have from meat that 's daily hurld Into these mouthes But first of all we wonne This priviledge by our first union With this worlds body and diffused spright I' th' higher world there 's such communion Christ is the sunne that by his chearing might Awakes our higher rayes to joyn with his pure
17 This is the measure of Gods providence The key of knowledge the first fair Idee The eye of truth the spring of living sense Whence sprout Gods secrets the sweet mystery Of lasting life eternall charity But you O bitter men and soure of sprite Which brand Gods name with such foul infamy As though poor humane race he did or slight Or curiously view to do them some despight 18 And all to shew his mighty excellency His uncontrolled strength fond men areed Is' t not as great an act from misery To keep the feeble as his life to speed With fatall stroke The weak shak'd whisling reed Shows Boreas wondrous strong but ignorance And false conceit is the foul spirits meed Gods lovely life hath there no enterance Hence their fond thoughts for truth they vainly do advance 19 If God do all things simply at his pleasure Because he will and not because its good So that his actions will have no set measure Is' t possible it should be understood What he intends I feel that he is lov'd Of my dear soul and know that I have born Much for his sake yet is it not bence prov'd That I shall live though I do sigh and mourn To find his face his creatures wish he 'll slight and scorn 20 When I breathe out my utmost vitall breath And my dear spirit to my God commend Yet some foul feigne close lurking underneath My serious humble soul from me may rend So to the lower shades down we shall wend Though I in hearts simplicity expected A better doom sith I my steps did bend Toward the will of God and had detected Strong hope of lasting life but now I am rejected 21 Nor of well being nor subsistency Of our poor souls when they do hence depart Can any be assur'd if liberty We give to such odde thoughts that thus pervert The laws of God and rashly do assert That will rules God but Good rules not Gods will What ere from right love equity doth start For ought we know then God may act that ill Onely to show his might and his free mind fulfill 22 O belch of hell O horrid blasphemy That Heavens unblemish'd beauty thus dost stain And brand Gods nature with such infamy Can Wise Just Good do ought that 's harsh or vain All what he doth is for the creatures gain Not seeking ought from us for his content What is a drop unto the Ocean main All he intends is our accomplishment His being is self-full self-joy'd self-excellent 23 He his fair beams through all has freely 〈◊〉 Purge but thy soul that thou mayst take them in With froward hypocrite he never went That finds pretexts to keep his darling sinne Through all the earth this Sprite takes pains to winne Unto himself such as be simply true And with malignant pride resist not him But strive to do what he for right doth shew So still a greater light he brings into their view 24 All Lives in severall circumference Look up unto him and expect their food He opes his hand showrs down their sustinence So all things be yfild with their wish'd good All drink are satisfi'd from this free floud But circling life that yet unsettled is Grows straight as it is further still remov'd From the first simple Good obtains lesse blisse Sustains sharp pains inflicted by just Nemesis 25 But why do I my soul loose and disperse With mouldring reason that like sand doth flow Life close united with that Good a verse Cannot declare nor its strange virtue show That 's it holds up the soul in all her wo That death nor hell nor any change doth fray Who walks in light knows whither he doth go Our God is light we children of the day God is our strength and hope what can us then dismay 26 Goodnesse it self will do to us this good That godly souls may dwell with him for aye Will God forsake what of himself 's belov'd What ever Lives may shrink into cold clay Yet good mens souls deaths hests shall not obey Where there 's no incompossibility Of things Gods goodnesse needs must bear the sway You virtuous brood take 't for sure verity Your souls shall not fall short of blest eternity 26 But yet bold men with much perplexity Will here object against this principle Heaping up reasons strange fecundity Of ignorance that goodly might to quell Of my last argument so fairly well Set down right strongly the unsettled spright To have confirmed at my last far-well But contrair forces they bring into sight And proudly do provoke me with that rout to fight 27 Whence was 't say they that God the creature made No sooner why did infinite delay Precede his work should God his goodnesse staid So long a time why did he not display From infinite years this out-created ray The mighty starres why not in habited When God may souls proportion to their clay As well as to this earth why not dispred The world withouten bounds endlesse uncompassed 28 Poore souls why were they put into this cave Of misery if they can well exist Without the body Why will not God save All mankind His great wisdome if it list Could so contrive that they 'd at last desist From sinning fallen into some providence That sternly might rebuke them that have mist Their way and work in them true penitence Thus might they turn to God with double diligence 29 Why be not damned souls devoyd of sense If nothing can from wickednesse reclaime Rather then fry in pain and vehemence Of searching agony or why not frame Another form so with new shape and name Again to turn to life One centrall spright Why may 't not many forms in it contain Which may be wak'd by some magnetick might ' Cording as is the matter upon which they light 30 For when too severall kinds by Venus knit Do cause a birth from both the soul doth take A tincture but if free it were transmit Uncloth'd with th' others seed then it would make One simple form for then they could not slake One th' others working Why is the World still Stark nought through malice or through blind mistake Why had the first-made-man such a loose will That his innumerous of-spring he should fouly spill 31 Why was not this unlucky world dissolv'd As soon as that unhappy Adam fell I itch till of this knot I be resolv'd So many myriads tumble down to hell Although partakers of Gods holy spell Beside t is said they that do not partake Of Christian lore for ever they must dwell With cursed fiends and burn in brimstone lake Such drery drad designes do make my heart to quake 32 One of a multitude of myriads Shall not be sav'd but broyl in scorching wo Innumerous mischiefs then to mischiefs addes This worlds continuance if that be so Ill infinitely more then good doth grow So God would show much more benignity If he the ribs of heaven about would strow Powder the earth choke
Intellect do not rely Upon the body sith they are indew'd With such apparent contrariety Of qualities to sense and phantasie Which plainly on the body do depend So that departed souls may phantasms free Full well exert when they have made an end Of this vain life nor need to Lethe Lake descend The Argument of ANTIPSYCHOPANNYCHIA OR The Confutation of the Sleep of the Soul Cant. 2. Bondage and freedom's here set out By an inverted Cone The self-form'd soul may work without Incorporation 1 FOuntain of beings the vast deep abysse Of Life and Love and penetrating Will That breaks through narrow Night so transmiss At last doth find it self What mortall skill Can reach this mystery my trembling quill Much lesse may set it forth yet as I may I must attempt this task for to fulfill He guide my pen while I this work assay Who All through all himself doth infinitely display 2 My end 's loose largenesse and full liberty To finden out Most precious thing I ween When contrall life her outgone energy Doth spreaden forth unsneep'd by foe-man keen And like unclouded Sunne doth freely shine This is right Liberty whose first Idee And measure is that holy root divine Of all free life hight Ahad Vnitie In all things He at once is present totally 3 Each totall presence must be infinite So is He infinite infinity Those infinites you must not disunite So is He one all spreaden Unity Nor must you so outspread this Deitie But that infinitie so infinite Must be in every infinite so we Must multiply this infinite single sight Above all apprehension of a mortall wit 4 What is not infinitely infinite It is not simply infinite and free For straitnesse if you do conceive aright Is the true daughter of deficiency But sith there 's no defect in Unity Or Ahad Ahad this first centre hight In Poetry as yet to vulgar eye Unpublish'd Him first freedome infinite We may well style And next is that eternall Light 5 Sonne unto Ahad Aeon we him name In that same Poem like his father free Even infinitely free I him proclaim Every where all at once And so is she Which Psyche hight for perfect Unity Makes all those one So hitherto we have Unmeasurable freedome Semele Is next whom though fair fluttering forms embrave Yet motion and defect her liberty deprave 6 Imagination's not infinite Yet freer farre then sense and sense more free Then vegetation or spermatick spright Even absent things be seen by phantasie By sense things present at a distancie But that spermatick spright is close confin'd Within the compasse of a stupid tree Imprison'd quite in the hard rugged rind Yet their defective Re'plication we find 7 Farre more defective then in phantasie Or sense yet freer is the plastick spright Then quantity or single quality Like quantity it self out stretched right Devoid of all reduplicative might If any such like qualities there were So dull so dead so all devoid of light As no communicative rayes to bear If there be such to Hyle they do verge most near 8 But Hyle's self is perfect penurie And infinite straitnesse Here we sinden nought Nor can do ought If curiously we prie Into this mirksome corner quite distraught From our own life and being we have brought Our selves to nothing Or the sooth to sayen The subtilest soul her self hath never wrought Into so strait a place could nere constrain Herself to enter or that Hagge to entertain 9 Lo here 's the figure of that mighty Cone From the strait Cuspis to the wide-spread Base Which is even all in comprehension What 's infinitely nothing here hath place What 's infinitely all things steddy stayes Aâ— the wide Basis of this Cone inverse Yet it s own essence doth it swiftly chace Oâ—etakes at once so swiftly doth it pierce That motion here 's no motion 10 Suppose the Sunne so much to mend his pace That in a moment he did round the skie The nimble Night how swiftly would he chace About the earth so swift that scarce thine eye Could ought but light discern But let him hie So fast that swiftnesse hath grown infinite In a pure point of time so must he flie Around this ball and the vast shade of Night Quite swallow up ever steddy stand in open sight 11 For that which from its place is not away One point of time how can you say it moves Wherefore the Sunne doth alwayes steddy stay In our Meridian as this reason proves And sith that in an instant round he roves The same doth hap in each Meridian line For in his instantaneous removes He in them all at once doth fairely shine Nor that large stretchen space his freenesse can confine 12 The Sun himself at once stands in each point Of his diurnall circle Thus we see That rest and motion cannot be disjoynt When motion 's swift even to infinity Here contrarieties do well agree Eternall shade and everlasting light With one another here do well comply Instant returns of Night make one long Night Wherefore infinity is freedome infinite 13 No hinderance to ought that doth arrive To this free camp of fair Elysium But nearer that to Hyle things do dive They are more pent and find much lesser room Thus sensuall souls do find their righteous doom Which Nemesis inflicts when they descend From heavenly thoughts that from above do come To lower life which wrath and grief attend And scorching lust that do the souls high honour blend 14 Wherefore the soul cut off from lowly sense By harmlesse fate farre greater liberty Must gain for when it hath departed hence As all things else should it not backward hie From whence it came but such divinity Is in our souls that nothing lesse then God Could send them forth as Plato's schools descry Wherefore when they retreat a free abode They 'll find unlesse kept off by Nemesis just rod. 15 But if kept off from thence where is she then She dwells in her own self there doth reside Is her own world and more or lesse doth pen Her self as more or lesse she erst did side With sense and vice while here she did abide Steril defect and nere-obtained desire Create a Cone whose Cusp is not more wide Then this worlds Cone Here close-contracted fire Doth vex doth burn doth scorch with searching heat and ire 16 Nor easly can she here fall fast asleep To slake her anguish and tormenting pain What drisling mists may here her senses steep What foggie fumes benumb her moistned brain The flitten soul no sense doth then retain And sleep ariseth from a sympathie With these low sprights that in this flesh remain But when from these the soul is setten free What sleep may bind her from continuall energie 17 Here they 'll reply It is not a grosse sleep That binds the soul from operation But sith that death all phantasms clean doth wipe Out of the soul she no occasion Can have of Will or Intellection The
That they a tree with different colour stain And divers shapes smoothnesse asperity Straightnesse acutenesse and rotundity A golden yellow or a crimson red A varnish'd green with such like gallantry How dull then is the sensitive how dead If forms from its own centre it can never spread 36 Again an Universall notion What object ever did that form impresse Upon the soul What makes us venture on So rash a matter as ere to confesse Ought generally true when neverthelesse We cannot e're runne through all singulars Wherefore in our own souls we do possesse Free forms and immateriall characters Hence 't is the soul so boldly generall truth declares 37 What man that is not dull or mad would doubt Whether that truth for which Pythagoras When he by subtile study found it out Unto the Muses for their helping grace An Hecatomb did sacrifice may passe In all such figures wheresoever they be Yet all Rectangle Triangles none has Viewed as yet none all shall ever see Wherefore this free assent is from th' innate Ides 38 Adde unto these incorporeity Apprehended by the soul when sense nere saw Ought incorporeall Wherefore must she From her own self such subtile Idols draw Again this truth more clearly still to know Let 's turn again to our Geometry What body ever yet could figure show Perfectly perfect as rotundity Exactly round or blamelesse angularity 39 Yet doth the soul of such like forms discourse And finden fault at this deficiency And rightly term this better and that worse Wherefore the measure is our own Idee Which th' humane soul in her own self doth see And sooth to sayen when ever she doth strive To find pure truth her own profundity She enters in her self doth deeply dive From thence attempts each essence rightly to descrive 40 Last argument which yet is not the least Wise Socrates dispute with Theaetete Concerning learning fitly doth suggest A midwifes sonne ycleeped Phenarete He calls himself Then makes a quaint conceit That he his mothers trade did exercise All witlesse his own self yet well did weet By his fit questions to make others wise A midwife that no'te bear anothers birth unties 41 Thus jestingly he flung out what was true That humane souls be swoln with pregnancy Of hidden knowledge if with usage due They were well handled they each verity Would bringen forth from their fecunditie Wise framed questions would facilitate This precious birth stirre up th' inward Idee And make it streme with light from forms innate Thus may a skilfull man hid truth elicitate 42 What doth the teacher in his action But put slight hints into his scholars mind Which breed a solemn contemplation Whether such things be so but he doth find The truth himself But if truth be not sign'd In his own Soul before and the right measure Of things propos'd in vain the youth doth wind Into himself and all that anxious leasure In answering proves uselesse without that hid treasure 43 Nor is his masters knowledge from him flit Into his scholars head for so his brain In time would be exhaust and void of wit So would the sory man but little gain Though richly paid Nor is' t more safe to sam As fire breeds fire art art doth generate The soul with Corporeity't would stain Such qualities outwardly operate The soul within her acts there closely circulate 44 Wherefore the soul it self by her Idee Which is her self doth every thing discover By her own Centrall Omniformity Brings forth in her own self when ought doth move her Till mov'd a dark indifferency doth hover But fierce desire and a strong piercing will Makes her those hidden characters uncover Wherefore when death this lower life shall spill Or fear or love the soul with actuall forms shall fill The Argument of ANTIPSYCHOPANNYCHIA OR The Confutation of the Sleep of the Soul Cant. 3. Departed souls by living Night Suckt in for pinching wo No'te sleep or if with God unite For joyes with which they flow 1 MY hardest task is gone which was to prove That when the soul dy death 's cut off from all Yet she within her self might live and move Be her own world by life imaginall But sooth to sain 't seems not so naturall For though a starre part of the Mundane spright Shine out with rayes circumferentiall So long as with this world it is unite Yet what 't would do cut off so well we cannot weet 2 But sith our soul with God himself may meet Inacted by His life I cannot see What scruple then remains that moven might Least doubt but that she wakes with open eye When Fate her from this body doth untie Wherefore her choisest forms do then arise Rowz'd up by union and large sympathy With Gods own spright she plainly then descries Such plenitude of life as she could nere devise 3 If God even on this body operate And shakes this Temple when he doth descend Or with sweet vigour doth irradiate And lovely light and heavenly beauty lend Such rayes from Moses face did once extend Themselves on Sinai hill where he did get Those laws from Gods own mouth mans life to mend And from Messias on mount Saron set Farre greater beauty shone in his disciples sight 4 Al 's Socrates when his large Intellect Being fill'd with streaming light from God above To that fair sight his soul did close collect That inward lustre though the body drove Bright beams of beauty These examples prove That our low being the great Deity Invades and powerfully doth change and move Which if you grant the souls divinity More fitly doth receive so high a Majesty 5 And that God doth illuminate the mind Is well approv'd by all antiquity With them Philosophers and Priests we find All one or else at least Philosophy Link'd with Gods worship and pure piety Witnesse Pythagoras Aglaophemus Zoroaster thrice-mighty Mercury Wise Socrates nothing injurious Religious Plato and vice-taming Orpheus 6 All these addicted to religion Acknowledg'd God the fount of verity From whence flows out illumination Upon purg'd souls But now O misery To seek to God is held a phantasie But men hug close their loved lust and vice And deem that thraldome a sweet liberty Wherefore reproch and shame they do devise Against the braver souls that better things emprise 7 But lo a proof more strong and manifest Few men but will confesse that prophesie Proceeds from God when as our soul 's possest By his All-seeing spright al 's ecstasie Wherein the soul snatch'd by the Deity And for a time into high heaven hent Doth contemplate that blest Divinity So Paul and John that into Patmos went Heard and saw things inestimably excellent 8 Such things as these men joyntly do confesse To spring from Gods own spirit immediately But if that God ought on the soul impresse Before it be at perfect liberty Quite rent from this base body when that she Is utterly releast she 'll be more fit To be inform'd by that
divine Idee Hight Logos that doth every man enlight That enters into life as speaks the sacred Writ 9 Behold a fit resemblance of this truth The Sun begetteth both colours and sight Each living thing with life his heat indew'th He kindles into act each plastick spright Thus he the world with various forms doth dight And when his vigour hath fram'd out an eye In any living wight he fills with light That Organ which can plainly then descry The forms that under his far-shining beams do ly 10 Even so it is with th' intellectuall sunne Fountain of life and all-discovering light He frames our souls by his creation Al 's he indews them with internall sight Then shines into them by his lucid spright But corporall life doth so obnubilate Our inward eyes that they be nothing bright While in this muddy world incarcerate They lie and with blind passions be intoxicate 11 Fear anger hope fierce vengeance and swoln hate Tumultuous joy envie and discontent Self-love vain-glory strife and fell debate Unsatiate covetise desire impotent Low-sinking grief pleasure lust violent Fond emulation all these dim the mind That with foul filth the inward eye yblent That light that is so near it cannot find So shines the Sunne unseen on a trees rugged rind 12 But the clean soul by virtue purifi'd Collecting her own self from the foul steem Of earthly life is often dignifi'd With that pure pleasure that from God doth streem Often's enlightn'd by that radiant beam That issues forth from his divinity Then feelingly immortall she doth deem Her self conjoynd by so near unity With God and nothing doubts of her eternitie 13 Nor death nor sleep nor any dismall shade Of low contracting life she then doth fear No troubled thoughts her settled mind invade Th' immortall root of life she seeth clear Wisheth she were for ever grafted here No cloud no darknesse no deficiency In this high heavenly life doth ere appear Redundant fulnesse and free liberty Easie flowing knowledge never weary energy 14 Broad open sight eternall wakefulnesse Withouten labour or consuming pain The soul all these in God must needs possesse When there deep-rooted life she doth obtain As I in a few words shall maken plain This bodies life by powerfull sympathy The soul to sleep and labour doth constrain To grief to wearinesse and anxiety In fine to hideous sense of dread mortality 15 But sith no such things in the Deity Are to be found Shee once incorporate With that quick essence she is setten free From ought that may her life obnubilate What then can her contract or maken strait For ever mov'd by lively sympathy With Gods own spright an ever-waking state She doth obtain Doth heavens bright blazing eye Ever close ywrapt in sleep and dead obscurity 16 But now how full and strong a sympathy Is caused by the souls conjunction With the high God I 'll to you thus descry All men will grant that spread dispersion Must be some hinderance to close union Al 's must confesse that closer unity More certainly doth breed compassion Not that there 's passion in the Deity But something like to what all men call Sympathy 17 Now sith the soul is of such subtlety And close collectednesse in dispersion Full by her centrall omniformity Pregnant and big without distension She once drawn in by strong attraction Should be more perfectly there counite In this her high and holy union Then with the body where dispersion's pight But such hard things I leave to some more learned wight 18 The first pure Being's perfect Unity And therefore must all things more strongly bind Then Lives corporeall which dispersed be He also the first Goodnesse is defin'd Wherefore the soul most powerfully's inclin'd And strongly drawn to God But life that 's here When into it the soul doth closely wind Is often sneep'd by anguish and by fear With vexing pain and rage that she no'te easly bear 19 Farre otherwise it fares in that pure life That doth result in the souls Unity With God For there the faster she doth strive To tie her selfe the greater liberty And freer welcome brighter purity She finds and more enlargement joy and pleasure O'reflowing yet without satietie Sight without end and love withouten measure This needs must close unite the heart to that hid treasure 20 This plainly's seen in that mysterious Cone Which I above did fairly stell descrive Their freenesse and incarceration Were plainly setten forth What down doth dive Into the straitned Cuspis needs must strive With stringent bitternesse vexation Anxious unrest in this ill plight they live But they that do ascend to th' top yflown Be free yet fast unite to that fair vision 21 Thus purged souls be close conjoyn'd to God And closer union surer sympathy Wherefore so long as they make their abode In Him incorp'rate by due Unitie They liven in eternall energie For Israels God nor slumbers nor doth sleep Nor Israel lost in dull lethargie Must list lesse ly while numbing streams do steep His heavy head overwhelmed in oblivion deep 22 But here more curious men will straight enquire Whither after death the wicked soul doth go That long hath wallowed in the sinfull mire Before this question I shall answer to Again the nature of the soul I 'll show She all things in her self doth centrally Contain what ever she doth feel or know She feels or knows it by th' innate Idee She 's all proportion'd by her omniformity 23 God heaven this middle world deep glimmering hell With all the lives and shapes that there remain The forms of all in humane souls do dwell She likewise all proportions doth contain That fits her for all sprights So they constrain By a strong pulling sympathy to come And straight possesse that fitting vitall vein That 'longs unto her so her proper room She takes as mighty Nemesis doth give the doom 24 Now which I would you presly should observe Though oft I have with tongue balbutient Prattled to th' weaker ear lest I should sterve My stile with too much subtilty I nere ment To grant that there 's any such thing existent As a mere body For all 's life all spright Though lives and sprights be very different Three generall sprights there be Eternall Light Is one the next our World the last Infernall Night 25 This last lies next unto old Nothingnesse Hight Hyle whom I term'd point of the Cone Her daughter Night is full of bitternesse And strait constraint and pent privation Her sturdy ray's scarce conquer'd by the moon The earths great shade breaks out from this hid spright And active is so soon the Sun is gone Doth repossesse the aire shotten forth right From its hid centrall life ycleep'd Infernall Night 26 In this drad world is scorching Phlegethon Hot without flame burning the vexed sense There hatefull Styx and sad Cocytus run And silent Acheron All drink from hence From this damn'd spright receiven influence That in our world or
spittle tumbling with their tongue On their raw lether lips these near will to her clung 44 And lovingly salute against her will Closely embrace and make her mad with wo She 'd lever thousand times they did her kill Then force her such vile basenesse undergo Anon some Giant his huge self will show Gaping with mouth as vast as any Cave With stony staring eyes and footing slow She surely deems him her live-walking grave From that dern hollow pit knows not her self to save 45 After a while tost on the Ocean main A boundlesse sea she finds of misery The fiery snorts of the Leviathan That makes the boyling waves before him flie She hears she sees his blazing morn-bright eye If here she scape deep gulfs and threatning rocks Her frighted self do straightway terrifie Steel-coloured clouds with rattling thunder knocks With these she is amaz'd and thousand such like mocks 46 All which afflict her even like perfect sense For waxen mad with her sore searching pain She cannot easly find the difference But toils and tears and tugs but all in vain Her self from her own self she cannot strain Nocturnall life hath now let ope th' Idee Of innate darknesse from this fulsome vein The soul is fill'd with all deformity But Night doth stirre her up to this dread energie 47 But here some man more curious then wise Perhaps will ask where Night or Hell may be For he by his own self cannot devise Sith chearfull light doth fill the open sky And what 's the earth to the souls subtilty Such men I 'd carry to some standing pool Down to the water bid them bend their eye They then shall see the earth possest and full Of heaven dight with the sunne or starrs that there do roll 48 Or to an hill where 's some deep hollow Cave Dreadfull for darknesse let them take a glasse When to the pitchy hole they turned have Their instrument that darknesse will find place Even in the open sunne-beams at a space Which measures twice the glasses distancy From the Caves mouth This well discovered has How Hell and Heaven may both together lie Sith darknesse safely raies even in the sunny skie 49 But further yet the mind to satisfie That various apprehensions bearen down And to hold up with like variety Of well fram'd phantasms lest she sink and drown Laden with heavie thoughts sprong from the ground And miry clods of this accursed earth Whose dull suffusions make her often sown Orecome with cold till nimble Reason bear'th Unto her timely aid and on her feet her rear'th 50 I will adjoyn to those three former wayes To weet of the Souls self-activity Of Union with Hell and Gods high rayes A fourth contrivement which all souls doth ty To their wing'd Chariots wherein swift they fly The fiery and airy Vehicles they hight In Plato's school known universally But so large matter can not well be writ In a few lines for a fresh Canticle more fit The Preface to the Reader ALthough the opinion of the Praeexistency of the Soul be made so probable and passable in the Canto it self that none can sleight and contemn it that do not ordinarily approve themselves men by Derision more then by Reason yet so heavie prejudice lying upon us both from Naturall diffidence in so high Points and from our common Education I thought it fit for seeuring my self from suspicion of overmuch lightnesse to premize thus much That that which I have taken the pains and boldnesse to present to the free judgement of others hath been already judged of old very sound and orthodox by the wisest and most learned of preceding Ages Which R. Menasseh Ben-Israel doth abundantly attest in his 15. Problem De Creatione Avouching that it is the common Opinion of all the Hebrews and that it was never called into controversie but approved of by the common consent and suffrage of all wise men And himself doth by severall places out of the Old Testament as pat for his purpose I think as any can be brought against it endeavour to make it good but might I confesse have been more fitly furnished could his Religion have reached into the New For Philip. 2. v. 6 7 8. John 9. v. 1 2 3. John 17. v. 45. Mark 8. v. 27 28. all those places do seem so naturally to favour this Probability that if it had pleas'd the Church to have concluded it for a standing Truth He that would not have been fully convinc'd upon the evidence of these passages of Scripture would undoubtedly have been held a man of a very timorous Scepticall constitution if not something worse Nor is the feeblenesse and miserable ineptnesse of Infancy any greater damp to the belief of this Preexistency then the dotage and debility of old Age to the hope of the Souls future subsistency after death Nor if we would fetch an argument from Theologie is Gods Justice and the divine Nemesis lesse set out by supposing that the Souls of men thorough their own revolting from God before they came into the body have thus in severall measures engaged themselves in the sad dangerous and almost fatall entanglements of this Corporeall World then it is by conceiving that they must needs survive the Body that the judgement of the Almighty may passe upon them for what they have committed in the flesh Nor lastly is it harder to phansie how these Praeexistent Souls insinuate into seed Embryos or Infants then how Created ones are insinuated nor yet so hard to determine of their condition if they depart in Infancy as of the condition of these But mistake me not Reader I do not contend in thus arguing that this opinion of the Praeexistency of the Soul is true but that it is not such a self-condemned Falsity but that I might without justly incurring the censure of any Vainnesse or Levity deem it worthy the canvase and discussion of sober and considerate men Yours H.M. The Praeexistency of the SOUL The Argument Of the Souls Praeexistency Her Orb of Fire and Aire Of Ghosts of Goblins of Sorcery This Canto doth declare 1 RIse then Aristo's son assist my Muse Let that hie spright which did inrich thy brains With choice cōceits some worthy thoughts infuse Worthy thy title and the Readers pains And thou O Lycian Sage whose pen contains Treasures of heavenly light with gentle fire Give leave a while to warm me at thy flames That I may also kindle sweet desire In holy minds that unto highest things aspire 2 For I would sing the Praeexistency Of humane souls and live once ore again By recollection and quick memory All what is past since first we all began But all too shallow be my wits to scan So deep a point and mind too dull to clear So dark a matter but Thou O more then man Aread thou sacred Soul of Plotin deare Tell what we mortalls are tell what of old we were 3 A spark or ray of the Divinity Clouded in earthy
as when lamp we lighten from a lamp Which done withouten diminution Of the first light shows how the soul of man Though indivisible may another rear Imparting life But if we rightly scan This argument it cometh nothing near To light the lamp's to kindle the sulphurious gear 89 No substance new that act doth then produce Onely the oyly atomes 't doth excite And wake into a flame but no such use There is of humane sperm For our free sprite Is not the kindled seed but substance quite Distinct therefrom If not then bodies may So changed be by nature and stiff fight Of hungry stomacks that what erst was clay Then herbs in time it self in sense may well display 90 For then our soul can nothing be but bloud Or nerves or brains or body modifide Whence it will follow that cold stopping crud Hard moldy cheese dry nuts when they have rid Due circuits through the heart at last shall speed Of life and sense look thorough our thin eyes And view the Close wherein the Cow did feed Whence they were milk'd grosse Pie-crust will grow wife And pickled Cucumbers sans doubt Philosophize 91 This all will follow if the soul be nought But the live body For mens bodies feed Of such grosse meat and if more fine be brought Suppose Snipes heads Larks heels for Ladies meet The broth of Barly or that oily Sweet Of th' unctious Grape yet all men must confesse These be as little capable of wit And sense nor can be so transform'd I wisse Therefore no soul of man from seed traducted is 92 Ne been they by th' high God then first create When in this earthly mansion they appear For why should he so soon contaminate So unspotted beauties as mens spirits are Flinging them naked into dunghills here Soyl them with guilt and foul contagion When as in his own hand they spotlesse were Till by an uncouth strange infusion He plung'd them in the deep of Malediction 93 Besides unworthily he doth surmise Of Gods pure being and bright Majesty Who unto such base offices him ties That He must wait on lawlesse Venery Not onely by that large Causality Of generall influence for Creation More speciall concourse all men deem to be But on set purpose He must come anon And ratifie the act which oft men wish undone 94 Which is a rash and shamelesse bad conceit So might they name the brat Adeodatus What ever they in lawlesse love beget Again what 's still far more prodigious When men are stung with fury poysonous And burn with flames of lust toward brute beasts And overcome into conjunction rush He then from that foul act is not releast Creates a soul misplacing the unhappy guest 95 Wherefore mans soul 's not by Creation Nor is it generate as I prov'd before Wherefore let 't be by emanation If fully it did not praeexist of yore By flowing forth from that eternall store Of Lives and souls ycleep'd the World of life Which was and shall endure for evermore Hence done all bodies vitall fire derive And matter never lost catch life and still revive 96 And what has once sprout out doth never cease If it enjoy it self a spray to be Distinct and actuall though if God please He can command it into th' ancient tree This immense Orb of wast vitality With all its Lives and Souls is every where And do's where matter right prepar'd doth lie Impart a soul as done the sunne beams clear Insinuate themselves where filth doth not debarre 97 Thus may the souls in long succession Leap out into distinct activity But sooth to say though this opinion May seem right fair and plausible to be Yet toils it under an hard difficulty Each where this Orb of life 's with every soul Which doth imply the souls ubiquity Or if the whole Extent of Natures's full Of severall souls thick set what may the furthest pull 98 What may engage them to descend so low Remov'd farre from the steam of earthly mire My wits been here too scant and faith too slow Ne longer lists my wearied thoughts to tire Let bolder spirits to such hight aspire But well I wote if there admitted were A praeexistency of souls entire And due Returns in courses circular This course all difficulties with ease away would bear 99 For then suppose they wore an airy sphear Which choise or Nemesis suck'd lower down Thus without doubt they 'll leave their carcase clear Like dispossessed spright when death doth come And by rude exorcisme bids quit the room Ne let these intricacies perplex our mind That we forget that ere we saw the sunne Before this life For who can call to mind Where first he here saw sunne or felt the gentle wind 100 Besides what wonder is 't when fierce disease Can so empair the strongest memory That so full change should make our spirits leese What 'fore they had impress'd in phantasie Nor doth it follow thence that when we die We nought retain of what pass'd in these dayes For Birth is Death Death Life and Liberty The soul 's not thence contract but there displayes Her loosened self doth higher all her powers raise 101 Like to a light fast lock'd in lanthorn dark Whereby by night our wary steps we guide In slabby streets and dirty channels mark Some weaker rayes through the black top do glide And flusher streams perhaps from horny side But when we 've past the perill of the way Arriv'd at home and laid that case aside The naked light how clearly doth it ray And spread its joyfull beams as bright as Summers day 102 Even so the soul in this contracted state Consin'd to these strait instruments of sense More dull and narrowly doth operate At this hole hears the sight must ray from thence Here tasts there smels But when she 's gone from hence Like naked lamp she is one shining sphear And round about has perfect cognoscence What ere in her Horizon doth appear She is one Orb of sense all eye all airy ear 103 Now have I well establish'd the fourth way The souls of men from stupid sleep to save First Light next Night the third the soules Self-ray Fourth the souls Chariot we named have Whether moist air or fire all sparkling brave Or temper mixt Now how these foure agree And how the soul her self may dip and lave In each by turns how no redundancy Ther 's in them might we tell nor scant deficiency 104 But cease my restlesse Muse be not too free Thy chiefest end thou hast accomplished Long since shak'd of the Psychopannychie And rouz'd the soul from her dull drowsiehed So nothing now in death is to be dred Of him that wakes to truth and righteousnesse The corps lies here the soul aloft is fled Unto the fount of perfect happinesse Full freedome joy and peace she lively doth possesse ANTIMONOPSYCHIA Or The fourth part of the Song OF THE SOUL Containing A confutation of the Unity of Souls Whereunto is annexed a Paraphrase
The self-same knowledge art experience skill The frugall parent might his money save The Pedagoge his pains If he engrave His Grammer precepts but in one boyes mind Oâ— decent manners He doth thus embrave With single labour all the youth you 'll find Under the hollow Heavens they 'll be alike inclin'd 18 And every man is skill'd in every trade And every silent thought that up doth spring In one mans brest doth every man invade No counsel-keeper nor no secret thing Will then be found They 'll need no whispering Not louder voice Let Orators be dumb Nor need the eager auditours make a ring Though every one keep himself close at home The silent Preachers thoughts through all the world will roam 19 Find each man out and in a moment hit With unavoided force Or sooth to sain They all begin at once to think what 's fit And all at once anon leave off again A thousand such incongruities vain Will follow from the first absurdity Which doth all souls into one centre strain And make them void of self-centrality Strange soul from whence first sprong so uncouth falsity 20 Now all the arguments that I have brought For to disprove the souls strange solitude That there is not one onely soul well mought Be urg'd and will with equall strength conclude To prove that God his creature hath indew'd With a self-centrall essence which from his Doth issue forth with proper raies embew'd And that not all the very Godhead is For that would straight beget the like absurdities 21 For he is indivisibly one being At once in every place and knoweth all He is omnipotent infinite in seeing Wherefore if Creatures intellectuall And in that order humane souls will fall Were God himself they would be alike wise Know one anothers thoughts imaginall Which no man doth such falshoods would arise With many more which an idiot might well despise 22 Nor will mens souls that now be different Be God himself hereafter and all one For thus they were quite lost their life ylent And subtill being quite away are flone This is a perfect contradiction They are all one with God and yet they are If they be one with God then they alone Did make themselves and every rolling starre For God alone made these and God himself they are 23 Before the Sun and all the host of heaven The earth the sea and mans deep centrall spright Before all these were made was not God even With his own self what then him moven might To waste his words and say Let there be light If the accomplishment of all things be That all be God himself This is not right No more perfection no more Entity There 's then then was in that eternall Silency 24 Or will you say that God himself delights To do and undo But how can this stand With self-sufficiency There 's nought that might Adde to His happinesse if I understand His nature right But He with open hand Doth easly feed the Creature that he made As easly Wherefore if the truth be scand This Goodnesse would that nought should be decay'd His mind is all should live no life he would should fade 25 But if the finall consummation Of all things make the Creature Deiform As Plato's school doth phrase it there is none That thence need fear to come to any harm For God himself will then inact inform And quicken humane souls at the last day And though the Devil rore and rage and storm Yet Deaths drad power shall be done away Nor living Night on men her poysonous beams shall ray 26 He hasten it that makes that glorious day For certainly it is no fearfull thing But unto pride and love of this base clay It s their destruction but the perfecting Of the just souls It unto them doth bring Their full desire to be more close unite With God and utter cleans'd from all their sin Long was the world involv'd in cloudy Night But at the last will shine the perfect Christian light 27 Thus the souls numerous plurality I 've prov'd and shew'd she is not very God But yet a decent Deiformity Have given her thus in the middle trod I safely went and fairly well have row'd As yet Part of my voyage is to come Which is to prove that the souls new aboad In heaven or hell what ever is her doom Nought hinders but past forms even there again may bloom 28 Which if they did not she could never tell Why she were thus rewarded wherefore ill Or good she doth enjoy whether ill or well She lived here Remembrance death did spill But otherwise it fares as was her will And inclination of her thirsty spright Impressions of like nature then doth fill Her lively mind whether with sad affright Disturb'd which she long fear'd or in hop'd-for delight 29 The life that here most strongly kindled was Sith she awakes in death must needs betray The soul to what nearest affinity has With her own self and likenesses do sway The mind to think of what ever did play In her own self with a like shape or form And contraries do help the memory So if the soul be left in case forlorn Remembrance of past joy makes her more deeply mourn 30 'T is also worth our observation That higher life doth ever comprehend The lower vitall acts sensation The soul some fitten hint doth promptly lend To find out plantall life sense is retaind In subtiller manner in the phantasie Al 's reason phantasies doth well perpend Then must the souls highest capacity Contain all under life Thus is their Memory 31 This faculty is very intimate And near the Centre very large and free Extends it self to whatsoever that The soul peracts There is no subtilty Of Intellect of Will nor Phantasie No Sense nor uncouth strange impression From damned Night or the blest Deity But of all these she hath retention And at their fresh approach their former shapes can own 32 This memorie the very bond of life You may well deem If it were cut away Our being truly then you might contrive Into a point of time The former day Were nought at all to us when once we lay Our selves to sleep we should not know at morn That e're we were before nor could we say A whit of sense so soon as off we turn One word that 's quite forgot Coherence thus is torn 33 Now sith it is of such necessitie And is the bundle of the souls duration The watchman of the soul lest she should flie Or steal from her own self a sure fixation And Centrall depth it hath and free dilation That it takes notice of each energie Of Phansie Sense or any Cogitation Wherefore this virtue no dependencie Hath of this body must be safe when it doth die 34 But if dispersed lifes collection Which is our memory safely survive Which well it may sith it depends not on The Mundane spirit what can fitly drive It into action In heaven she doth live
Nor yet fall short though close together bound At a farre distance from this sphear was pight More then the journey of ten thousand year An hundred times told over that swiftest flight Of bird should mete that distance did appear There was there pight a massie Orb of light Aequall with this dark Orb in bignesse right Half therefore just of this dark Orb was dight With goodly glistre and fair golden rayes And ever half was hid in horrid Night A duskish Cylindre through infinite space It did project which still unmoved staid Strange sight it was to see so endlesse shade Th' Diametre of that Nocturnall Roll Was the right Axis of this opake sphear On which eternally it round did roll In Aequinoctiall posture 't did appear So as when Libra weighs out in just weight An equall share to men of Day and Night Thus turning round by turns all came in view What ever did that massie Ball adorn Hills Valleys Woods themselves did plainly shew Towns Towers and holy Spires to Heaven born Long winding Rivers and broad foaming Seas Fair Chrystall springs fierce scorching thirst t' appease And all bespread were the huge Mountains green With Fleecy flocks and eke with hairy goats Great fields of Corn and Knee-deep grasse were seen Swine Oxen Horses Carriages Sheep-cotes What ere the Countrey or the walled town Can show with us the like things there were shown And look what ever that Half-sphear of light Did bear upon it the Ball turning round The same into the Hemisphear of Night Were carried And look what things were found In that dark Hemisphear were brought anon To th' Hemisphear the light did shine upon For sooth to say they both make up one Ball. The self same parts now dipt in deepest Night Anon recovered from their former fall Do shine all glorious deckt with gladsome light And oft PANGAION as it turn'd I red In mighty characters decyphered Th' Inhabitants of this big swollen sphear Were of two kinds well answering unto The diverse nature of each Hemisphear One foul deform'd and ghastly sad in show The other fair and full of lively mirth These two possest this Universall Earth They both had wings The foul much like a Bat Or forged Fiend and of a pitchy hew And ovall eyes like to a blinking Cat. The fair had silver wings all-glistering new With golden feathers set shap'd like a Doves Or lovely Swans that in Meander moves In other parts most like to spotlesse man Made out in comely due proportion Both with their wings uncessantly did fan The agil air but never light upon The moving Orb but in suspense they hovered Therefore Light these eternall Night those covered For though the Globe doth move it moves them not Passing as water underneath a brig Yet what thus passeth by they deem their lot Both of their deemed lots together lig To wit that Sphear with all its ornaments Nor yet that sphear them both alike contents For they on the dim side with fell uprore Do hideously houl and Nature blame For her ill works Enrag'd with fury sore Oft God himself they curse blaspheme his Name And all his creatures as they passen by In goodly pomp they view with scornfull eye Instead of hymnes they bold invectives make Against the Maker of that Universe My quivering quill and palfied hand do quake Now I recall to mind the wicked verse Which those bad men had fram'd in fell despight And foul detraction to the God of light And while with hollow howlings they did chaunt That hellish Ode Ravens more black then pitch And fatall Owles Dragons and what so wont To do or token mischeif every such Came flying round about t' encrease the sound Such sound as would with madnesse man confound When they had made an end of this ill ditty As execrable thing they would for sake This work of God and out of dear self-pitty Fly from the creatures and themselves betake To higher region but their labout's vain Fly never so high Night doth them still contain For the projection of that endlesse Roll Cast to unmeasured infinity Wearies to death their ill-deceived soul For nought but darknesse and obscurity They finden out by their high tedious flight But now I 'd turn'd me to the land of Light There might I see with lovely pleasant look And mild aspect the people all things view In terpreting right what ever seemed crook Crooked for crook'd is right and evil hew For evil shaped mind that fear may breed Good oft doth spring from evil-seeming seed Viewing the works of God they ever smil'd As seeing some resemblance of that face That they so dearly lov'd that undefil'd And spotlesse beauty that sweet awfull Grace Where Love and Majesty do alway sit And with eternall joy the viewer greet Ravisht with heavenly mirth and pure delight They sing a sacred song with chearfull voice It kindles holy pleasure within my spright As oft I think on that Angelick noise The living Spring of blisse they loudly praise Blesse all His creatures in their pious layes And while the creatures goodnesse they descry From their fair glimps they move themselves up higher Not through contempt or hate they from them fly Nor leave by flying but while they aspire To reach their fountain them with sight more clear They see As newly varnish'd all appear This is the mystery of that mighty Ball With different sides That side where grisly Night Doth sit bold men Melampronaea call The other side Lampropronaea hight Logos that Orb of light but Foolishnesse To speak plane English the Roll doth expresse These words I read or heard I know not whether Or thought or thought I thought It was a dream But yet from dreams wise men sound truth may gather And some ripe scatterings of high knowledge glean But where or heavy passions cloud the eyes Or prejudice there 's nothing can make wise QUae vis nunc agitat meas medullas Et cor molliculo ferire motu Ceptat percutiunt novi furores Mentem concipio novos amores Ah! nunc me fluidos abire in igneis Totum sentio Flamma mollis artue Dulcis vivida permeavit omneis Jucundúmque ciet calore sensum Toto corpore spiritúque toto Bellam hic laude suam efferat Fabullam Formosam ille suam canat Corinnam Me leni Monocardia urit igni Et sacrum instituit suum poetam Pulchra O Simplicitas beata virgo Tu vincis radios nitore Phoebes Tu stellas superas decore cunctas Nam quis pectora quis sinus apertos CandorÃsve tui potest tueri Thesauros niveos eburneósve Quin Luna imbrifera tepentis Austri Nube obscurior atque sydus omne Sit nigrum magis ac imago noctis Et Hyles tenebris nives ebúrque Quod si orbes hilares amabilésque Lucentésque tuor faces amorum Blandas illecebras ruit statim Sol Et lati species perit Diei Submersa in tenebris Meridianis O princeps Charitum Dea O
Dearum Coeli splendor unica O voluptas Humani generis catena nodis Auratis homines ligans Deósque Te circumvolitant leves Olympi Alati juvenes tuósque gressus Sustentant manibus suis tenellos Et firmant tua crura mollicella Dulcis cura Deûm Venúsque coeli O fons laetitiae piÃque lusus O ter pulchra puella blanda virgo Nostris molliter insidens medullis Coelestémque animo fovens amorem In coetu superûm locas Deorum SIng aloud His praise rehearse Who hath made the Universe He the boundlesse Heavens has spread All the vitall orbs has kned He that on Olympus high Tends his flocks with watchfull eye And this eye has multiplide Midst each flock for to reside Thus as round about they stray Toucheth each with out-strecth'd ray Nimble they hold on their way Shaping out their Night and Day Summer Winter Autumne Spring Their inclined Axes bring Never slack they none respires Dancing round their Centrall fires In due order as they move Echo's sweet be gently drove Thorough Heavens vast Hollownesse Which unto all corners presse Musick that the heart of Jove Moves to joy and sportfull love Fills the listning saylers eares Riding on the wandring Sphears Neither Speech nor Language is Where their voice is not transmisse God is good is Wise is Strong Witnesse all the creature-throng Is confess'd by every Tongue All things back from whence they sprong As the thankfull Rivers pay What they borrowed of the Sea Now my self I do resigne Take me whole I all am thine Save me God! from Self-desire Deaths pit dark Hells raging fire Envy Hatred Vengeance Ire Let not Lust my soul bemire Quit from these thy praise I 'll sing Loudly sweep the trembling string Bear a part O Wisdomes sonnes Free'd from vain Religions Lo from farre I you salute Sweetly warbling on my Lute Indie Egypt Arabie Asia Greece and Tartarie Carmel-tracts and Lebanon With the Mountains of the Moon From whence muddie Nile doth runne Or where ever else you wonne Breathing in one vitall air One we are though distant farre Rise at once let 's sacrifice Odours sweet perfume the skies See how Heavenly lightning fires Hearts inflam'd with high aspires All the substance of our souls Up in clouds of Incense rolls Leave we nothing to our selves Save a voice what need we els Or an hand to wear and tire On the thankfull Lute or Lyre Sing aloud His praise rehearse Who hath made the Universe Charitie and Humilitie FArre have I clambred in my mind But nought so great as love I find Deep-searching wit mount-moving might Are nought compar'd to that good spright Life of delight and soul of blisse Sure source of lasting happinesse Higher then Heaven lower then hell What is thy tent where maist thou dwell My mansion hight humilitie Heavens vastest capabilitie The further it doth downward tend The higher up it doth ascend If it go down to utmost nought It shall return with that it sought Lord stretch thy tent in my strait breast Enlarge it downward that sure rest May there be pight for that pure fire Wherewith thou wontest to inspire All self-dead souls My life is gone Sad solitude 's my irksome wonne Cut off from men and all this world In Lethes lonesome ditch I 'm hurld Nor might nor sight doth ought me move Nor do I care to be above O feeble rayes of mentall light That best be seen in this dark night What are you what is any strength If it be not laid in one length With pride or love I nought desire But a new life or quite t' expire Could I demolish with mine eye Strong towers stop the fleet stars in skie Bring down to earth the pale-fac'd Moon Or turn black midnight to bright Noon Though all things were put in my hand As parch'd as dry as th' Libyan sand Would be my life if Charity Were wanting But Humility Is more then my poore soul durst crave That lies intombd in lowly grave But if 't were lawfull up to send My voice to Heaven this should it rend Lord thrust me deeper into dust That thou maist raise me with the just THE TRIUMPH OR A Paraphrase upon the ninth Hymn of Synesius written in honour of Jesus the Son of Mary the SAVIOUR of the World O Lovely Child with Glory great arraid Sweet Of-spring of the Solymeian Maid Thee would I sing and thy renowned Acts For thou didst rid the boundlesse flowry tracts Of thy dear Fathers Garden from the spoyles Of the false Serpent and his treacherous toyles When thou hadst once descended to this earth A stranger wight ' mongst us of humane birth After some stay new voyage thou didst take Crossing cold Lethe and the Stygian Lake Arriv'st at the low fields of Tartara There where innumerable flocks do stray Of captive souls whom pale-fac'd Death doth feed Forc'd under his stiff Rod and churlish Reed Streight at thy sight how did that surly Sire Old Orcus quake and greedy Dogg retire From 's usuall watch whiles thou from slavish chain Whole swarms of souls to freedome dost regain Then ' ginst thou with thy immortall Quire to praise Thy Father and his strength to Heaven to raise Ascending thus with joy as thou dost fare Through the thin Sky the Legions of the Aire Accursed Fiends do tremble at thy sight And starry Troops wax pale at thy pure light But Ather master of queint Harmonies With smiling look on 's Musick doth devise Tunes his seven-corded Harp more trimly strung Then strikes up loudly thy Triumphall song Lucifer laughs bright Nuncio of the Day And golden Hesperus to hear him play The Moon begins a dance great Queen of Night Her hollow horns fill'd up with flusher light Titan his streaming locks along doth strow Under thy sacred feet more soft to go Doth homage to thee as to Gods dear Son And to the Spring whence his own light doth run Then thou drad Victour thy quick wings didst shake And suddenly ascend'st above the back Of the blew Skie In th' Intellectuall sphears Dispreadst thy self Where the still Fount appears Of inexhausted Good and silent Heaven Smiles without wrinckle ever constant even Unwearied Time this mansion connot seize Nor Hyles worm importunate Disease Here Aeon wons that cannot wexen old Though of his years the numbers no'te be told Youthfull and ag'd at once here doth he live And to the Gods unmov'd duration give 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 FINIS Notes upon Psychozoia Canto 1. Stanz 1. Vers 6. Psyche I 'll sing c. THe fittest