trade and purposes If this commerce twixt heauen and earth were not Embarr'd and all this trafique quite forgot Shee for whose losse we haue lamented thus Would worke more fully ' and pow'rfully on vs. Since herbes and roots by dying lose not all But they yea Ashes too are medicinall Death could not quench her vertue so but that It would be if not follow'd wondred at And all the world would be one dying Swan To sing her funerall praise and vanish than But as some Serpents poison hurteth not Except it be from the liue Serpent shot So doth her vertue need her here to fit That vnto vs she working more then it But she in whom to such maturity Vertue was growne past growth that it must die She from whose influence all Impression came But by Receiuers impotencies lame Who though she could not transubstantiate All states to gold yet guilded euery state So that some Princes haue some temperance Some Counsaylors some purpose to aduance The common profite and some people haue Some stay no more then Kings should giue to craue Some women haue some taciturnity Some Nunneries some graines of chastity She that did thus much and much more could doe But that our age was Iron and rusty too Shee shee is dead shee 's dead when thou knowest this Thou knowest how drie a Cinder this world is And learnst thus much by our Anatomy That'tis in vaine to dew or mollifie It with thy Teares or Sweat or Bloud no thing Is worth our trauaile griefe or perishing But those rich ioyes which did possesse her heart Of which shee 's now partaker and a part But as in cutting vp a man that 's dead The body will not last out to haue read On euery part and therefore men direct Their speech to parts that are of most effect So the worlds carcasse would not last if I Were punctuall in this Anatomy Nor smels it well to hearers if one tell Them their disease who faine would thinke they 're wel Here therefore be the end And blessed maid Of whom is meant what euer hath beene said Or shall be spoken well by any tongue Whose name refines course lines and makes prose song Accept this tribute and his first yeeres rent Who till his darke short tapers end be spent As oft as thy feast sees this widowed earth Will yearely celebrate thy second birth That is thy death For though the soule of man Be got when man is made 't is borne but than When man doth die Our body 's as the wombe And as a mid-wife death directs it home And you her creatures whom she workes vpon And haue your last and best concoction From her example and her vertue if you In reuerence to her doe thinke it due That no one should her prayses thus reherse As matter fit for Chronicle not verse Vouchsafe to call to minde that God did make A last and lastingst peece a song He spake To Moses to deliuer vnto all That song because he knew they would let fall The Law the Prophets and the History But keepe the song still in their memory Such an opinion in due measure made Me this great Office boldly to inuade Nor could incomprehensiblenesse deterre Me from thus trying to emprison her Which when I saw that a strict graue could doe I saw not why verse might not doe so too Verse hath a middle nature Heauen keepes soules The Graue keepes bodies Verse the same enroules A FVNERALL ELEGIE T Is lost to trust a Tombe with such a ghest Or to confine her in a Marble chest Alas what 's Marble Ieat or Porphiry Priz'd with the Chrysolite of either eye Or with those Pearles and Rubies which shee was Ioyne the two Indies in one Tombe 't is glas And so is all to her materials Though euery inche were ten escurials Yet shee 's demolished Can we keepe herthen In workes of hands or of the wits of mâ—n Can thâ—se memorials ragges of paper giue Life to that name by which name they must liue Sickly alas short-liu'd aborted bee Those Carkas verses whose soule is not shâ—e And can shee who no longer would be shâ—e Being such a Tabernacle stoope to bee In paper wrap't Or when she would not lie In such a house dwell in an Elegie But 't is no matter we may well allow Verse to liue so long as the world will now For her death wounded it The world containes Princes for armes and Counsailors for braines Lawyers for tongues Diuines for hearts and more The Rich for stomachs and for backes the Pore The officers for hands Merchants for feet By which remote and distant Countries meet But those fine spirits which doe tune and set This Organ are those peeces which beget Wonder and loue And these were shee and shee Being spent the world must needs decrepit bee For since death will proceed to triumph still He can finde nothing after her to kill Except the world it selfe so great as shee Thus braue and confident may Nature bee Death cannot giue her such another blow Because shee cannot such another show But must we say shee 's dead May 't not be said That as a sundred Clocke is peece-meale laid Not to be lost but by the makers hand Repolish'd without error then to stand Or as the Affrique Niger streame enwombs It selfe into the earth and after comes Hauing first made a naturall bridge to passe For many leagues farre greater then it was May 't not be said that her graue shall restore Her greater purer firmer then before Heauen may say this and ioy in 't but can wee Who liue and lacke her here this vantage see What is 't to vs alas if there haue beene An Angell made a Throne or Cherubin We lose by 't And as aged men are glad Being tastlesse growne to ioy in ioyes they had So now the sicke staru'd world must feed vpone This ioy that we had her who now is gone Reioyce then nature and this world that you Fearing the last fires hastning to subdue Your force and vigor ere it were neere gone Wisely bestow'd and laid it all on one One whose cleare body was so pure and thin Because it need disguise no thought within T' was but a through-light scarfe her minde t'enroule Or exhalation breath'd out from her soule Onâ— whom all men who durst no more admir'd And wâ—om who ere had worth enough desir'd As when a Temple 's built Saints emulate To which of them it shall be consecrate But as when Heauen lookes on vs with new eyes Those new starres euery Artist exercise What place they should assigne to them they doubt Argue and agree not till those starres goe out So the world studied whose this peece shâ—uld be Till she can be no bodies else nor shâ—e But like a Lampe of Balsamum desir'd Rather t' adorne then last shee soone expir'd Cloath'd in her Virgin white integrity For mariage though it doe not staine doth dye To scape th'infirmities which waite
forme that made it liue Nor could complaine that this world was vnfit To be staid in then when shee was in it Shee that first tried indifferent desires By vertue and vertue by religious fires Shee to whose person Paradise adhear'd As Courts to Princes shee whose eies enspheard Star-light inough t' haue made the South controll Had shee beene there the Star-full Northern Pole Shee shee is gone shee is gone when thou knowest this What fragmentary rubbidge this world is Thou knowest and that it is not worth a thought He honors it too much that thinks it nought Thinke then My soule that death is but a Groome Which brings a Taper to the outward romme Whence thou spiest first a little glimmering light And after brings it nearer to thy sight For such approches doth Heauen make in death Thinke thy selfe laboring now with broken breath And thinke those broken and soft Notes to bee Diuision and thy happiest Harmonee Thinke thee laid on thy death bed loose and slacke And thinke that but vnbinding of a packe To take one precious thing thy soule from thence Thinke thy selfe parch'd with feuers violence Anger thine Ague more by calling it Thy Physicke chide the slacknesse of the fit Thinke that thou hearst thy knell and thinke no more But that as Bels cal'd thee to Church before So this to the Triumphant Church cals thee Thinke Satans Sergeants round about thee bee And thinke that but for Legacies they thrust Giue one thy Pride to'another giue thy Lust Giue them those sinnes which they gaue thee before And trust th' immaculate blood to wash thy score Thinke thy frinds weeping round and thinke that thay Weepe but because they goe not yet thy way Thinke that they close thine eyes and thinke in this That they confesse much in the world amisse Who dare not trust a dead mans eye with that Which they from God and Angels couer not Thinke that they shroud thee vp and thinke from thence They reinuest thee in white innocence Thinke that thy body rots and if so lowe Thy soule exalted so thy thoughts can goe Thinke the a Prince who of themselues create Wormes which insensibly deuoure their state Thinke that they bury thee and thinke that right Laies thee to sleepe but a saint Lucies night Thinke these things cheerefully and if thou bee Drowsie or slacke remember then that shee Shee whose Complexion was so euen made That which of her Ingredients should inuade The other three no Feare no Art could guesse So far were all remou'd from more or lesse But as in Mithridate or iust perfumes Where all good things being met no one presumes To gouerne or to triumph no the rest Onely because all were no part was best And as though all doe know that quantities Are made of lines and lines from Points arise None can these lines or quantities vnioynt And say this is a line or this a point So though the Elements and Humors were In her one could not say this gouernes there Whose euen constitution might haue worne Any disease to venter on the Sunne Rather then her and make a spirit feare That he to disuniting subiect were To whose proportious if we would compare Cubes th' are vnstable Circles Angulare Shee who was such a Chaine as Fate emploies To bring mankind all Fortunes it enioies So fast so euen wrought as one would thinke No Accident could threaten any linke Shee shee embrac'd a sicknesse gaue it meat The purest Blood and Breath that ere it eat And hath taught vs that though a good man hath Title to Heauen and plead it by his Faith And though he may pretend a conquest since Heauen was content to suffer violence Yea though he plead along possession too For they' are in Heauen on Earth who Heauens workes do Though he had right and power and Place before Yet Death must vsher and vnlocke the doore Thinke further on thy selfe my soule and thinke How thou at first wast made but in a sinke Thinke that it argued some infermitee That those two soules which then thou foundst in mee Thou fedst vpon And drewst into thee both My second soule of sence and first of growth Thinke but how poore thou wast how obnoxious Whom a small lump of flesh could poison thus This curded milke this poore vnlittered whelpe My body could beyond escape or helpe Infect thee with originall sinne and thou Couldst neither then refuse nor leaue it now Thinke that no stubborne sullen Anchorit Which fixt to'a Pillar or a Graue doth sit Beddded and Bath'd in all his Ordures dwels So fowly as our soules in their first-built Cels. Thinke in how poore a prison thou didst lie After enabled but to sucke and crie Thinke when t' was growne to most t' was a poore Inne A Prouince Pack'd vp in two yards of skinne And that vsurped or threatned with the rage Of sicknesses or their true mother Age. But thinke that Death hath now enfranchis'd thee Thou hast thy'expausion now and libertee Thinke that a rusty Peece discharg'd is flowen In peeces and the bullet is his owne And freely flies This to thy soule allow Thinke thy shee l broke thinke thy Soule hatch'd but now And thinke this slow-pac'd soule which late did cleaue To'a body and went but by the bodies leaue Twenty perchance or thirty mile a day Dispatches in a minute all the way Twixt Heauen and Earth shee staies not in the Ayre To looke what Meteors there themselues prepare Shee carries no desire to know nor sense Whether th'Ayrs middle Region be intense For th' Element of fire shee doth not know Whether shee past by such a place or no Shee baits not at the Moone nor cares to trie Whether in that new world men liue and die Venus recards her not to'enquire how shee Can being one Star Hesper and Vesper bee Hee that charm'd Argus eies sweet Mercury Workes not on her who now is growen all Ey Who if shee meete the body of the Sunne Goes through not staying till his course be runne Who finds in Mars his Campe no corps of Guard Nor is by Ioue nor by his father bard But ere shee can consider how shee went At once is at and through the Firmament And as these stars were but so many beades Strunge on one string speed vndistinguish'd leades Her through those spheares as through the beades a string Whose quicke succession makes it still one thing As doth the Pith which least our Bodies slacke Strings fast the little bones of necke and backe So by the soule doth death string Heauen and Earth For when our soule enioyes this her third birth Creation gaue her one a second grace Heauen is as neare and present to her face As colours are and obiects in a roome Where darknesse was before when Tapers come This must my soule thy long-short Progresse bee To'aduance these thoughts remember then that shee Shee whose faire body no such prison was But that a soule might well be
More Antidote then all the world was ill Shee shee doth leaue it and by Death suruiue All this in Heauen whether who doth not striue The more because shee'is there he doth not know That accidentall ioyes in Heauen doe grow But pause My soule and study ere thou fall On accidentall ioyes th'essentiall Still before Accessories doe abide A triall must the principall be tride And what essentiall ioy canst thou expect Here vpon earth what permanent effect Of transitory causes Dost thou loue Beauty And Beauty worthyest is to moue Poore couse'ned cose'nor that she and that thou Which did begin to loue are neither now You are both fluid chang'd since yesterday Next day repaires but ill last daies decay Nor are Although the riuer keep the name Yesterdaies waters and to daies the same So flowes her face and thine eies neither now That saint nor Pilgrime which your louing row Concernd remaines but whil'st you thinke you bee Constant you' are howrely in inconstancee Honour may haue pretence vnto our loue Because that God did liue so long aboue Without this Honour and then lou'd it so That he at last made Creatures to to bestow Honor on him not that he needed it But that to his hands man might grow more fit But since all honors from inferiors flow For they doe giue it Princes doe but show Whom they would haue so honord and that this On such opinions and capacities Is built as rise and fall to more and lesse Alas t is but a casuall happinesse Hath euer any man to'himselfe assigned This or that happinesse to'arrest his minde But that another man which takes a worse Thinke him a foole for hauing tane that course They who did labour Babels tower to'rect Might haue considerd that for that effect All this whole solid Earth could not allow Nor furnish forth Materials enow And that this Center to raise such a place Was far to little to haue beene the Base No more affoords this worlds foundatione To erect true ioye were all the meanes in one But as the Heathen made them seuerall gods Of all Gods Benefits and all his Rods For as the Wine and Corne and Onions are Gods vnto them so Agues bee and war And as by changing that whole precious Gold To such small copper coynes they lost the old And lost their onely God who euer must Be sought alone and not in such a thrust So much mankind true happinesse mistakes No Ioye enioyes that man that many makes Then soule to thy first'pitch worke vpon againe Know that all lines which circles doe containe For once that they the center touch do touch Twice the circumference and be thou such Double on Heauen thy thoughts on Earth emploid All will not serue Onely who haue enioyd The sight of God in fulnesse can thinke it For it is both the obiect and the wit This is essentiall ioye where neither hee Can suffer Diminution nor wee T is such a full and such a filling good Had th'Angels once look'd on him they had stood To fill the place of one of them or more Shee whom we celebrate is gone before Shee who had Here so much essentiall ioye As no chance could distract much lesse destroy Who with Gods presence was acquainted so Hearing and speaking to him as to know His face in any naturall Stone or Tree Better then when in Images they bee Who kept by diligent deuotion Gods Image in such reparation Within her heart that what decay was growen Was her first Parents fault and not her own Who being solicited to any Act Still heard God pleading his safe precontract Who by a faithfull confidence was here Betrothed to God and now is married there Whose twilights were more cleare then our mid day Who dreamt deuoutlier then most vse to pray Who being heare fild with grace yet stroue to bee Both where more grace and more capacitee At once is giuen shee to Heauen is gone Who made this world in some proportion A heauen and here became vnto vs all Ioye as our ioyes admit essentiall But could this low world ioyes essentiall touch Heauens accidentall ioyes would passe them much How poore and lame must then our casuall bee If thy Prince will his subiects to call thee My Lord and this doe swell thee thou art than By being a greater growen to be lesse Man When no Physician of Reders can speake A ioyfull casuall violence may breake A dangerous Apostem in thy brest And whilst thou ioyest in this the dangerous rest The bag may rise vp and so strangle thee What eie was casuall may euer bee What should the Nature change Or make the same Certaine which was but casuall when it came All casuall ioye doth loud and plainly say Onely by comming that it can away Onely in Heauen ioies strength is neuer spent And accidentall things are permanent Ioy of a soules arriuall neere decaies For that soule euer ioyes and euer staies Ioy that their last great Consummation Approches in the resurrection When earthly bodies more celestiall Shalbe then Angels were for they could fall This kind of ioy doth euery day admit Degrees of grouth but none of loosing it In this fresh ioy t is no small part that shee Shee in whose goodnesse he that names degree Doth iniure her T is losse to be cald best There where the stuffe is not such as the rest Shee who left such a body as euen shee Onely in Heauen could learne how it can bee Made better for shee rather was two soules Or like to full on both sides written Rols Where eies might read vpon the outward skin As strong Records for God as mindes within Shee who by making full perfection grow Peeces a Circle and still keepes it so Long'd for and longing for'it to heauen is gone Where shee receiues and giues addition Here in a place where mis-deuotion frames A thousand praiers to saints whose very names The ancient Church knew not Heauen knowes not yet And where what lawes of poetry admit Lawes of religion haue at least the same Immortall Maid I might inroque thy name Could any Saint prouoke that appetite Thou here shouldst make mee a french conuertite But thou wouldst not nor wouldst thou be content To take this for my second yeeres true Rent Did this Coine beare any other stampe then his That gaue thee power to doe me to say this Since his will is that to posteritee Thou shouldest for life and death a patterne bee And that the world should notice haue of this The purpose and th'Autority is his Thou art the Proclamation and I ame The Trumpet at whose voice the people came FINIS The entrie into the worke What life the world hath 〈◊〉 The sicknesses of the world Impossibility of health Shortnesse of life Smalnesse of stature Decay of nature in other parts Disformity of parts Disorder in the world Weaknesse in the want of correspondence of heauen and earth Conclusion The entrance A iust dis-estimation of this world Contemplation of our state in our death-bed Incommodities of the Soule in the Body Her liberty by death Her ignorance in this life and knowledge in the next Of our company in this life and in the next Of essentiall ioy in this life and in the next Of accidentall ioyes in both places Conclusion
confidence growes weake This new world may be safer being told The dangers and diseases of the old For with due temper men do then forgoe Or couet things when they their true worth know There is no health Phisitians say that wee At best enioy but a neutralitee And can there be worse sicknesse then to know That we are neuer well nor can be so We are borne ruinous poore mothers crie That children come not right nor orderly Except they headlong come and fall vpon An ominous precipitation How witty's ruine how importunate Vpon mankinde It labour'd to frustrate Euen Gods purpose and made woman sent For mans reliefe cause of his languishment They were to good ends and they are so still But accessory and principall in ill For that first mariage was our funerall One woman at one blow then kill'd vs all And singly one by one they kill vs now We doe delightfully our selues allow To that consumption and profusely blinde We kill our selues to propagate our kinde And yet we doe not that we are not men There is not now that mankinde which was then When as the Sunne and man did seeme to striue Ioynt tenants of the world who should suruie When Stag and Rauen and the long-liu'd tree Compar'd withman dy'de in minoritee When if a slow-pac'd starre had stolne away From the obseruers marking he might stay Two or three hundred yeeres to see 't againe And then make vp his obseruation plaine When as the age was long the the sise was great Mans grouth confess'd and recompenc'd the meat So spacious and large that euery soule Did a faire Kingdome and large Realme controule And when the very stature thus erect Did that soule a good way towards Heauen direct Where is this mankind now who liues to age Fit to be made Methusalem his page Alas we scarse liue long enough to trie Whether a true made clocke run right or lie Old Grandsires talke of yesterday with sorrow And for our children we reserue to morrow So short is life that euery peasant striues In a torne house or field to haue three liues And as in lasting so in length is man Contracted to an inch who was a span For had a man at first in Forrests stray'd Or shipwrack'd in the Sea one would haue laid A wager that an Elephant or Whale That met him would not hastily assaile A thing so equal to him now alas The Fayries and the Pigmies well may passe As credible mankind decayes so soone We 're searse our Fathers shadowes cast at noone Onely death addes t' our length nor are we growne In stature to be men till we are none But this were light did our lesse volume hold All the old Text or had we chang'd to gold Their siluer or dispos'd into lesse glas Spirits of vertue which then scattred was But 't is not so w' are not retir'd but dampt And as our bodies so our mindes are cramp't 'T is shrinking not close-weaning that hath thus In minde and body both bedwarfed vs. We seeme ambitious Gods whole worke t' vndoe Of nothing he made vs and we striue too To bring our selues to nothing backe and we Do what we can to do 't so soone as hee With new diseases on our selues we warre And with new phisicke a worse Engin farre Thus man this worlds Vice-Emperor in whom All faculties all graces are at home And if in other Creatures they appeare They 're but mans ministers and Legats there To worke on their rebellions and reduce Them to Ciuility and to mans vse This man whom God did wooe and loth t' attend Till man came vp did downe to man descend This man so great that all that is is his Oh what a trifle and poore thing he is If man were any thing he 's nothing now Helpe or at least some time to wast allow T' his other wants yet when he did depart With her whom we lament he lost his heart She of whom th'Ancients seem'd to prophesie When they call'd vertues by the name of shee She in whom vertue was so much refin'd That for Allay vnto so pure a minde Shee tooke the weaker Sex she that could driue The poysonous tincture and the stayne of Eue Out of her thoughts and deeds and purifie All by a true religious Alchimy Shee shee is dead shee 's dead when thou knowest this Thou knowest how poore a trifling thing man is And learn'st thus much by our Anatomee The heart being perish'd no part can be free And that except thou feed not banquet on The supernaturall food Religion Thy better Grouth growes withered and scant Be more than man or thou' rt lesse then an Ant. Then as mankinde so is the worlds whole frame Quite out of ioynt almost created lame For before God had made vp all the rest Corruption entred and deprau'd the best It seis'd the Angels and then first of all The world did in her Cradle take a fall And turn'd her brains and tooke a generall maime Wronging each ioynt of th' vniuersall frame The noblest part man felt it first and than Both beasts and plants curst in the curse of man So did the world from the first houre decay That euening was beginning of the day And now the Springs and Sommers which we see Like sonnes of women after fifty bee And new Philosophy cals all in doubt The Element of fire is quite put out The Sunne is lost and th' earth and no mans wit Can wel direct him where to looke for it And freely men confesse that this world 's spent When in the Planets and the Firmament They seeke so many new they see that this Is crumbled out againe to his Atomis 'T is all in pieces all cohaerence gone All iust supply and all Relation Prince Subiect Father Sonne are things forgot For euery man alone thinkes he hath got To be a Phoenix and that then can bee None of that kinde of which he is but hee This is the worlds condition now and now She that should all parts to reunion bow She that had all Magnetique force alone To draw and fasten sundred parts in one She whom wise nature had inuented then When she obseru'd that every sort of men Did in their voyage in this worlds Sea stray And needed a new compasse fo their way Shee that was best and first originall Of all faire copies and the generall Steward to Fate shee whose rich eyes and brest Guilt the West Indies and perfum'd the East Whose hauing breath'd in this world did bestow Spice on those Isles and bad them still smell so And that rich Indie which doth gold interre Is but as single money coyn'd from her She to whom this world must it selfe refer As Suburbs or the Microcosme of her Shee shee is dead shee 's dead when thou knowest this Thou knowst how lame a cripple this world is And learnst thus much by our Anatomy That this worlds generall sickenes doth not lie In any humour or