our land waters teares of passion vent Our waters then above our firmament Teares which our Soule doth for her sins let fall Take all a brackish tast and Funerall And even those teares which should wash sin are sin We after Gods Noe drowne the world againe Nothing but man of all invenom'd things Doth worke upon itselfe with inborne stings Teares are false Spectacles we cannot see Through passions mist what wee are or what shee In her this sea of death hath made no breach But as the tide doth wash the slimie beach And leaves embroderd workes upon the sand So is her flesh refin'd by deaths cold hand As men of China ' after an ages stay Do take up Porcelane where they buried Clay So at this grave her limbecke which refines The Diamonds Rubies Saphires Pearles Mines Of which this flesh was her soule shall inspire Flesh of such stuffe as God when his last fire Annuls this world to recompence it shall Make and name then th'Elixar of this All. They say the sea when it gaines loseth too If carnall Death the yonger brother doe Usurpe the body 'our soule which subject is To th' elder death by sinne is freed by this They perish both when they attempt the just For graves our trophies are and both deaths dust So unobnoxious now she'hath buried both For none to death sinnes that to sinne is loth Nor doe they die which are not loth to die So hath she this and that virginity Grace was in her extremely diligent That kept her from sinne yet made her repent Of what small spots pure white complaines Alas How little poyson cracks a christall glasse She sinn'd but just enough to let us see That extreme truth lack'd little of a lye Making omissions acts laying the touch Of sinne on things that sometimes may be such As Moses Cherubines whose natures doe Surpasse all speed by him are winged too So would her soule already'in heaven seeme then To clyme by teares the common staires of men How fit she was for God I am content To speake that death his vaine hast may repent How fit for us how even and how sweet How good in all her titles and how meet To have reform'd this forward heresie That woman can no parts of friendship bee How Morall how Divine shall not be told Lest they that heare her vertues thinke her old And lest we take Deaths part and make him glad Of such a prey and to his tryumph adde Elegie on Mris Boulstred DEath I recant and say unsaid by mee What ere hath slip'd that might diminish thee Spirituall treason atheisme 't is to say That any can thy Summons disobey Th' earths face is but thy Table there are set Plants cattell men dishes for Death to eate In a rude hunger now hee millions drawes Into his bloody or plaguy or sterv'd jawes Now hee will seeme to spare and doth more wast Eating the best first well preserv'd to last Now wantonly he spoiles and eates us not But breakes off friends and lets us peecemeale rot Nor will this earth serve him he sinkes the deepe Where harmelesse fish monastique silence keepe Who were Death dead by Roes of living sand Might spunge that element and make it land He rounds the aire and breakes the hymnique notes In birds Heavens choristers organique throats Which if they did not dye might seeme to bee A tenth ranke in the heavenly hierarchie O strong and long-liv'd death how cam'st thou in And how without Creation didst begin Thou hast and shalt see dead before thou dyest All the foure Monarchies and Antichrist How could I thinke thee nothing that see now In all this All nothing else is but thou Our births and life vices and vertues bee Wastfull consumptions and degrees of thee For wee to live our bellowes weare and breath Nor are wee mortall dying dead but death And though thou beest O mighty bird of prey So much reclaim'd by God that thou must lay All that thou kill'st at his feet yet doth hee Reserve but few and leaves the most to thee And of those few now thou hast overthrowne One whom thy blow makes not ours nor thine own She was more stories high hopelesse to come To her Soule thou'hast offer'd at her lower roome Her Soule and body was a King and Court But thou hast both of Captaine mist and fort As houses fall not though the King remove Bodies of Saints rest for their soules above Death gets'twixt soules and bodies such a place As sinne insinuates 'twixt just men and grace Both worke a separation no divorce Her Soule is gone to usherup her corse Which shall be'almost another soule for there Bodies are purer then best Soules are here Because in her her virtues did outgoe Her yeares would'st thou O emulous death do so And kill her young to thy losse must the cost Of beauty ' and wit apt to doe harme be lost What though thou found'st her proofe'gainst sins of youth Oh every age a diverse sinne pursueth Thou should'st have stay'd and taken better hold Shortly ambitious covetous when old She might have prov'd and such devotion Might once have stray'd to superstition If all her vertues must have growne yet might Abundant virtue'have bred a proud delight Had she persever'd just there would have bin Some that would sinne mis-thinking she did sinne Such as would call her friendship love and faine To sociablenesse a name profane Or sinne by tempting or not daring that By wishing though they never told her what Thus might'st thou'have slain more soules had'st thou not crost Thy selfe and to triumph thine army lost Yet though these wayes be lost thou hast left one Which is immoderate griefe that she is gone But we may scape that sinne yet weepe as much Our teares are due because we are not such Some teares that knot of friends her death must cost Because the chaine is broke but no linke lost To Sr Henry Goodyere WHo makes the Past a patterne for next yeare Turnes no new leafe but still the same things reads Seene things he sees againe heard things doth heare And makes his life but like a paire of beads A Palace when 't is that which it should be Leaves growing and stands such or else decayes But hee which dwels there is not so for hee Strives to urge upward and his fortune raise So had your body'her morning hath her noone And shall not better her next change is night But her faire larger guest to'whom Sun and Moone Are sparkes and short liv'd claimes another right The noble Soule by age growes lustier Her appetite and her digestion mend Wee must not sterve nor hope to pamper her With womens milke and pappe unto the end Provide you manlyer dyet you have seene All libraries which are Schools Camps Courts But aske your Garners if you have not beene In harvests too indulgent to your sports Would you redeeme it then your selfe transplant A while from hence Perchance outlandish ground Beares no
comparison The onely measure is and judge opinion HOLY SONNETS La Corona 1. DEigne at my hands this crown of prayer and praise Weav'd in my low devout melancholie Thou which of good hast yea art treasury All changing unchang'd Antient of dayes But doe not with a vile crowne of fraile bayes Reward my muses white sincerity But what thy thorny crowne gain'd that give mee A crowne of Glory which doth flower alwayes The ends crowne our workes but thou crown'st our ends For at our end begins our endlesse rest The first last end now zealously possest With a strong sober thirst my soule attends 'T is time that heart and voice be lifted high Salvation to all that will is nigh ANNVNCIATION 2 Salvation to all that will is nigh That All which alwayes is All every where Which cannot sinne and yet all sinnes must beare Which cannot die yet cannot chuse but die Loe faithfull Virgin yeelds himselfe to lye In prison in thy wombe and though he there Can take no sinne nor thou give yet he'will weare Taken from thence flesh which deaths force may trie Ere by the spheares time was created thou Wast in his minde who is thy Sonne and Brother Whom thou conceiv'st conceiv'd yea thou art now Thy Makers maker and thy Fathers mother Thou'hast light in darke and shutst in little roome Immensity cloysterd in thy deare wombe NATIVITIE 3 Immensitie cloysterd in thy deare wombe Now leaves his welbelov'd imprisonment There he hath made himselfe to his intent Weake enough now into our world to come But Oh for thee for him hath th'Inne no roome Yet lay him in this stall and from the Orient Starres and wisemen will travell to prevent Th' effects of Herods jealous generall doome Seest thou my Soule with thy faiths eyes how he Which fils all place yet none holds him doth lye Was not his pity towards thee wondrous high That would have need to be pittied by thee Kisse him and with him into Egypt goe With his kinde mother who partakes thy woe TEMPLE 4 With his kinde mother who partakes thy woe Ioseph turne backe see where your child doth sit Blowing yea blowing out those sparks of wit Which himselfe on the Doctors did bestow The Word but lately could not speake and loe It sodenly speakes wonders whence comes it That all which was and all which should be writ A shallow seeming child should deeply know His Godhead was not soule to his manhood Nor had time mellowed him to this ripenesse But as for one which hath a long taske 'T is good With the Sunne to beginne his businesse He in his ages morning thus began By miracles exceeding power of man CRVCIFYING 5 By miracles exceeding power of man Hee faith in some envie in some begat For what weake spirits admire ambitious hate In both affections many to him ran But Oh! the worst are most they will and can Alas and do unto the immaculate Whose creature Fate is now prescribe a Fate Measuring selfe-lifes infinity to span Nay to an inch loe where condemned hee Beares his owne crosse with paine yet by and by When it beares him he must beare more and die Now thou art lifted up draw mee to thee And at thy death giving such liberall dole Moyst with one drop of thy blood my dry soule RESVRRECTION 6 Moyst with one drop of thy blood my dry soule Shall though she now be in extreme degree Too stony hard and yet too fleshly bee Freed by that drop from being starv'd hard or foule And life by this death abled shall controule Death whom thy death slue nor shall to mee Feare of first or last death bring miserie If in thy little booke my name thou enroule Flesh in that long sleep is not putrified But made that there of which and for which 't was Nor can by other meanes be glorified May then sinnes sleep and death soone from me passe That wak't from both I againe risen may Salute the last and everlasting day ASCENTION 7 Salute the last and everlasting day Joy at the uprising of this Sunne and Sonne Yee whose just teares or tribulation Have purely washt or burnt your drossie clay Behold the Highest parting hence away Lightens the darke clouds which hee treads upon Nor doth hee by ascending show alone But first hee and hee first enters the way O strong Ramme which hast batter'd heaven for mee Mild lambe which with thy blood hast mark'd the path Bright torch which shin'st that I the way may see Oh with thy owne blood quench thy owne just wrath And if thy holy Spirit my Muse did raise Deigne at my hands this crowne of prayer and praise Holy Sonnets I. AS due by many titles I resigne My selfe to thee O God first I was made By thee and for thee and when I was decay'd Thy blood bought that the which before was thine I am thy sonne made with thy selfe to shine Thy servant whose paines thou hast still repaid Thy sheepe thine Image and till I betray'd My selfe a temple of thy Spirit divine Why doth the devill then usurpe on mee Why doth he steale nay ravish that 's thy right Except thou rise and for thine owne worke fight Oh I shall soone despaire when I doe see That thou lov'st mankind well yet wilt'not chuse me And Satan hates mee yet is loth to lose mee II. Oh my blacke Soule now thou art summoned By sicknesse deaths herald and champion Thou art like a pilgrim which abroad hath done Treason and durst not turne to whence hee is fled Or like a thiefe which till deaths doome be read Wisheth himselfe delivered from prison But damn'd and hal'd to execution Wisheth that still he might be imprisoned Yet grace if thou repent thou canst not lacke But who shall give thee that grace to beginne Oh make thy selfe with holy mourning blacke And red with blushing as thou art with sinne Or wash thee in Christs blood which hath this might That being red it dyes red soules to white III. This is my playes last scene here heavens appoint My pilgrimages last mile and my race Idly yet quickly runne hath this last pace My spans last inch my minutes latest point And gluttonous death will instantly unjoynt My body and my soule and I shall sleepe a space But my'ever-waking part shall see that face Whose feare already shakes my every joynt Then as my soule to'heaven her first seate takes flight And earth borne body in the earth shall dwell So fall my sinnes that all may have their right To where they' are bred and would presse me to hell Impute me righteous thus purg'd of evill For thus I leave the world the flesh the devill IV. At the round earths imagin'd corners blow Your trumpets Angells and arise arise From death you numberlesse infinities Of soules and to your scattred bodies goe All whom the flood did and fire shall o'erthrow All whom warre death age agues tyrannies Despaire law chance hath slaine and you whose eyes Shall behold God and
not an artificiall day In this you'have made the Court the Antipodes And will'd your Delegate the vulgar Sunne To doe profane autumnall offices Whilst here to you wee sacrificers runne And whether Priests or Organs you wee'obey We sound your influence and your Dictates say Yet to that Deity which dwels in you Your vertuous Soule I now not sacrifice These are Petitions and not Hymnes they sue But that I may survay the edifice In all Religions as much care hath bin Of Temples frames and beauty ' as Rites within As all which goe to Rome doe not thereby Esteeme religions and hold fast the best But serve discourse and curiosity With that which doth religion but invest And shunne th'entangling laborinths of Schooles And make it wit to thinke the wiser fooles So in this pilgrimage I would behold You as you' are vertues temple not as shee What walls of tender christall her enfold What eyes hands bosome her pure Altars bee And after this survay oppose to all Bablers of Chappels you th'Escuriall Yet not as consecrate but merely'as faire On these I cast a lay and country eye Of past and future stories which are rare I finde you all record and prophecie Purge but the booke of Fate that it admit No sad nor guilty legends you are it If good and lovely were not one of both You were the transcript and originall The Elements the Parent and the Growth And every peece of you is both their All So'intire are all your deeds and you that you Must do the same things still you cannot two But these as nice thinne Schoole divinity Serves heresie to furder or represse Tast of Poëtique rage or flattery And need not where all hearts one truth professe Oft from new proofes and new phrase new doubts grow As strange attire aliens the men wee know Leaving then busie praise and all appeale To higher Courts senses decree is true The Mine the Magazine the Commonweale The story of beauty ' in Twicknam is and you Who hath seene one would both As who had bin In Paradise would seeke the Cherubin To Sr Edward Herbert at Iulyers MAn is a lumpe where all beasts kneaded bee Wisdome makes him an Arke where all agree The foole in whom these beasts do live at jarre Is sport to others and a Theater Nor scapes hee so but is himselfe their prey All which was man in him is eate away And now his beasts on one another feed Yet couple'in anger and new monsters breed How happy'is hee which hath due place assign'd To'his beasts and disaforested his minde Empail'd himselfe to keepe them out not in Can sow and dares trust corne where they have bin Can use his horse goate wolfe and every beast And is not Asse himselfe to all the rest Else man not onely is the heard of swine But he 's those devills too which did incline Them to a headlong rage and made them worse For man can adde weight to heavens heaviest curse As Soules they say by our first touch take in The poysonous tincture of Originall sinne So to the punishments which God doth fling Our apprehension contributes the sting To us as to his chickins he doth cast Hemlocke and wee as men his hemlocke taste We do infuse to what he meant for meat Corrosivenesse or intense cold or heat For God no such specifique poyson hath As kills we know not how his fiercest wrath Hath no antipathy but may be good At lest for physicke if not for our food Thus man that might be'his pleasure is his rod And is his devill that might be his God Since then our businesse is to rectifie Nature to what she was wee'are led awry By them who man to us in little show Greater then due no forme we can bestow On him for Man into himselfe can draw All All his faith can swallow ' or reason chaw All that is fill'd and all that which doth fill All the round world to man is but a pill In all it workes not but it is in all Poysonous or purgative or cordiall For knowledge kindles Calentures in some And is to others jcy Opium As brave as true is that profession than Which you doe use to make that you know man This makes it credible you have dwelt upon All worthy bookes and now are such an one Actions are authors and of those in you Your friends finde every day a mart of new To the Countesse of Bedford T' Have written then when you writ seem'd to mee Worst of spirituall vices Simony And not t' have written then seemes little lesse Then worst of civill vices thanklessenesse In this my doubt I seem'd loath to confesse In that I seem'd to shunne beholdingnesse But 't is not soe nothing as I am may Pay all they have and yet have all to pay Such borrow in their payments and owe more By having leave to write so then before Yet since rich mines in barren grounds are showne May not I yeeld not gold but coale or stone Temples were not demolish'd though prophane Here Peter Ioves there Paul have Dian's Fane So whether my hymnes you admit or chuse In me you'have hallowed a Pagan Muse And denizend a stranger who mistaught By blamers of the times they mard hath sought Vertues in corners which now bravely doe Shine in the worlds best part or all in you I have beene told that vertue'in Courtiers hearts Suffers an Ostracisme and departs Profit ease fitnesse plenty bid it goe But whither only knowing you I know Your or you vertue two vast uses serves It ransomes one sex and one Court preserves There 's nothing but your worth which being true Is knowne to any other not to you And you can never know it To admit No knowledge of your worth it some of it But since to you your praises discords bee Stop others ills to meditate with mee Oh! to confesse wee know not what we sould Is halfe excuse wee know not what we would Lightnesse depresseth us emptinesse fills We sweat and faint yet still goe downe the hills As new Philosophy arrests the Sunne And bids the passive earth about it runne So wee have dull'd our minde it hath no ends Onely the bodie 's busie and pretends As dead low earth ecclipses and controules The quick high Moone so doth the body Soules In none but us are such mixt engines found As hands of double office For the ground We till with them and them to heav'n wee raise Who prayer-lesse labours or without this prayes Doth but one halfe that 's none He which said Plough And looke not back to looke up doth allow Good sced degenerates and oft obeyes The soyles disease and into cockle strayes Let the minds thoughts be but transplanted so Into the body ' and bastardly they grow What hate could hurt our bodies like our love Wee but no forraigne tyrans could remove These not ingrav'd but inborne dignities Caskets of soules Temples and Palaces For bodies shall from death redeemed bee Soules but
that vertuous man there was And as if man feeds on mans flesh and so Part of his body to another owe Yet at the last two perfect bodies rise Because God knowes where every Atome lyes So if one knowledge were made of all those Who knew his minutes well hee might dispose His vertues into names and ranks but I Should injure Nature Vertue and Destinie Should I divide and discontinue so Vertue which did in one intirenesse grow For as hee that would say spirits are fram'd Of all the purest parts that can be nam'd Honours not spirits halfe so much as hee Which sayes they have no parts but simple bee So is't of vertue for a point and one Are much entirer then a million And had Fate meant to have his vertues told It would have let him live to have beene old So then that vertue in season and then this We might have seene and said that now he is Witty now wise now temperate now just In good short lives vertues are faine to thrust And to be sure betimes to get a place When they would exercise lacke time and space So was it in this person forc'd to bee For lack of time his owne epitome So to exhibit in few yeares as much As all the long breath'd Chronicles can touch As when an Angell down from heav'n doth flye Our quick thought cannot keepe him company Wee cannot thinke now hee is at the Sunne Now through the Moon now he through th' aire doth run Yet when he 's come we know he did repaire To all twixt Heav'n and Earth Sunne Moon and Aire And as this Angell in an instant knowes And yet wee know this sodaine knowledge growes By quick amassing severall formes of things Which he successively to order brings When they whose slow-pac'd lame thoughts cannot goe So fast as hee thinke that he doth not so Just as a perfect reader doth not dwell On every syllable nor stay to spell Yet without doubt hee doth distinctly see And lay together every A and B So in short liv'd good men is'not understood Each severall vertue but the compound good For they all vertues paths in that pace tread As Angells goe and know and as men read O why should then these men these lumps of Balme Sent hither the worlds tempest to becalme Before by deeds they are diffus'd and spred And so make us alive themselves be dead O Soule O circle why so quickly bee Thy ends thy birth and death clos'd up in thee Since one foot of thy compasse still was plac'd In heav'n the other might securely'have pac'd In the most large extent through every path Which the whole world or man the abridgment hath Thou knowst that though the tropique circles have Yea and those small ones which the Poles engrave All the same roundnesse evennesse and all The endlesnesse of the equinoctiall Yet when we come to measure distances How here how there the Sunne affected is When he doth faintly worke and when prevaile Onely great circles then can be our scale So though thy circle to thy selfe expresse All tending to thy endlesse happinesse And wee by our good use of it may trye Both how to live well young and how to die Yet since we must be old and age endures His Torrid Zone at Court and calentures Of hot ambitions irrelegions ice Zeales agues and hydroptique avarice Infirmities which need the scale of truth As well as lust and ignorance of youth Why did'st thou not for these give medicines too And by thy doing tell us what to doe Though as small pocket-clocks whose every wheele Doth each mismotion and distemper feele Whose hands get shaking palsies and whose string His sinewes slackens and whose Soule the spring Expires or languishes whose pulse the flye Either beates not or beates unevenly Whose voice the Bell doth rattle or grow dumbe Or idle ' as men which to their last houres come If these clockes be not wound or be wound still Or be not set or set at every will So youth is easiest to destruction If then wee follow all or follow none Yet as in great clocks which in steeples chime Plac'd to informe whole towns to'imploy their time An error doth more harme being generall When small clocks faults only'on the wearer fall So worke the faults of age on which the eye Of children servants or the State relie Why wouldst not thou then which hadst such a soule A clock so true as might the Sunne controule And daily hadst from him who gave it thee Instructions such as it could never be Disordered stay here as a generall And great Sun-dyall to have set us All O why wouldst thou be any instrument To this unnaturall course or why consent To this not miracle but Prodigie That when the ebbs longer then flowings be Vertue whose flood did with thy youth begin Should so much faster ebb out then flow'in Though her flood was blowne in by thy first breath All is at once sunke in the whirle-poole death Which word I would not name but that I see Death else a desert growne a Court by thee Now I grow sure that if a man would have Good companie his entry is a grave Mee thinkes all Cities now but Anthills bee Where when the severall labourers I see For children house Provision taking paine They' are all but Ants carrying eggs straw and grain And Church-yards are our cities unto which The most repaire that are in goodnesse rich There is the best concourse and confluence There are the holy suburbs and from thence Begins Gods City New Jerusalem Which doth extend her utmost gates to them At that gate then Triumphant soule dost thou Begin thy Triumph But since lawes allow That at the Triumph day the people may All that they will ' gainst the Triumpher say Let me here use that freedome and expresse My griefe though not to make thy Triumph lesse By law to Triumphs none admitted bee Till they as Magistrates get victorie Though then to thy force all youthes foes did yield Yet till fit time had brought thee to that field To which thy ranke in this state destin'd thee That there thy counsailes might get victorie And so in that capacitie remove All jealousies 'twixt Prince and subjects love Thou could'st no title to this triumph have Thou didst intrude on death usurp'st a grave That though victoriously thou hadst fought as yet But with thine owne affections with the heate Of youths desires and colds of ignorance But till thou should'st successefully advance Thine armes'gainst forraine enemies which are Both Envy and acclamation popular For both these engines equally defeate Though by a divers Mine those which are great Till then thy War was but a civill War For which to Triumph none admitted are No more are they who though with good successe â—n a defensive war their power expresse Before men triumph the dominion Must be enlarg'd and not preserv'd alone Why should'st thou then whose battailes were to win Thy selfe from those straits
Wardship to thine Angels be Native in heavens faire Palaces Where we shall be but denizen'd by thee As th' earth conceiving by the Sunne Yeelds faire diversitie Yet never knowes which course that light doth run So let mee study that mine actions bee Worthy their sight though blinde in how they see VII The Patriarches And let thy Patriarches Desire Those great Grandfathers of thy Church which saw More in the cloud then wee in fire Whom Nature clear'd more then us grace and law And now in Heaven still pray that wee May use our new helpes right Be sanctified and fructifie in mee Let not my minde be blinder by more light Nor Faith by Reason added lose her sight VIII The Prophets Thy Eagle-sighted Prophets too Which were thy Churches Organs and did sound That harmony which made of two One law and did unite but not confound Those heavenly Poëts which did see Thy will and it expresse In rythmique feet in common pray for mee That I by them excuse not my excesse In seeking secrets or Poëtiquenesse IX The Apostles And thy illustrious Zodiacke Of twelve Apostles which ingirt this All From whom whosoever do not take Their light to darke deep pits throw downe and fall As through their prayers thou'hast let mee know That their bookes are divine May they pray still and be heard that I goe Th' old broad way in applying O decline Mee when my comment would make thy word mine X. The Martyrs And since thou so desirously Did'st long to die that long before thou could'st And long since thou no more couldst dye Thou in thy scatter'd mystique body wouldst In Abel dye and ever since In thine let their blood come To begge for us a discreet patience Of death or of worse life for Oh to some Not to be Martyrs is a martyrdome XI The Confessors Therefore with thee triumpheth there A Virgin Squadron of white Confessors Whose bloods betroth'd not marryed were Tender'd not taken by those Ravishers They know and pray that wee may know In every Christian Hourly tempestuous persecutions grow Tentations martyr us alive A man Is to himselfe a Dioclesian XII The Virgins The cold white snowie Nunnery Which as thy mother their high Abbesse sent Their bodies backe againe to thee As thou hadst lent them cleane and innocent Though they have not obtain'd of thee That or thy Church or I Should keep as they our first integrity Divorce thou sinne in us or bid it die And call chast widowhead Virginitie XIII The Doctors Thy sacred Academie above Of Doctors whose paines have unclasp'd and taught Both bookes of life to us for love To know thy Scriptures tells us we are wrought In thy other booke pray for us there That what they have misdone Or mis-said wee to that may not adhere Their zeale may be our sinne Lord let us runne Meane waies and call them stars but not the Sunne XIV And whil'st this universall Quire That Church in triumph this in warfare here Warm'd with one all-partaking fire Of love that none be lost which cost thee deare Prayes ceaslesly ' and thou hearken too Since to be gratious Our taske is treble to pray beare and doe Heare this prayer Lord O Lord deliver us FroÌ„ trusting in those prayers though powr'd out thus XV. From being anxious or secure Dead clods of sadnesse or light squibs of mirth From thinking that great courts immure All or no hâ—ppinesse or that this earth Is only for our prison fram'd Or that thou art covetous To them whom thou lovest or that they are maim'd From reaching this worlds sweet who seek thee thus With all their might Good Lord deliver us XVI From needing danger to bee good From owing thee yesterdaies teares to day From trusting so much to thy blood That in that hope wee wound our soule away From bribing thee with Almes to excuse Some sinne more burdenous From light affecting in religion newes From thinking us all soule neglecting thus Our mutuall duties Lord deliver us XVII From tempting Satan to tempt us By our connivence or slack companie From measuring ill by vitious Neglecting to choake sins spawne Vanitie From indiscreet humilitie Which might be scandalous And cast reproach on Christianitie From being spies or to spies pervious From thirst or scorne of flame deliver us XVIII Deliver us for thy descent Into the Virgin whose wombe was a place Of midle kind and thou being sent To'ungratious us staid'st at her full of grace And through thy poore birth where first thou Glorifiedst Povertie And yet soone after riches didst allow By accepting Kings gifts in the Epiphanie Deliver and make us to both waies free XIX And though that bitter agonie Which is still the agonie of pious wits Disputing what distorted thee And interrupted evennesse with fits And through thy free confession Though thereby they were then Made blind so that thou might'st from theÌ„ have gone Good Lord deliver us and teach us when Wee may not and we may blinde unjust men XX. Through thy submitting all to blowes Thy face thy clothes to spoile thy fame to scorne All waies which rage or Justice knowes And by which thou could'st shew that thou wast born And through thy gallant humblenesse Which thou in death did'st shew Dying before thy soule they could expresse Deliver us from death by dying so To this world ere this world doe bid us goe XXI When senses which thy souldiers are Wee arme against thee and they fight for sinne When want sent but to tame doth warre And worke despaire a breach to enter in When plenty Gods image and seale Makes us Idolatrous And love it not him whom it should reveale When wee are mov'd to seeme religious Only to vent wit Lord deliver us XXII In Churches when the'infirmitie Of him which speakes diminishes the Word When Magistrates doe mis-apply To us as we judge lay or ghostly sword When plague which is thine Angell raignes Or wars thy Champions swaie When Heresie thy second deluge gaines In th' houre of death the'Eve of last judgement day Deliver us from the sinister way XXIII Heare us O heare us Lord to thee A sinner is more musique when he prayes Then spheares or Angels praises bee In Panegyrique Allelujaes Heare us for till thou heare us Lord We know not what to say Thine eare to'our sighes teares thoughts gives voice and word O Thou who Satan heard'st in Jobs sicke day Heare thy selfe now for thou in us dost pray XXIV That wee may change to evennesse This intermitting aguish Pietie That snatching cramps of wickednesse And Apoplexies of fast sin may die That musique of thy promises Not threats in Thunder may Awaken us to our just offices What in thy booke thou dost or creatures say That we may heare Lord heare us when wee pray XXV That our eares sicknesse wee may cure And rectifie those Labyrinths aright That wee by harkning not procure Our praise nor others dispraise so invite That wee get not a slipperinesse And senslesly decline
influence all impression came But by receivers impotencies lame Who though she could not transubstantiate All states to gold yet guilded every state So that some Princes have some temperance Some Counsellers some purpose to advance The common profit and some people have Some stay no more then Kings should give to crave Some women have some taciturnity Some nunneries some graines of chastitie She that did thus much and much more could doe But that our age was Iron and rustie too Shee she is dead she 's dead when thou knowst this Thou knowst how drie a Cinder this world is And learn'st thus much by our Anatomy That 't is in vaine to dew or mollifie It with thy teares or sweat or blood nothing Is worth our travaile griefe or perishing But those rich joyes which did possesse her heart Of which she 's now partaker and a part But as in cutting up a man that 's dead The body will not last out to have read On every part and therefore men direct Their speech to parts that are of most effect So the worlds carcasse would not last if I Were punctuall in this Anatomy Nor smels it well to hearers if one tell Them their disease who faine would think thy're well Here therefore be the end and blessed maid Of whom is meant what ever hath been said Or shall be spoken well by any tongue Whose name refines course lines and makes prose song Accept this tribute and his first yeares rent Who till his darke short tapers end be spent As oft as thy feast sees this widowed earth Will yearely celebrate thy second birth That is thy death for though the soule of man Be got when man is made 't is borne but than When man doth die our body 's as the wombe And as a Mid-wife death directs it home And you her creatures whom she workes upon And have your last and best concoction From her example and her vertue if you In reverence to her do thinke it due That no one should her praises thus rehearse As matter fit for Chronicle not verse Vouchsafe to call to minde that God did make A last and lasting'st peece a song He spake To Moses to deliver unto all That song because hee knew they would let fall The Law the Prophets and the History But keepe the song still in their memory Such an opinion in due measure made Me this great office boldly to invade Nor could incomprehensiblenesse deterre Mee from thus trying to emprison her Which when I saw that a strict grave could doe I saw not why verse might not do so too Verse hath a middle nature heaven keepes Soules The Grave keepes bodies Verse the Fame enroules A Funerall ELEGIE 'T Is lost to trust a Tombe with such a guest Or to confine her in a marble chest Alas what 's Marble Jeat or Porphyrie Priz'd with the Chrysolite of either eye Or with those Pearles and Rubies which she was Joyne the two Indies in one Tombe 't is glasse And so is all to her materials Though every inch were ten Escurials Yet she 's demolish'd can wee keepe her then In works of hands or of the wits of men Can these memorials ragges of paper give Life to that name by which name they must live Sickly alas short-liv'd aborted bee Those carcasse verses whose soule is not shee And can shee who no longer would be shee Being such a Tabernacle stoop to be In paper wrapt or when shee would not lie In such a house dwell in an Elegie But'tis no matter wee may well allow Verse to live so long as the world will now For her death wounded it The world containes Princes for armes and counsellors for braines Lawyers for tongues Divines for hearts and more The rich for stomackes and for backs the poore The officers for hands merchants for feet By which remote and distant Countries meet But those fine spirits which do tune and set This Organ are those peeces which beget Wonder and love and these were shee and shee Being spent the world must needs decrepit bee For since death will proceed to triumph still He can finde nothing after her to kill Except the world it selfe so great was shee Thus brave and confident may Nature bee Death cannot give her such another blow Because shee cannot such another show But must wee say she 's dead may 't not be said That as a sundred clocke is peecemeale laid Not to be lost but by the makers hand Repollish'd without errour then to stand Or as the Affrique Niger streame enwombs It selfe into the earth and after comes Having first made a naturall bridge to passe For many leagues farre greater then it was May 't not be said that her grave shall restore Her greater purer firmer then before Heaven may say this and joy in 't but can wee Who live and lacke her here this vantage see What is 't to us alas if there have beene An Angell made a Throne or Cherubin Wee lose by 't and as aged men are glad Being tastlesse growne to joy in joyes they had So now the sick starv'd world must feed upon This joy that we had her who now is gone Rejoyce then Nature and this World that you Fearing the last fires hastning to subdue Your force and vigour ere it were neere gone Wisely bestow'd and laid it all on one One whose cleare body was so pure and thinne Because it need disguise no thought within 'T was but a through-light scarfe her minde t'inroule Or exhalation breath'd out from her Soule One whom all men who durst no more admir'd And whom who ere had worke enough desir'd As when a Temple 's built Saints emulate To which of them it shall be consecrate But as when heaven lookes on us with new eyes Those new starres every Artist exercise VVhat place they should assigne to them they doubt Argue ' and agree not till those starres goe out So the world studied whose this peece should be Till shee can be no bodies else nor shee But like a Lampe of Balsamum desir'd Rather t' adorne then last she soone expir'd Cloath'd in her virgin white integritie For marriage though it doth not staine doth die To scape th'infirmities which wait upon VVoman she went away before sh'was one And the worlds busie noyse to overcome Tooke so much death as serv'd for opium For though she could not nor could chuse to dye She'ath yeelded to too long an extasie Hee which not knowing her said History Should come to reade the booke of destiny How faire and chast humble and high she'ad been Much promis'd much perform'd at not fifteene And measuring future things by things before Should turne the leafe to reade and reade no more VVould thinke that either destiny mistooke Or that some leaves were torne out of the booke But 't is not so Fate did but usher her To yeares of reasons use and then inferre Her destiny to her selfe which liberty She tooke but for thus much thus much
bee Division and thy happyest Harmonie Thinke thee laid on thy death-bed loose and slacke And thinke that but unbinding of a packe To take one precious thing thy soule from thence Thinke thy selfe patch'd with fevers violence Anger thine ague more by calling it Thy Physicke chide the slacknesse of the fit Thinke that thou hear'st thy knell and think no more But that as Bels cal'd thee to Church before So this to the Triumphant Church calls thee Thinke Satans Sergeants round about thee bee And thinke that but for Legacies they thrust Give one thy Pride to'another give thy Lust Give them those sinnes which they gave thee before And trust th' immaculate blood to wash thy score Thinke thy friends weeping round thinke that they Weepe but because they goe not yet thy way Thinke that they close thine eyes and thinke in this That they confesse much in the world amisse Who dare not trust a dead mans eye with that Which they from God and Angels â—â—er not Thinke that they shroud thee up think from thence They reinvest thee in white innocence Thinke that thy body rots and if so low Thy soule exalted so thy thoughts can goe Think thee a Prince who of themselves create Wormes which insensibly devoure their State Thinke that they bury thee and thinke that right Laies thee to sleepe but a Saint Lucies night Thinke these things cheerefully and if thou bee Drowsie or slacke remember then that shee Shee whose complexion was so even made That which of her ingredients should invade The other three no Feare no Art could guesse So far were all remov'd from more or lesse But as in Mithridate or just perfumes Where all good things being met no one presumes To governe or to triumph on the rest Only because all were no part was best And as though all doe know that quantities Are made of lines and lines from Points arise None can these lines or quantities unjoynt And say this is a line or this a point So though the Elements and Humors were In her one could not say this governes there Whose even constitution might have woon Any disease to venter on the Sunne Rather then her and make a spirit feare That hee too disuniting subject were To whose proportions if we would compare Cubes th' are unstable Circles Angular She who was such a chaine as Fate employes To bring mankinde all Fortunes it enjoyes So fast so even wrought as one would thinke No accident could threaten any linke Shee shee embrac'd a sicknesse gave it meat The purest blood and breath that e'r it eate And hath taught us that though a good man hath Title to heaven and plead it by his Faith And though he may pretend a conquest since Heaven was content to suffer violence Yea though hee plead a long possession too For they 're in heaven on earth who heavens workes do Though hee had right and power and place before Yet death must usher and unlocke the doore Thinke further on thy selfe my Soule and thinke How thou at first wast made but in a sinke Thinke that it argued some infirmitie That those two soules which then thou foundst in me Thou fedst upon and drewst into thee both My second soule of sense and first of growth Thinke but how poore thou wast how obnoxious Whom a small lumpe of flesh could poyson thus This curded milke this poore unlittered whelpe My body could beyond escape or helpe Infect thee with Originall sinne and thou Couldst neither then refuse nor leave it now Thinke that no stubborne sullen Anchorit Which fixt to a pillar or a grave doth sit Bedded and bath'd in all his ordures dwels So fowly as our Soules in their first built Cels. Thinke in how poore a prison thou didst lie After enabled but to suck and crie Thinke when 't was growne to most 't was a poore Inne A Province pack'd up in two yards of skinne And that usurp'd or threatned with a rage Of sicknesses or their true mother Age. But thinke that death hath now enfranchis'd thee Thou hast thy'expansion now and libertie Thinke that a rustie Peece discharg'd is flowne In peeces and the bullet is his owne And freely flies this to thy Soule allow Thinke thy shell broke thinke thy Soule hatch'd but now And think this slow-pac'd soule which late did cleave To'a body and went but by the bodies leave Twenty perchance or thirty mile a day Dispatches in a minute all the way Twixt heaven and earth she stayes not in the ayre To looke what Meteors there themselves prepare She carries no desire to know nor sense Whether th'ayres middle region be intense For th' Element of fire she doth not know Whether she past by such a place or no She baits not at the Moone nor cares to trie Whether in that new world men live and die Venus retards her not to'enquire how shee Can being one starre Hesper and Vesper bee Hee that charm'd Argus eyes sweet Mercury Workes not on her who now is growne all eye Who if she meet the body of the Sunne Goes through not staying till his course be runne Who findes in Mars his Campe no corps of Guard Nor is by Iove nor by his father bard Bee ere she can consider how she went At once is at and through the Firmament And as these starres were but so many beads Strung on one string speed undistinguish'd leads Her through those Spheares as through the beads a string Whose quick successioÌ„ makes it still one thing As doth the pith which lest our bodies slacke Strings fast the little bones of necke and backe So by the Soule doth death string Heaven and Earth For when our Soule enjoyes this her third birth Creation gave her one a second grace Heaven is as neare and present to her face As colours are and objects in a roome Where darknesse was before when Tapers come This must my Soule thy long-short Progresse bee To'advance these thoughts Remember then that she She whose faire body no such prison was But that a Soule might well be pleas'd to passe An age in her she whose rich beauty lent Mintage to other beauties for they went But for so much as they were like to her Shee in whose body if we dare preferre This low world to so high a marke as shee The Westerne treasure Easterne spicetie Europe and Afrique and the unknowne rest Were easily found or what in them was best And when w'have made this large discoverie Of all in her some one part then will bee Twenty such parts whose plenty and riches is Enough to make twenty such worlds as this Shee whom had they knowne who did first betroth The Tutelar Angels and assigned one both To Nations Cities and to Companies To Functions Offices and dignities And to each severall man to him and him They would have given her one for every limbe She of whose soule if wee may say 't was gold Her body was th'Electrum and did hold Many degrees of that