admire her tunes And gaze themselues in her blew-golden plumes The ravening Kite whose train doth well supply A Rudders place the Falcon mounting high Rauenous Birds The Marlin Lanar and the gentle Tercell Th' Ospray and Saker with a nimble sarcell Follow the Phoenix from the Clouds almost At once discovering many an vnknow'n Coast. In the swift Rank of these fell Rovers flies The Indian Griffin with the glistring eyes Beak Eagle-like back sable sanguin brest White Swan-like wings fiercetalons alwaies prest For bloody battails for with these he tears Boars Lions Horses Tigres Bulls and Bears With thâ—se our Grandams fruitfull panch he pulls Whence many an Ingot of pure Gold he culls To floor his proud nest builded strong and steep On a high Rock better his thefts to keep With these he guards against an Army bold The hollow Mines where first he findeth Gold As wroth that men vpon his right should rove Or theevish hands vsurp his Tresor-troue O! ever may'st thou fight so valiant Foul For this dire bane of our seduced soule Detestation of Auarice for her execrable daÌ„gerous effects And with thee may the Dardan Ants so ward The Gold committed to their carefull Guard That hence-forth hope-less mans frail mind may rest-her From seeking that which doth it's Masters master O odious poyson for the which we dive To Pluto's dark Den for the which we rive Our Motheâ— Earth and not contented with Th' abundant gifts she outward offereth With sacrilegious Tools we rudely rend-her And ransak deeply in her bosom tender While vnder ground wee live in hourly fear When the frail Mines shall over-whelm vs there For which beyond rich Taproban we roule Through thousand Seas to seek another Pole And maugre Windes and Waters enmity We every Day new vnknow'n Worlds descry For which alas the brother sels his brother The Sire his Son the Son his Sire and Mother The Man his Wife the Wife her wedded Pheer The Friend his Friend O! what not sell wee heer Sithence to satiat our Gold-thirsty gall We sell our selues our very soules and all Neer these the Crowe his greedy wings displayes Night-Fowles and solitary Birds The long-liv'd Rauen th' infamous Bird that layes His bastard Egges within the nests of other To have them hatcht by an vnkindely Mother The Skritch-Owl vs'd in falling Towrs to lodge Th' vnlucky Night-Raven and thou lasie Madge That fearing light still seekest where to hide The hate and scorn of all the Birds beside But gentle Muse tell me what Fowls are those That but even-now from flaggy Fenns arose Water fowles 'T is th' hungry Hearn the greedy Cormorant The Coot and Curlew which the Moors doo haunt The nimble Teal the Mallard strong in flight The Di-dapper the Plover and the Snight The silver Swan that dying singeth best And the Kings-Fisher which so builds her nest By the Sea-side in midst of Winter Season That man in whom shines the bright Lamp of Reason Cannot devise with all the withe ha's Her little building how to raise or raze So long as there her quiet Couch she keeps Sicilian Sea exceeding calmly sleeps For Aeolus fearing to drown her brood Keeps home the while and troubles not the Flood The Pirat dwelling alwayes in his Bark In 's Calender her building Dayes doth mark And the rich Marchant resolutely venters So soon as th' Halcyon in her brood-bed enters Mean-while the Langa skimming as it were The Oceans surface seeketh every where The hugy Whale where slipping-in by Art In his vast mouth shee feeds vpon his hart NEVV-SPAIN's Cucuio in his forhead brings Strange admirable Birds Two burning Lamps two vnderneath his wings Whose shining Rayes serue oft in darkest night Th' Imbroderer's hand in royall Works to light Th' ingenious Turner with a wakefull eye To polish fair his purest Ivory Th' Vsurer to count his glistring treasures The learned Scribe to limn his golden measures But note we now towards the rich Moluques Those passing strange and wondrous birds * With vs cald Birds of Paradise Mamuques Wond'rous indeed if Sea or Earth or Sky Saw ever wonder swim or goe or fly None knowes their nest none knowes the dam that breeds them Food-less they liue for th' Airealonely feeds them Wing-less they fly and yet their flight extends Till with their flight their vnknow'n lives-date ends The Stork still eying her deer Thessalie Charitable Birds The Pelican consorteth cheerfully Prayse-worthy Payer which pure examples yield Of faithfull Father and officious Childe Th' one quites in time her Parents love exceeding From whom she had her birth and tender breeding Not onely brooding vnder her warm brest Their age-chill'd bodies bed-rid in the nest Nor only bearing them vpon her back Through th' empty Aire when their own wings they lack But also sparing This let Children note Her daintiest food from her own hungry throat To feed at home her feeble Parents held From forraging with heavy Gyves of Eld. The other kindly for her tender Brood Tears her own bowells trilleth-out her blood To heal her young and in a wondroussort Vnto her Children doth her life transport For finding them by som fell Serpent slain She rents her brest and doth vpon them rain Her vitall humour whence recouering heat They by her death another life do get A Type of Christ who sin-thrall'd man to free Became a Captive and on shamefull Tree Self-guiltless shed his blood by 's wounds to save-vs And salue the wounds th' old Serpent firstly gave-vs And so became of meer immortall mortall Therby to make frail mortall Man immortall Thus doo'st thou print O Parent of this All Lessons for mankinde out of the Consideration of the natures of diuers creatures In every brest of brutest Animall A kinde Instinct which makes them dread no less Their Childrens danger then their own decease That so each Kinde may last immortally Though th' Indiuiduum pass successively So fights a Lion not for glory then But for his Deer Whelps taken from his Den By Hunters fell He fiercely roareth out He wounds he kills amid the thickest rout He rushes-in dread-less of Spears and Darts Swords shafts staves though hurt in thousand parts And brave-resolved till his last breath lack Never gives-over nor an inch gives-back Wrath salves his wounds and lastly to conclude When over-layd with might and Multitude He needs must dy dying he more bemoanes Then his own death his Captiue little-Ones So for their young our Masty Currs will fight Eagerly bark bristle their backs and bite So in the Deep the Dog-Fish for her Fry Lucma's throes a thousand times doth try For seeing when the suttle Fisher follows-them Again alive into her womb shee swallows-them And when the perill's past she brings them thence As from the Cabins of asafe defence And thousandlyues to their deer Parent owing As sound as ever in the Seas are rowing So doth a Hen make of her wings a Targe To shield her Chickens that she hath
last He saith now sure I knowe 'T is God 't is God the God that loues me so Loues keeps sustains whom I so oft haue seen Whose voice so often hath my comfort been Illuding Satan cannot shine so bright Though Angelliz'd No 'T is my God of Might Now feel I in my Soule to strength and stir-it The sacred Motions of his sacred Spirit God this sad Sacrifice requires of me Hap what hap may I must obedient be The sable Night dis-log'd and now began Aurora's Vsher with his windy Fan Gently to shake the Woods on every side While his fair Mistress like a stately Bride With flowrs and Gems and Indian gold doth spangle Her louely locks her Louers looks to tangle When gliding through the Ayr in Mantle blew With siluer fring'd shee drops the Pearly deaw With her goes Abram out and the third day Arriues on Cedrons Margents greenly-gay Beholds the sacred Hil and with his Son Loaden with sacred wood he mounts anon Anon said Isaac Father heer I see Knife fire and faggot ready instantly But wher 's your Hoste Oh! let vs mount my Son Said Abram God will soon prouide vs one But scant had Isaac turn'd his face from him A little faster the steep Mount to climbe Yer Abram changed cheere and as new Winâ— Simile Working a-new in the new Cask in fine For beeing stopt too-soon and wanting vent Blowes-vp the Bung or doth the vessell rent Spews out a purple stream the ground doth stain With Bacchus colour where the cask hath layn So now the Tears which manly fortitude Did yerst as captiue in the Brain include At the deer names of Father and of Son On his pale Cheeks in pearly drops did run His eye 's ful vessels now began to leak And thus th' old Hebrew muttering gan to speak In submiss voyce that Isaac might not hear His bitter grief that he vnfoldeth heer Sad spectacle O now my hap-les hand Thou whetst a sword and thou do'st teend a brand The brand shal burn my heart the sword 's keen blade Shall my bloods blood and my lifes life inuade And thou poor Isaac bearest on thy back Wood that shall make thy tender flesh to crack And yield'st thee more for mine than thine amiss Both Priest and Beast of one same Sacrifice O hapless Son O more then hap-less Sire Most wicked wretch O what mis-fortune dire In-gulfs vs heer where miserable I To be true godly must Gods law deny To be true faithful must my faith transgress To be God's Son I must be nothing less Than Isaacs Sire and Isaac for my sake Must Soyl and Sire and life and all forsake Yet on he goes and soon surmounts the Mount And steel'd by Faith he cheers his mournful Front Much like the Delian Princess when her Grace Simile In Thetis Waues hath lately washt her face He builds his Altar lays his wood ther-on And tenderly bindes his deer Son anon Father said Isaac Father Father deer What do you turn away as loth to hear O Father tel me tel me what you mean O cruelty vn-knowen Is this the mean Wherby my loyns as promised long-since is Shal make you Grand-sire of so many Princes And shal I glorious if I heer do dy Fil Earth with Kings with shining Stars the Sky Back Phoebus blush go hide thy golden head Retire thy Coach to Thetis watery Bed See not this savage sight Shal Abram's minde Be milde to all and to his Son vn-kinde And shal great Abram do the damned deed That Lions Tygres Boars and Bears would dread See how incenst he stops his ear to me As dreaming stil on 's bloody mystery Lord how precise see how the Paricide Seems to make conscience in less sins to slide And he that means to murder me his Son Is scrupulous in smaller faults to run Yet Father hear me not that I desire With sugred words to quench your Anger 's fire In Gods's name reap the Grain yourself haue sowen Com take my life extracted from your own Glut with my blood your blade if you it please That I must die welcom my death mine ease But tell me yet my fault before I die That hath deserv'd a punishment so high Say Father haue I not conspir'd your death Or with strong poyson sought to stop your breath Haue I deuis'd to short my Mother's life Or with your Foestaen part in any strife O thou Ethereal Palace Crystalline God's highest Court If in this heart of mine So damned thoughts had ever any place Shut-vp for ever all thy Gates of Grace Against my Soule and neuer let that I Among thy winged Messengers do flie If none of these Abram for I no more Dare call thee Father tell me further-more What rests besides that damned I haue don To make a Father Butcher of his Son In memorie that fault I fain would haue That after God's I might your pardon craue For such offence and so th' Attonement driven You liue content and I may die forgiuen My Son said Hee thou art not hither brought By my fell furie nor thine own foul fault God our God calls thee and He will not let A Pagan sword in thy deer blood be wet Nor burning Plague nor any pining pain With Languor turn thy flesh to dust againe But Sacrifiç'd to him for sweet perfume Will haue thee heer within this fire consume What Fears my Loue my Life my Gem my Ioy What God commands his seruants must obey Without consulting with frail Flesh and Blood How he his promise will in time make good How he wil make so many Scepters spring From thy dead dust How He All-wise wil bring In his due season from thy sense-less Thighes The glorious Son of righteousnes to rise Who shal the Mountains bruise with yron Mace Rule Heav'n and Earth and the Infernal place For he that past the course of Natures kinde First gaue thee birth can with his sacred Winde Raise thee again out of the lowest iust Ten-thousand means he hath to saue the iust His glorious wisdom guides the worlds society With equall Reans of Power and of Piety Mine own sweet Isaac deerest of my seed Too sweet alas the more my grief doth bleed The more my loss the more with cease-less anguish My vexed Bowels for thy lack shall anguish Adue deer Son no longer mine but his Who call's thee hence let this vn-happy kiss Be the sad seal of a more sad Fare-wel Than wit can paint or words haue powr to tell Sith God commands and father you require To haue it so com Death no longer dire But glorious now com gentle death dispatch The Heav'ns are open God his arms doâ—h reach T' imbrace my Soule O! let me brauely fly To meet my Lord and Death's prowd darts defie What Father weep you now Ah! cease those showrs Weep not for me for I no more am yours I was the Lords yer I was born you knowe And he but lent me for a while to you Will you recoyl and
Simile Who seems to tread the air and fall he must Save his Self's waight him counter-poyseth iust And saue the Lead that in each hand he bears Doth make him light the gaping Vulgar fears Amaz'd to see him weening nothing stranger Than Art to master Nature lucre danger At last though loath full of despight and rage He slideth down into a horrid hedge Cursing and banning all the Gods more mad For the disgrace than for the hurt he had Els-where the while as imitating right The Kinde-blinde Beast in russet Velvet dight Mines CouÌ„termineâ— Covertly marching in the Dark by day Samgarnebo seeks vnder ground his way But Ebedmelech warn'd of his Designes With-in the Town against him counter-mines Courageously and still proceedeth on Till resolute he bring both Works to one Till one strict Berrie till one winding Cave Becom the Fight-Field of two Armies brave As the self-swelling Badgerd at the bay Simile With boldest Hounds inured to that Fray First at the entry of his Burrow fights Then in his Earth and either other bites The eager Dogs are cheer'd with claps and cryes The angry Beast to his best chamber flies And angled there sits grimly inter-gerning And all the Earth rings with the Terryers yearning So fare these Miners whom I pitty must That their bright Valour should so darkly ioust While hotly thus they skirmish in the Vault Quick Ebedmelech closely thither brought A Dry-Fat sheath'd in latton plates with-out With-in with Feathers fill'd and round about Bor'd full of holes with hollow pipes of brass Save at one end where nothing out should pass Which having first his Iewish Troops retir'd Iust in the mouth of th' enter-Mine he fir'd The smoak wherof with odious stink doth make The Pagans soon their hollow Fort forsake As from the Berries in the Winter's night Simile The Keeper draws his Ferret flesht to bite Now Rabshakeh as busie other-where A rowling Towr against the Town doth rear And on the top or highest stage of it A flying Bridge to reach the Courtin â—it With pullies poles and planked Battlements On every story for his Men's defence On th' other side the Towns-men arâ— not slowe With counter-plots to counter-push their Foe Now at the woodden side then at the front Then at the Engins of the Persian Mount With Brakes and Slings and * Instruments of Warr wherein wild fire is put Phalariks they play To fier their Fortress and their Men to slay But yet a Cord-Mat stifly stretcht about Defends the Towr and keeps their Tempests out While thus they deal Sephtiah desperat Him secretly out of the Citty gat And with a Pole of rozen-weeping Fir So furiously he doth himself bestir That with the same the walking Fort he fiers The cruel flame so to the top aspires That maugre Blood shed from aboue in slaughter And from belowe continuall spouting Water It parts the Fray stage after stage it catches And th' half-broyld Souldiers head long down it fetches The King still constant against all extreams To press them neerer yet with mightie beams Rears a new Plat-form neerer to the Wall And covers it with three-fold shelter all The Timber first with Mud the Mud with Hides The Hides with Woll-sacks which all Shot derides Simile As th' Aier exhaled by the fiery breath Of th' Heav'nly Lion on an open Heath Or on the tresses of a tufted Plain Pours-down at-once both Fier and Hail and Rain So all at-once th' Isaaciaâ— Souldiers threw Floods Flames and Mountains on these Engines new But th' hungry Flames the Muddy-damp repels The Mounts the Wooll the drowning Floods the Felâ— Thear-vnder safe the Ram with iron horn The brazen-headed clov'n-foot Capricorn The boistrous Trepane and steel Pick-ax play Their parts apace not idle night nor day Heer thorough-riv'n from top to toe the Wall On reeling props hangs ready ev'n to fall There a vast-Engine thundreth vp-side-down The feeble Courtin of the sacred Town If you haue been where you haue seen som-whiles Simile How with the Ram they driue-in mighty Piles In Dover Peer to bridle with a Bay The Sand-cast Current of the raging Sea Swift-ebbing streams bear to the Sea the sownd Eccho assisteth and with shrill rebound Fils all the Town and as at Heav'nly Thunder The Coast about trembles for fear and wonder Then haue you heard and seen the Engins beating On Sion's Walls and her foundations threating In fine the Chaldeis take Ierusalem And reave for ever Iuries Diadem The smoaky burning of her Turrets steep Seems even to make the Sunn's brightey to weep And wretched Salem buried as it were Vnder a heap of her owne Children dear For lack of Friends to keep her Obsequies Constraineth sighs even from her Enemies Her massie Ruins and her Cinders showe Her Wealth and Greatnes yer her overthrowe A sodain horror seizeth every eye That views the same and every Passer-by Yea were he Gete or Turk or Troglodite Must needs for pitty of so sad a Sight Bestowe som tears som swelling sighs or grones Vpon these batter'd sculs these scatter'd stones In Palaces where lately gilded rich Sweet Lutes were heard now luck-les Oules doo screech The sacred TEMPLE held of late alone Wonder of Wonders now a heap of stone The House of God the Holyest-Holy-Place Is now the House of Vermin vile and base The Vessels destin'd vnto sacred vse Are now profan'd in Riot and Abuse None scapeth wounds if any scape with life The Father 's reft of Son the Man of Wife Iacob's exil'd Iuda's no more in Iury But wretched sighes vnder the Chaldean fury Their King in chains with shame and sorrow thrill'd Hoshea Before his face sees all the fairest pill'd Yea his owne Daughters and his Wives alas Rich Vines and Oliues of his lawfull Race Whose loue and beauty did his age delight Shar'd to the Souldiers ravisht in his sight O Father Father thus the Daughters cry About his neck still hanging tenderly Whither alas O whither hale they vs O must we serue their base and beastly Lusts Shall they dissolue our Virgin-zones Shall they Ignoble Grooms gather our Mayden-May Our spot-les Flowr so carefully preserv'd For som great Prince that mought haue vs deserv'd O Hony-dropping Hills we yerst frequented O Milk-full Vales with hundred Brooks indented Delicious Gardens of deer Israel Hills Gardens Vales we bid you all fare-well We will-we-nill-we hurried hence as slaues Must now for Cedron sip of Tygris waues And weaned from our natiue Earth and Air For Hackney-Iades be sold in every Fayr And O hearts-horror see the shame-les Foe Forcing our Honors triumph in our woe All-sundring Sword and O! all-cindring Fire Which mercy-les do SION's Wrack conspire Why spare you vs more cruell cri'd the Wives In leaving ours then reaving other's lives Your Pitie's pity-les your Pardon Torture For quick dispatch had made our Sorrows shorter But your seem-Favour that prolongs our breaths Makes vs aliue to die a thousand Deaths For O deer
Mardochey and the five Maccabees All the right heirs of heart and zeal paternall Receiue their guerdon from the great Eternall And vp again their stooping standards raise 13 Before these Warriours and the Royall band March holy Fathers that with vertue rare And holy Doctrine did the Diuell dare Foyling the force of his infernall hand 14 Enos by whom this World 's great Archi-tect Was call'd vpon leadeth religious That holy Father God took vp from vs Henoch Noah And him whose ship did saue the world Elect. 15 Then Sem and Iapheth and great Abraham Isaak The Faithfull's Father and his faithfull Son And then his Nephew that saw Angels run Iacob Both vp down froÌ„ Heav'n to th' earthly frame 16 Aron Eleazar Phinees full of zeal Good Ioyada and hundred Priests select That were by Heav'n by zeal and Church elect To keep the law the Lord did once reveal 17 His Father who was sent to sweep the way Zacharias Ioseph Of sweet Messias then the man suppos'd To be His Sire then He that Him inclos'd In 's ioyfull arms and sung a Swan-like Lay. Simeon 18 Then Barnabas Titus and Timothy Paul's famous Friends Sins fierce and deadly Foes And he that did by Sol's Eclipse suppose Som greater Sun to be Eclips't than he 19 Then this brave Triumph to adorn the more All on a rowe a hundred Prophets com Which haue so sure fore-told the things to-com As if indeed they had been don before 20 There first coms he that in the Coach of fire Elias By Gods strong Spirit was rapt above the Air Elizeus And then his Seruant that was made his heir Of cloak and knowledge as he did desire 21 He that reproov'd old Ishay's Sceptred Son Nathan For double fault Amos Ezechiel Ioel Semyah Abdiah Daniel And he that three dayes in the Sea did won Ionas 22 With these I see the Sonn of Barachie Zachariah Both Michais Baruc Iehu Ieremias Agg ' Abacuc Nahum and Sophonias Ahias Hosè Esdras Malachie 23 The glorious troop that march before this troop Are Martyrs all who full of constant zeal Their faith infract with their owne blouds did seal And never did to any Tyrant stoop 24 Their blessed bloud is like the morning dewe To make more fertil all the Churches field These are the weapons that inforce to yield The furious foe examples not a fewe 25 For as a fruit-Treelopped in December For one old Trunk many new twigs returns Which Nature kindely with sweet fruit adorns So one sole Martyr many doth ingender 26 First Abel goes then Ioyad's zealous Son That neer the Altar constant yielded breath Esay Iohn Baptist. The next goes he Manasses put to death Then he whose head th' incestuous Dancer won 27 Next Salone and her Sons who rather chose To cross the King than God strengthning each other Even in their death Sons worthy such a Mother And Mother worthy of such Sons as those 28 That Proto-Martyr the yong faithfull Steven Whom th' hatefull Iews with hellish rage did stone Who dying saw Christ Iesus on his Throne Leads those that for like cause their lives have given 29 Som smear'd with honey for the Flies were feasts Som men did eat som were on Gridirons broyl'd Som nayl'd on Crosses som in Caldrons boyl'd And som were throwen to most devouring beasts 30 After the Champions of this humble Troop I see fair Sara Rebecca Rachel Then Debora stout Iudeth and Iahel Who Faiths Viragoes their proud Foes did stoop 31 Then she that rais'd to Royall state and stile â—ester Preserv'd her people in a rank she goes With Naomi Ruth and the Dame that chose Rather to die than Nuptiall bed defile Susanna 32 From these mineeie no sooner trauerseth But I discern three Ladies zealous-led That sought their living Lord among the dead Then Anna Martha and Elizabeth 33 But my weak eyes cannot indure to gaze The Virgin Mary On beaming beauties of that Mother-Maid Who Sier-less bore her Sire yet ever-maid Of Faith and Loue th' inimitable maze 34 This this my Muse this is th' Aurora cleer Which brought the Sun to light the world vnkinde A Virgin pure in body and in minde Christ's Mother Sister Spouse and Daughter deer 35 God's holy Temple and the happy stair Wher-by the Heav'ns came down to dwell with Earth Rich-fraighted Ship Vessell of rarest worth Where Phoebus hid his beams most bright and fair Canto IIII. 1 I Thought to haue been now at my Races end T' haue though vnworthy born away the prise But I fall short my task doth longer rise For half the Trophè is yet hardly penn'd 2 Before Faith's Coach born in convenient height Are curious Tables draw'n by cunning hand Where after guise of warlik Romans stand The Victories of never-conquer'd Faith 3 Heer Iericho's cloud-kissing Towrs doo fall Iosua 6. 20. Batter'd alone by Faith's great Ordinance A coumpt-less hoast of craking Idolants 2. King 18 13 2. Chron. 32 20 Esa. 37 21 By Esaâ—e's Faith is heer confounded all 4 By Faith meek Moses with a zeal-full ire Arms smallest Worms th' Egyptian King to vex Exod. 7 8 9 Daniel by Faith fierce Lyons fury checks Dan. 6. 12 And quenches Dragons hot impoysoning fire 5 Heer Paul by Faith fears not in Mitylene Act. 28 5 The deadly sting of th' vgly Viper-worm Heer myching Ionas sunk in suddain Storm Ionas 22 Of his Deliverance finds a fish the mean 6 Then in another Table that was fram'd By Art exceeding Art I did espie Pale Death blithe Health and frail Infirmity That had by Faith a thousand times been tam'd 7 Moses by Faith doth Myriam leperize Num. 12 10 By Faith Elisha curing Naaman 2. King 6 14 17 The Syrian Prince strikes instantly his man With his Disease for Bribing Covetize 8 A man of God by Faith first strangely dri'd 1. King 13 4 6 Then heal'd again that King 's vnholy hand Who made ten Tribes of God's then chosen Land From God and from their lawfull Prince to slide 9 By Faith Saint Paul stark-blinded Elymas Act. 13 11 By Faith Saint Peter full of iust disdaign With suddain death did smite those periur'd twain That durst dissemble with the Spirit of Grace Act. 5 5 16 10 By Faith young Toby kindely doth restore Tob. 11 11 Act. â— 6 14 10. His Father's sight by sacred Faith likewise Two crooked Cripples are made straight to rise In Listra th' one th' other at Templedore 11 By Faith Saint Paul did a rich Maltois cure Of grievous Flix that him afflicted sore Act. 21 8 By Faith Saint Peter likewise did restore A Palsie-sick that eight yeers did indure Act. 9. 34 12 By Faith Saint Paul did Eutichus re-lyue Act. 20 10 1. King 17 21 2. King 4 33 By Faith Elias rais'd the Sareptite Elisha raysed the young Sunamite At Ioppa Peter Dorcas did
is bow'd About the Waues and well content to suffer Milde Zephyrs blasts and Boreas bellowing rougher Water to quench thy thirst about thy Mountains Wraps her moist arms Seas riuers lakes and fountains O how I grieue deer Earth that given to gays Commendations of the Country-life Most of best wits contemn thee now-a-days And noblest hearts proudly abandon quight Study of Hearbs and Country-lifes delight To brutest men to men of no regard Whose wits are Lead whose bodies Iron-hard Such were not yerst the reuerend Patriarks Whose prayse is penned by the sacred Clarks Noah the iust meek Moses Abraham Who Father of the Faithfull Race becam Were Shepheards all or Husbandmen at least And in the Fields passed their Dayes the best Such were not yerst Attalus Philemetor Archelaus Hiero and many a Pretor Great Kings Consuls who haue oft for blades And glistering Scepters handled hooks and spades Such were not yerst Cincinnatus Fabricius Serranus Curius who vn-self-delicious With Crowned Coultars with Imperiall hands With Ploughs triumphant plough'd the Roman lands Great Scipio sated with fain'd curtsie-capping With Court Eclipses and the tedious gaping Of golden beggers and that Emperour Of Slave turn'd King of King turnd Labourer In Country Granges did their age confine And ordered there with as good Discipline The Fields of Corn as Fields of Combat first And Ranks of Trees as Ranks of Souldiers yerst O thrice thrice happy He who shunns the cares Of City-troubles and of State-affairs And seruing Ceres Tills with his own Teem His own Free-land left by his Friends to him Never pale Enuie's poysonie heads doo hiss To gnaw his heart nor Vultur Auarice Free from enuy ambition auarice and consequently from the diuelish practises of MachiauiliaÌ„ Politikes His Field's bounds bound his thoughts he never supps For Nectar poyson mixtin silver Cups Neither in golden Platters doth he lick For sweet Ambrosia deadly Arsenick His hand 's his boaul better then Plate or Glass The siluer Brook his sweetest Hypocrasse Milk Cheese and Fruit fruits of his own endeuour Drest without dressing hath he ready ever False Counsailours Concealers of the Law Not vâ—xed with counterfait wrestings of wrangling Laywers Turn-coat Attourneys that with both hands draw Sly Peti-Foggers Wranglers at the Bar Proud Purse-Leaches Harpies of Westminster With fained chiding and foul iarring noyse Break not his brain nor interrupt his ioyes But cheerfull Birds chirping him sweet Good-morrows With Natures Musick doo beguile his sorrows Teaching the fragrant Forrests day by day The Diapason of their Heav'nly Lay. His wandring Vessell reeling to and fro Not dreading shipwracke nor in danger of Pirates On th' irefull Ocean as the Windes doo blowe With sodain Tempest is not ouer-whurld To seek his sad death in another World But leading all his life at home in Peace Alwaies in sight of his own smoak no Seas No other Seas he knowes nor other Torrent Then that which waters with his siluer Corrent His Natiue Medowes and that very Earth Shall giue him Buriall which first gaue him Birth To summon timely sleep he doth not need Not diseased in body through delicious Idlenes Aethyop's cold Rush nor drowsy Poppy-seed Nor keep in consort as Mecaenas did Luxurious Villains Viols I should haue sayd But on green Carpets thrumd with mossy Beuer Frendging the round skirts of his winding Riuer The streams milde murmur as it gently gushes His healthy limbs in quiet slumber hushes Drum Fife and Trumpet with their loud A-larms Not drawen by factions to an vntimely Death Make him not start out of his sleep to Arms Nor deer respect of som great Generall Him from his bed vnto the block doth call The crested Cock sings Hunt is vp to him Limits his rest and makes him stir betime To walk the Mountains or the flowry Meads Impearld with tears that sweet Aurora sheads Never gross Aire poysond in stinking Streets Not choaked with contagion of a corrupted Aire To choak his spirit his tender nostrill meets But th' open Sky where at full breath he liues Still keeps him sound and still new stomack giues And Death drad Seriant of th' eternall Iudge Coms very late to his sole seated Lodge His wretched yeers in Princes Courts he spends not Nor Chamelâ—â—like changing with euery obiect the colour of his conscience His thralled will on Great mens wils depends not He changing Master doth not change at once His Faith Religion and his God renounce With mercenary lies hee doth not chaunt Praysing an Emmet for an Elephant Nor soothing Sin nor licking the Tayl of Greatnesse Sardanapalus drown'd in soft excess For a triumphant vertuous Hercules Thersites foul for Venus louely Loue And every Changeling for a Turtle-Doue Nor lavishes in his lascivious layes On wanton Flora chaste Alcestes prayse But all self-priuate serving God he writes Fear-less and sings but what his heart in dites No sallow Fear doth day or night afflict-him Vnto no fraud doth night or day addict-him Neither prest with Fear nor plotting Fraud Or if he muse on guile 't is but to get Beast Bird or Fish in toil or snare or net What though his Wardrobe be not stately stuft With sumptuous silks pinked and powne't and puft With gold-ground Velvets and with siluer Tissue And all the glory of old Eues proud Issue What though his feeble Cofers be not cramd With Misers Idols golden Ingotsramd He is warm-wrapped in his own-growen Wooll Of vn-bought Wines his Cellar 's everfull His Garner's stor'd with grain his Ground with flocks His Barns with Fodder with sweet streams his Rocks For heer I sing the happy Rustiks weal Whose handsom house seems as a Common-weal And not the needy hard rack-rented Hinde Or Copy-holder whom hard Lords doo grinde The pined Fisher or poor-Daiery-Renter That liues of whay for forfeiting Indenture Who scarce haue bread within their homely Cotes Except by fits to feed their hungry throats Let me good Lord among the Great vn-kend My rest of daies in the calm Countrey end Let me deserue of my deer AEGLE-Brood For Windsor Forrest walks in Almes-wood Bee Hadley Pond my Sea Lambs-bourn my Thames Lambourn my London Kennet's siluer streams My fruitfull Nile my Singers and Musicians The pleasant Birds with warbling repetitions My company pure thoughts to work thy will My Court a Cottage on a lowely Hill Where without let I may so sing thy Name That times to-com may wonder at the same Or if the new North-star my Souerain IAMES The secret vertue of whose sacred beams Attracts th' attentiue seruice of all such Whose mindes did euer Vertue 's Load-stone touch Shall euer daign t' inuite mine humble Fate T'approoch the Presence of his Royall State Or if my Duty or the Grace of Nobles Shall driue or draw me neer their pleasing-Troubles Let not their Fauours make me drunk with folly In their Commands still keep my Conscience holy Let me true Honour not the false delight And play the
clowd And yet his hand still quauers light and lowd But at the last it sinks and offring fair To strike the Base strikes but the empty ayr His soule descending to th' Infernall Coasts Goes to conclude his Song vnto the Ghosts Dolefull it was nor for the Argument For 't was of Loue but for the sad event Another wak'ned with those lowd alarms Starts-vp and groapeth round about for arms Which ah too soon he findeth for his part For a keen poignard stabs him to the heart Simile Like as a Tigress having with the gore Of Bulls and Heifers made her spots the more And pav'd a Plain with Creatures mangled lims Views on each side her valiant stratagems Treads on the vanquisht and is prowdly-sad That no more Foes nor no more Maw she had So th' Hebrew stalking round-about the slain Braues but it boots not and would very fain That those dead bodies might their ghosts re-gather Or that those Mountains would produce him rather Som Foes more wakefull that more manfully In blood-drown'd Valleis might his valour try Amor's three sons did no less slaughter make Abram for zeal they but for Furies sake This nayls a Souldier with his sword to th' ground That at a blowe th' heads of two Heads dis-crown'd This vnderneath a Chariot kils the Driuer That lops off legs and arms and heads doth shiver The Tents already all in blood do swim Gushing from sundry Corps from severall lim In brief so many ravening Woolves they seem Within whose breast fierce Famine biteth keen Who softly stealing to som fold of sheep While both the Shepheard and his Curr doth sleep Furbush their hungry teeth tear kill and prey Vpon the best to eat and bear-away Yet at the length the vanquished awake And re-aray'd the Victors vnder-take Putting the three prowd Amorites to flight Who but for Abram had been routed quite Sleep sleep poor Pagans sith you needs must die Go sleep again and so die easily Die yer you think on death and in your Dreams Gasp-out your soules Let not your dazled beams Behold the havock and the horrour too Of th' Execution that our swords shall doo Hacking your bodies to heaw-out your breaths Yer Death to fright you with a thousand deaths Said Abraham and pointing every word With the keen point of his quick-whirled sword As swift in doing as in saying so More fiercely chargeth the insulting Foe Than ever Storm-full cloud which fed with Water's Thin moist-full fumes the snowy Mountains daughters Comparison Showr'd heaps of hail-shot or pour'd floods of rain On slender stems of the new tender Grain Through blood and blades through danger dust and death Through mangled Corps and carrs he traverseth And partly in the shock part with â—â—â— blowes He breaketh in through thickest of his Foes And by his trauail topsi-turneth then The liue and dead and half-dead horse and men His bright-keen Fauchin neuer threats but hits Nor hits but hurts nor hurts but that it splits Som priuy postern whence to Hel in post Som groaning Pagan may gasp out his ghost He all assayls and him so braue bestowes That in his Fight he deals more deaths than blowes As the North-winde re-cleering-vp the front Simile Of clowdy Heav'ns towards the South doth hunt The showrs that Austers spungy thirst exhales Out of those seas that circle Orans walls So wher-so-e're our Hebrew Champion wield His war-like weapon and his glistring Shield Whose glorious splendor darts a dreadfull light Elamites ouâ—rthrowen by Abraham All turn their backs and all be-take to flight Forgetting Fame Shame Vertue Hope and all Their hearts are don and down their weapons fall Or if that any be so strangely-stout As not to faint but brauely yet holde out Alas it boots not for it cannot stop The victory but haste his own mishap But in what Fence-schoole of what master say God giueth victory Braue pearl of Souldiers learnd thy hands to play So at so sundry weapons such passados Such thrusts such foyns stramazos and stoccados Even of that mighty God whose sacred might Made Heav'n and Earth and them so braue bedight Of meerly nothing of that God of Powr Who swore to be thy Target and thy Towr Of that high God who fortifies the weak Who teacheth His even steely bowes to break Who doth his Childrens zealous hearts inflame But daunts the prowd and doth their courage tame Abraham follows the execution Thy sword abates th' armed the strong the stout Thou cleav'st thou kill'st The faint dis-armed rout The lightning of thine eyes thy voyces thunder And thy prowd dreadfull port confounds with wonder Death and Despair Horror and Fury fight Vnder thine Ensignes in this Dismal Night Thou slayest this and that thou threat'st as much This thou pursu'st that thou disdaign'st to touch In brief thou blest Knight braue thou quelst at once Valiant and vile arm'd and vnarmed ones Heer thine even hand even in a twinkling trice In equall halves a Pagans head doth slyce Down on each shoulder looketh either half To gaze vpon his ghastly Epitaph In lines of blood writ round about him fair Vnder the curtain of his parted hair Heer through a Ierkin more then Musket-proof Made twelue fold double of East-country Buff Clean through and through thy deadly shaft doth thril A Gyants bulk the wounded hulk doth reel The head behinde appears before the feathers And th' Ethnick soule flies both-waies out togethers Heer thou do'st cleaue with thy keen Fauchins force The Bards and Breast-plate of a furious Horse No sooner hurt but he recoyleth back Writing his Fortune in a bloody track Thy barbed dart heer at a Chaldee flies And in an instant lardeth both his thighes While he blaspheming his hard starrs and state Hops like a Pie in stead of wonted gate Now LOT the while escap't from ELAMS hands Lot rescâ—ed revengeth brauely his captivity Free from the burthen of his yron bands With iust reuenge retorts his taken wrong His feet growe swift his sinnews waxen strong His heart reviues and his reviued heart Supplies new spirits to all and euery part And as a wilde and wanton Colt got out Simile Of som great Stable staring scuds about Shakes his prowd head and crest yerks out his heels Butts at the ayr beats on the humble fields His flying shadow now pursues amain Anon amaz'd flies it as fast again Again beholds it with self-prowd delight Looks on his legs sets his stiff tayl vpright And neighs so lowd to Mares beyond the Mound That with the noyse the neighbour Hils resound So one while LOT sets on a Troup of Horse A Band of Sling-men he anon doth force Anon he pusheth through a Stand of Pikes A Wing of archers off anon he strikes Anon he stalks about a steepfull Rock Where som to shun Death's never shunned stroak Had clambred-vp at length a path he spies Where vp he mounts and doth their Mount surprize Whence stones he heaues so heavy and so
huge That in our Age three men could hardly bouge Vnder whose waight his flying Foes he dashes And in their flesh bones stones and steel he pashes Somtimes he shoots somtimes he shakes a Pike Which death to many dread to all doth strike Som in the breast he wounds som in the backs Som on the hanch som on the head he hacks He heaws down all and maketh where he stood A Mount of bodies in a Moat of blood The Pagans wholly put to flight At length the Pagans wholly left the place Then both sides ran these chased those do chase These onely vse their heels those heels and hands Those wish but a fair way these that the sands Would quickly gape and swallow quick to Hell Themselues that fled and them that chaç't so fell These render nought but blowes those nought but blood Both sides haue broak their Ranks pel-mel they scud Choakt-vp with dust disordered dis-aray'd Neither Command Threat nor Intreat obay'd Thou that late bragdst that thy White Wormly braue Could dry-foot run vpon the liquid Waue And on the sand leaving no print behinde Out-swifted Arrows and out-went the Winde With a steel Dart by ABRAH'M stifly sent Art'twixt thy Cuirace and thy Saddle slent And thou that thrice neer Tygris silver source Hadst won the Bell as best in every Course Art caught by LOT and thrild from side to side Loosest thy speed-praise and thy life beside It seems no Fight but rather as befalls An execution of sad criminals Whoso escapes the sword escapes notso His sad destruction or if any tho Escap't at all they were but few at least To rue the fatall ruine of the rest For th' Vnkle and the Nephew never lin Till out of Canaan they haue chaç't them clean Like to a Cast of Falcons that pursue Simile A flight of Pigeons through the welk in blew Stooping at this and that that to their Louver To saue their lyues they hardly can recouer At his return from Fight the Kings and Lords The Kings of Caâ—â—â—n receiued Abraham and his company with great ioy and the gratefull offer of their homage vnto him Of Palestine with glad and humble words Do welcom Abram and refresh his Troop To 's knees their heads to 's feet their knees they stoop Ovaliant Victor for thy high deserts Accept the homage of our humble hearts Accept our grateful zeal or if ought more As well thou maist thou doest expect therfore Accept said they our Lands our goods our golde Our wiues our lyues and what we deerest holde Take all we haue for all we haue is thine No wrong to vs to take thy Valours fine Melthisedec Gods sacred Minister Melchisedech blesseth Abraham And King of Salem coms to greet him there Blessing his bliss and thus with zealous cry Devoutly pearç't Heav'ns starfull Canopey Blest be the Lord that with his hand doth roule The radiant Orbs that turn about the Pole And Rules the Actions of all Humane-kinde With full command and with one blast of winde Razes the Rocks and Rends the proudest Hills Dries-vp the Ocean and the Empty fils Blest be the great God of grear Abraham From Age to Age extolled be his Name Let every Place vnto him Altars build And euery Altar with his Praise be fill'd And every Praise above the Welkin ring As loud or louder then the Angels sing Blessed be He that by an Arm-less crew Of Art-less Shepheards did so quick subdue And tame the Tamers of Great Syria so And to the servants of an exil'd Foe Hath given the Riches and the royall store Both of their Booty and their Owne before Of such an Hoast of Nations that first see Sol's early rising from Aurora's knee But Abraham to prove that not for Prey Abraham distributes the booty reseruing only a portion for the Amorites that were his confederates He put-on arms divides the Spoils away The Tythe's the Priests the Rest of all the things Yerst lost in field he renders to the Kings Save but the Portion He participates To th' Amorites his stout Confederates Shewing himself a Prince as politicke Prudent and iust as stout and Souldier-like That with his Prowess Policy can mel And Conquering can vse his Conquest wel Magnanimous in deeds in words as meek That scorning Riches true Renown doth seek So from the Sea even to th' Euphratean-source And even from Dan to Nilus crystall course Rings his renown Of him is all the speech He is famous far and neere At home abroad among the poor and rich In war and peace the Fame of his high deeds Confirms the Faithfull in their fainting Creeds And terrifies the Tyrant Infidels Shaking the sides of their proud Citadels That with their fronts the seat of IOVE do scorn And with their feet at I'luto's crown do spurn Voice Harp and Timbrel sound his praise together He 's held a Prophet or an Angel rather They say that God talks with him face to face Hoasts at his house and to his happy Race Givs in Fee-simple all that goodly Land Even from the Sea as far as Tygris strand And it is certain the Thrice-sacred-One God appeares vnto him and maketh covenant with him The King of Kings by Dream or Vision Speaks with him oft and calls him thus by name Faint not my servant fear not ABRAHAM I an no fiend that with a fained lip Seek guilefully thy simpleness to trip Nor to intice thee with a baen-full breath To bite like ADAM a new fruit of death 'T is I that brought thee from thy Native V R From night to day from death to life thus far I brought thee hither I have blest thee heer I with thy flocks have covered far and neer Canaan's fat Hills I have preserv'd thy Wife From Strangers lust and thee from Tyrants knife When thy faint heart and thy false tongue affrai'd To tel the Truth her and thy self betray'd 'T is I that have so oft from Heathens powr Preserv'd thy person and as Conquerour Now made thee Trivmph over th' Eastern Kings Whereof so far thy famous Valour rings I am in brief I am the Lord thy God Thy help at home thy Guide and Gard abroad Keep thou my Covenant and to signifie That to the World thou di'st to live to Me Circumcision instituted Go Circumcise forth-with thy Self and Thine Lead holy Life walk in my Wayes divine With vpright-foot so shall my favour haunt Thy House and thee and thou shalt nothing want No I will make thee Lord of all the Land Which Canaans Children haue with mighty hand Canaan promised to Abraham So long possest a happy Land that flowes With milk and hony a rich Land where growes Even of itself all kinde of Fruit and Corn Where smiling Heav'ns pour-down their Plenties-Horn I 'le heap thee there with Honor Wealth and Powr I will be thy Reward thy Shield and Towr O Lord said ABRAM though into my lap In shours of Gold ev'n all the Heav'ns
alas Is choakt already that it cannot pass They murmure for want of water with grievous imputation to their good Guide Through the rough Sraight◠of their dry throats they wo◠Roar-out their grief that all men hear them should O Duke no Hebrew but an Ethnick rather Is this alas the guerdon that we gather For all the service thou hast had of vs What haue we don that thou betray'st vs thus For our obedience shall we ever-more With Fear and Want be hanted at our dore O windy words O periur'd promises O gloze to gull our honest simpleness Escap't from Hunger Thirst doth cut our throat Past the Red Sea heer vp and down we float On firm-less sands of this vast Desart heer Where to and fro we wander many a year Looking for Libertie we finde not Life No neither Death the welcom end of strife Envy not vs deer Babes we envy you You happy ones whom Egypt's Tyrant slew Your Birth and Death cam hand in hand together Your end was quick nay'twas an Entry rather To end-less Life We wretches with our age Increase our Woes in this long Pilgrimage We hope no Harbour where we may take breath And Life to vs is a continuall Death You blessed liue and see th' Almighties face Our Days begin in tears in toyls they pass And end in dolours this is all we do But Death concludes tears toyls and dolours too Stif-necked People stubborn generation Moses reproues them smiteth the Rock from whence issues plenty of water Egypt doth witness in a wondrous fashion God's goodnes to thee all the Elements Expound vnto thee his Omnipotence And do'st thou murmure still and dar'st thou yet Blaspheme his promise and discredit it Said MOSES then and gaue a sodain knock With his deere Scepter on a mighty Rock From top to toe it shakes and splits with-all And wel-nigh half vnto the ground doth fall As smit with Lightning then with rapid rush Out of the stone a plentious stream doth gush Which murmurs through the Plain proud that his glass Gliding so swift so soon re-youngs the grass And to be gaz'd-on by the wanton Sun And through new paths so braue a course to run Who hath not seen far vp within the Land Simile A shoal of Geese on the dry-Sommersand In their hoarce language som-times lowely-lowd Suing for succour to som moyst-ful clowd How when the Rain descends their wings they beat With the fresh drops to cool their swelting heat Bib with their Bill bouz with their throats and suck And twenty times vnto the bottom duck Such th' Hebrews glee one stooping down doth sup The cleer quick stream another takes it vp In his bare hand another in his hat This in his busk in in a bucket that Wel fresht him-self bears som vnto his Flock This fils his pitcherful and that his Crock And other-som whose Thirst is more extream They march toward Mount Sina where God deliuereth them his LAW Like Frogs lie paddling in the crystall stream From Rephidim alongst the Desart Coast Now to Mount Sina marcheth all the Hoast Where th' everlasting GOD in glorious wonder With dreadful voyce his fearfull LAVV doth thunder To showe that His reverent Divine Decrees Wher-to all hearts should bow and bend all knees Proceed not from a Politick Pretence A wretched Kingling or a petty Prince Nymph-prompted NVMA or the Spartans Lord Or him that did Cecropian Strifes accord Nor from the mouth of any mortall man But from that King who at his pleasure can Shake Heav'n and Earth and Ayr and all ther-in That ISRAEL shall finde him if they sin As terrible with Vengeance in his hand As dreadfull now in giving the COMMAND And that the Text of that drad Testament Grav'n in two Tables for vs impotent Hath in the same a sadder load compris'd And heavier yoak then is the yoak of Christ. That that doth showe vs Sin threats wounds and kils This offers Grace Balm in our sores distils Redoubled Lightnings dazleth ' Hebrews eyes With what dredful Maiesty it was deliuered Clowd-sund'ring Thunder roars through Earth and skies Lowder and lowder it careers and cracks And stately SINA'S massie center shakes And turneth round and on his sacred top A whirling flame round like a Ball doth wrap Vnder his rocky ribs in Coombs belowe Rough-blustering BOREAS nurst with Riphean snowe And blub-checkt AVSTER puft with fumes before Met in the midst iustling for room do roar A cloak of clowds all thorough-lin'd with Thunder Muffles the Mountain both aloft and vnder On PHARAN now no shining PHARVS showes A Heav'nly Trump a shrill Tantara blowes The winged Windes the Lightning's nimble-flash The smoaking storms the whirl-fire's crackling clash And deafning Thunders with the same do sing O wondrous consort th' everlasting King His glorious Wisdom who doth giue the Law To th' Heavenly Troops and keeps them all in aw But as in Battail we can hear no more Simile Small Pistol-shot when once the Canons roar And as a Cornet soundeth cleer and rife Simile Aboue the warbling of an Alman Fife A dradder voyce yet a distincter voice Whose sound doth drown all th' other former noyse Roars in the Vale and on the sacred Hill Which thrills the ears but more the heart doth thrill Of trembling Iacob who all pale for fear From God's owne mouth these sacred words doth hear Hark Israell O Iacob hear my Law Hear it to keep it and thy self in aw I am IEHOVA I with mighty hand Brought thee from bondage out of Egypt Land ADORE ME ONLY for thy God and Lord With all thy heart in every Deed and Word MAKE THEE NONE IMAGE not of any sort The Decalogue To thy owne Works My Glory to transport VSE NOT MY NAME without respect and fear Never Blaspheme neither thy self for-swear SIX DAYS VVORK for thy food but then as I REST ON THE SEAVENTH and to my Temple hye TO THOSE that gaue thee life due REVERENCE giue If thou desire long in the Land to liue IMBRVE thou NOT THY HAND IN HVMAN BLOOD STAIN NOT anothers BED STEALE NO MAN'S GOOD BEAR NO FALSE VVITNES COVET NOT to haue Thy Neighbours Wife his Oxe his Ass his Slaue His House his Land his Cattle or his Coyn His Place or Grace or ought that is not Thine The excellency of the Law of God Eternall Tutor O Rule truely-right Of our frail life our foot-steps Lanthorn bright O Soule 's sweet Rest O byting curb of Sin Which Bad despise the Good take pleasure in Reverent EDICTS vpon Mount SINA giuen How-much-fold sense is in few words contriven How wonderfull and how exceeding-far How plain how sacred how profound you are All Nations else a thousand times for cause Haue Writ and Raç't and chopt and chang'd their Laws Except the Iews but they although their State With every Moon almost did innovate As somtimes having Kings and somtimes none In all their changes kept their Law still one
for their Deities Gods made with hands Gods without life or breath Gods which the Rust Fier Hammer conquereth But thou art Lord th' invincible alone Th' All-seeing GOD the Everlasting ONE And who so dares him gainst thy Powr oppose Seems as a Puff which roaring Boreas blowes Weening to tear the Alps off at the Foot Or Clowds-prop Athos from his massie Root Who but mis-speaks of thee he spets at Heav'n And his owne spettle in his face is driven Lord shew thee such take on thee the Defence Of thine owne glory and our innocence Cleer thine owne name of blame let him not thus Tryumph of Thee in tryumphing of vs But let ther Lord vnto thy Church appear Iust Cause of Ioy and to thy Foes of fear God hears his Cry and from th' Empyreal Round Miraculous slaughter of the Assirians He wrathfull sends a winged Champion down Who richly arm'd in more than humane Arms Mowes in one night of Heathen men at Arms Thrice-three-score thousand and five thousand more Feld round about beside behinde before Heer his two eyes which Sun-like brightly turn Simile Two armed Squadrons in a moment burn Not much vnlike vnto a fier in stubble Which sodain spreading still the flame doth double And with quick succour of som Southren blasts Crick-crackling quickly all the Country wastes Heer the stiff Storm that from his mouth he blowes Thousands of Souldiers each on other throwes Simile Even as a Winde a Rock a sodain Flood Bears down the Trees in a side-hanging Wood Th' Yew overturns the Pine the Pine the Elm The Elm the Oak th' Oak doth the Ash ore-whelm And from the top down to the Vale belowe The Mount's dis-mantled and even shamed so Heer with a Sword such as that sacred blade For the bright Guard of Eden's entry made He hacks he hews and somtimes with one blowe A Regiment hee all at once doth mowe And as a Cannon's thundrie roaring Ball Simile Battering one Turret shakes the next withall And oft in Armies as by proof they finde Kils oldest Souldiers with his very winde The whiffing Flashes of this Sword so quick Strikes dead a many which it did not strike Heer with his hands he strangles all at-once Legions of Foes O Arm that Kings dis-throans O Army-shaving Sword Rock-razing Hands World-tossing Tempest All-consuming Brands O let som other with more sacred fier Than I inflam'd into my Muse inspire The wondrous manner of this Overthrowe The which alas God knowes I little knowe I but admire it in confused sort Conceiue I cannot and much less report Com-on Zenacherib where 's now thine Hoast Where are thy Champions Thou didst lately boast Th' hadst in thy Camp as many Soldiers As Sea hath Fishes or the Heav'ns haue Stars Now th' art alone and yet not all alone Fear and Despair and Fury wait vpon Thy shame-full Flight but bloody Butcher stay Stay noysom Plague fly not so fast away Fear not Heav'ns Fauchin that foul brest of thine Shall not be honor'd with such wounds divine Nor shalt thou yet in timely bed decease No Tyrants vse not to Depart in Peace As bloud they thirsted they are drown'd in blood Their cruell Life a cruell Death makes good For O iust Iudgement lo thy Sons yer-long Zenacherib slain by his owne sonnes At Nisroch's Shrine revenge the Hebrews wrong Yea thine owne Sons foul eggs of fouler Bird Kill their owne Father sheath their either sword In thine owne throat and heirs of all thy vices Mix thine owne bloud among thy Sacrifices This Miracle is shortly seconded By one as famous and as strange indeed It pleas'd the Lord with heavy hand to smight King Ezechiah who in dolefull plight Ezekiah's sicknesse Vpon his bed lies vexed grieuously Sick of an Vlcer past all remedy Art fails the Leach and issue faileth Art Each of the Courtiers sadly wayles a-part His losse and Lord Death in a mourn-ful sort Through every Chamber daunteth all the Court And in the City seems in every Hall T' haue light a Taper for his Funerall Then Amos * The Prophet Isaiah Son his bed approaching pours From plentious lips these sweet and golden showrs But that I knowe you knowe the Lawes Divine But that your Faith so every-where doth shine But that your Courage so confirm'd I see I should my Liege I should not speak so free A comfortable Visitation of the sicke I would not tell you that in continent You must prepare to make your Testament That your Disease shall haue the vpper hand And Death already at your Door doth stand What fears my Lord Knowe you not heer beneath We alwayes say I towards the Port of Death Where who first anch'reth first is glorified That 't is Decreed confirm'd and ratified That of necessity the fatall Cup. Once all of vs must in our turn drink vp That Death 's no pain but of all pains the end The Gate of Heav'n and Ladder to ascend That Death 's the death of all our storms and strife And sweet beginning of immortall Life For by one death a thousands death's we slay Thear-by we rise from Body-Toomb of Clay Thear-by our Soules feast with celestiall food Thear-by we com to th' heav'nly Brother-hood Thear-by w' are chang'd to Angels of the Light And face to face behold Gods beuties bright The Prophet ceast and soon th' Isaacian Prince Deep apprehending Death's drad form and sense Vnto the Wall-ward turns his weeping eyes And sorrow-torn thus to himself he cries Lord I appeal Lord as thine humble childe A Prayer for a sick person mutatis mutandis From thy iust Iustice to thy Mercy milde Why will thy strength destroy a silly-one Weakned and wasted even to skin and bone One that adores thee with sincere affection The wrack of Idols and the Saints protection O! shall the Good thy servant had begun For Sion rest now by his death vndon O! shall a Pagan After-king restore The Groues and Idols I haue raz'd before Shall I dye Childe-les Shall thine Heritage In vain exspect that glorious golden Age Vnder thy CHRIST O! mercy mercy Lord O Father milde to thy dear Childe accord Som space of life O! let not Lord the voice Of Infidels at my poor death reioyce Then said the Seer Be of good cheer my Liege The Kings praier heard and his life prolonged 15 yeares Thy sighes and tears and prayers so be siege The throne of Pitty that as pierçt with-all Thy smyling Health God yieldeth to re-call Wills to his Temple three dayes hence thou mount Retracts his Sentence and corrects his count Makes Death go back for fifteen yeers as lo This Dial's shadow shal heer back-ward go His Word 's confirm'd with wonderfull Effect The Sunne goes backe For lo the Dial which doth houres direct Life's-guider Daye's-divider Sun's-Consorter Shadow's dull shifter and Time's dumb Reporter Puts-vp-again his passed Houres perforce And back-ward goes against his wonted course 'T is Noon at Mid-night and
whom he hath erected aboue vs and aboue all things not to abuse the law of humane hospitality and other holy bands for to giue place to these frenetike opinions so to abolish a pretended tyranny I haue also to warne thee of two different sorts of men of the which one sort is so depraued that they can heare nothing but that which is altogether prophane and the other is so supersticious that they make conscience not onely to write but also to read of holy things in verse as though that the measure and iointure of syllabes were so constrained as it were vnpossible to keepe the sense vnperuerted or at least not excessiuely obscured Now if I perceiue that this my first assay may bee to thee agreeable I shall continue more gladly my newe commenced race in such sort that thou shalt not repent thine indulgence nor I my passed pains But if contrarie fall in time to come I wil be ware to là y out my smalpack in this ample Theatre of France where there is almost as many Iudgements as beholders A Dieu GSSDB The Argument of the whole Historie of Iudith AFter that the Children of Israel were deliuered from captiuitie and returned to their land the Citty of Ierusalem reedified the Temple builded and prepared to the seruice of the Lord the multitude of the people being scattered in sundry towns and places of the Land where they liued in peaceable rest the Lord knowing man to be negligent of GOD and his saluation chiefly when he liues at ease and all things frames vnto his fraile desire to th' end that his people should not fal in such an inconuenience would exercise them with a feareful affliction and temptation sending vpon their Countrey an army so great in number and puissance that made the whole earth to tremble This expedition was vnder the Persian Monark named in the historie Nebuchadnezar which neuerthelesse is not his right name His chiefe Lieutenant generall and Conducter of the whole Armie was Holophernes who wheresoeuer hee came ouerthrewe all religion permitting none to inuocate or acknowledge any other God but Nebuchadnezar his Maister whome hee enforced to constitute and establish for the onely God So entred hee Iudea with intent to destroy it all which the people perceiuing and that his power was so great that no nation could resist him and also knowing his cruell hatred were sore affraied and almost driuen to extreame desperation seeing none other thing present before them but ruine and destruction And this the Lord suffered to showe in time his worke to bee more wonderfull For the people being humbled and hauing called to the Lord for mercie and succour at his hand hee both heard and succoured them at neede The meane was not through strength or stoutnesse of some worthy Captaine but by the hand of Iudith a tender feeble woman to the shame of this most proud and cruell tyrant and all his heathen hoste For shee cut off his head put all his campe to slight destroyed his men of Armes in such wise that they fled here and there and seeking to saue their liues left all their tentes and baggage Thus the Lorde by the weake and those that are not regarded makes his workes admirable By one selfe meane hee saued his owne and executed his iustice against his enemies In which wee haue to consider his singular ptouidence and goodnesse and the care which he hath in especiall for his faithfull and all his whole Church This Historie is intituled by the name of Iudith because it containes the narration of her great vertues and for that the Lorde vsed her as an instrument for the deliuerance of his people It is not certaine who was the first Author hereof neuerthelesse the reading of it hath beene receiued in the Church for the doctrine and vtility of the same THE SVMMARIE OF The I. BOOKE HOLOPHERNâ—â— Lieutenant generall and chief of the army of Nebuchâ—dnezzaâ— K oâ— the Assyrians was in the fielde for to subdue diuers people and amongst others the Iewes All the Nation is seazed with great feare for the cruelties committed by the enemy Then as it fals out â—n bruits of war al the whole people were troubled som sauing themselues in corners for feare others attending in great perplexity some sad and Tragicall ende the last sort calls vpon God This while IOACHIM the chiefe Priest gouerned the people hâ— by his letters and expresse commandement recalls those that were fled and scattered and made them returne to Ierusalem where in presence of the Leâ—its hee made sacrifice earnest prayer vnto God to withdrawe his ire and to bee mercifull to his people which done he enters in counsell and requires his Princes to consult vpon the cause and consider what iâ— most 〈◊〉 and to preferre the loue of Gods law and the countâ— iâ— before all priuate things the first that gainstands this exhortation is an hypocrite and fauourer of the enemy who giues couÌ„sell to render them to HOLOPHERNEâ— calling him a Prince gratious to those that applauds to him and inuincible in battell to those that dare resist him But the second Lord replying â—â—alously againe detecteth his false hypocriâ—ie and carelesse securitie exposing the people to the mercy of a barbarous godless enemy before the duty they ought to their God and their countrey and to establish in place of the true God a wicked Nâ—MROD conâ—ummat in all impiety and wickednes to abolish all vertue and godlinesse For he proues that if the nations should be rooted out for the right religioÌ„ God should be more honored in the death of the Iewes then in their liues and that it is more worthy to die Hebrewes then to liue infidels and free men then slaues Shortly that they ought to prefer honor and duty before feare and a vaine hope to prolong their dolefull dayes This reply encouraged all the aâ—â—istâ—ts wherof IOACHIM gaue thankes to God and resoluing himselfe vpon a iust defence for the onseruation of the seruice of God and the freedome of his nation and the liues of the innocent against this villanous inuatision wise by deâ—aâ—â—ed the regiments of towns to persons conuenient who past to their â—â—â—igned places each one preparing according to their power vnto the warre with courage paine and diligence The first Booke of Iudith I Sing the vertues of a valiant Dame PropositioÌ„ summe of this worke Who in defence of Iacob ouercame Th' Assyriaâ— Prince and slew that Pagan stout Who had beset Bethulia walles about O thou who kept thine Izak from the thrall Inuocation of the true God Of infidels and steeld the courage small Of feeble Iudith with a manly strength With sacred furie fill my heart at length And with thy Holy spirit my spirit enspire For matter so diuine Lord I require No humain stile but that the Reader may Great profit reape I ioy thou praise alway And since in vulgar verse I prease to sing DedicatioÌ„ of the Author altred by the
bands of Chus on Gerar greene Shall I forget him who preparing fight Iosaphat 'Gainst Ammon Seir and Moabs Idoll might Saw ech of their three hoasts on others fall And with them selfs their selfs disconfit all Yet for their sinnes God gaue them in the hands Of Calde Kings who conquered all their Lands And took King Zedekee and made an end Of that Impire till God did Cyrus send Who set them free and gaue them of his grace Two rulers of their owne And now this place Is kept by sacred Ioachim whose powers Consists not onely within Sions towers But Edom Sidon Moab and we all Do knowe his strength and knowes him principall Now Sir you hear the progresse first and last Of Isâ—acs race in order as it past One while the Lord enhaunst them to the skie One while he drew them downe in deepe to lie ' But were he Iudge or Prince or King of might ' Who reul'd the Hebrews policie aright ' While they observ'd th' alliance made before ' By their forefathers who to God them swore ' In happy state all others they surpast ' And vnderfoote their proudest foes were cast ' And all the world that their destruction sought ' Against their state and name preuailed nought ' But contrary as oft as they astraide ' From God their guide he on their shoulders laid ' The Barbare yock of Moâ—b and oft-times ' Of Palestine and Ammon for their crimes ' The heauie hand of God was seen to be ' On their ingratefull infidelity Now if so be that any odious sinne Prouoke their Lord his Iustice to begin Then mine not you their towers and tourets tall Nor bring the wrack som engine to their wall Nor place thy battries braue nor yet aduenter With thy courageous camp the breach to enter For if Libanus mount or Carmell faire Or Niphathaei should parke them from repaire If Ynde and Nilus with the Rhene and Rhone To close them round about should run in one For their defence yet shall they notwithstand With all their force thy flurious fighting â—and But if they haue not broke the â—and indeed That God with Abraham made and with his seede Beware my Lord beware to touch or moue These people that the Lord so much doth loue For though south Aùtan would dispeople his Lands And bring the blackest Moores to swarme in bands If Northren Boreas vnder his banners colde Would bring to field his hideous Souldiers bold If Zephyrus from sweet Hesperia coste Would send his chosen armed men to Hoste If Eurus for to aide thine enterprise Would bring his men from whence the sun doth rise Yet all their numbers hudge and forces strong Can neuer do to Israell any wrong Nor hurt one hair if their great God say nay That God will them defend because he may With one small blast confound all Kings that darre As thou doest now prouoke him vnto warre Then like as ye behold the quiet see Not raging when the windes ingendring be But blauncheth first then growes in little space In wallowing waves to flowe with fomy face And lastly beates the banks and ships vnshrouds With wrackfull waues vphoist to highest clouds So almost all the princes of that hoste With inward anger gan to be emboste As oft as they the prayse of God did heare So to his speech encreast their spitefull chear Which in the end to blasphemy them brought Th' immortall God of Gods to set at nought Kill and cut off quoth they this traytour fine Whose subtill talke with all his whole engine Pretends to saue these Hebrews from our hands And threats vs with vaine Gods of forraine Lands For if it please you noble prince to send But twenty men of value that are â—end Within your camp these recklesse rebels then Shall be a pray to all your warlike men O wicked wight but then the Uizroy stout With power appeasde the murmur of the route And to him said O shameles Prophet thou What Sibyll or what charmer tell me now What Diuell or Daemon so doth thee inspire That Izrell shall of vs haue his desire Such men as with no God can be content But such as pleased Moses to inuent Of his owne head a God that hath no power â—lasphemic For to deliuer them nor thee this hower Haue we an other God or king of kings Then our great Persian Monark now that rigns Whose barded horse ore runns the Nations all Whose armed men out of these mountaines tall Shall rake these Rebels that from Egypt came To this where they vniustly keep the same Dye dye thou shalt O wretch thy toung vntrue And double heart shall haue their wages due But foole what speake I thus no haste a while Thy blood O villaine shall not me defile So iust a paine so soone thou shalt not haue For thy deceipt so soone to go to graue ' For in a wretches sodaine death at ones ' Their long some ill is buried with their bones But to that end I may prolong thy strife In Bethull town I will prolong thy life Where euerie howre thou shalt haue such affraye To dye vndead a thousand times a day Till time with them who thou so strong hast thought To shamefull end with them thou shalt be brought What wherefore temblest thou and art so pale What sorrow makes thy heart so soone to faile If God be God as thou right now hast said Then of thy faith giue witnesse vndismaid A marshall of the campe then being prest Who was not yet so cruell as the rest There tooke this demy Pagan Ammons Lord And sent him bound to Bethull with a cord Then euen as in his clawes the kite doth beare The chirping chicken throu the weather cleare While that the cackling hen belowe on ground Bewayles her bird with vaine lamenting sound So in like woe his worthy men were left For that so worthy a chief was them bereft The Townsmen then beholding neere their wall These Miscreants to armour straight they fall Yâ—lad in plate and mail and runnes in bands And fearcely fronts their foes with steele in hands As fast as done the riuers doun the hils That with their murmur hudge the deepes vpfils The Heathen seeing this retirde away And left the Lord of Ammon for a pray To th' Hebrew soldiers who did him constraine Though he was willing with them to remaine When all the folke with prease about him past His eyes and hands vp to the pole he cast ' And thus he spake O God that great abides ' Vpon th' Immortall seat and iustly guides ' The ruled course of heav'n whose liuing spreete ' Reuiuing spreds and through all things doth fleete ' I render thee O God immortall prayse ' For that before I end my wofull dayes ' Now from th' vnfruitfull stock thou doest me race 'To graft me in thy fruitfull tree of grace ' Where in despite of all contrary strife ' I shall bring forth the fruits of lasting life And ye O Iacobs sonnes
withstand The Heathen host with ech of them in hand An yron mace in stead of launces long And brazen bucklers beating back the throng Their habergions like stiddies stithe they baire With helmets high and pennons pight in aire Of equall age they were and equall length Of equall courage and of equall strength Like Poplers twain that recheth vp their tops And holds their heads so high that none them crops But on the Riuers side do sweetly sway Like germain brether hailsing oft a day The Heathen seeing thus the Iews descend With edge of sword their Citie to defend They left th' assault and thence retyring went As they commanded were vnto their tent But when I think how xxx dayes that towne Tormented was with mischief vp and down Too sad a song I cannot hear inuent So great a sadnesse right to represent My hand for horrour shakes and now no more Can lead my sacred pen as erst before For now mine eyes that watred are with tears Declares my matter all of mischief bears Oh Sprite from whence all sprit and life doth come Thou loosde the tongue of Zacharie that was dōme And sent thy Heralds through the world to preach Thy name and in a hundreth tongues to teach Guide thou my pen and courage to me lend That to thy honour I this worke may end Although that Izak sawe on euery hand A world of folke against his towne to stand Yet tracting time he thought he would prouide No lesse to keep then coole th' Assiegers pride But when they fand the conduits cut and rent By which their water to their towne was sent Their courage bolde and all their craks alas As licour faild so did their stoutnesse pas Their Lords preferring death to bondage vile Made them beleeue the thing did them beguile To wit they gaue men hope that they might keep Sufficient wat'r in wels and cesterns deep Through all the towne the people to relieue That thirst should not the souldiers greatly grieue The magistrates in deed had great regard To see this water wisely spent and spar'd That Bottell sweet which serued at the first To keep the life but not to slocken thirst A viue description of Thirst. When wels grew dry the Commons ran in rage And sought out euery sink their thirst t' asswage And drank with long som draught the pools in haste To quench their thirst with ill contented taste Which poysoned ayre enfect their purest breath Whereby the drinker drank his present death O wretched folke who felt so hard a strife Drink or not drink both wayes must lose their life For he that drank and he that did refrain Had of their enmies both an equall pain For why the water vile slew them throughout No lesse then did their enmies them about That wretched towne had neuer a street nor rewe But Parcas there had found som facion newe To murder men or martyr them with fears As mov'd the most indurate hart to tears If so much water in their brains had been As might forbear a drop to wete their een There plaind the old man that the souldier strong Had reft his Bottell from his head with wrong But while he spake his hart for thirst did faint And life him left which frustrate his complaint The souldier braue Oh hart brek for to tell His proper vryne drank thirst to expell The wofull mother with her spettle fed Her little childe half dead in cradle bed The Lady with her Lord at point of death Embracing fals and yeelds their latest breath For cruell thirst came out of Cyren Land Where she was fostred on that burning sand With hote intracted tongue and sonken een With stomack worn and wrinkled visage keen With light and meigre corse and pailed vains In stead of blood that brimstone hote retains Her poysond mouth blew throw that holy town Such hellish ayr that stifled vp and down The Arters of the Iewes in such a way That nought was seen but burials night and day So that the heauen to see their dolours deep Could scarsly keep his course but preasd to weep And would haue ioind his tears to their complaint If God of hosts had made them no restraint Yea I my self must weep who cannot speak The woes that makes my heavy hart to break And so will silent rest and not rehearse But counterfait the painter in my verse Who thought his colours paile could not declare The speciall woe king Looke the Table Agamemnon bare When sacrificed was his onely race With bend of black he bound the fathers face Now while the people were in this estate And with their princes wrangling in debate They thus besought the Lord for to decide Between their simplesse and their princes pride The Lord be iudge of that which ye haue wrought And what your wicked counsells hath vs brought If you had offred peace to this great Lord At first we might haue wonne him to accord Then happy happy dayes we might haue seen And not so many souldiers murdred been Alas what hope haue we within this holde Our enmies are more meek a thousand folde Then are our owne They haps would vs preserue Our wilfull owne pretends to see vs sterue Our children do our childrens weal denay And headlong hastes vnto their owne decay We knowe O Lord the breaking of thy law Hath caused thee this sword on vs to draw And iustly thou thine yrefull bowe doest bend On our vnloyall heads the shot to send But thou who doth not long retain thine yre Against thine owne thy mercy we require Change thou the purpose of our foolish guides And of these Heathen armed at our sides Or els let vs vpon their weapons fall And of their hands to be destroyed all Er we this drougth and deadly venim haue With languishing to send vs to the graue My brethren dear the Ruler then gan say Our whole desire hath been both night and day Not for to see the seed of Abrahm lost For which we striue against this furious hoste What haue ye pain so likewise pain haue we For in one boat we both imbarked be Vpon one tide one tempest doth vs tosse Your common ill it is our common losse Th' Assyrian plague shall not vs Hebrews grieue When pleaseth God our mischief to relieue Which he will doe if ye can be content And not with grudge his clemency prevent Then striue not you against that puissant king Who create all and gouerns euery thing For comfort of his Church and children dear And succours them though time do long appear Somtime an Archer leaues his bowe vnbent And hong vpon a naile to that intent It may the stronger be to bend again And shoot the shot with greater might and main Right so th' eternall doth withholde his ill A longer time perchance for that he will More egerly reuenge him of their crime Who do abuse his long for bearing time When men applauds to sinne they count it light And but a matter
flood irrepassable Yet Bagos hearing Izaks cry encrease He with his foot the dore began to prease And entred where the bed he did beholde All bled with Holophernes carcasse colde He tore his hair and all his garments rent And to the heauen his howling cries he sent But when he mist the Hebrew-Dame away Then raging he began a gastly fray And from the bloody tent as he ran out Among the Heathen thus began to shout Woe woe to vs a slaue they Iudith call In sleaing Holopherne hath slain vs all That daunted all the world These nouels last Ioynd to the former fear that lately past Affrighted so the souldiers one and all That pike and dart and target they let fall And fled through mountains valleis and throw heaths Where ev'rie chaunce procurde them worser deaths Then all th' assieged folk in flocks descended And on their enmies backs their howe 's they bended Both parties ran but th' one that other chased The weary flyers flight themselfs defaced The Hebrews there in fight not one they lost But they bet down and slew the Heathen hoste As doth a Lion of Getulia wood Bespred the land with woried beasts and blood So long as he may finde a beast abide That dare oppone him to his cruell pride Som head long throwes themselfs from craggie Rocks And breaks their bones and all their brains out knocks Som hath forgot that Parcas every whear Waits on their end that drowne in water clear But if that any scapte by som great hap He scapte the first but not the after clap Fore all the straits and passages were set That none should scape aliue where thy were met Yea scarsly one was left to tell the king At Niniue of all this wondrous thing This battell done all those whose Sex and age With held at home their dolours to asswage Came forth out of their fort to see and hear What God had done for them his people dear They found som men dismembred hauing breath That cried in vain a hundreth times for death Another gnashes with his teeth in pains Som dead in face their former rage retains And som is shot directly throw the hart Ech soule departs to his appointed part According to the valew or the chaunce That fortun'd them to dye on sword or launce In short to see this sight so dreadful was That even the Hebrews would haue sayd Alas If they had vanquisht any enmie els This while amongst the corses infidels Among a hundred thousand their was found The cheftains carcas rent with many-a wound Of spear and sword by th' Hebrews in their yre Ther was no sinew Arter vain nor lyre That was not mangled with their vulgar rage No time nor moment might their yre asswage If Holopherne had been like Atlas long Or like in limmes vnto Briarius strong Yet should his body been too small a pray To sati fie their furie ev'ry way For in that Camp was not so small a knaue But of his flesh som collup he would haue O tyrant now quoth they giue thy right hand To the Cilicians and to Media Land Leaue thou thy left And to Celea sweet To Ismaell and Aegypt leaue thy feet To th' end that al the world by thee offenced With such a present may be recompenced But heer I faile thy corps thus to deuise In Attomy for it will not suffise This thankfull widow then who neuer thought To smore this wondrous work that God had wrought Entun'd her vearse and sung to sweet consort Of instruments and past with gracious port Before the chosen Dames and virgins thair That were esteem de for honest chaste and fair Sing sing with hart and voyce and sounding strings And prayse the Lord of Lords and King of Kings Who doth disthrone the great and in their place Erects the poore that leans vpon his grace Who would haue thought that in a day one towne Could ouercome a camp of such renowne Who daunted all the world whose pride was felt From Indian shore to where the Calpees dwelt Great God who will beleeue that Holopherne Who did a hundred famous princes derne Should be disceptred slain left in a midow By no great Gyant but a feeble widow Great God who will beleeue that he who raind From north to south and in his hands retaind Both East and West now gets not grace to haue An ynch of Gazon ground to be his graue This Conqu'rour that came with no army small Now lyes on ground abandond of them all Not sole for those companions him in death That followde him while he had life and breath Not now the ground but Ravens hunger-sterv'd Are now his tombe as he hath well deserv'd No vaults of Marble rich nor Porphyr pure That he had built could be his sepulture Euen so good Lord from hence forth let vs finde Thee not our Iudge but for our father kinde But let all tyrants that against thee gather Finde thee their Iudge but not their louing father Here Iudith ends And also heare I stay The Translator With thankes to God So for his state I pray At whose command I vndertooke this deed To please his Grace and those that will it reed FINIS A TABLE OF SIGnification of some wordes as they are vsed before * ⎠* Words Significations ABderois Prophane and delicate Epicures Abile A hill in Affrica one of the Pillers of Hercules Abraham Father of the Iewes or the faithfull Achelois Ympes Sirenes or Mermaids Amram The father of Moses Assur Assurs head The Countrey of Assyria or their king Assyrian Prince Holophernes Vizroy or Generall Agamemnon The Generall of the Greekes being present at the sacrificing of his onely Daughter was painted with a bende about his eyes either for the vnskilfulnes of the painter who could not sufficieÌ„tly expresse the fathers speciall teares or els for that he thought it not decent to paint so mighty a Prince weeping or vnnaturall not to weepe Aconite A poysonable herbe Autan The South or south winde Aurora The morning Arphaxat Supposed to be Arbactus King of Medes Atlas A great Giant Argus Had a hundreth eyes Alexander The great Apelles An excellent painter Bethull or Bethulia The City where Iudith dwelt Babell Babylon or the whole countrey Bellona Goddesse of Battell Briccoll An engine of warre Briarius A Giant with a hundreth haÌ„ds Bacchus Wine or drunkennes Boreas The North or north wind Chameleon A beast that chaungeth his colours Ctesiphon A cunning Architector or builder Chaos A confusion before the worlds creation Capharois Two perilous Rocks Cyanes straits Calpe A hill in Spaine one of the pillars of Hercules Cyprian Dame Venus loue or lust Cupido Loue or lust Coruies Crooked yrons to drawe down buildings Castors sister Helen the dishonest wife of Monelaus Canaces Incestuous women Circes Witches abusers of louers Cyrene A dry sandy countrey or drouth Carmell A mountaine in Iudea or the whole countrey Danow Danubius a riuer in Germany Denis twice born Bacchus Diana or Cynthia The Moone Dina. The daughter of Iacob Aegyptian Queen Cleopatra the Concubine of M. Antonius who swallowed a rich pearle Elimia Land The Elamits Eurus The East or East winde Aegeans stable Where horses deuoured men Encelade A Giant buried vnder mount Aetna Generall Holophernes Gibraltar A City in Spaine neere to Calpe-hill one of the Pillers of Hercules Holopherne Vizroy chiefe of the Army Hermon A Hill in Iudea or the couÌ„try of Iudea Hesperian coste The west Hyade A water nymph or watrie star Heraults Apostles or preachers Iacobs sonnes The people of Izrell Izrell or Iacob The Land of Iudea Izaak The people of the Iewes Ismaell Idumeans or Edom. Ixion One tormented in Hell Iebus place Ierusalem or Sion Iudith of Bethulia of the tribe of Ruben Iessies race Dauid and his seed Iethro Father in law to Moses Latmies sonne Endymion the long sleeper supposed to lye with the Moone Lysippus A cunning caruer Monarke One sole gouernour Memphits Men of that Citie in Aegypt Misraim The Land of Egypt Mocmur The riuer neare Bethulia Momus A scornfull detractour of all things Mars God of strife or battell Myrrhaes Syllaes Women betrayers of their couÌ„rey Minotaurs Vnnaturall monsters Medusaes Furies of hell Neptunes back The Sea Nâ—phathai A mighty strong Rocke or mouÌ„taine in Syria Palestine The Land of the Philistins Pharia A famous tower in Egypt Phlegoâ— One of the foure horses that was supposed to draw the sunne Phoebus The sunne Phoebâ— His sister the moone Proteus A man changing himself in sun dry formes there is a fish of like nature Priams wife Hecuba the honourable Pestmell All mixt confusedly together Ramme An ingine of warre for battry Sina-hill Sinai-hill Salem Ierusalem Solymâ— Ierusalem Sichem The rauisher of Dina. Sabean Queene Sauours of Saba land Simeon Dinaes brother Scythique Rampier The tombe of Semele mother of Bacchus Styx A Riuer in hell Sympathie Concordance of natures and things Sentinelles Watchmen Semirames Women Viragoes Syrtes Dangerous sands Satrap Prince Stymphalides Rauenous foules with female faces Harpyes Syrian camp The Hoste of Holophernes Semels sonne Bacchus or wine Transparent That which may be seen throgh and whole like glasse Tortuse An engine of warre Trepan An engine of warre The forraine tyde Supposed to haue been the flood of Noah or the deluge of Deucalion that diuided Affrica from Europe and Sycilia from Italia Thetis The Sea Thurimâ— Deceitfull Aduocats Theban knight Captaine of the Greeks army Theefe that stole the fire Prometheus who stole fire from Iupiter Zedechias Last king of the Iewes Zephyrus West or west winde Zeuxis A painter of Italie who being required to paint the picture of Helen desired to haue all the fairest women of Creton to be present for his paterne FINIS 1611. OS · HOMINI · SVBLIME · DEDIT ✚ AT LONDON Imprinted by H. L. and are to be sould by Arthur Iohnson at the signe of the white horse neere the great North doore of Paules Church
mend their vertue taste and sauour And Rypen faire the Rest that are behinde The rather if some Clowde of COMFORT drop Amid the Braunches of my blasted Hope Amid the Braunches of my blasted Hope Three Noble pearches had my Muse of late Where Turtle-like groaning Sad tunes she sate But O! curst ENVIE did vntimely lop The First the Next bruiz'd with his Fall did drop The Third remaines growen a great arm of State Most WORTIE So But so prae occupate EVTERPE VVith other MVSES That OVRS hath no scope Wherefore for succour in her wearie flight Hardly pursu'd by that sharpe Vulture WANT Shee 's fain my Liege with your good leaue to light Amid the Top-leaues of Your CEDAR-Plant Where if you daign Her Rest froÌ„ FORTVNE'S wrong Shee shall more sweetely Ende her solemne Song Shee shall more sweetely Ende Her solemne Song If Heaven grant Life and You give leaue to doo-it By adding fitly All those Partes vnto it Which more precisely to Your Praise belong Wherein expresly with a Thankefull tongue To your great Self APOLLO'S self applies-him Yeeldes YOV His Laurells And dooth all agnize-him ERATO Rapt with the VVonder Of Your Uertues Young All the Posthumiall race of that rare Spirit His Swan tunes sweetest neer his latest breath Which of his glory their Childes-part inherit Thogh born alas after their Father's death As Epilogue shall PAYE our gratefull Vowes Vnder the shaddowe of Your Sacred Boughes Vnder the shaddowe of Your Sacred Boughes Great Royall CEDAR of Mounte LIBANON Greater then that great Tree of BABYLON No maruaile if our TVRTLE seek to House Sith CAESAR'S Eagles that so strongly Rouze Th' olde Hâ—gard FALCON hatcht by Pampelon Th' IBERIAN GRIPHIN And not THESE alone POLYMNIA But euerie Birde and Beast With HVMBLE vowes Seekes roost or rest vnder your mighty Bowers So mighty hath th' Almighty made you now O Honour Him who thus hath Honour'd You And build His house who thus hath blessed Yours So STVARTS ay shall stand propt with His Power To Foes a Terrour and to Friendes a Tower To Foes a Terrour and to Friendes a Tower ERROR' 's Defyer and True FAITH'S Defence A Sword to Wrong a Shielde to Innocence Cheering the mild checking the wild with powr The Starre of other States and Sterne of Our The Rod of Vice VERTVE'S Recompence Long liue King IAMES in al MAGNIFICENCE VRANIA And full of DAYES When in his Blis-ful Bowr Heauens king shal crown thee with th' immortal flowr Fall all These Blessings on that forwarde Prince HENRIE our Hope to-Crowne His Excellence A KING at Home abroad a CONQVEROR So Happily that wee may still Conclude Our Sunne did Sette and yet no Night ensew'd SVBSCRIPTIO YOVR MAIESTIES Most loyall Subiect Humble Seruant IOSVAH SYLVESTER The Order of the Bookes or Tracts of this Volume THE FIRST WEEKE containeth Seaven Dayes THE 1. Day pag. 1. THE 2. Day 24. THE 3. Day 59. THE 4. Day 91. THE 5. Day 114. THE 6. Day 144. THE 7. Day 175. THE SECOND WEEK likewise Seauen DAIES whereof Three were neuer finished ADAM 1. Day Eden pag. 215. The Imposture 236. The Furies 254. The Handy-Crafts 276. NOAH 2. Day The Arke pag. 298. Babylon 315. The Colonies 335. The Columnes 358. ABRAHAM 3. Day The Vocation pag. 381. The Fathers 421. The Law 436. The Captains 477. DAVID 4. Day The Tropheis pag. 514. The Magnificence 551. The Schisme 590. The Decay 619. Vrania pag. 656. The Triumph of Faith 672. The Quadrains of Pibrac 697. The miraculous Peace of France 738. A Paradox against Liberty 780. CEs Tempes laurizez du Laurier mesme honeur Ces Yeux contemple-Cieux ou la Vertu se lit Ces traits au front marquez de Scavoir d' Esprit Ne sont que du BARTAS vn ombre exterieur Le Pinçeau n'en peut plus Mais de sa propre Plume Il â—est peint le Dedans dans son divin Volume These laureat Temples which the Laurel grace These Honest Lines these Signes of Wit and Art This Map of Vertues in a Muse-full Face Are but a blush of BARTAS outward part The Pencil could no more But his owne Pen Limms him with-in the Miracle of Men. LECTORIBVS ENGLAND'S Apelles rather OVR APOLLO WORLD' 's wonder SYDNEY that rare more than-man This LOVELY VENVS first to LIMNE beganne VVith such a PENCILL as no PENNE dares follow How theÌ„ shold I in Wit Art so shalow AtteÌ„pt the Task which yet none other can Far be the thought that mine vnlearned hand His heauenly Labour shold so much vnhallow Yet least that Holy-RELIQVE being shrin'd In som High-Place close lockt froÌ„ common light My Country-men should bee debarr'd the sight Of these DIVINE pure Beauties of the Minde Not daring meddle with APELLES TABLE This haue I muddled as my MVSE was able INDIGNIS Hence profane Hands Factors for Hearts profaâ—e Hence hissing Atheists Hellish Misse-Creants Hence Buzzard Kites dazled with Beautie 's glances Hence itching Eares with Toyes and Tales vp-tane Hence Green-sick Wits that relish nought but bane Hence dead lyve Idiots drown'd in Ignorance Hence wanton Michols that deâ—ide my Dance Hence Mâ—mike Apâ—s vaine Follies Counter-pâ—ne Hence prying Critikâ—s carping past your Skill Hence dull Conceipts that have no true Discerning Hence envious Momes converting Good to Ill Hence all at-once that lack or loue not LEARNING Hence All vn-holy froÌ„ the WORLDS BIRTH Feast VRANIA's Grace brookes no vn-worthy Guest OPTIMIS But my best Guest welcom great King of FAERIE Welcom fair QVEEN his vertue 's vertuous Love Welcom right AEGLETS of the ROYAL Eyrie Welcom sound Eares that sacred Tunes approve Welcom pure Hands whose Hearts are fixt aboue Welcom deer Soules that of Art's choise are charie Welcom chaste Matrons whom true zeal doth move Welcom good Wits that grace-full Mirth can varie Welcom milde Censors that mean slips can cover Welcom quick Spirits that sound the depth of Art Welcom MECAENAS each LEARNING-lover Welcom All good Welcom with all my Heart Sit-down I pray and taste of every Dish If Ought mis like You better Cooke I wish Intimo Iosuae Sylvestri Hexasticon VTprodesse suis possit Salustius offert Gallis quod nobis Iosua noster opus Ille ergo eximijs hoc vno nomine dignus Laudibus at duplici nititur hic merito Quem simul Authoris famae charaeque videmus Communi Patriae consuluisse bono Io Bo. Miles Ad Ioshuam Sylvesterum G. Salustij genuinum Interpretem * ⎠* FAre agê divini cultissima lingua Salusti SYLVESTER Clarij ceu fuit ille Dei Elyzij qua parte Iugiconvenerat te Edocâ—it sensus sua verba Senex An mage corpored Herois compage soluta In te Anima Elyzium fecerat ipsa sibi Credo equideÌ„ Samij rata Dogmata sunt Senis vnde Non Translata mihi sed genuina canis Quin Posteritas si pagina prima taceret Interpres dubitet tune vel ille siet Car Fitz-Geofridus Lati-Portensis Iosua
meet Round large and long there of itselfe it thriues And Little-World into the World arriues But that becomes by Natures set direction From foul and dead to beauty life perfection But this dull Heap of vndigested stuf Had doubtlesse neuer come to shape or proof Had not th' Almighty with his quick'ning breath Of the secret power of God in quickning the matter whereof the World was made Blow'n life and spirit into this Lump of death The dreadfull Darknes of the Memphytists The sad black horror of Cimmerian Mists The sable fumes of Hell's infernall vault Or if ought darker in the World be thought Muffled the face of that profound Abyss Full of Disorder and fell Mutinies So that in fine this furious debate Euen in the birth this Ball had ruinate Saue that the Lord into the Pile did pour Some secret Mastik of his sacred Power To glew together and to gouern fair The Heav'n and Earth the Ocean and the Aire Who ioyntly iustling in their rude Disorder The new-born Nature went about to murder As a good Wit that on th' immortall Shrine The Spirit of God by an inconceiueable meane maintained and as it were brooding warmed the shape-lesse Masse Genes 1. Of Memory ingraues a Work Diuine Abroad a-bed at boord for euer vses To minde his Theam and on his Book still muses So did Gods Spirit delight itself a space To moue itself vpon the floating Masse No other care th' Almightie's minde possest If care can enter in his sacred brest Or as a Hen that fain would hatch a Brood Som of her own som of adoptiue blood Sits close thereon and with her liuely heat Of yellow-white balls doth lyue birds beget Euen in such sort seemed the Spirit Eternall To brood vpon this Gulf with care paternall Quickning the Parts inspiring power in each From so foul Lees so fair a World to fetch For 't's nought but All in 't self including All An vn-beginning midless endles Ball 'T is nothing but a World whose superfice Leaues nothing out but what meer nothingis Now though the great Duke that in dreadfullaw Vpon Mount Horeb learn'd th' eternall Law That there is but one World confuting the Error of Leucyppus his Disciples by two reasons Had not assur'd vs that Gods sacred Power In six Dayes built this Vniuersall Bower Reason itself doth ouer-throw the grounds Of those new Worlds that fond Leucyppus founds Sith if kind Nature many Worlds could * embrace clip Still th' vpper Worlds water and earth would slip Into the lower and so in conclusion All would return into the Old Confusion Besides we must imagin empty distance Between these Worlds wherein without resistance Their wheels may whirl not hindred in their courses By th' inter-iustling of each others forces But all things are so fast together fixt With so firm bonds that there 's no void betwixt Thence coms it that a Cask pearç't to be spent Though full yet runs not till we giue it vent Thence is' t that Bellowes while the sâ—out is stopt So hardly heaue and hardly can be op't Thence is' t that water doth not freez in Winter Stopt close in vessels where no ayre may enter Thence is' t that Garden-pots the mouth kept close Let fall no liquor at their siue-like nose And thence it is that the pure siluer source In leaden pipes running a captiue course Contrary to it's Nature spouteth high To all so odious is Vacuity God then not onely framed Nature one But also set it limitation Of Form and Time exempting euer solely From quantity his own self's Essence holy Confutation of another Error of such as make Nature and the Heauens infinita How can we call the Heav'ns vnmeasured Sith measur'd Time their Course hath measured How can we count this Vniuerse immortall Sith many-wayes the parts proue howerly mortall Sith his Commencement proues his Consummation And all things ay decline to Alteration Let bold Greek Sages fain the Firmament To be compos'd of a fift Element Let them deny in their profane profoundnes End and beginning to th' Heav'ns rowling roundnes And let them argue that Deaths lawes alone Reach but the Bodies vnder Cynthias Throne The sandy grounds of their Sophistick brawling Are all too-weak to keep the World from falling One Day the Rocks from top to toe shall quiuer A liuely description of the ende of the World The Mountains melt and all in sunder shiuer The Heav'ns shall rent for fear the lowely Fields Puft vp shall swell to huge and mighty Hills Riuers shall dry or if in any Flood Rest any liquor it shall all be blood The Sea shall all be fire and on the shoar The thirsty Whales with horrid noyse shall roar The Sun shall seize the black Coach of the Moon And make it midnight when it should be noon With rusty Mask the Heav'ns shall hide their face The Stars shall fall and All away shall pass Disorder Dread Horror and Death shall com Noise storms and darknes shall vsurp the room And then the Chief-Chief-Iustice venging Wrath Which heer already often threatned hath Shall make a Bon-fire of this mighty Ball As once he made it a vast Ocean all Alas how faith-les and how modest-les Against iudicial Astrologers that presume to point the verie time thereof Are you that in your Ephomerides Mark th' yeer the month and day which euermore Gainst yeers months daies shal dam-vp Saturnes dore At thought whereof euen now my heart doth ake My flesh doth faint my very soule doth shake You haue mis-cast in your Arithmetike Mis-laid your Counters groapingly yee seek In nights blacke darknes for the secret things Seal'd in the Casket of the King of Kings 'T is hee that keeps th' eternall Clock of Time And holds the waights of that appointed Chime Hee in his hand the sacred book doth bear Of that close-clasped finall Calender Where in Red letters not with vs frequented The certaine Date of that Great Day is printed That dreadfull Day which doth so swiftly post That 't wil be seen before fore-seen of most Then then good Lord shall thy dear Son descend Though yet he seem in feeble flesh ypend In complete Glory from the glistering Sky Millions of Angels shall about him fly Mercy and Iustice marching cheek by ioule Shall his Diuine Triumphant Chariot roule Whose wheeles shall shine with Lightning round about And beames of Glory each-where blazing out Those that were laden with proud marble Toombs Those that were swallow'd in wilde Monsters woombs Those that the Sea hath swill'd those that the flashes Of ruddy Flames haue burned all to ashes Awaked all shall rise and all reuest The flesh and bones that they at first possest All shall appear and hear before the Throne Of God the Iudge without exception The finall Sentence sounding ioy and terror Of euer-lasting Happiness or Horror Som shall his Iustice som his Mercy taste Som call'd to ioy som into torment cast When from
inferiour to the rest Of the Vine and the excellent vse of Wine temperately taken In beauty as in bounty past the best Whose sacred liquor temperately taen Reviues the spirits and purifies the brain Cheers the sad heart increaseth kindly heat Purgeth gross blood and doth the pure beget Strengthens the stomack and the colour mends Sharpens the wit and doth the bladder cleanse Opens obstructions excrements expels And easeth vs of many Languors els He preuenteth an obiection and sheweth that notwithstanding mans fall the Earth yeeldeth vs matter inough to praise and magnifie her Maker And though through Sin wherby from Heav'nly state Our Parents barr'd vs th' Earth degenerate From her first beauty bearing still vpon her Eternall Scars of her fond Lords dishonour Though with the Worlds age her weak age decay Though she becom less fruitfull every day Much like a Woman with oft teeming worn Who with the Babes of her owne body born Having almost stor'd a whole Town with people Simile At length becomes barren and faint and feeble Yet doth she yeeld matter enough to sing And praise the Maker of so rich a Thing Neuer mine eies in pleasant Spring behold Of Flowers The azure Flax the gilden Marigold The Violet's purple the sweet Rose's stammell The Lillie's snowe and Pansey's various ammell But that in them the Painter I admire Who in more Colours doth the Fields attire Then fresh Aurora's rosie cheeks display When in the East she Vshers a fair Day Or Iris Bowe which bended in the Sky Boades fruitfull deaws when as the Fields be dry Heer deer S. BARTAS giue thy Seruant leaue An addition by the Translator of the rare Sun-louing LOTOS In thy rich Garland one rare Flowr to weaue VVhose wondrons nature had more worthy been Of thy diuine immortalizing Pen But from thy sight when SEIN did swell with Bloud It sunk perhaps vnder the Crimsin Flood VVhen Beldam Medices Valois and Guise Stain'd Hymens Roab with Heathen cruelties Because the Sun to shun so vile a view His Chamber kept and wept with Bartholmew For so so soon as in the Western Seas Apollo sinks in siluer Euphrates The Lotos diues deeper and deeper ay Till mid-night then remounteth toward Day But not aboue the Water till the Sun Doo râ—-ascend aboue the Horizon Semper â—adem So euer-true to Titans radiant Flame That Rise he Fall he it is Still the same A Real Emblem of her Royal Honour That worthily did take that Word vpon-her Sacred ELIZA that ensu'd no less Th' etenall Sun of Peace and Righteousnes VVhose liuely lamp what euer did betide-her In either Fortune was her onely Guider For in her Fathers and her Brothers Daies Fair rose this Rose with Truth 's new-springing raies And when again the Gospels glorious Light Set in her Sisters superstitious Night She sunk withall vnder afflictions streams As sinks my Lotos with Sols setting beams But after Night when Light again appear'd Ther-with again her Royal Crown she rear'd And in an I le amid the Ocean set Maugre the Deluge that Romes Dragon spet VVith spight full storms striuing to ouer-flowe her And Spain conspyring iointly t' ouer-throwe-her Her Maiden Flowr flourisht aboue the VVater ELIZABETA REGINA Anagram Ei ben t' alza e gira For still Heav'ns Sun cherisht his louing Daughter Bel fior d'Honor ch'in Mare'l Mondo ammira Al Sole sacro ch'Eâ— BEN T' ALZA E GIRA So my deer Wiat honouring Stil the same In-soul'd an Imprese with her Anagramm And last for guerdon of her constant Loue Rapt her intirely to himself aboue So set our Sun and yet no Night ensu'd So happily the Heav'ns our Light renu'd For in her stead of the same Stock of Kings Another Flowr or rather Phoenix springs Another like or rather Still the same No lesse in Loue with that Supernall Flame So to God's glory and his Churches good Th' honour of England and the Royall blood Long happy Monark may king IAMES persist And after him His Still the same in Christ. God not content t' haue giuen these Plants of ours Of diuers hearbs and Plants and of their excellent vertues Precious Perfumes Fruits plenty pleasant Flowrs Infused Physick in their leaues and Mores To cure our sicknes and to salve our sores Else doubt-less Death assaults so many waies Scarce could we liue a quarter of our Daies But like the Flax which flowrs at once and falls Simile One Feast would serue our Births and Burials Our Birth our Death our Cradle then our Toomb Our tender Spring our Winter would becom Good Lord how many gasping Soules haue scap't By th' ayd of Hearbs for whom the Graue hath gap't Who euen about to touch the Stygian strand Haue yet beguil'd grim Pluto's greedy hand Beard-less Apollo's beardy * Esculapius Sonn did once With iuice of Hearbs râ—ioin the scattered bones Of the chaste * Hyppolitus Prince that in th' Athenian Court Preferred Death before incestuous â—port So did Medea for her Iason's sake The frozen limbs of Aeson youthfull make O sacred Simples that our life sustain And when it flies vs call it back again 'T is not alone your liquor inly taen That oft defends vs from so many a baen But euen your sauour yea your neighbourhood For som Diseases is exceeding good Working so rare effects that only such As feel or see them can beleeueso much Blew Succorie hangd on the naked neck The vertue of Succorie Of Swines-bread Dispels the dimness that our sight doth check Swines-Bread sovsed doth not onely speed A tardy Labour but without great heed If ouer it a Child-great Woman stride Instant abortion often doth betide The burning Sun the banefull Aconite The poysonie Serpents that vnpeople quite Cyrenian Desarts neuer Danger them That wear about them th' * Mugwâ—rt Peoniâ— Artemisian Stem About an Infants neck hang Peoniâ— It cures Alâ—ydes cruell maladie If fuming boawls of Bacchus in excess Trouble thy brains with storms of gyddiness Put but a garland of green Saffron on Saffron And that mad humour will be quickly gon Th' inchanting Charms of Syrens blandishments Contagious A're ingendring Pestilence Infect not those that in their mouthes haue taen Angelica Angelica that happy counter-baen Sent down from Heav'n by some Celestiall scout As well the name and nature both avow't So Pimpernel held in the Patients hand The bloody-Flix doth presently with-stand Pimpernell or Burnet Madder And ruddy Madder's root long handeled Dies th' handlers vrine into perfect red O Wondrous Woad which touching but the skin Imparts his colour to the parts within Nor powerfull Hearbs do we alonely finde Your vertues working in frail humane kinde But you can force the fiercest Animals The fellest Fiends the firmest Mineralls Yea fairest Planets if Antiquitie Have not bely'd the Haggs of Thessalie Onely the touch of Choak-Pard * Libbards bane Aconite Bereaves the Scorpion both of sense and might As opposite
the Angle Faster and faster on the hooke doo tangle But wily clasping close the Fishing Line Sodainly spews into the Silver Brine Her secret-spreading sodain-speeding bane Which vp the Line and all along the Cane Creeps to the hand of th' Angler who with-all Benumm'd and sens-less sodainly le ts fall His hurtfull pole and his more hatefull prize Simile Becomn like one that as in bed he lies Seems in his sleep to see som gastly Ghost In a cold sweat shaking and swelt almost He cals his wife for ayd his friends his folks But his stuft stomack his weak clamour â—hoaks Then would he strike at that he doth behold But sleep and fear his feeble hands doo hold Then would he run away but as he strives Hee feels his feet fetterd with heauy Gyues But if the Scolopendra haue suckt-in The Scolopendra The sowr-sweet morsell with the barbed Pin She hath as rare a trick to rid her from-it For instantly she all her guts doth vomit And having clear'd them from the danger then She fair and softly sups them in again So that not one of them within her womb Changeth his Office or his wonted room The thriuing Amia neer Abydos breeding The Amia And suttle Sea-Fox in Steeds-loue exceeding The Sea-Fox Without so vent ring their dear life and lyning Can from the Worm-clasp compass their vntwining For sucking-in more of the twisted hair Aboue the hook they it in sunder shear So that their foe who for a Fish did look Lifts vp a bareline robd of bait and hooke But timerous Barbels will not taste the bit The Barbel Till with their tails they haue vnhooked it And all the baits the Fisher can deuise Cannot beguile their wary iealousies Euen so almost the many spotted Cuttle The Cuttle Wel-neer insnared yet escapeth suttle For when she sees her self within the Net And no way left but one from thence to get She sodainly a certain Ink dothspew Which dies the Waters of a sable hew That dazling so the Fishers greedy sight She through the Clouds of the black Waters night Might scape with honour the black streams of Styx Wherof already almost lost she licks And as a Prisoner of som great transgression Conuict by Witness and his owne Confession Simile Kept in dark Durance full of noysom breath Expecting nothing but the Day of Death Spies euery corner and pries round about To finde som weake place where he may get out The delicate cud-chewing Golden-Eye The Golden-eye or Guilt-head Kept in a Weyre the widest space doth spy And thrusting-in his tail makes th' Osiars gape With his oft flapping and doth so escape But if his fellow finde him thus bâ—â—â—ed He lends his tail to the Imprisoned That thereby holding fast with gentle law Him from his Durance he may friendly draw Or if before that he were captiuate He see him hooked on the biting bait Hasting to help he leapeth at the line And with his teeth snaps-off the hairy twine You stony hearts within whose stubborn Centre Sundry in structions that Fishes giue to men Could neuer touch of sacred friendship enter Look on these Seas my Songs haue calmed thus Heer 's many a Damon many a Thâ—seâ—s The gilden Sparlings when cold Winters blast The Sparlings Begins to threat themselues together cast In heaps like balls and heating mutually Liue that alone of the keen Cold would die Those small white Fish to Venus consecrated Though without Venus ayd they be created Of th' Ocean scum seeing themselues a pray Expos'd in euery Water-Rouers way Swarming by thousands with so many a fold Combine themselues that their ioint strength doth hold Against the greediest of the Sea-thieues sallies Yea and to stay the course of swiftest Gallies As a great Carrak cumbred and opprest Simile With her selfs-burthen wends not East and West Star-bood and Lar-boord with so quick Careers As a small Fregat or swift Pinnass steers And as a large and mighty limbed Steed Another Either of Friseland or of German breed Can neuer manage half so readily As Spanish Iennet or light Barbarie So the huge VVhale hath not so nimble motion Of the the Whale and his friend Musculus As smaller Fishes that frequent the Ocean But somtimes rudely ' gainst a Rock he brushes Or in som roaring Straight he blindly rushes And scarce could liue a Twelue-month to an end But for the little Musculus his friend A little Fish that swimming still before Directs him safe from Rock from shelf and shoar Much like a Childe that louing leads about Simile His aged Father when his eyes be out Still wasting him through euery way so right That rest of eyes he seems not rest of sight Waues-Mother Thetis though thine arms embrace Strange League betweene the Pearl-Fish and the Prawne The World about within thine ample space A firmer League of friendship is not seen Then is the Pearl-fish and the Prawn betweene Both haue but one repast both but one Palace But one delight one death one sorrow and one solace That lodgeth this and this remunerates His Land-lords kindnes with all needfull Cates. For while the Pearl-Fish gaping wide doth glister Much Fry allur'd with the bright siluerlustre Of her rich Casket flocks into the Nacre Then with a prick the Prawn a sign doth mak-her That instantly her shining shell she close Because the Prey worthy the pain he knowes Which gladly done she ev'nly shareth-out The Prey betwixt her and her faithfull scout And so the Sponge-Spye warily awakes Also betweene the Sponge and his Spye The Galley Fish The Sayle-Fish Boat-Crab Sea-Vrchin The Sponges dull sense when repast it takes But O! what stile can worthily declare O! Galley-Fish and thou Fish-Mariner Thou Boat-Crab and Sea-Vrchin your dexteritie In Saylers Art for safeness and celeritie If Iaffa Marchants now Comburgers seem With Portingalls and Portingalls with them If Worlds of Wealth born vnder other Sky Seem born in Ours if without wings we fly From North to South and from the East to West Through hundred sundry way-less waies addrest If to be brief this World's rich compass round Seem as a Common without hedge or mound Where at his choice each may him freely store With rarest fruits You may we thank therefore For whether Typhis or that Pride of Greece That sayl'd to Colchos for the Golden-Fleece Or Belus Son first builded floating bowrâ— To mate the Windes Storms and the Waters Stowrs What e'r he were he surely learn'd of you The Art of Rowing and of Sayling too Heer would I cease saue that this humorous song The Hermite-Fish compels me to prolong The sea Hermit A man of might that builds him a Defence 'Gainst Weathers rigour and Warr's insolence First dearly buies for What good is good-cheap Both the rich Matter and rare Workmanship But without buying Timber Lime and stone Or hiring men to build his Mansion Or borrowing House or paying Rent
therfore He lodgeth safe for finding on the shoar Som handsom shell whose Natiue Lord of late Was dispossessed by the Doom of Fate Therein he enters and he takes possession Of th' empty Harbour by the free concession Of Natures Law who Goods that Owner want Alwaies allots to the first Occupant In this new Cace or in this Cradle rather He spends his Youth then growing both together In age and Wit he gets a wider Cell Wherin at Sea his later Daies to dwell But Clio wherefore art thou teadious In numbering Neptunes busie Burgers thus If in his Works thou wilt admire the worth Of the Seas Soverain bring but only forth One little Fish whose admirable Story The strange and secret property of the Remora or Stop-ship Sufficeth sole to shewe his might and glory Let all the Windes in one Winde gather them And seconded with Neptunes strongest stream Let all at once blowe all their stiffest gales A-stern a Galley vnder all her sails Let her be holpen with a hundred Owers Each lively handled by fiue lusty Rowers The Remora fixing her feeble horn Into the tempest-beaten Vessels stern Stayes her stone-still while all her stout Consorts Sail thence at pleasure to their wished Ports Then loose they all the sheats but to no boot For the charm'd Vessell bougeth not a foot No more then if then if three fadom vnder ground A score of Anchors held her fastly bound No more then doth an Oak that in the Wood Hath thousand Tempests thousand times with stood Spreading as many massy roots belowe As mighty arms aboue the ground do growe O Stop-ship say say how thou canst oppose Thy self alone against so many foes O! tell vs where thou doo'st thine Anchors hide Whence thou resistest Sayls Owers Wind and Tide How on the so dain canst thou curb so short A Ship whom all the Elements transport Whence is thine Engin and thy secret force That frustrates Engins and all force doth force I had in Harbour heav'd mine Anchor o're And ev'n already set one foot a-shoar Dolphin When lo the Dolphin beating gainst the bank 'Gan mine obliuion moodily mis-thank Peace Princely Swimmer sacred Fish content-thee For for thy praise th' end of this Song I meant-thee Braue Admirall of the broad briny Regions Triumphant Tamer of the scaly Legions Who liuing ever liv'st for neuer sleep Deaths liuely Image in thy eyes doth creep Louer of Ships of Men of Melody Thou vp and down through the moyst World doest ply Swift as a shaft whose Salt thou louest so That lacking that thy life thou doest forgo Thou gentle Fish wert th' happy Boat of yore Which safely brought th' Amiclean Harp a-shoar Arion match-less for his Musiks skill Among the Latines hauing gain'd his fill The strange aduenture of Ariō saued by a Dolphin Of gold and glory and exceeding fain To re-salute his learned Greece again Vnwares imbarks him in a Pyrates ship Who loath to let so good a Booty slip Soon waighes his Anchors packs on all his fail And Windes conspiring with a prosperous gale His winged Fregat made so speedy-sight Tarentum Towers were quickly out of fight And all saue Skies and Seas on euery side Where th' onely Compass is the Pylots guide The Saylours then whom many times we finde Falser then Seas and fiercer then the Winde Fall straight to strip him ryfling at their pleasure In euery corner to finde out his treasure And hauing found it all with one accord Hoist th' Owner vp to heaue him ouer-boord Who weeping said O Nereus noble issue Not to restore my little gold I wish you For my chief Treasure in my Musick lyes And all Apollo's sacred Pupils prize The holy Virgins of Parnassus so That vnder-foot all worldly wealth they throwe No braue Triumphers ouer Winde and Waue Who in both Worlds your habitation haue Who both Heav'ns Hooks in your aduentures view 'T is not for That with broken sighes I sue I but beseech you offer no impieties Vnto a person deer vnto the Deities So may Messenian Sirens for your sake Be euer mute when you your voyage make And Tritons Trumpet th' angry Surges swage When iustly Neptune shall against you rage But if alas cannot this obtain As my faint eye reads in your frowns too plain Suffer at least to my sad dying voice My dolefull fingers to consort their noise That so the Sea-Nimphs rapt in admiration Of my diuine sweet sacred lamentation Dragging my corps to shoar with weeping showrs May deaw the same and it entoomb in flowrs Then play said they and giue vs both together Treasure and pleasure by thy comming hither His sweetest strokes then sad Arion lent Th' inchanting sinnews of his Instrument Wherewith he charm'd the raging Ocean so That crook tooth'd Lampreys and the Congers rowe Friendly together and their natiue hate The Pike and Mullet for the time forgate And Lobstars floated fear-less all the while Among the Polyps prone to theft and guile But among all the Fishes that did throng To daunce the Measures of his Mournfull song There was a Dolphin did the best accord His nimble Motions to the trembling Chord Who gently sliding neer the Pinnass side Seem'd to inuite him on his back to ride By this time twice the Saylours had essayd To heaue him o're yet twice himself he staied And now the third time stroue they him to cast Yet by the shrowds the third time held he fast But lastly seeing Pyrats past remorse And him too-feeble to withstand their force The trembling Dolphins shoulders he bestrid Who on the Oceans azure surges slid So that far-off his charge so cheered him One would haue thought him rather fly then swim Yet fears he euery shelf and euery Surge Not for himself but for his tender charge And sloaping swiftly ouerthwart those Seas Not for his owne but for his Riders ease Makes double haste to finde som happy strand Where his sweet Phoebus he may safely land Mean-while Arion with his Musick rare Paies his deer Pylot his delighfull fare And heauing eyes to Hea'vn the Hav'n of Pity To his sweet Harp he tunes this sacred Ditty O thou Almightie who Mankinde to wrack Of thousand Seas didst whilom one Sea make And yet didst saue from th' vniuersall Doom One sacred Houshold that in time to com From Age to Age should sing thy glorious praise Look down O Lord from thy supernall rayes Look look alas vpon a wretched man Half Toomb'd already in the Ocean O! bee my Steers-man and vouch safe to guide The stern-les Boat and bit-less Horse I ride So that escaping Windes and Waters wrath I once again may tread my natiue path And hence-forth heer with solemn vowes I sacre Vnto thy glory O my God and Maker For this great fauour 's high Memoriall My heart and Art my voyce hand Harp and all Here-with the Seas their roaring rage refrain The Clowdy Welkin waxed cleer again And all the Windes did so dainly conuert Their mouths to
ears to hear his wondrous Art The Dolphin then discrying Land at last Storms with himself for hauing made such haste And wisht Laconia thousand Leagues from thence T' haue ioy'd the while his Musiks excellence But 'fore his own delight preferring far Th' vnhoped safety of the Minstrell rare Sets him a shoar and which most strange may seem Where life he took there life restoreth him But now deer Muse with Ionas lets vs hie From the Whales belly and from ieopardy Of stormfull Seas of wreakfull Rocks and Sand Com com my Darling let vs haste to Land While busie poaring downward in the Deep The second part of this book treating of Fowles I sing of Fishes that there Quarter keep See how the Fowls are from my fancy fled And their high prayses quight out of my head Their flight out-flies me and my Muse almost The better half of this bright Day hath lost But cheer ye Birds your shadows as ye pass Seeming to flutter on the Waters face Make me remember by their nimble turns Both what my duty and your due concerns But first I pray for meed of all my toyl In bringing you into this HAPPIE I LE Vouch safe to waken with your various Notes The sense-less senses of those drowsie Sots Whose eye-lids laden with a waight of Lead Shall fall a-sleep the while these Rymes are read But if they could not close their wakefull eyes Among the Water's silent Colonies How can they sleep among the Birds whose sound Through Heav'n and Earth and Ocean doth redound The Heav'nly Phoenix first began to frame Of the admirable and Onely Phoenix The Earthly Phoenix and adorn'd the same With such a plume that Pboebus circuiting Prom Fez to Cairo sees no fairer thing Such form such fethers and such Fate he gaue-her That fruitfull Nature breedeth nothing braver Two sparkling eyes vpon her crown a crest Of starry Sprigs more splendent then the rest A golden doun about her dainty neck Her brest deep purple and a scarlet back Her description Her wings and train of fethers mixed fine Of orient azure and incarnadine He did appoint her Fate to be her Pheer And Deaths cold kisses to restore her heer Her life again which neuer shall expire Her life Vntill as shee the World consume in fire For hauing passed vnder diuers Climes A thousand Winters and a thousand Primes Worn-out with yeers wishing her end-less end To shining flames she doth her life commend Dies to reviue and goes into her Graue To rise again more beautifull and braue Perched therfore vpon a branch of Palm With Incense Cassia Spiknard Myrrh and Balm By break of Day shee builds in narrow room Her Vrn her nest her Cradle and her Toomb Where while she sits all gladly-sad expecting Som flame against her fragrant heap reflecting To burn her sacred bones to seed-full cinders Wherein her age but not her life she renders Her death The Phrygian Skinker with his lauish Ewer Drowns not the Fields with shower after showr The shivering Coach-man with his Icy Snowe Dares not the Forrests of Phoenicia strowe Auster presumes not Libyan shoars to pass With his moist wings and gray-beard Boreas As the most boistrous and rebellious slaue Is prisoned close in th' Hyper-Borean Caue For Nature now propitious to her End To her living Death a helping hand doth lend And stopping all those Mouths doth mildely sted Her funeralls her fruitfull birth and bed And Sol himself glauncing his golden eyes On th' odoriferous Couch wherein she lies Kindles the spice and by degrees consumes Th' immortall Phoenix both her flesh and plumes But instantly out of her ashes springs A Worm an Egg then then a bird with wings Her re-generation Iust like the first rather the same indeed Which re-ingendred of it'sselfly seed By noblely dying a new Date begins And where she loseth there her life she wins End-less by'r End eternall by her Toomb While by a prosperous Death she doth becom Among the cinders of her sacred Fire Her own selfs Heir Nurse Nurseling Dam and Sire Teaching vs all in Adam heer to dy The best application That we in Christ may liue eternally The Phoenix cutting th' vnfrequented Air Birds that follow the Phoenix and their natures Forth-with is followed by a thousand pair Of wings in th' instant by th' Almighty wrought With divers Size Colour and Motion fraught The sent-strong Swallow sweepeth to and fro The Swallow As swift as shafts fly from a Turkish Bowe When vse and Art and strength confedered The skilfull Archer draws them to the head Flying she sings and singing seeketh where She more with cunning then with cost may rear Her round-front Palace in a place secure Whose Plot may serue in rarest Arch'tecture Her little beak she loads with brittle straws Her wings with Water and with Earth her claws Whereof she Morter makes and there-with-all Aptly she builds her semi-circle Wall The pretty Lark climbing the Welkin cleer The Lark Chaunts with a cheer Heer peer-I neer my Deer Then stooping thence seeming her fall to rew Adieu she sayth adieu deer Deer adieu The Spink the Linot and the Gold-Finch fill The Linot The Finch All the fresh Aire with their sweet warbles shrill But all This 's nothing to the Nightingale The Nightingale Breathing so sweetly from a brest so small So many Tunes whose Harmony excells Our Voice our Violls and all Musick els Good Lord how oft in a green Oken Grove In the cool shadow haue I stood and strove To marry mine immortall Layes to theirs Rapt with delight of their delicious Aâ—ers And yet methinks in a thick thorn I hear A Nightingale to warble sweetly-cleer One while she bears the Base anon the Tenor Anon the Trebble then the Counter-Tenor Then all at once as it were chalenging The rarest voyces with her self to sing Thence thirty steps amid the leafie Sprayes Another Nightingale repeats her Layes Iust Note for Note and adds som Strain atlast That she had conned all the Winter past The first replyes and descants there-vpon With divine warbles of Division Redoubling Quavers And so turn by turn Alternatly they sing away the Morn So that the Conquest in this curious strife â—oth often cost the one her voice and life Then the glad Victor all the rest admire And after count her Mistress of the Quire At break of Day in a Delicious song She sets the Gam-vt to a hundred young And when as fit for higher Tunes she sees-them Then learnedly she harder Lessons gives-them Which strain by strain they studiously recite And follow all their Mistress Rules aright The Colchian Pheasant and the Partridge rare Diuers other delicate and gentle Birds The lustfull Sparrow and the fruitfull Stare The chattering Pye the chastest Turtle-Doue The grizel Quoist the Thrush that Grapes doth love The little Gnat-snap worthy Princes Boords And the green Parrat fainer of our words Wait on the Phoenix and
cherish and reioyce And prety-fondling she doth prize it higher Then her own beauties which all else admire But as fell Fates mingle our single ioyes With bitter gall of infinit annoyes An extream Fever vext the Virgins bones By one disease to cause two deaths at once Consum'd her flesh and wanly did displace The Rose-mixt-Lillies in her lovely face Then far'd the Foul and Fairest both a-like Both like tormented both like shivering sick So that to note their passions one would gather That Lachesis spun both their lives together But oft the Aeagle striving with her Fitt Would fly abroad to seek som dainty bitt For her deer Mistress and with nimble wing Som Rail or Quail or Partridge would she bring Paying with food the food receiv'd so oft From those fair Ivory Virgin-fingers soft During her nonage yer she durst essay To cleave the sky and for herself to prey The Fever now with spitefull fitts had spent The blood and marrow of this Innocent And Life resign'd to cruell Death her Right Who three dayes after doth the Eagle cite The fearfull Hare durst now frequent the Down And round about the Walles of Hero's Town The Tercel-gentle and swift Falcon flew Dread-less of th' Aegle that so well they knew For shee alas lies on her Ladies bed Still-sadly mourning though a-live yet dead For O! how should she live sith Fatall knife Hath cut the threed of her lives deerest life O're the deer Corps somtimes her wings she hovers Somtimes the dead brest with her brest she covers Somtimes her neck doth the pale neck embrace Somtimes she kisses the cold lips and face And with sad murmurs she lamenteth so That her strange moan augments the Parents wo. Thrice had bright Phoebus daily Chariot run Past the proud Pillars of Aicmaenas son Since the fair Virgin past the fatall Ferry Whear lastly Mortals leaue their burthens weary And yet this doleful Bird drown'd in her tears All comfort-les Rest and Repast forbears So much alas shee seemeth to contend Her life and sorrows both at once to end But lastly finding all these means too-weak The quick dispatch that she did wish to wreak With ire and anguish both at once enraged Vnnaturally her proper brest she gaged And tears her bowells storming bitterly That all these deaths could yet not make her dy But lo the while about the lightsom door Of th' hap-les house a mournfull troop that bore Black on their back and Tapers in their fists Tears on their cheeks and sorrow in their brests Who taking vp the sacred Load at last Whose happy soule already Heav'n embra'çt With shrill sad cries march toward the fatall Pile With solemn pase The silly Bird the while Following far-off her bloody entrails trails Honoring with conuoy two sad Funerals No sooner had the Ceremonious Flame Embraç't the Body of her tender Dame But sodainly distilling all with blood Down soust the Eagle on the blazing wood Nor boots the Flamine with his sacred wand A hundred times to beat her from her stand For to the midst still of the Pyle she plies And singing sweet her Ladies Obsequies There burns herself and blendeth happily Her bones with hers she lov'd so tenderly O happy Payr vpon your sable Toomb May Mel and Manna euer showring come May sweetest Myrtles ever shade your Herse And evermore live you within my Verse So Morn and Euening the Fift Day conclude And God perceiv'd that All his Works were good THE SIXT DAIE OF THE FIRST WEEK THE ARGVMENT Inuiting all which through this world aspire Vnto the next Gods glorious Works t' admire Heer on the Stage our noble Poet brings Beasts of the Earth Cattell and Creeping things Their hurt and help to vs The strange euents Between Androdus and the Forrest Prince The little-World Commander of the greater Why formed last his admirable Feature His Heav'n-born Soule her wondrous operation His deerest Rib. All Creatures generation YOu Pilgrims which through this worlds City wend Toward th' happy City whear withouten end An exhortatiōto al which through the Pilgrimage of this life tend toward the euerlasting City to consider well the excellent workes of God heer represented by our Poet. True ioyes abound to anchor in the Port Whear Deaths pale horrors never do resort If you would see the fair Amphitheatres Th' Arks Arcenalls Towrs Temples and Theatres Colosses Cirques Pyles Ports and Palaces Proudly dispersed in your Passages Com com with me For ther 's not any part In this great Frame where shineth any Art But I will show 't you Are you weary since What! tyr'd so soon Why will you not my friends Having already ventur'd forth so far On Neptnn's back through Windes and Waters war Rowe yet a stroak the Harbour to recover Whose shoars already my glad eyes discover Almighty Father guide their Guide along Inuocation And pour vpon my faint vnfluent tongue The sweetest hony of th' Hyantian Fount Which freshly purleth from the Muses Mount With the sweet charm of my Victorious Verse Tame furious Lions Bears and Tigers fierce Make all the wilde Beasts laying fury by To com with Homage to my Harmony OF ALL THE Beasts which thou This-Day didst build The Elephant To haunt the Hills the Forest and the Field I see as vice-Roy of their brutish Band The Elephant the Vant-gard doth command Worthy that Office whether we regard His Towred back whear many Souldiers ward Or else his Prudence whearwithall he seems T' obscure the wits of human-kind somtimes As studious Scholer heeself-rumineth His lessons giv'n his King he honoreth Adores the Moon mooved with strange desire He feels the sweet flames of th' Idalian fire And pierçtwith glance of a kinde-cruell ey For humane beauty seems to sigh and dy Yea if the Graecians doo not miss-recite His combat with the Rhinocerot With 's crooked trumpet he doth somtimes write But his huge strength nor subtle wit can not Defend him from the sly Rhinocerot Who never with blinde fury led doth venter Vpon his Fo but yer the Lists he enter Against a Rock he whetteth round about The dangerous pike vpon his armed snout Then buckling close doth not at randon hack On the hard Cuirass on his Enemies back But vnder 's belly cunning findes a skin Whear and but thear his sharpned blade will in The scaly Dragon being else too lowe For th' Elephant vp a thick Tree doth goe So closely ambusht almost every Day To watch the Carry-Castle in his way Who once approaching straight his stand he leaues And round about him he so closely cleaues With 's wrything body that his Enemy His combat with the Dragon His stinging knots vnable to vn-ty Hastes to som Tree or to som Rock whearon To rush and rub-off his detested zone The fell embraces of whose dismall clasp Haue almost brought him to his latest gasp Then sodainly the Dragon slips his hold From th' Elephant and sliding down doth fold About his fore-legs fetter'd in such order
The stubborn'st heads of all the savage troop Of all the Creatures through the Welkin gliding Walking on Earth or in the Waters sliding Th' hast armed som with Poyson som with Paws Som with sharp Antlers som with griping Claws Som with keen Tushes som with crooked Beaks Som with thick Cuirets som with skaly necks But mad'st Man naked and for Weapons fit Thou gav'st him nothing but a pregnant Wit Which rusts and duls except it subiect finde Worthy it 's worth wheron it self to grinde And as it were with enuious armies great Be round about besieged and beset For what boot Milo's brawny shoulders broad And sinnewie arms if but a common load He alwayes bear what Bayes or Oliue boughs Parsly or Pine shall crown his warlik brows Except som other Milo entring Lists Courageously his boasted strength resists In deepest perils shineth Wisdoms prime Through thousand deaths true Valour seeks to clime Well knowing Conquest yeelds but little Honour If bloody Danger doo not wait vpon her O gracious Father th' hast not only lent God hath set them at enmity among themselues Prudence to Man the Perils to prevent Wherwith these foes threaten his feeble life But for his sake hast set at mutuall strife Serpents with Serpents and hast rais'd them foes Which vnprovoked felly them oppose The Viper and Scorpion with their young Thou mak'st th' ingratefull Viper at his birth His dying Mothers belly to gnaw forth Thou mak'st the Scorpion greedy after food Vnnaturally devour his proper brood Wherof one scaping from the Parents hunger With 's death doth vengeance on his brethrens wronger Thou mak'st the Weazell by a secret might The Weazell against the Basiliske Murder the Serpent with the murdering sight Who so surpris'd striving in wrathfull manner Dying himself kils with his baen his Baener Thou mak'st th' Ichneumon whom the Memphs adore The Ichneumon against the Aspick To rid of Poysons Nile's manured shoar Although indeed he doth not conquer them So much by strength as subtile stratagem As he that vrg'd with deep indignity By a proud Chalenge doth his foe defie Premeditates his posture and his play And arms himself so complet every way With wary hand guided with watchfull eye And ready foot to traverse skilfully That the Defendant in the heat of fight Findes no part open for his blade to light So Pharaohs Rat yer he begin the fray 'Gainst the blinde Aspick with a cleauing Clay Vpon his coat he wraps an Earthen Cake Which afterward the Suns hot beams doo bake Arm'd with this Plaister th' Aspick he approcheth And in his throat his crooked tooth he broacheth Whileth ' other boot-les striues to pearce and prick Through the hard temper of his armour thick Yet knowing himself too-weak for all his wile Alone to match the skaly Crocodile Hee with the Wren his Ruin doth conspire The Wren who seeing prest with sleeps desire The Ichneumon and the Wren against the Crocodile Nile's poysony Pirate press the slimy shoar Sodainly coms and hopping him before Into his mouth he skips his teeth he pickles Clenseth his palate and his throat so tickles That charm'd with pleasure the dull Serpent gapes Wider and wider with his vgly chaps Then like a shaft th' Ichneumon instantly Into the Tyrants greedy gorge doth sly And feeds vpon that Glutton for whose Riot All Niles fat Margents could scarce furnish diet Nay more good Lorst th' hast taught Mankinde a Reason God hath taught vs to make great vse of them To draw Life out of Death and Health from Poyson So that in equall Ballance ballancing The Good and Evill which these Creatures bring Vnto Mans life we shall perceiue the first By many grains to over-waigh the worst From Serpents scap't yet am I scarce in safety Fierce and vntameable beasts Alas I see a Legion fierce and lofty Of Sauvages whose fleet and furious pase Whose horrid roaring and whose hideous face Make my sense sense-less and my speech restrain And cast me in my former fears again Already howls the waste-Fold Wolf the Boar The Wolfe Boare Beare Ounce Tigre Leopard Vnicorne Hyaena Mantichora a kind of Hyaenae Cephus a kind of Ape or Munkey Chiurcae Whetts foamy Fangs the hungry Bear doth roar The Cat-faç't Ounce that doth me much dismay With grumbling horror threatens my decay The light-foot Tigre spotted Leopard Foaming with fury do besiege me hard Then th' Unicorn th' Hyëna tearing-tombs Swift Mantichor ' and Nubian Cephus coms Of which last three each hath as heer they stand Man 's voice Man's visage and Mans's foot and hand I fear the Beast bred in the bloody Coast Of Cannibals which thousand times almost Re-whelps her whelps and in her tender womb She doth as oft her living brood re-tomb But O! what Monster 's this that bids me battail On whose rough back an Hoast of Pikes doth rattle The Porcupine Who string-less shoots so many arrows out Whose thorny sides are hedged round about With stiff steel-pointed quils and all his parts Bristled with bodkins arm'd with Auls and Darts Which ay fierce darting seem still fresh to spring And to his ayd still new supplies to bring O fortunate Shaft-neuer-wanting Bowe-man Who as thou fly'st canst hit thy following foe-man And never missest or but very narrow Th' intended mark of thyselfs kindred Arrow Who still self-furnisht needest borrow never Diana's shafts nor yet Apollos quiver Nor bowe-strings fetch from Carian Aleband Brazell from Perù but hast all at hand Of thine owne growth for in thy Hide do growe Thy String thy Shafts thy Quiver and thy Bowe But Courage now heer 's coms the valiant Beast The Lion King of Beasts The noble Lion King of all the rest Who brauely-minded is as milde to those That yeeld to him as fierce vnto his foes To humble suiters neither stern nor statefull To benefactors never found ingratefull A memorable Historie of a Lion acknowledging the kindnes he had receiued of Androdus a Romane Salue I call to record that same Roman Thrall Who to escape from his mechanicall And cruell Master that for lucre vs'd-him Not as a Man but as a Beast abus'd-him Fled through the desart and with trauail'd tir'd At length into a mossie caue retir'd But thear no sooner gan the drowzy wretch On the soft grass his weary limbs to stretch But coming swift into the caue he seeth A ramping Lion gnashing of his teeth A thief to shamefull execution sent By Iustice for his faults iust punishment Feeling his ey 's clout and his elbows cord Waiting for nothing but the fatall Sword Dies ye◠his death he looks so certainly Without delay in that drad place to Die Even so the Slaue seeing no means to shun By flight or fight his fear'd destruction Having no way to fly nor arms to fight But sighs and tears prayers and wofull plight Embraceth Death abiding for a stown Pale cold and sense-les in a deadly swown At last again
Not for th' effect it had but should haue kept If Man from duty never had mis-stept For as the ayr of those fresh dales and hills Preserved him from Epidemik ills This fruit had ever-calm'd all insurrections All civill quarrels of the cross complexions Had barr'd the passage of twice childish age And ever-more excluded all the rage Of painfull griefs whose swift-slowe posting-pase At first or last our dying life doth chase Strong counter-bane O sacred Plant divine The excellencie of that Tree What metall stone stalk fruit flowr root or ryne Shall I presume in these rude rymes to sute I Vnto thy wondrous World-adorning Fruit The rarest Simples that our fields present-vs Heal but one hurt and healing too torments vs And with the torment lingring our relief Our bags of gold void yer our bulks of grief But thy rare fruits hid powr admired most Salveth all sores sans pain delay or cost Or rather man from yawning Death to stay Thou didst not cure but keep all ills away O holy peer-less rich preseruatiue We cannot say what Tree it was Whether wert thou the strange restoratiue That suddainly did age with youth repair And made old Aeson yonger then his heir Or holy Nectar that in heav'nly bowrs Eternally self-pouring Hebé pours Or blest Ambrosia Gods immortall fare Or els the rich fruit of the Garden rare Where for three Ladies as assured guard A fire-arm'd Dragon day and night did ward Or pretious Moly which Ioues Pursuiuan Wing-footed Hermes brought to th' Ithacan Or else Nepenthé enemy to sadnes Repelling sorrows and repealing gladnes Or Mummie or Elixir that excels Save men and Angels every creature els No none of these these are but forgeries But toyes but tales but dreams deceipts and lies But thou art true although our shallow sense May honour more then sound thine Excellence The Tree of Knowledge th' other Tree behight Of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Euill Not that itselfly had such speciall might As mens dull wits could whet and sharpen so That in a moment they might all things knowe 'T was a sure pledge a sacred sâ—gne and seal Which being ta'n should to light man reveal What ods there is between still peace and strife Gods wrath and loue drad death and deerest life Solace and sorrow guile and innocence Rebellious pride and humble obedience For God had not depriv'd that primer season Of the excellence of mans knowledge before Sin The sacred lamp and light of learned Reason Mankinde was then a thousand fold more wise Then now blinde Error â—ad not bleard his eys With mists which make th' Athenian Sage suppose That nought hee knowes saue this that nought hee knowes That euen light Pirâ—â—oâ—s wavering fantasies Reave him the skill his vn skill to agnize And th' Abderite within a Well obscure As deep as dark the Truth of things immure Hee happy knew the Good by th' vse of it How he knew good and euill before Sinne. He knew the Bad but not by proof as yet But as they say of great Hyppocrates Who though his limbs were numm'd with no excess Nor stop this throat nor vext his fantasie Knew the cold Cramp th' Angine and Lunacy And hundred els-pains whence in lusty flowr He liv'd exempt a hundred yeers and foure Or like the pure Heav'n-prompted Prophets rather Whose sight so cleerly future things did gather Because the World's Soule in their soule enseal'd The holy stamp of secrets most conceal'd But our now knowledge hath for tedious train Oâ— mans knowledge sincâ— his Fall A drooping life and over-racked brain A face forlorn a sad and sullen fashion A rest-less toyl and Cares self-pining passion Knowledge was then even the soules soule for light The spirits calme Port and Lanthorn shining bright To straight steptfeet cleer knowledge not confus'd Not sowr but sweet not gotten but infus'd Now Heav'ns eternall all-fore-seeing King Why the Lord put man in the Garden of Eden Who never rashly ordereth anything Thought good that man having yet spirits sound-stated Should dwell els-where then where he was created That he might knowe he did not hold this place By Natures right but by meer gift and Grace That he should never taste fruits vn-permitted But keep the sacred Pledge to him committed And dress that Park which God without all tearm On these conditions gaue him as in farm God would that void of painfull labour he Of his exercise there Should liue in Eden but not idlely For Idlenes pure Innocence subuerts Defiles our body and our soule peruerts Yea soberest men it makes delicious To vertue dull to vice in genious But that first travell had no sympathy With our since-travails wretched cruelty Distilling sweat and panting wanting winde Which was a scourge for Adams sin assign'd For Edens earth was then so fertile fat 4. Comparisons That he made onely sweet Essayes in that Of skilfull industry and naked wrought More for delight then for the gain he sought In brief it was a pleasant exercise A labour lik't a pain much like the guise Of cunning dauncers who although they skip â— Run caper vault traverse and turn and trip From Morn till Even at night again full merry Renue their daunce of dauncing never weary Or else of Hunters that with happy luck 2. Rousing betimes som often breathed Buck Or goodly Stagge their yelping Hounds vncouple Winde lowd their horns their whoops hallows double Spur-on and spare not following their desire Themselues vn-weary though their Hackneis tyre But for in th' end of all their iolity Ther 's found much stifness sweat and vanity I rather match it to the pleasing pain Of Angels pure who ever sloath disdain 3. Or to the Suns calm course who pain-less ay 4. About the welkin posteth night and day Doubtless when Adam saw our common ayr Adam admireth the beauties of the World in generall He did admire the mansion rich and fair Of his Successors For frosts keenly cold The shady locks of Forrests had not powl'd Heav'n had not thundred on our heads as yet Nor given the earth her sad Diuorces Writ But when he once had entred Paradise But most especially of the Garden of Eden The remnant world he iustly did despise Much like a Boor far in the Country born Who never having seen but Kine and Corn Oxen and Sheep and homely Hamlets thatcht Which fond he counts as Kingdoms hardly matcht When afterward he happens to behold Our welthy London's wonders manifold In this comparison my Author setteth down the famous City of Paris but I haue presumed to apply it to our own City of London that it might be more familiar to my meere English and vn-trauaild Readers The silly peasant thinks himself to bâ— In a new World and gazing greedily One while he Art-less all the Arts admires Then the faire Temples and their top-less spires Their firm foundations and the massie pride Of all
How long they had that Garden in possession Before their proud and insolent Transgression What Children there they earned and how many Of whether sex or whether none or any Or how at least they should haue propagated If the sly malice of the serpent hated Causing their fall had not defil'd their kin And vnborn seed with leprosie of Sin If void of Venus sith vnlike it is Such blessed state the noble flowr should miss Of Virgin-head or folk so perfect chaste Should furious feel when they their loues imbraç't Such tickling flames as our fond soule surprise That dead a-while in Epilepsâ—e lies And slack our sinews all by little and little Drowning our reason in foule pleasure brittle Or whether else as men in gender now Sith spouse-bedspot-less laws of God allow If no excess command sith else again The Lord had made the double sex in vain Whether their Infants should haue had the Powr We now perceiue in fresh youths Iusty flowr As nimble feet lims strong and vigorous Industrious hands and hearts couragious Sith before sin Man ought not less appear In Natures gifts then his then-seruants were And loe the Partridge which new-hatched bears On her weak back her parent-house and wears In stead of wings a bever-supple down Follows her dam through furrows vp and down Or else as now sith in the womb of Eue A man of thirtie yeares could neuer liue Nor may we iudge ' gainst Natures course apparant Without the sacred Scriptures speciall warrant Which for our good as Heav'ns deer babe hath right To countermaund our reason and our sight Whether their seed should with their birth haue brought Deep Knowledge Reason Vnderstanding-thought Sith now wee see the new-fall'n feeble Lamb Yet stayn'd with bloud of his distressed Dam Knowes wel the Wolf at whose fell sight he shakes And right the tear of th' vnknow'n Eaw he takes And sith a dull Dunce which no knowledge can Is a dead image and no liuing man Or the thick vail of Ignorance's night Had hooded-vp their issues inward sight Sith the much moisture of an Infant brain Receiues so many shapes that ouer-lam New dash the old and the trim commixation Of confus'd fancies full of alteration Makes th' Vnderstanding hull which settle would But findes no firm ground for his Anchors hold Whether old ADAM should haue left the place Vnto his Sonnes they to their after-race Or whether all together at the last Should gloriously from thence to Heav'n haue past Search whoso list who list let vaâ—â—t in pride The decision of such Questions is a busie idlenes T' haue hit the white and let him sage decide The many other doubts that vainly rise For mine owne part I will not seem so wise I will not waste my trauail and my seed To reap an empty straw or fruitless reed Alas we know what Orion of grief Rain'd on the curst head of the creatures Chief Sin makes vs perceiue more then sufficiently what happines our Grand-sire lost and what misery he got by his shamefull Fall After that God against him war proclaim'd And Satan princedom of the earth had claim'd But none can know precisely how at all Our Elders liv'd before their odious fall An vnknow'n Cifer and deep Pit it is Where Dircean Oedipus his marks would miss Sith Adam's self if now he liv'd anew Could scant vnwinde the knotty snarled clew Of double doubts and questions intricate That Schools dispute about this pristin state But this sole point I rest resolved in But for sinne man had not been subiect vnto Death That seeing Death 's the meer effect of sin Man had not dreaded Death's all-slaying might Had hee still stood in Innocence vpright For as two Bellows blowing turn by turn Simile By little and little make cold coals to burn And then their fire inflames with glowing heat An yron bar which on the Anuil beat Seems no more yron but flyes almost all In hissing sparks and quick bright cinders small So the Worlds Soule should in our soule inspire Th' eternall force of an eternall fire And then our soule as form breathe in our corse Her count-less numbers and Heav'n-tuned force Wherewith our bodies beauty beautified Should like our death-less soule haue neuer died Heer wot I well som wranglers will presume Obiections against the estate of man who had not beene subiect vnto death but for Sinne. To say Small fire will by degrees consume Our humor radicall and how-be-it The differing vertues of those fruits as yet Had no agreement with the harmfull spight Of the fell Persian dangerous Acomte And notwithstanding that then ADAMS taste Could well haue vsed all without all waste Yet could they not restore him euery day Vnto his body that which did decay Because the food cannot as being strange So perfectly in humane substance change For it resembleth wine wherein too rife Simile Water is brewd whereby the pleasant life Is ouer-cool'd and so there rests in fine Nought of the strength sauour or taste of wine Besides in time the naturall faculties Are tyr'd with toyl and th' Humour-enemies Our death conspiring vndermine at last Of our Soules prisons the foundations fast I but the Tree of life the strife did stay Answer to those obiections Which th' Humours caused in this house of clay And stopping th' euill changed perfect good In body fed the body of the food Only the soules contagious malady Had force to frustrate this high remedy Immortall then and mortall man was made Conclusion Mortall he liv'd and did immortall vade For 'fore th' effects of his rebellious ill To die or liue was in his power and will But since his Sin and proud Apostasie Ah! die he may but not alas not-dy As after his new-birth he shall attain Onely a powr to neuer-dy again FINIS THE IMPOSTVRE THE II. PART OF THE I. DAY OF THE II. WEEK THE ARGVMENT Iustice and Mercy modul'd in their kinde Satans proud Hate and Enuie to Mankinde His many Engins and malitious Wiles Whereby the best he many-times beguiles Why he assum'd a Body and began With Eue by Her to vndermine her Man Their dreadfull Fall Their drousie Conscience Gods righteous Sentence for their foul Offence On them and Theirs Their Exile Eden barr'd With flaming Sword and Scraphin for guard O Who shall lend me light and nimble wings That passing Swallows and the swiftest things Euen in a moment boldly-daring I From Heav'n to Hell from Hell to Heav'n may fly O! who shall showe the countenance and gestures Of Mercy and Iustice which fair sacred sisters With equall poiz doe euer ballance ev'n Th' vnchanging Proiects of the King of Heav'n Th' one stern of look the other milde-aspecting Th' one pleas'd with tears the other bloud affecting Th' one bears the Sword of vengeance vnrelenting Th' other brings Pardon for the true-repenting Th' one from Earths Eden Adam did dismiss Th' other hath rais'd him to a higher Bliss Who
their auncient hate Which suffers not O date-less discord th' one Live in that ground where th' other first hath growen O strange instinct O deep immortall rage Whose fiery fewd no Laethé floud can swage So at the sound of Wolf-Drums rattling thunder Th' affrighted Sheep-skin-Drum doth rent in sunder So that fell Monsters twisted entrails cuts By secret powr the poor Lambs twined guts Which after death in steed of bleating mute Are taught to speak vpon an Yvory Lute And so the Princely Eagles ravening plumes The feathers of all other Fowls consumes The First-mov'd Heav'n in ' tself it self still stirring The estate of Man before Sin Rapts with his course quicker then windes swift whirring All th' other Sphears and to Alcides Spyres From Alexanders Altars driues their Fires But mortall Adam Monarch heer beneath Erring draws all into the paths of death And on rough Seas as a blinde Pylot rash Against the rock of Heav'ns iust wrath doth dash The Worlds great Vessell sayling yerst at ease With gentle gales good guide on quiet Seas For yer his fall which way so e'r he rowl'd His estate after Sinne. His wondering eys God every-where behold In Heav'n in Earth in Ocean and in Ayr He sees and feels and findes him every-where The World was like a large and sumptuous Shop Where God his goodly treasures did vnwrap Or Crystall glass most liuely representing His sacred Goodnes every-where frequenting But since his sin the wofull wretch findes none Herb garden groue field fountain stream or stone Beast mountain valley sea-gate shoar or haven But bears his Deaths doom openly ingraven In brief the whole scope this round Centre hath Is a true store-house of Heav'ns righteous wrath Al creatures froÌ„ the highest to the lowest enemies to Man Rebellious Adam from his God revolting Findes his yerst-subiects 'gainst himself insulting The tumbling Sea the Ayr with tempests driven Thorn-bristled Earth the sad and lowring Heav'n As from the oath of their allegeance free Revenge on him th' Almighties iniury The Starrs coniur'd through enuious Influence The Heauens with all ther in By secret Hang-men punish his offence The Sun with heat the Moon with cold doth vex-him Th' Air with vnlookt-for suddain changes checks-him With fogs and frosts hails snowes and sulph'ry thunders Blasting and storms and more prodigious wonders Fire fall'n from Heav'n or else by Art incited Al the ElemeÌ„ts Fire Aire Or by mischance in som rich building lighted Or from som Mountains burning bowels throw'n Repleat with Sulphur Pitch and Pumie stone With sparkling fury spreads and in fewe hours The labour of a thousand years devours The greedy Ocean breaking wonted bounds Sea Vsurps his heards his wealthy Iles and Towns The grieved Earth to ease her as it seems Earth Of such profane accursed weight somtimes Swallows whole Countries and the airie tops Of Prince-proud towrs in her black womb she wraps And in despight of him abhord and hatefull Earth brings forth weeds She many wayes proues barren and ingratefull Mocking our hopes turning our seed-Wheat-kernel To burn-grain Thistle and to vapourie Darnel Cockle wilde Oats rough Burs Corn-cumbring Tares Short recompence for all our costly cares Yet this were little if she more malicious Venemous plants Fell stepdame brought vs not Plants more pernicious As sable Henbane Morell making mad Cold poysoning Poppy itching drowsie sad The stifning Carpesâ— th' eyes-foe Hemlock stinking Limb-numming belching and the sinew-shrinking Dead-laughing Apâ—um weeping Aconite Which in our vulgar deadly Wolfs-bane hight The dropsie breeding sorrow-bringing Psylly Heer called Flea-Wurt Colchis banefull Lilly With vs Wild-Saffron blistring byting fell Not Napell making lips and tongue to swell Blood-boyling Yew and costiue Mâ—sseltoe With yce-cold Mandrake and a many mo Such fatall plants whose fruit seed sap or root T'vntimely Graue doe bring our heed-less foot Besides she knowes we brutish value more Poyson hidden among the Metals Then Liues or Honours her rich glittering Ore That Auarice our bound-less thought still vexes Therfore among her wreakfull baits she mixes Quick-siluer Lithargie and Orpiment Wherwith our entrails are oft gâ—awn and rent So that somtimes for Body and for Minde Torture and torment in one Mine we finde What resteth more the Masters skilfull most The excellency of Mans Dominion ouer the Creatures before his Fall With gentle gales driv'n to their wished Coast Not with less labour guide their winged waynâ— On th' azure fore-head of the liquid plains Nor crafty Iugglers can more easily make Their self-liv'd Puppets for their lucres sake To skip and scud and play and prate and praunce And fight and fall and trip and turn and daunce Then happy we did rule the sealy Legions That dumbly dwell in stormy water-Regions Then fethered singers and the stubborn droues That haunt the Desarts and the shady Groues At every word they trembled then for aw And every wink then serv'd them as a law And always bent all duty to obserue-vs Without command stood ready still to serue-vs But now alas through our fond Parents fall The Creatures now becomn Tyrants and â—raytors to Him whose slaues and seruants they were before Sin They of our slaues are growen our tyrants all Wend we by Sea the dread Leuiathan Turns vpside-down the boyling Ocean And on the suddain sadly doth in toomb Our floting Castle in deep Thetis womb Yerst in the wel kin like an Eagle towring And on the water like a Dolphin scowring Walk we by Land how many loathsom swarms Of speckled poysons with pestiferous arms In every corner in close Ambush lurk With secret bands our sodain banes to work Besides the Lion and the Leopard Boar Bear and Wolf to death pursue vs hard And ielous vengers of the wrongs divine In peeces pull their Soverains sinfull line The huge thick Forrests haue nor bush nor brake But hides som Hang-man our loath'd life to take In every hedge and ditch both day and night We fear our death of every leaf affright Rest we at home the Masty fierce in force Th' vntamed Bull the hot courageous Horse With teeth with horns and hooues besiege vs round As griev'd to see such tyrants tread the ground And ther 's no Fly so small but now dares bring Her little wrath against her quondam King What hideous sights what horror-boading showes An admirable description of Mans miserable Punishments tortured by himselfe Alas what yels what howls what thund'ring throws O! am I not neer roaring Phlegoton Alecto sad Moger ' and Thesiphon What spels haue charm'd ye from your dreadfull den Of darkest Hell Monsters abhord of men O Nights black daughters grim-faç't Furies sad Stern Plutos Posts what make ye heer so mad O! feels not man a world of wofull terrors Besides your goaring wounds and ghastly horrors So soon as God from Eden Adam draue To liue in this Earth rather in this Graue Where raign a thousand deaths he summon'd-vp With thundering call the damned Crew
Who lacks a member yet persevereth To liue we see but members cut away From their own head do by and by decay 9. A Traytor deserues to haue his house razed to the ground Nor was God cruell when he drown'd the Earth For sit hence man had from his very birth Rebeld against him was 't not equity That for his fault his house should vtterly Be rent and raz'd that salt should there besow'n That in the ruins for instruction We for a time might read and vnderstand The righteous vengeance of Heav'ns wrathfull hand That wrought this Deluge and no hoorded waves Of ayry clouds or vnder-earthly caves If all blew Curtins mixt of ayr and water 10. The Flood was no naturall accident but a most iust iudgement of God Round-over-spreading this wide All-Theater To som one Climate all at once should fly One Country they might drown vndoubtedly But our great Galley hauing gone so far So many months in sight of either Star From Pole to Pole through sundry Climats whorld Showes that this Flood hath drowned all the world Now non-plust if to re-inforce thy Camp 11. The waters of the Flood sprung not from a naturall motion only but proceeded frō other then naturall Causes which cannot produce such effects Thou fly for succour to thine Ayery Damp Showe in the concave of what Mountains steep We may imagine Dens sufficient deep For so much ayr as gushing out in fountains Should hide the proud tops of the highest Mountains Sith a whole tun of ayr scarce yeelds in tryall Water ynough to fill one little Viall And what should then betide those empty spaces What should succeed in the forsaken places Of th' air's thin parts in swift springs shrinking thence Sith there 's no voyd in th' All-circumference Whence wilt thou say then coms this raging flood 12. The consideratiō of the power of God in subiecting the creatures to Noah in sustaining feeding them so long in the Arke which was as a Sepulchre confuteth all the obiections of Atheists That over-flowes the windy Ryphean Wood Mount Libanus and enviously aspires To quench the light of the celestiall fires Whence shall I say then whence-from coms it Cham That Wolves and Panthers waxing meek and tame Leaving the horror of their shady home Adiourn'd by Heav'n did in my presence com Who holding subiect vnder my command So many creatures humbled at my hand And now restor'd to th' honour and estate Whence Adam fell through sin and Satans hate Whence doth it com or by what reason is' t That vn-mann'd Haggards to mine empty fist Com without call Whence coms it that so little Fresh water fodder meal and other victuall Should serue so long so many a greedy-gut As in the dark holds of this Ark is shut That heer the Partridge doth not dread the Hauk Nor fearfull Hare the spotted Tiger baulk That all these storms our Vessell haue not broak That all this while we doe not ioyntly choak With noysom breath and excrementall stink Of such a common and continuall sink And that ourselues ' mid all these deaths are sav'd From these All-Seas where all the rest are Grav'd In all the compass of our floating Inns 13. The Arke full of Miracles which confound the wits stop the mouthes of profane wranglers Are not so many planks and boords and pins As wonders strange and miracles that ground Mans wrangling Reason and his wits confound And God no less his mighty powr displayd When he restor'd then when the World he made O sacred Patron pacifie thine ire Bring home our Hulk these angry floods retire A-liue and dead let vs perceiue and proove Thy wrath on others on our selues thy love Thus Noah sweetens his Captivity God causeth the Flood to cease Beguiles the time and charms his misery Hoping in God alone who in the Mountains Now slopping close the veins of all the Fountains Shutting Heav'ns sluees causing th' ayr controul'd Close-vp his channels and his Seas with-hould Cals forth the windes O Heav'ns fresh fans quoth he Earths sweeping Brooms O Forrests enmity O you my Heralds and my Harbengers My nimble Postes and speedy Messengers Mine arms my sinews and mine Eagles swift That through the ayr my rowling Chariot lift When from my mouth in my iust-kindled ire Fly Sulphry fumes and hot consuming fire When with my Lightning Scepters dreadfull wonder I muster horror darknes clouds and thunder Wake rise and run and drink these waters dry That hills and dales haue hidden from the sky Th' Aeolian Crowd obays his mighty call The Arke resteth on the Mountain Ararat in Armenia The surly surges of the waters fall The Sea retreateth and the sacred Keel Lands on a Hill at whose proud feet doo kneel A thousand Hills his lofty horn adoring That cleaues the clouds the starry welkin goaring Then hope-cheer'd Noah first of all for scout What Noah did before he went forth Sends forth the Crowe who flutters neer-about And finding yet no landing place at all Returns a-boord to his great Admirall Som few dayes after from the window flyes The harm-less Doue for new discoveries But seeing yet no shoar she almost tyr'd A-boord the Carrack back again retyr'd But yer the Sun had seav'n Heav'n-Circuits rode To view the World a-fresh she flyes abroad And brings a-boord at evening in her bill And Oliue branch with water pearled still O happy presage O deer pledge of loue O wel-com newes behold the peacefull Doue Brings in her beak the Peace-branch boading weal And truce with God who by this sacred seal Kindely confirms his holy Couenant That first in fight the Tiger rage shall want Lions be cowards Hares couragious Yer he be false in word or deed to vs. O sacred Oliue firstling of the fruits Health-boading branch be it thy tender roots Haue lived still while this strange Deluge lasted I doe reioyce it hath not all things wasted Or be it since the Ebb thou newly spring Prays'd be the bounty of th' immortall King That quickens thus these dead the World induing With beauty fresh so suddainly renuing Thus Noah spake And though the World gan lift He exspecteth Gods commandement to goe forth whereby at the first hee was shut vp in the Ark Most of his Iles above the waters drift Though waxen old in his long weary night He see a friendly Sun to brandish bright Though choak't with ill ayr in his stinking staul Hee 'l not a-shoar till God be pleas'd with-all And till devout from Heav'n he vnderstand Som Oracle to licence him to land But warn'd by Heav'n he commeth from his Cave Or rather from a foul infectious grave With Sem Cham Iapheth and their twice-two Brides And thousand pairs of living things besides Vnclean and clean for th' holy Patriark Had of all kinds inclosed in the Ark. But heer I hear th' vngodly that for fear Late whispered softly in each others ear With silent murmurs muttering secretly Now trumpet
Botangas Benin Cephal Guaguametre Hot Concritan too-full of poysony matter North-ward with narrow Mid'terranean Sea Which from rich Europe parts poor Africa Towards where Titans Euening splendor sank With Seas of Fez Cape-verde and Cape-blanc And toward where Phoebus doth each morning wake With Adel Ocean and the Crimsin Lake And further all that lies between the steep Mount Libanus and the Arabian Deep Between th' Erythrean Sea and Persian Sine He mighty Prince to 's Afrik State doth ioine His Darling Canaan doth nigh Iordan dwell One-day ordain'd to harbour Israel Pheud peopled Lybia Mizraim Egypt mann'd And 's first-born Chus the Aethyopian strand Iapheth extends from struggling Hellespont To Iapheth the North West The Tane and Euxin Sea to th' double Mount Of famous Gibraltar and that deep Main Whose tumbling billows bathe the shoars of Spayn And from those Seas where in the steed of Keels Of winged Ships they roule their Chariot wheels To the Marsilian Morean and Thyrrhenian Ligurian Seas and learned Sea Athenian Iust opposite to Asia rich in spice Pride of the World and second Paradise And that large Country stretcht from Amana To Tanais shoars and to the source of Rha. Forth of his Gomers loigns they say sprung all The war-like Nations scattered ouer Gaul And Germans too yerst called Gomerits From Tubal Spaniards and from Magog Scythes From Madai Medes from Mesech Mazacans From Iauan Greeks from Thyras Thracians Heer if I list or lov'd I rouer-shooting According to his accustomed modesty distrâ—tion the Poet chuseth rather Silence then to Speake vncertain ly of things vnknowne Or would I follow the vncertain footing Of false Berosus and such fond Deluders Their zealous Readers insolent Illuders I could deriue the lineal Descents Of all our Sires and name you euery Prince Of euery Prouince in his time and place Successiuely through-out his Ancient Race Yea sing the Worlds so diuers populations And of least Cities showe the first Foundations But neuer will I so my sails abandon To euery blast and rowing so at randon Without the bright light of that glorious Star Which shines ' boue all the Heav'ns venter so far On th' vnknowne surges of so vast a Sea So full of Rocks and dangers euery way Hauing no Pylot saue som brain-sick Wrighters Which coyn Kings names vain fabulous Indighters Of their own fancies who affecting glory Vpon a Flyes foot build a goodly story Som words allusion is no certain ground Whereon a lasting Monument to Found Reasons why the Search of such Antiquities is so obscure Sith fairest Riuers Mountains strangely steep And largest Seas neuer so vast and deep Though self-eternall resting still the same Through sundry chances often change their name Sith it befalls not alwaies that his seed Who builds a Town doth in the same succeed And to conclude sith vnder Heav'n no Race Perpetually possesseth any place But as all Tenants at the High Lords will We hold a Field a Forrest or a Hill And as when winde the angry Ocean moues Waue hunteth waue and billow billow shoues So do all Nations iustle each the other And so one People doth pursue another And scarce the second hath a first vn-housed Before a third him thence again haue rowsed Famous examples to this purpose Of the ancient Britains So th' ancient Britain by the Saxons chaç't From 's natiue Albion soon the Gauls displaç't From Armorik and then victoriously After his name surnam'd that Britannie So when the Lombard had surrendered Of the Lombbards Fair double-named Isters flowrie-bed To skar-faç't Hunnes he hunteth furiously The rest of Gauls from wealthy Insubrie Which after fell in French-mens hands again Won by the sword of Worthy Charlemain Of the Alains Goths and Vandals So th' Alain and North Vandal beaten both From Corduba and Seuil by the Goth Seiz'd Carthage straight which after-ward they lost To wise Iustinians valiant Roman Hoast And Romans since ioyn'd with the barbarous troop Of curled Moors vnto th' Arabians stoop The causes of such Transmigrations The sacrilegious greedy appetite Of Gold and Scepters glistering glorious bright The thirst of Vengeance and that puffing breath Of eluish Honour built on blood and death On desolation rapes and robberies Flames ruins wracks and brutish butcheries Vn-bound all Countries making war-like Nations Through euery Clymat seek new habitations I speak not heer of those Alarbian Rouers Numidian Shepheards or Tartarian Drouers Who shifting pastures for their store of Cattle Do heer and there their hayrie Tents imbattle Like the black swarms of Swallows swiftly-light Which twice a-yeer cross with their nimble-flight The Pine-plough'd Sea and pleas'd with purest ayr Seek euery Season for a fresh repair But other Nations fierce who far and nigh With their own bloods-price purchas 't Victory Who better knowing how to win then wield Conquer then keep to batter then to build And brauely choosing rather War then Peace Haue ouer-spread the World by Land and Seas Such was the Lombard who in Schonland nurst The originall remoues voyages conquests of the Lombards On Rugeland and Liuonia seized first Then hauing well reueng'd on the Bulgarian The death of Agilmont the bold Barbarian Surpriseth Poland thence anon he presses In Rhines fair streams to rense his Amber tresses Thence turning back he seats him in Moraâ—ia After at Buda thence hee postes to Pauia There raigns 200. yeares tryumphing so That royall Tesin might compare with Po. Such was the Goth who whilom issuing forth Of the Goths From the cold frozen Ilands of the North Incampt by Vistula but th' ayr almost Being there as cold as on the Baltick Coast He with victorious arms Sclauonia gains The Transyluanian and Valacchian Plains Thence plyes to Thracia and then leauing Greeks Greedie of spoyl foure times he brauely seeks To snatch from Rome then Mars his Minion The Palms which she o're all the World had won Guided by Rhadaguise and Alaric And Vidimarius and Theodoric Then coms to Gaul and thence repul'st his Legions Rest euer since vpon the Spanish Regions Such th' antik Gaul who rouing every way Of the ancient Gaules As far as Phoebus darts his golden ray Seiz'd Italy the Worlds proud Mistress sackt Which rather Mars then Romulus compackt Then pill'd Panonia then with conquering ploughs He furrows-vp cold Strymons slymy slows Wastes Macedonia and inclin'd to fleece Spares not to spoyl the greatest Gods of Greece Then cloyd with Europ th' Hellespont he past And there Mount Ida's neighbour world did waste Spoyleth Pisidia Mysia doth inthrall And midst of Asia plants another Gaul Most famous Peoples dark Antiquitie Is as a Wood where bold Temeritie Stumbles each step and learned Diligence It self intangles and blinde Ignorance Groping about in such Cimmerian nights In pits and ponds and boggs and quag-mires lights It shall suffice me therefore in this doubt He affirmeth finally that the three Sonnes of Noah peopled the World and sheweth how But as
this Day strange will it seem to som One and the same is both the Corps and Tomb. Almighty Father Gracious God and Iust Mans pronenesse â—o fall without the support of Gods gracious faâ—â—our O! what hard-heartednes what brutish Lust Pursueth man if thou but turn thy face And take but from vs thy preventing grace And if provoked for our past offences Thou give vs vp to our Concupiscences O Harran'â— Nieces you LOTS daughters saw SODOM consumed in that Sulphury flaw Their Hills and Forrests calcined in fine Their liberall fields sowen with a burning brine Their stately houses like a coal-pitsmoaking The Sun it self with their thick vapours choking So that within a yard for stinking smother The Labourers could hardly knowe each other Their flowring Valley to a Fen exchang'd And your owne Mother to a Salt-stone chang'd Yet all alas these famous Monuments Of the iust rigour of God's Punishments Cannot deter you but even Sodom-like Incestuously a holy-man you seek Even your owne Father whom with wine you fill And then by turns intice him to your will Conceiving so O can Heav'n suffer it Lot drawen by his Daughter in drunkennesse to commit Incest with both of theÌ„ Even of that seed which did your selues beget Within your wombs you bear for nine months time Th' vpbraiding burden of your shame-less Crime And troubling Kindred's names and Nature quight You both becom even in one very Night Wives to your Fathers Sisters to your Sons And Mothers to your Brothers all at once All vnder colour that thus living sole Sequestred thus in an vnhaunted hole Heav'ns envy should all ADAM'S race have reft And LOT alone should in the World be left Had 't not been better never to haue bred Than t' have conceived in so foul a bed Had 't not been better never t' haue been Mothers Than by your Father to have born your Brothers Had 't not been better to the death to hate Then thus t' haue lov'd him that you both begate Him so much yours that yours he mought not be Sith of these Rocks God could immediatly Haue rais'd LOT Son-in-lawes or striking but Th' Earths solid bosom with his brazen foot Out of the dust haue reared suddain swarms Of People stay'd in Peace and stout in Arms. FINIS The FATHERS A PART OF THE II. PART OF THE III. DAY OF THE II. WEEK THE ARGVMENT The famous FATHER of the Faithfull heer Limn'd to the life in strife of Faith and Fear His Sonn 's sweet nature and his nurture such Endeer his TRIAL with a neerer Touch REASON'S best Reasons are by FAITH refell'd With GOD th' Affection for the Action held So counter-manding His command atchiev'd The Sire 's approoued and the Son repriev'd Heer had our Author liv'd to end his Works Should haue ensu'd the other PATRIARCHS O! 'T is a Heav'nly and a happy turn Of godly Parents to be timely born To be brought-vp vnder the watchfull eyn Of milde-sharp Masters awfull Discipline Chiefly to be even from the very first With the pure milk of true Religion nurst Such hap had Isaac but his Inclination Exceeds his Birth excels his Education His Faith his Wit Knowledge and Iudgement sage Out-stripping Time anticipate his age For yet a Childe he fears th' Eternall Lord And wisely waits all on his Fathers word Whose steady steps so duly he obserues That every look him for a lesson serues And every gesture every wink and beck For a command a warning and a check So that his toward Diligence out-went His Fathers hopes and holy document Now though that Abram were a man discreet Sober and wise well knowing what is meet Though his deer Son somtimes he seem to chide Yet hardly can he his affection hide For evermore his loue-betraying ey On 's darling Isaac glanceth tenderly Sweet Isaac's face seems as his Glasse it were And Isaac's name is musick in his ear But God perceiving this deep-settled Loue Thence takes occasion Abrams Faith to prooue And tempteth him But not as doth the Divell His Vassals tempt or Man his Mate to evill Satan still draws vs to Death's dismall Path But God directs where Death no entry hath Ay Satan ayms our constant Faith to foyl But God doth seal it never to recoyl Satan suggesteth ill God mooues to grace The Divell seeks our Baptisme to deface But God to make our burning Zeal to beam The brighter ay in his Ierusalem A Prince that means effectuall proof to make Simile Of som Man's Faith that he doth newly take Examins strictly and with much a-doo His Words and Deeds and every gesture too And as without within as well to spy-him Doth carefully by all means sift and try-him But God ne'r seeks by Triall of Temptation To sound Man's heart and secret cogitation For well he knowes Man and his ey doth see All thoughts of men yer they conceived be But this is still his high and holy driâ—t When through temptation he his Saints doth siâ—t To leaue for pattern to his Churches seed Their stedfast Faith and never-daunted Creed Yet out of season God doth never try His new-converted Children by and by Such novices would quickly faint and shrink Such ill-rigg'd Ships would even in launching sink Their Faith 's light blossoms would with every blast Be blowen away and bear no fruit at last Against so boistrous stroaks they want a shield Vnder such weight their feeble strength would yield But when his Words deer seed that he hath sowen Within their hearts is rooted well and growen And when they haue a broad thick Breast-plate on High peril-proof against affliction Such as our Abram Who now waxen strong Through exercise of many trials long Of faith of loue of fortitude and right Who by long weary wandrings day and night By often Terrors Lots Imprisonment His Wifes twice taking Ismaels banishment Beeing made invincible for all assaults Of Heav'n and Earth and the infernall Vaults Is tempted by the voyce which made all things Which sceptreth Shepheards and vn-crowneth Kings Giue me a voyce now O voyce all divine With sacred fire inflame this breast of mine Inuocation Ah! ravish me make all this Vniverse Admire thine Abram pourtrayd in my Verse Mine Abram sayd the Lord deer Abraham Thy God thy King thy Fee thy Fence I am Hie straight to Salem and there quickly kill Thine owne Son Isaac on that sacred Hill Heaw him in pieces and commit the same In Sacrifice vnto the rage-full Flame As he that slumbering on his carefull Bed Simile Seems to discern som Fancy full of dread Shrinks down himself and fearfull hides his face And scant draws breath in half an howrs space So Abraham at these sharp sounding words Which wound him deeper than a thousand swords Seised at once with wonder grief and fright Is well-nigh sunk in Deaths eternall night Death's ash-pale Image in his eyes doth swim A chilling Iee shivers through every lim Flat on the ground himself he groveling throwes A
hundred times his colour coms and goes From all his body a cold deaw doth drop His speech doth fail and every sense doth stop But self-return'd two sounding sobs he cast Then two deep sighes then these sad words at last Cruell command quoth He that I should kill A tender Infant innocent of ill That in cold blood I barbarously should murder My fear-less fault-less faithfull Friend nay further Mine owne deer Son and what deer Son Alas Mine only Isaac whose sweet vertues pass The louely sweetnes of his angel-face Isaac sole Pattern of now-Vertue knowen Isaac in years yong but in wisedom growen Isaac whom good-men loue the rest enuy Isaac my hearts heart my lifes life must dy That I should stain an execrable Shrine With Isaac's warm blood issued out of mine O might mine serue 't were tolerable loss 'T were little hurt nay 't were a welcom cross I bear no longer fruit the best of Mee Is like a fruit-less branch-less sap-less Tree Or hollow Trunk which only serues for stais To crawling Iuie's weak and winding sprais But losing Isaac I not only leese My life withall which Heav'ns haue linkt to his But O! more millions of Babes yet vn-bore Than there be sands vpon the Lâ—hian shoar Canst thou mine Arm O canst thou cruell arm In Isaac's breast thy bloody weapon warm Alas I could not but even die for grief Should I but but yield mine Ages sweet relief My bliss my comfort and mine ey 's delight Into the hands of Hang-mens spare-less spight But that mine own self O extreamest Rigour What my self formed should my self dis-figure That I alas with bloody hand and knife Should rip his bosom rend his heart and life That odious Author of a Precedent So rarely ruth-less I should once present Vpon a sacred Altar an Oblation So barbarous O brute abhomination That I should broyl his Flesh and in the flame Behold his bowels crackling in the same 'T is horrible to think and hellish too Cruel to wish impossible to doo Doo 't he that list and that delights in blood I neither will nor can becom so wood T' obey in this God whom we take to be Th' eternall Pillar of all verity And constant faith will he be faith-les now Will he be false and from his promise bow Will he alas vndo what he hath don Mar what he makes and loose what he hath won Sail with each winde and shall his promise then Serue but for snares t' intrap sincerest men Somtimes by his eternall self he swears That my Son Isaac's number-passing Heirs Shall fill the Land and that his fruitfull Race Shall be the blessed levain of his Grace Now he commands me his deer life to spill And in the Cradle my health's Hope to kill To drown the whole World in the blood of him And at one stroak vpon his fruitfull stem To strike-off all the heads of all the flock That should heer-after his drad name inuoak His sacred nostrils with sweetsmels delight His ears with praises with good deeds his sight Will God impugn himself and will he so By his command his couenant ouer throwe And shall my faith my faith's confounder be Then faith or doubting are both one to me Alas what saist thou Abram pawse thou must He that revives the Phoenix from her dust And from dead Silk-worm's Toombs their shining Clews A living bird with painted wings renews Will he forget Isaac the only stock Of his chaste Spouse his Church and chosen flock Will he forget Isaac the onely Light Of all the World for Vertues lustre bright Or can he not if 't please him even in death Restore him life and re-inspire him breath But mark the while thou bringest for defence The All-proof Towr of his Omnipotence Thou shak'st his Iustice. This is certain too God can do all saue that he will not doo He loues none ill for when the wreakfull Waues Were all return'd into their wonted Caues When all the Meads and every fruitfull Plain Began with ioy to see the Sun again So soon as Noah with a gladsom heart Forth of his floating Prison did depart God did forbid Murder and nothing more Then Murder doth his Maiesty abhor But shallow man sound not the vast Abiss Of God's deep Iudgements where no ground there is Be sober-wise so bound thy frail desire And what thou canst not comprehend admire God our Law-maker iust and righteous Maketh his Laws not for himself but vs He frees himself and flies with his Powrs wing No where but where his holy will doth bring All that he doth is good but not therefore Must he needs do it 'cause 't was good before But good is good because it doth indeed From him the Root of perfect good proceed From him the Fountain of pure Righteousness From him whose goodness nothing can express Ah profane thoughts O wretch and think'st thou then That God delights to drink the blood of men That he intends by such a strange impietie To plant his seruice You you forged deitie Of Molech Milcom Camosh Astaroth Your damned Shrines with such dire Orgies blot You Tyrants you delight in Sacrifice Of slaughtered Children 't is your bloody guise You cruell Idols with such Hecatombs To glut the rage of your outrageous dooms You holde no sent so sweet no gift so good As streaming Riuers of our luke-warm blood Not Abram's God ay gratious holy kinde Who made the World but onely for Man-kinde Who hates the bloody hands his Creatures loues And contrite hearts for sacrifice approues You you disguiz'd as angels of the light Would make my God Author of this despight Supplant my Faith on his sure promise built And stain his Altars with this bloody guilt No no my ioy my Boy thrice-happy born Yea more then so if furious I forlorn Hurt not thy Hap a Father shalt thou be Of happy People that shall spring from thee Fear not deer Child that I vnnaturall Should in thy blood imbrue my hand at all Or by th' exployt of such detested deed Commend my name to them that shall succeed I will the Fame that of my name shall ring In time to com shall fly with fairer wing The lofty Pine that 's shaken to and fro 〈◊〉 With Counter-pufs of sundry windes that blowe Now swaying South-ward tears som root in twain Then bending North-ward doth another strain Reels vp and down tost by two Tyrants fell Would fall but cannot neither yet can tell Inconstant Neuâ—er that to both doth yield Which of the two is like to win the Fiâ—ld So Abraham on each side set-vpon Betwixt his Faith and his Affection One while his Faith anon Affection sways Now wins Religion anon Reason waighs Hee 's now a fond and then a faithfull Father Now resolute anon relenting rather One while the Flesh hath got the vpper hand Anon the Spirit the same doth countermand Hee 's loth alas his tender Son to kill But much more loth to break His Fathers will For thus at
Adorn'd self-gazing with a lofty ey His faction present AARON also by Lord shield thy Cause approve thee veritable Let not thy Name be to the Lewd a Fable Oint thine Anointed publikely by Miracle Showe whom thou hast selected for thine Oracle Said MOSES then and even as yet he spake The groaning Earth began to reel and shake A horrid Thunder in her bowels rumbles Their dreadfull punishment And in her bosom vp and down it tumbles Tearing her Rocks Vntil she Yawn a way To let it out and to let in the Day Heav'n sees to Hell and Hell beholdeth Heav'n And Divels dazled with the glistring leav'n Of th' ancient Sun yet lower fain would dive But chain'd to th' Centre all in vain they strive CORE round compast with his Rebel friends Offers to BELZEBVE and to the Fiends His bodie 's batter'd with Rocks falling down And arms of Trees there planted vp-side-down He goes with Noise down to the Silent Coast Intoombd alive without all Art or cost And all the rest that his proud side assum'd Scaping the Gulf with Lightning are consum'd And AARON'S Office is confirm'd by God Aarons charge is confirmed by miracle With wondrous Signes of his oft-quickned Rod Which dead re-buda re-blooms and Almonds bears When all his Fellows haue no life in theirs Now shall I sing through MOSES prudent Sway Sundry victories of the Israelites vnder the coÌ„duct and direction of Moses How ISRAEL doth AMALEC dismay ARAD and OG that of huge Giants springs Proud HESEBON and the five Madian Kings With the false Prelat who profanely made Of Prophets-gifts a sacrilegious trade Who false sayes true who striving past all shame To force the Spirit is forced by the same Who snaring th' Hebrews with frail Beauties graces Defiles their bodies more their soules defaces Doubt-les his Deeds are such as would I sing But half of them I vnder-take a thing As hard almost as in the Gangik Seas To count the Waves or Sands in Euphrates And of so much should I a little say It were to wrong him and his Praise betray His Noble Acts we therefore heer suspend Reseruing the Warres for another Discourse our Poet hasteth to the death of Moses And skip vnto his sweet and happy End Sith th' End is it whereby we iudge the best For either Life how Man is Curst or Blest Feeling his vigour by degrees to waste And one Fire quencht another kindling fast Which doth his Spirit re-found his soule refine And raise to Heaven whence it was sent divine He doth not Now study to make his Will By his example Men are warned not to deferre to make their Will till it be too late to bee troubled with the busines of this world T' Entail his Land to his Male-Issue still Wisely and iustly to divide his Good To Sons and Daughters and his neerest Blood T' assigne his Wife a Dowry fair and fit A hundred times to add and alter it To quittance Friendships with frank Legacies To guerdon Service with Annuities To make Executors to Cancel som T' appoint himself a Palace for a Tomb. I praise a Care to settle our Estate But when Death threats vs then it is too-late A seemly Buriall is a sacree Rite But let the living take that charge of right He lifting higher his last thoughts besides The Common-Weale's care for the Church prouides And graving his discourse with voice devout Bids thus far-well to all that stand about O IACOB's seed I might say my deer sons He pronounceth the blessings and the curses writteÌ„ in Leviticus 26 Deutro 28. where vnto the people say Amen Y' are sense-les more then metalls stocks or stones If y' have forgot the many-many Miracles Wher-with the Lord hath seal'd my sacred Oracles And all the Favours in this savage Place In forty yeers received of his grace Therefore O ISRAEL walk thou in his fear And in thy hearts-heart not in Marble bear His ever-lasting LAVV before him stand And to his Service consecrate thy hand If this thou do thy Heav'n-blesâ— fleecy Flocks Blessings on those that obey Shall bound about thy Pastures Downs and Rocks As thick as skip in Sommer in a Mead The Grass-hoppers that all with Deaw are fed Thy fruitfull Eaws fat Twins shall bring thee ever And of their Milk shall make a plentious River Th' olde Tyrant loads not with so-many loans Toules Taxes Succours Impositions The panting Vassalls to him Tributary As thy rich Fields shall pay thee voluntary Thy children and thy children's children set About thy Table side by side at meat Shall flourish like a long and goodly rowe Of pale-green Olives that vprightly growe About a ground and full of Fruit presage Plenty of Oyl vnto their Master sage Sons of thy sons shall serue thy reverend Eld Thou shalt die quiet thou shalt live vnqueld Blessed at home and blessed in the Plain The blessed God shall send thee timely Rain And holsom windes and with his keyes of grace Open Heav'ns store-house to thy happy Race Thy proud fell Foes with Troops of armed men Shall charge thee one way but shall flie thee ten The Peace-Plant Olive or Triumphant Bay Shall shade thy gates Thy valour shall dismay And daunt the Earth and with his sacred aw Thy Saviour-King shall giue the World the law If other-wise the Megrim Gowt and Stone Curses on the Disobedient Shall plague thee fel with thousand pangs in one Thy numbry Flocks in part shall barren â—e In part shall bring abortives vnto thee Accurst at home accursed in the Plain Thy labour boot-les and thy care in vain Thy Field shall be of steel thy Heav'n of brass Thy Fountains dry and God displeas'd alas In steed of holsom showrs shall send down flashes Of Lightning Fire Hail Sulphur Salt and Ashes Thou shalt reap little where thou much hast shed And with that little shall thy Foe be fed He shall the fattest of thy Heard devour Before thy face and yet thou must not lowr Thou shalt build fair another haue thy Place Thou wed a wife another 'fore thy face Shal loose her Bride-belt God with rage shall smight Thy stubborn heart with blindnesse and affright So that a wagging leaf a puff a crack Yea the least creak shall make thee turn thy back Thou never shalt thine adverse Hoast survay But to be beaten or to run away A People stout for strength and number ample Which th' Aegle hath for Ensigne and Example With a new Wall thine ancient Wall shall dam And make thee Famisht thy void bowels cram With thine owne bowels and for want of meat Thine owne deer Children's trembling flesh to eat And then thy Remnant far disperst from home O're all the Corners of the earth shall roam To shew their Curse they shall no Country ow'ne And which is worse they shall not be their Owne AMEN said all the Hoast Then like the Swan This dying Song the Man of GOD began SIth ISRAEL O
ground still woorm-like basely crawling Dare not attempt nor scarcely think precise Any great Act or glorious Enterprise Because Ambition Custom and the Law From high Estate hath bounded them with aw Where He that never rightly learn'd t obay Commandeth not with heavy Sword of Sway Where each i' th' Publik having equall part All to save all will hazard life and hart Where Liberty as deer as life and breath Born with vs first consorts vs to our Death Shall savage Beasts like-better Nuts and Mast Simile In a free Forrest than our choise Repast In iron Cages and shall we poor Sots Whom Nature Masters of our selues allots And Lords of All besides shall we go draw On our owne necks an ease-les Yoak of Aw Rather O IACOB chuse we all to die Than to betray our Native Libertie Than to becom the sporting Tennis-ball Of a proud Monarch or to yeeld vs thrall To seive or honor any other King Than that drad LAVV which did from SINA ring Another then whom Age made venerable 2. Another of a reverent Senator for Aristocracy or the rule of a chosen Synâ—de of the best men Knowledge admir'd and Office honorable Stands-vp and speaks maiestically-milde On other Piles the COMMON-WEAL to build Doubt-les said he with waste of Time and Soap Y'have labour'd long to wash an AETHIOPE Y'have drawn vs heer a goodly form of STATE And well we have had proof of it of late Shall we again the Sword of IVSTICE put In mad mens hands soon their owne throats to cut What Tiger is more fierce what Bear more fel Comparisons What Chaff more light What Sea more apt to swel Than is th' vnbridled Vulgar passion-toss't In calms elated in foul-weather lost What boot deep Proiects if to th' eyes of all They must be publisht in the common Hall Sith knowen Designs are dangerous to act And th' vn-close Chief did never noble fact DEMOCRACY is as a tossed Ship Void both of Pole and Pilot in the Deep Simile A Senate fram'd of thousand Kinglings slight Where voices pass by number not by waight Where wise men do propound and Fools dispose A Fair where all things they to sale expose Simile A Sink of Filth where ay th' infamousest Simile Most bold and busie are esteemed best A Park of savage Beasts that each-man dreads Simile A Head-les Monster with a thousand heads What shall we then do shall we by and by In Tyrants paws deiect vs servilely Nay rather shunning these extremities Let vs make choise of men vp right and wise Of such whose Vertue doth the Land adorn Of such whom Fortune hath made Noble-born Of such as Wealth hath rais'd above the pitch Of th' abiect Vulgar and to th' hands of such Such as for Wisedom Wealth and Birth excell Let vs commit the Reans of ISRAEL And ever from the sacred Helm exclude The turbulent base moody Multitude Take away Choise and where is Vertue 's grace What shall not Chance vnto Desert give place And Lots to Right Shall not the blinde be led Simile By those whose eyes are perfect in their head Chiefly amid ' such baulks and blocks and Pits As in best State-paths the best States-man meets Who may be better trusted with the key Comparison Of a great Chest of Gold and gems than they That got the same And who more firm and fit At carefull Stern of POLICIE to sit Than such as in the Ship most venture bear Such as their owne wrack with the State 's wrack fear Such as Content and having Much to lose Even Death it self rather than Change would chuse While he discourst thus on a Theam so grave 3. The Oration of a Noble yong Prince for Monarchy or the sole Soveraintiâ— of a KING Vp-rose a Gallant noble yong and brave Fo to the Vulgar one that hop't perchance One-day t' attain a Scepters governance And thus he speaks Your RVLE is yet too Free. Y'have proin'd the leaves not boughs of Publik-Tree Y'have qualified but not yet cur'd our Grief Y'have in our Field still left the tares of Strife Of Leagues and Factions For plurality Of Heads and Hands to sway an Emperie Is for the most part like vntamed Bulls One this way hales another that way pulls Simile All every-way hurried with Passion 's windes Whither their Lust-storms do transport their mindes At length the strongest bears the weakest down And to himself wholly vsurps the Crown And so in fine your Aristocracie He by degrees brings to a Monarchie In brief the Scepter Aristocratike And People-Sway have * A passion following any sicknesse symptomes both a-like And neither of them can be permanent For want of Vnion which of Gouernment Is both the Life-bloud and Preservative Wherby a STATE yong strong and long doth thrive But MONARCHY is as a goodly Station Built skilfully vpon a sure Foundation A quiet House wherin as principall One Father is obey'd and serv'd of all A well-rigd Ship where when the danger 's neer A many Masters strive not who shall steer The world hath but One God Heav'n but One Sun Quails but One Chief the Hony-Birds but One One Master-Bee and Nature natively Graves in our hearts the Rule of MONARCHY At sound of whose Edicts all ioynt-proceed Vnder whose Sway Seditions never breed Who while consulting with Colleagues he stands Le ts not the Victory escape his hands And that same Maiesty which as the Base And Pedestal supports the waight and grace Greatnes and glory of a well-Rul'd State It not extinguisht nor extenuate By being parcelliz'd to a plurality Of petty Kinglings of a mean Equality Like as a goodly River deep and large Simile Able to bear Ships of the greatest Charge If through new Dikes his trade-full Waters guided Be in a hundred little Brooks divided No Bridge more fears nor Sea more waighs the same But soon it loses both his trade and name And to conclude a wise and worthy Prince A KING compleat in Royall excellence Is even the Peoples prop their powrfull nerves And lively Law that all intire preserves His Countrie 's life and soule sight and fore-sight And even th' Almightie's sacred Picture right While yet he spake the People loudly cri'd A KING a KING wee 'll have a KING for Guide He shall command He shall conduct our Hoasts And make vs Lords of th' IDVMEAN Coasts Ingrate said SAMVEL will you then reiect Th' Almighties Scepter do you more affect New POLICY than his olde PROVIDENCE And change th' Immortall for a mortall Prince Well Rebels well you shall you shall have one A KINGs Prerogatiue But do ye knowe what followes ther-vpon He from your Ploughs shall take your Horses out To serve his Pomp and draw his Train about In gilden Coaches a wilde wanton sort Of Popiniayes and Peacocks of the Court He shal your choisest Sons and Daughters take To be his Servants nay his slaves to make You shall plant Vineyards
am dead Be gratious to my Blood and raze not fell My Name and Issue out of Israel Thus sayd the King and tears out-went his words A pale despair his heavy hart still-girds His feeble spirit praesaging his Miss-fortune Doth every-kinde of Oracles importune Suspicious seeks how Clotho's Clew doth swell And cast of Heav'n wil needs consult with Hell In Endor dwelt a Beldam in those dayes The Woman Witch of Endor Deep-skild in Charms for this weak sex always Hath in all Times ben taxt for Magik Tricks As pronest Agents for the Prince of Styx Whether because their soft moist supple brain Doth easie print of every seal retain Or whether wanting Force and Fames desert Those Wyzards ween to winn it by Black-Art This Stygian scum the Furies fury fell This Shop of Poysons hideous Type of Hell This sad Erinnys Milcom's Fauourite Chamosh his Ioye and Belzebubs delight Delights alonely for her exercise In secret Murders soudain Tragoedies Her drink the blood of Babes her dainty Feast Mens Marrow Brains Guts Livers late deceast At Weddings aye for Lamps she lights debates And quiet Loue much more then Death she hates Or if she reak of Love 't is but to trap Som severe Cato in incestuous Lap Somtimes they say she dims the Heav'nly Lamps She haunts the Graues she talks with Ghosts she stamps And Cals-vp Spirits and with a wink controules Th' infernal Tyrant and the tortur'd Soules Arts admiration Izraels Ornament That as a Queen Command'st each Element And from the Toomb deceased Trunks canst raise Th' vnfaithfull King thus flatters her with prayse On steepest Mountains stop the swiftest Currents From driest Rocks draw rapid-rowling Torrents And fitly hasten Amphitrites Flood Or stay her Eb as to thy self seems good Turn day to night hold Windes within thy hand Make the Sphears moue and the Sun still to stand Enforce the Moon so with thy Charms som-times That for a stound in a deep Swoun she seems O thou al-knowing Spirit daign with thy spell To raise-vp heer renowned Samuel To satisfie my doubtfull soule in sum The issue of my Fortunes yet to com Importun'd twice or thrice she that before Resembled one of those grim Ghosts of yore Which she was was wont with her vn-holsom breath To re-bring-back from the black gates of death Growes now more gastly and more Ghost-like grim Right like to Satan in his Rage-full Trim. The place about darker then Night she darkes Shee yelles she roars she houles she brayes she barkes And in vn-heard horrid Barbarian tearms She mutters strange and execrable Charmes Of whose Hell-raking Nature-shaking Spell These odious words could scarce be hearkned well Eternall Shades infernall Dëities Death Horrors Terrors Silence Obsequies Demons dispatch If this dim stinking Taper Be of mine owne Sons fat if heer for paper I write detested on the tender skins Of time-les Infants and abortiue Twins Torn from the wombe these Figures figure-les If this black Sprinkle tuft with Virgins tress Dipt at your Altar in my kinsmans blood If well I smell of humane flesh my food Haste haste you Fiends you subterranean Pow'rs If impiously as fits these Rites of yours I haue invok't your grizly Maiesties Harken O Furies to my Blasphemies Regard my Charms and mine inchanting Spell Reward my Sins and send vp Samuel From dismall darknes of your deep Abysse To answer me in what my pleasure is Dispatch I say black Princes quick why when Haue I not Art for one to send you ten When stubborn Ghost The Palfraies of the Sun Doo fear my Spells and when I spur they run The Planets bow the Plants giue ear to me The Forrests stoop and even the strongest Tree At driery sound of my sad whisperings Doth Prophecie fore telling future things Yea maugre Ioue by mine almighty Charms Through Heav'n I thunder with imperious Arms And comst not thou O so I see the Sage I see th' ascent of som great man his age His sacred habite and sweet-graue aspect Som God-like raies about him round reflect Hee 's ready now to speak and plyant too To cleer thy doubtings without more a doo Saul flat adores and wickedly-devout The fained Prophets least word leaues not out What dost thou Saul ô Izraels Soveraign Against those that resort to Witches Witches of late feard only thy disdain Now th' are thy stay O wretch doost thou not knowe One cannot vse th' ayde of the Powers belowe Without som Pact of Counter-Seruices By Prayers Perfumes Homage and Sacrifice And that this Art meer Diabolicall It hurteth all but th' Author most of all And also that the impious Atheïst The Infidel and damned Exorcist Differ not much Th' one Godhead quight denies Th' other for God foul Satan magnifies Th' other Satan by Inchantment strange Into an Angell of the Light doth change When as God would his voyce thou wouldst not hear Now he forbids thee thou consult'st els-where Whom living Prophet thou neglect'st abhorr'st Him dead thou seek'st and his dead Trunk ador'st And yet not him nor his forth ' ougly Fiend Hath no such power vpon a Saint t' extend Against th' illusion of Sathan false Apparitiōs and Walking Spirit◠Who fears no force of the blasphemous Charms Of mumbling Beldams or Hels damned Arms From all the Poysons that those powers contriue Charm-charming Faith 's a full Preservatiue In Soule and Body both He cannot come For they re-ioyne not till the day of doom His Soule alone cannot appeer for why Soules are invisible to mortall eye His Body only neither can it be For dust to dust that soon corrupts we see Besides all this if 't were true Samuel Should not alas thine eye-sight serue as well To see and knowe him as this Sorceresse This hatefull Hag this old Enchanteresse This Divell incarnate whose drad Spell commands The rebell-Fury of th' Infernall Bands Hath Lucifer not Art enough to fain A Body fitting for his turn and train And as the rigor of long Cold congeals Simile To harsh hard Wooll the running Water-Rils Cannot he thicken thinnest parts of Air Commixing Vapours glew-them hue them fair Simile Even as the Rain-Bowe by the Suns reflection Is painted fair in manifold complection A Body which we see all-ready formd But yet perceiue not how it is performd A Body perfect in apparant showe But in effect and substance nothing so A Body hart-les lung-les tongue-les too Where Satan lurks not to giue life ther-to But to the end that from this Counter-mure More covertly he may discharge more sure A hundred dangerous Engins which he darts Against the Bulwarks of the bravest harts That in the Sugar even of sacred Writ He may em-pill vs with som Banefull bit And that his counterfait and fained lips Laying before vs all our hainous slips And Gods drad Iudgements and iust Indignation May vnder-mine our surest Faiths Foundation But let vs hear now what he saith O Saul What frantick fury art thou moov'd with-all To now re-knit my broken
want only with th' vnder-Fishes striues For in the bottom of this liquid Ice Made of Musaïck work with quaint device The cunning workman had contrived trim Carpes Pikes and Dolphins seeming even to swim Dauid gazing Ishai's great son too-idlely walking hie Vpon a Tarras this bright star doth spy And sudden dazled with the splendor bright Fares like a Prisoner who new brought to light Simile From a Cimmerian dark deep dungeon Feels his sight smitten with a radiant Sun But too-too-soon re-cleer'd he sees alas Th' admired Tracts of a bewitching Face Her sparkling Eye is like the Morning Star Her lips two snips of crimsin Sattin are Her Teeth as white as burnisht Silver seem Or Orient Pearls the rarest in esteem Her Cheeks and Chin and all her flesh like Snowes Sweet intermixed with Vermillion Rose And all her sundry Treasures selfly swel Prowd so to see their naked selues excel What living Rance what rapting Iuory Swims in these streams O what new Victory Triumphs of all my TROPHEIS O cleer Therms If so your Waues be cold what is it warms Nay burns my hart If hot I pray whence comes This shivering winter that my soule benums Freezes my Senses and dis-selfs me so With drousie Poppy not my self to knowe O peer-les Bewty meerly Bewtifull Vnknow'n to me th' art most vn-mercifull Alas I dy I dy O dismall lot Both for I see thee and I see thee not But a-far-off and vnder water too O feeble Power and O what shall I doo Weak Kingly-State sith that a silly Woman Stooping my Crown can my soul's Homage summon But ô Imperiall power Imperiall State Could happy I giue Bewties Check the Mate Thus spake the King and like as parkle small Simile That by mischance doth into powder fall Hee 's alla-fire and pensiue studies nought But how t' accomplish his lasciuious thought Which soon he compast sinks himself therin Forgetteth Dauid addeth Sin to Sin Simile And lustfull playes like a yong lusty Rider A wilfull Gallant not a skilfull guider Who proud of his Horse pride still puts him to 't With wand and spur layes on with hand and foot The too-free Beast which but too-fast before Ran to his Ruine stumbling evermore At every stone till at the last he break Against som Rock his and his Riders neck For fearing not Adulteries fact but fame A iealous Husbands Fury for the same And lessening of a Pleasure shar'd to twain He treach'rous makes her valiant Spouse be slain The Lord is moov'd and iust begins to stretch His Wraths keen dart at this disloyal wretch When Nathan then bright Brand of Zeal and Faith Comes to the King and modest-boldly sayth Vouchsafe my Liege that our Chief Iustice art The Prophet Nothan's Parable reprouing Dauid To list a-while to a most hainous part First to the fault giue ear then giue Consent To giue the Faulty his due Punishment Of late a Subiect of thine owne whose flocks Powl'd all Mount Liban's pleasant plentious locks And to whose Heards could hardly full suffice The flowry Verge that longst all Iordan lies Making a Feast vnto a stranger-Guest None of his owne abundant Fatlings drest But privy Thief from a poor Neighbour by His Faithfull Friend Hee takes feloniously A goodly Lamb although he had no more But even that one wherby he set such store That every day of his owne hand it fed And every night it coucht vpon his Bed Supt of his Cup his pleasant morsels pickt And even the moisture from his lips it lickt Nay more my Lord. No more replies the King Deeply incenst 'T is more than time this thing Were seen into and so outrageous Crimes So insolent had need be curbd be times What-ever Wretch hath done this Villany Shall Die the Death and not alonely Die But let the horror of so foul a Fact A more then common punishment exact O painted Toomb then answerd sacred Nathan That hast God in thy Mouth in thy Minde Sathan Thou blam'st in other thine owne Fault denounç't And vn-awares hast gainst thy self pronounç't Sentence of Death O King no King as than Of thy desires Thou art the very man Yea Thou art hee that with a wanton Theft Hast iust Vriah's only Lamb bereft And him ô horror Sin with Sin is further'd Him with the sword of Ammon hast Thou murther'd Bright Beauties Eye like to a glorious Sun Hurts the sore eye that looks too-much ther-on Thy want on Eye gazing vpon that Eye Hath given an Entrance too-too-foolishly Vnto that Dwarf that Divel is it not Which out of Sloath within vs is begot Who entring first but Guest-wise in a room Doth shortly Master of the house become And makes a Saint a sweet myld-minded Man That 'gainst his Life's Fo would not lift his hand To plot the death of his deer faith-full Friend That for his Loue a thousand liues would spend Ah! shak'st thou not is not thy Soule in trouble O brittle dust vain shadow empty bubble At Gods drad wrath which quick doth calcinize The marble Mountains and the Ocean dries No thou shalt knowe the waight of Gods right hand Thou for example t'other Kings shalt stand Death speedy Death of that adulterous Fruit Which even al-ready makes his Mother rue't Shall vex thy soule and make thee feel in deed Forbidden Pleasure doth Repenrance breed Ah shame-les beast Sith thy brute Lust forlorn Hath not the Wife of thy best Friend forborn Thy Sons dis-natur'd shall defile thy bed Incestuously thy fair Wiues rauished Shall doublely thy lust-full seed receaue Thy Concubines which thou behinde shalt leaue The wanton Rapes of thine owne Race shal be It shall befall that in thy Family With an vn-kins-mans kisse vn-louing Lover The Brother shal his Sisters shame discouer Thou shalt be both Father and Father-in-law To thine owne Blood Thy Children past all aw Of God or Man shall by their insolence Eyen iustifie thy bloody foul offence Thou sinn'dst in secret but Sol's blushing Eye Shall be eye-witnesse of their villany All Izrael shall see the same and then The Heav'n-sunk Cities in Asphaltis Fen Out of the stinking Lake their heads shall showe Glad by thy Sons to be out-sinned so Thou thou inhumane didst the Death conspire Of good Uriah worthy better Hire Thou cruell didst it therfore Homicide Cowardly treason cursed Paricide Vn-kinde Rebellion ever shall remain Thy house-hold Guests thy House with blood to stain Thine owne against thine owne shal thril their darts Thy Son from thee shal steal thy peoples harts Against thy Self he shal thy Subiects arm And giue thine age many a fierce Alarm Till hanged by the hair 'twixt Earth and sky His Gallow's pride shame of the Worlds bright Eye Thine owne Lieutenant at a crimsin spout His guilty Soule shall with his Lance let-out And if I fail not O what Tempest fel Beats on the Head of harm-les Izrael Alas how many a guilt-les Abramide Diesin Three dayes through thy too-curious Pride The Plague of
Tissue with too-mean supplies You all the year long doo not spend your wing But during only your delightfull Spring Like Nightingales from bush to bush you play From Tuneto Tune from Myrtle spray to spray But I too-bold and like the Swallow right Not finding whereto rest me at one flight A bound-les ground-les Sea of Times I passe With Auster now anon with Boreas Your quick Career is pleasant short and eath At each Lands-end you sit you down and breathe On som green bank or to refresh you finde Som Rosie-arbour from the Sun and winde But end-les is my Course for now I glyde On Ice then dazled head-long down I slyde Now vp I climbe then through the Woods I craul I stray I stumble somtimes down I fall And as base Morter serveth to vnite Simile Red white gray Marble Iasper Galactite So to con-nex my queint Discourse somtimes Imix loose limping and ill-polisht Rimes Yet wil I not this Work of mine giue o're The Labour 's great my Courage yet is more My hart 's not yet all voyd of sacred heat Ther 's nothing Glorious but is hard to get Hils were not seen but for the Vales betwixt The deep indentings artificiall mixt Amid Musaïks for more ornament Haue prizes sizes and dyes different And O God grant the greatest spot you spie In all my Frame may be but as the Fly Which on her Ruff whiter than whitest snowes To whiten white the fairest Virgin fowes Or like the Veluet on her brow or like The dunker Mole on Venus dainty Cheek And that a few faults may but lustre bring To my high furies where I sweetest sing DAVID waxt old and cold and 's vitall Lamp Lacking it's oyl of Natiue moist grew damp But by degrees when with a dying voice But liuely vigor of Discretion choise He thus instructs his yong Son SALOMON And as Heav'n cals instals him in his Throne Whom with-out Force Vproar or Ryualing Dauids instructions to his Son Salomon Nature and Law and Fortune make a King Euen He my Son must be both Iust and Wise If long He look to Rule and Royalize But he whom onely Fortunes Fauours rears Vnto a Kingdom by some new-found stairs He must appear more than a man and cast By rarest Worth to make his Crown sit fast My SALOMON thou know'st thou art my Yongest Thou know'st besides out of what Bed thou sprungest Thou seest what loue all Izrael bears thy Brother To honour Thee what wrong I doo to other Yea euen to Nature and our Natiue Law 'T is thy part therefore in all points to draw To full Perfection and with rare effect Of Noblest Vertues hide thy Births defect Thou Izraels King serue the great King of All A king first of all ought to bee Religious And only on his Conducts pedestall Found thine Affaires vpon his Sacred Lore Thine eyes and minde be fixed euermore The barking rage of bold Blasphemers hate Thy Soueraign's Manners Vice-Roy imitate Nor think the thicknes of thy Palace Wals Thine iron Gates and high gold-seeled Halls Can let his Eye to spie in euery part The darkest Closets of thy Mazie Hart. If birth or Fate my Son had made thee Prince Of Idumeans or of Philistins Valorous If Pharaoh's Title had be-fall'n to thee If the Medes Myter bowed at thy knee Wert thou a Sophy yet with Vertues lustre Thou oughtst at least thy Greatnes to illustre But to Command the Seed of Abraham The Holy Nation to Controul and tame To bear a Iosuahs or a Samsons load To be Gods Vice-Roy needs a Demi-God Before old Seruants giue not new the start Impartial in bestowing Preferments Kings-Art consists in Action more then Art Old Wine excelleth new Nor giddily Will a good Husband grub a goodly Tree In his faire Orchards midst whose fruitfull store Hath graç't his Table twenty years and more Simile To plant a Graft yer e'r he taste the same Saue with the teeth of a perhaps false Fame These Parasites are euen the Pearls and Rings Pearls said I Perils in the eares of Kings For O what Mischief but their Wiles can work Impatient of Parasites Flatterers Sith euen within vs to their aid doth lurk A smoother Soother euen our owne Selfs-loue A malady that nothing can remoue Which with these strangers secretly Combin'd In League offensiue to the firmest Minde Perswades the Coward he is Wisely-meek The drunkard Stout the Periure Politick The cruel Tyrant a iust Prince they call Sober the Sot the Lauish Liberal And quick-nos'd Beagles senting right his lore Trans-form'd into him euen his Faults adore Fly then those Monsters and giue no accesse To banish Atheists and all notoriously wicked persons from his presence To men infamous for their wickednesse Endure no Atheist brook no Sorcerer Within thy Court nor Thief nor Murderer Least the contagion of their banefull breath Poyson the publike fountain and to death Infect Thy manners more of force then Law The spring whence Subiects good or bad will draw To over-Rule his owne Passiōs Affections Rule thine Affects thy fury and thy fear Hee 's no true King who no self's-sway doth bear Not what thou could'st but what thou shouldst effect And to thy Lawes first thine owne-self subiect For ay the Subiect will fear set a-side Through thick and thin hauing his King for guide To be milde and gratious Shew thy Self gracious affable and meek And be not proud to those gay godlings like But once a year from their gilt Boxes tane To impetrate the Heav'ns long wisht-for raine To fail his Word a King doth ill beseem To be faithful of his promise Who breaks his faith no faith is held with him Deceipt's deceiu'd Iniustice meets vniust Disloy all Prince armes subiects with distrust And neighbour States will in their Leagues commend A Lion rather then a Foxe for Friend Be prodigall of Vertues iust reward To be readier to Reward then Punish Of punishments be sparing with regard Arm thou thy brest with rarest Fortitude Things Eminent are euer most pursu'd On highest Places most disgraces threat The roughest windes on widest gates do beat Not to be Quarellous yet quick and couragious in a iust Cause Toil not the World with Wars ambitious spite But if thine Honour must maintain thy Right Then shew thee DAVID's Son and wisely-bold Follow't as hot as thou beginst it cold Watch Work Deuise and with vn-weary limb Wade thorough Foords and ouer Chanels swim Let tufted Planes for pleasant shades suffice His exercises in Warre In heat in Cold thy Fier be Exercise A Targe thy Table and a Turf thy Bed Let not thy Mouth be ouer-dainty fed Let Labour be thy sauce thy Cask thy Cup Whence for thy Nectar some ditch-water sup Let Drums and Trumpets and shril Fifes and Flutes Serue thee for Citterns Virginals and Lutes Trot vp a Hill Run a whole Feeld for Race Leap a large Dike Tosse a
long Pike a space Perfume thy head with dust and sweat appeer Captain and Soldier Soldiers are on fire Hauing their King before them Marching forth Fellow in Fortune witnes of their Worth I should inflame thy hart with Learnings loue In Peace not to be over-studious yet to vnderstand the Principals of all Prince-fit Sciences Saue that I know what diuine habits moue Thy profound Spirit only let th' ornament Of Letters wayt on th' Art of Regiment And take good heed least as excesse of humor In Plants becomes their Flowring Lifes consumer So too-much Study and delight in Arts Quench the quick vigour of thy Spiritual parts Make thee too-pensiue ouer-dull thy Senses And draw thy Minde from Publike cares of Princes With a swift-winged soule the Course suruay Of Nights dim Taper and the Torch of Day Sound round the Cels of th' Ocean dreadly-deep Measure the Mountains snowie tops and steep Ferret all Corners of this nether Ball But to admire the Makers Art in all His Power and Prudence and resemble not Simile Some simple Courtier or the silly Sot That in the base-Court all his time hath spent In gazing on the goodly Battlement The chamfred Pillers Plinths and antique Bosses Medals Ascents Statues and strange Colosses Amaz'd and musing vpon euery piece Of th' vniforme fair stately Frontispice Too-too-self-rapt through too-self-humoring Losing him-self while others finde the King Hold euen the Balance with clean hands clos'd eyes The principal peculiar office of a King Reuenge seuerely Publike Iniuries Remit thine Owne Heare the Cries see the Tears Of all distressed poor Petitioners Sit oft thy Self in Open Audience Who would not be a Iudge should be no Prince For Iustice Scepter and the Martiall Sword Ought neuer seuer by the Sacred Word Spare not the Great neither despise the Small Let not thy Lawes be like the Spiders Caul Simile Where little Flyes are caught and kild but great Passe at their pleasure and pull-down the Net Away with Shepheards that their Flocks deface Chuse Magistrates that may adorn their Place Such as fear God such as will iudge vprightly Men by the seruants iudge the Master lightly Giue to the Vertuous but thy Crown-Demain Diminish not giue still to giue again For there too-deep to dip is Prodigality And to dry-vp the Springs of Liberality But aboue all for Gods sake Son beware Hic labor hoc Opus Be not intrapt in Womens wylie snare I fear alas good Lord supreamly sage Auert from Mine th' effect of this Praesage Alas I fear that this sweet Poyson wil My House here-after with all Idols fil But if that neither Vertu 's sacred loue Nor Feare of Shame thy wanton Minde can moue To watch in Arms against the Charms of Those At least be warned by thy Fathers Woes Fare-wel my Son th' Almightie cals me hence I passe by Death to Lifes most excellence And to go Raign in Heav'n from World-cares free The Crown of Izrael I resigne to thee O thou that often for a Princes Sin Transport'st the Scepter euen from Kin to Kin From Land to Land Let it remaine with Mine And of my Sons Sons in successiue Ligne Let that Al-Power full deer-drad Prince descend Whose glorious Kingdom neuer shal haue end Whose iron Rod shall Satans Rule vn-doo Whom Iacob trusts in Whom I thirst for too ' DAVID deceast His Son him tracking right Initium Regni SALOMON With heart and voice worships the God of Might Enters his Kingdom by the Gate of Pietie Makes Hymâ—s and Psalms in Laud of the true Deïtie Offers in Gabeon where in Spirit he sees While his Sense sleepes the God of Maiesties His Vision The Lord of Hoasts who Crownd with radiant flames Offers him choise of these foure louely Dames First Glory shaking in her hand a Pike Not Maid-like Marching but braue Souldier-like Description of Glory Among the Stars her stately head she beares A siluer Trumpet shril a slope she wears Whose Winde is Praise and whose Stentorian sound Doth far and wide o'r all the world redound Her wide-side Robes of Tissue passing price All Story-wrought with bloody Victories Tryumphs and Tropheis Arches Crowns and Rings And at her feet there sigh a thousand Kings Not far from her coms Wealth all rich-bedight Of Riches In Rhéa's Thetis Pluto's Treasures bright The glittering stuff which doth about her fold Is rough with Rubies stiff with beaten Gold With either hand from hollow steans she powrs Pactolian surges and Argolian showrs Fortune and Thrift and Wakefulnes and Care And Diligence her dayly Seruants are Then cheerfull Health whose brow no wrinkle bears Of Health Whose cheek no palenesse in whose eye no tears But like a Childe shee 's pleasant quick and plump Shee seems to fly to skip to daunce and iump And Life 's bright Brand in her white hand doth shine Th' Arabian Birds â—are plumage platted â—ine Serues her for Suâ—-coat and her seemly â—â—ain Mirth Exercise and Temperance sustain Last Wisedom comes with sober countenance Of Wisedom To th' euer-Bowrs her oft a-loft t' aduance The light Mamuques wing-les wings she has Her gesture cool as comly-graue her pase Where e'r she go she neuer goes with-out Compasse and Rule Measure and Waights about And by her side at a rich Belt of hers The Glasse of Nature and her-Self she wears Hauing beheld their Bewties bright the Prince Seems rapt all-ready euen to Heauen from hence Sees a whole Eden round about him shine And ' mid so many Benefits Diuine Doubts which to chuse At length he thus begun O Lord sayth he what hath thy Seruant don That so great Blessings I should take or touch Or thou shouldst daign to honour me so much Thou doost preuent my Merit or deer Father Delight'st to Conquer euen my Malice rather Fair Victorie's a noble Gift and nought Is more desired or is sweeter thought Than euen to quench our Furie's thirst with blood In iust Reuenge on those that wrong our Good But oft alas foul Insolence comes after And the long Custome of in humane Slaughter Transforms in time the myldest Conquerors To Tigers Panthers Lions Bears and Boars Happy seems He whose count-les Herds for Pasture Dis-robe alone Mount Carmels moatly Vesture For whom alone a whole rich Countrey torn With timely Tools brings forth both Wine and Corn That hath soft Sereans yellow Spoils the Gems And precious stones of the Arabian streams The Mines of Ophir th' Entidorian Fruits The Saban Odours and the Tyrian Sutes But yet we see where Plenty chiefly sways There Pride increases Industry decays Rich-men adore their Gold whoso aspires To lift to Heav'n his sight and Soules Desires He must be Poor at least-wise like the Poor Riches and Fear are fellows euer-more I would liue long and I would gladly see My Nephews Nephews and their Progeny But the long Cares I fear and Cumbers rife Which commonly accompany Long-Life Who well liues long liues for this age of
a storm at Sea All topsie-turned by th' Aeolian slaues Do mount and roule Heav'ns war against the Waters And angrie Thetis Earth's green bulwarks batters A sable ayrso muffles-vp the Sky That the sad Saylers can no light descry Or if som beam break through their pitchy night 'T is but drad flashing of the Lightning's light Strike strike our saile the Master cries amain Vail misne and sprit-sail but he cries in vain For in his face the blasts so bluster ay That his Sea-gibberish is straight born away Confused Cries of men dismay'd in minde Seas angry noise lowd bellowing of the winde Heav'ns Thunder-claps the tackles whisteling As strange Musicians dreadfull descant sing The Eastern winde driues on the roaring train Of white-blew billows and the clouds again With fresh Seas crosse the Sea and she doth send In counter-change a rain with salt y-blend Heav'ns headlong seem in Thetis lap to fall Seas scale the skies and God to arm this All Against one ship that skips from stars to ground From waue to waue like Balloons windie bound While the sad Pilot on a foamy Mount Thinks from the Pole to see Hells pit profound And then cast down vnto the sandie shole Seems from lowe Hell to see the lofty Pole And feeling foes within and eek without As many waues so many deaths doth doubt The Billows beating round about the ship Vncauk her keel and all her seams vnrip Whereby the waters entring vncontroul'd Ebbing abroad yet flowe apace in hold For euery Tun the plied Pump doth rid A floud breaks in the Master mastered With dread and danger threatning euery-way Doubts where to turn him what to doo or say Which waue to meet or which salt surge to flie So yeelds his charge in Sea to liue or die As many Cannons 'gainst a Castle bent Simile Make many holes and much the rampire rent And shake the wall but yet the latest shock Of fire-wingd bullets batters down the Rock So many mounts that muster 'gainst this Sail With roaring rage doo this poor ship assail But yet the last with foaming fury swoln With boistrous blasts of angry tempests boln Springs the main-mast the mast with boystrous fall Breaks down the deck and sore affrights them all Pale Idol-like one stands with arms a-cross One moans himself one mourns his childrens loss One more than Death this form of Death affrights Another calls on Heav'ns vn-viewed Lights One 'fore his eys his Ladies looks beholds Another thus his deadly fear vnfolds Curst thirst of gold O how thou causest care My bed of Doun I change for hatches bare Rather than rest this stormie war I chose T' enlarge my fields both land and life I lose Like piezless plume born-vp by Boreas breath With all these wings I soar to seek my death To Heav'n and Hell by angry Neptune led Where least I scape it all these sails I spread Then thus another Sure no winde quoth he Could raise this Storm som rarer Prodigy Hath caus'd this Chaos cause of all our grief Some Atheist dog som Altar-spoyling theef Lurks in this ship com Mates by lot let 's trie To saue the rest the man that ought to die 'T is I quoth Ionas I indeed am cause Of this black night and all the fearfull flaws Of this rough Winter I must sole appease By my iust death these wrath-full wrackfull Seas Then vp they heave him straight and from the waste Him suddainly into the Sea they cast The King of Windes calls home his churlish train And Amphitritè smooths her front again Th' Air 's cloudy Robe returns to crystal cleer And smiling Heav'ns bright Torches re-appeer So soon as Ionas to them all appease O're head and eares was soused in the Seas Thrice coms he vp and thrice again goes down Vnder the waves yer he do wholly drown But then he sinks and wretched roul'd along The sands and Oase and rocks and mud among Thus thus he cries with lips of zealous faith Mercy my God shew mercy Lord he saith Then God who ever heares his childrens wish Provided straight a great and mighty Fish That swilling swallow'd Ionas in her womb A living Corps laid in a living Toomb Like as a Roach or Ruff or Gudgeon born Simile By som swift stream into a weer forlorn â—risks to and fro aloft and vnder dyves Fed with false hope to free their captive lyves The Prophet so amazed walks about This wondrous Fish to finde an issue out This mighty Fish oâ— Whale-like huginess Or bigger-bellied though in body less Where am I Lord alas within what vaults In what new Hell doost thou correct my faults Strange punishment my body thou bereav'st Of mother earth which to the dead thou leav'st Whither thy wrath drives me I do not knowe I am depriv'd of air yet breathe and blowe My sight is good yet can I see no skie Wretch nor in Sea nor yet a-shore am I Resting I run for moving is my Cave And quick I couch within a living Grave While thus he plain'd the third day on the sand The friendly Fish did cast him safe a-land And then as if his weary limbs had been So long refresht and rested at an Inn He seems to flie and com'n to Niniue Your sins have reached vp to Heav'n quoth he Wo and alas wo wo vnto you all Yet forty dayes and Ninive shall fall Thus Ionas preacht But soon the Citizens Sincerely toucht with sense of their foul sins Dispatch in haste to Heaven Repentance sad Sweet-charming Prayer Fasting hairy-clad Repentance makes two Torrents of her eyes Her humble brow dares scant behold the skies Her sobbing brest is beaten blew and black Her tender flesh is rent with rugged sack Her head all hoar'd with harty sorrows past With dust and ashes is all over-cast Prayer's head and sides and feet are set about With gawdy wings like Ioves Arcadian Scout Her body flaming from her lips there fumes Nard Incense Mummy and all rich Perfumes Fasting though faint her face with ioie she cheers Strong in her weakness young in aged yeers Quick health's preserver curbing Cupid's fits Watchfull purge-humors and refining-wits Then Faith Grand Vsher of th' Empyreal Court Vshers these Legats by a golden Port Into the Presence and them face to face Before th' All-Monarch's glorious Throne doth place Where zealous prostrate on her humble knee Thus Prayer speaks in name of all the Three God slowe to wrath O Father prone to grace Lord sheath again thy vengeance sword a space If at thy beam of Iustice thou wilt waigh The works of men that wander every day If thou their metall by that touch-stone try Which fearfull-sounding from thy mouth doth flie If thou shalt summ their Sins which pass the sand Before thee Lord who shall indure to stand Not Ninive alone shall perish then But all this All be burnt to ashes clean And even this day shall thy iust wrath prevent The dreadfull Day of thy last Dooms event This world to
Nimph that keep'st me still in strife Sacred PEACE if I approue thee If more then my life I loue thee 'T is not for thy beautious eyes Though the brightest Lampe in skies In his highest Sommer shine Seemes a sparke compar'd with thine With thy paire of selfe-like Sunnes Past all els-comparisons 'T is not deere the dewes Ambrosiall Of those pretie lips so Rosiall Make me humble at thy feet Though the purest honey sweet That the Muses birds doo bring To Mount Hybla euery spring Nothing neere so pleasant is As thy liuely louing kisse 'T is not Beauties Emperesse Th' Amber circlets of thy tresse Curled by the wanton windes That so fast my freedome bindes Though the pretious glittering sand Richly strow'd on Tagus Strand Nor the graines Pactolus rol'd Neuer were so fine a gold 'T is not for the polisht rowes Of those Rocks whence Prudence flowes That I still my sute pursue Though that in those Countries new In the Orient lately found Which in precious Gemmes abound 'Mong all baytes of Auarice Be no Pearles of such a price 'T is not Sweet thine yuorie neck Makes me worship at thy beck Nor that prettie double HILL Of thy bosome panting still Though no fairest Laedas Swan Nor no sleekest Marble can Be so smooth or white in showe As thy Lillies and thy Snowe 'T is not O my Paradise Thy front euener than the yee That my yeelding heart doth tye With his milde-sweet Maâ—ostie Though the siluer Moone befaine Still by night to mount her waine Fearing to sustain disgrace If by day shee meet thy face 'T is not that soft Sattin limme With blew trailes enameld trimme Thy hand handle of perfection Keeps my thoughts in thy subiection Though it haue such curious cunning Gentle touch and nimble running That on Lute to heare it warble Would mooue Rocks and rauish Marble 'T is not all the rest beside Which thy modest vaile doth hide From mine eyes ah too iniurious Makes me of thy loue so curious Though Diana being bare Nor Leucothoe passing rare In the Crystall-flowing springs Neuer bath'd so beautious things What then O diuinest Dame Fires my soule with burning flame If thine eyes be not the matches Whence my kindling Taper catches And what Nectar from aboue Feedes and feasts my ioyes my Loue If they taste not of the dainties Of thy sweet lips sugred plenties What fell heat of couetize In my feeble bosome fries If my heart no reckoning hold Of thy tresses purest gold What inestimable treasure Can procure me greater pleasure Then those Orient Pearles I see When thou daign'st to smile on mee What what fruit of life delights My delicious appetites If I ouer-passe the messe Of those apples of thy brests What fresh buds of scarlet Rose Are more fragrant sweet than those Then those Twins thy Strawberrie teates Curled-purled Cherrielets What to finish fairer limme Or what member yet more trimme Or what other rarer Subiect Makes me make thee all mine obiect If it be not all the rest By thy modest vaile supprest Rather which an enuious cloud From my sight doth closely shroud Ah't's a thing farre more diuine 'T is that peere-les Soule of thine Master-peece of Heav'ns best Art Made to maze each mortall hart 'T is thine all-admired wit Thy sweet grace and gesture fit Thy milde pleasing curtesie Makes thee triumph ouer me But for thy faire Soules respect I loue Twin-flames that reflect From thy bright tra-lucent eyes And thy yellow lockes likewise And those Orient-Pearly Rocks Which thy lightning Smile vn-lockes And the Nectar-passing blisses Of thy honey-sweeter kisses I loue thy fresh rosie cheeke Blushing most Aurora-like And the white-exceeding skin Of thy neck and dimpled chin And those Iuorie-marble mounts Either neither both at once For I dare not touch to know If they be of flesh or no. I loue thy pure Lilly hand Soft and smooth and slender and Those fine nimble brethren small Arm'd with Pearle-shel helmets all I loue also all the rest By thy modest vaile supprest Rather which an enuious cloud From my longing sight doth shroud FINIS SONNET 1. Sweet mouth that send'st a musky-rosed breath Fountain of Nectar and delightfull Balm Eyes cloudy-clear smile-frowning stormy-calm Whos 's every glance darts me a living-living-death Browes bending quaintly your round Ebene Arkes Smile that then Uenus sooner Mars besots Locks more then golden curl'd in curious knots Where in close ambush wanton Cupid lurkes Grace Angel-like fair fore-head smooth and high Pure white that dimm'st the Lillies of the Vale Vermilion Rose that mak'st Aurora pale Rare spirit to rule this beautious Emperie If in your force Divine effects I view Ah who can blame me if I worship you SONNET 2. Thou whose sweet eloquence doth make me mute Whose sight doth blinde me and whose nimblenes Of feet in daunce and fingers on the Lute In deep amazes makes me motion-les Whose onely presence from my self absents me Whose pleasant humours make me passionate Whose sober mood my follies represents me Whose graue-milde graces make me emulate My heart through whom my heart is none of mine My All through whom I nothing doo possesse Saue thine Idea glorious and divine O thou my Peace-like War and war-like PEACE So much the wounds that thou hast given me please That 't is my best ease never to haue ease Epigramms and Epitaphes vpon Warre and Peace Vpon the League FRaunce without cause thou doost complain Against the League for wronging thee Sh' hath made thee large amends again With more then common vsury For for thy one King which she slew Sh' hath given thee now a thousand new Vpon the taking of Paris 1 When Paris happily was wonne With small or no endangering Such suddain common ioy begunne That one would say t' haue seen the thing Th' King took not Paris Paris took the King 2 O rarest sight of ioyfull woe Adorned with delightfull dread When Henry with oneself-same showe Conquer'd at once and triumphed 3 Sith thee from danger and distresse to free The King thus took or rather entred thee Paris it was not in stern Mars his Moneth But in the month that mild ASTREA owneth Vpon the fall of the Millars-bridge 1 The Millars in the River drown'd While Paris was beleagerd round To die were all resolv'd in minde Because they had no more to grinde 2 Then was their fittest time to die Because they might intend it best But their intent was contrary Because they then liv'd so at rest 3 As after long sharp famine som foâ—lorn Of surfet Die their greedines is such This Mill-bridge hauing fasted long from corn Is drown'd perhaps for having ground too-much Vpon the recouerie of Amiens I knowe not which may seem most admirable To take or re-take such a Cities force But yet I knowe which is most honorable To take by fraud or to re-take by force 2 Each where they sing a thousand wayes The glory of this enterprise But yet of all their merry Layes The best is still
in the Re-prise 3 Hernand was happy by this Enterprise To take so soon our Amiens without blow More happy yet to die yer the Re-prise Els had he dy'de for shame to leave it so Vpon the Reduction of Nantes Nantes would not yeeld so soon they sayd Nor be recovered so good cheap And yet for all defence it made 'T was made to make the Britton Leap Vpon PEACE ◠Souldiers late prest are now supprest Crost and cassierd from further pay Yet will they in this time of rest Take vp their lendings by the Way 2 This PEACE it seemeth doth not sound To all the world for every-where More Sergeants now doo goe the Round Then Souldiers yerst accustom'd were Vpon Captain Coblar A merry Coblar left the warrs To turn vnto his Occupation And asked by his Customers The reason of his alteration 'T hath pleas'd quoth he the King t'ordain That each his Office take again Upon Warre Here vnder this huge heap of stones Lately enterr'd lyes cruell WARRE Pray God long rest her soule and bones Yet there is nothing worse for her Upon Rowland Rob-Church Heer lyeth Rowland that was lately slain In robbing of a wealthy Chappell spyde Yet I beleeue he doth in Heav'n remain Sith onely for the Churches Good he dyde Upon Captaine Catch Heer vnder Captain CATCH is layd Who sixe times chang'd from side to side Of neither side it seem'd afraid He wore a white Scarfe when he di'de Yet som suspect and so doo I For his inconstance showne before That to the Black-band he did fly But now he can revolt no more Upon Sir Nequam Neuter Heer lyeth he who the more safe to pray On both sides Neuter between both abode Whether his Soule is gone I can not say Sith he was nor for Diuell nor for God Pax omnibus vna FINIS A l'honeur de la Paix chantée par Monsieur du NESMF rechantée en Anglois par Monsieur SYLVESTRE SAns Paix rien ne sub siste en Paix tout croist dure Dieu maintient par sa Paix le beau Grand Vniuers Et le Petit bastis de membres si diuers Touts s'entr ' aydans l'vnl ' autre en commune facture Elle vnit a son Dieu l'humaine creature Elle emplit de Citez les Royaumes deserts Elle bride les fols rend les champs couverts De biens donans plaisirs vesture nouriture Enuoy-la donc O Dieu a nos Princes Roys En nos maisons en nous fay que d'vne voix Nous suyvions les accords de ton Nesme admirable Lors a iamais ser as louè de nos Gaulois Par ses chants tout-divins Syluestre en Anglois Redoublerace loz d'vn stile immitable P. CATELLE I'attens le temps THE PROFIT of Imprisonment A PARADOX Written in French by Odet de la Noue Lord of Teligni being Prisoner in the Castle of Tournay Translated by IOSVAH SYLVESTER Acceptam refero To his long-approoued friend M. R. Nicolson I. S. wisheth euer all true content TO thee the same to me as first I meant Friend to the Muses and the well-inclinde Louing and lov'd of euery vertuous minde To thee the same I the same Song present Our mutuall loue 's eternall Monument Wherein our Nephewes shall heer-after finde Our constant Friendship how it was combinde With linkes of kindnes and acknowledgement Accept again this Present in good part This simple pledge of my sincere affection To Tangley Thee and thy Soon-calm-in-hart Perfect good-will supplies all imperfection Chameleons change their colour Guile her game But in both Fortunes Vertue 's still the same A Sonnet of the Author to his Booke THe body ouer prone to Pleasures and delights Of soft fraile dainty flesh and to selfe-ease addicted Abhors Imprisonment as a base paine inflicted To punish the defaults of most vnhappy wights The soule as much surpriz'd with loue of heauenly sights And longing to behold the place that appertaines-her Doth loath the body as a Prison that detaines-her From her high happines among the blessed sprights Then sith both body and soule their bondage neuer brooke But soule and body both doo loue their libertie Tell tell me O my Muse who will beleeue our Booke He that hath learn'd a-right both these to mortifie And serue our Sauiour Christ in body and in spirite Who both from thrall hath freed by his owne only merit A Paradox That Aduersity is more necessary then Prosperitie and that of all afflictions close Prison is most pleasant and most profitable HOw-euer fondly-false a vain Opinion seeme If but the Vulgar once the same for right esteeme Most men account it so so in absurdest things Consent of multitude exceeding credit brings Nor any meane remaines when it is once receiued To wrest it from the most of erring minds deceiued Nay whose shall but say they ought to alter it He headlong casts himselfe in dangers deepest Pit For neuer nimble Barke that on aduenture runnes Through those blew bounding Hills where hoarie Neptune wunnes Was set-vpon so sore with neuer-ceast assault Maintain'd on euery side by winds and waters salt When raging most they raise their roughest tempest dreaded As th' idiot multitude that Monster many-headed Bestirres it selfe with wrath spight furie full of terror Gainst whatsoeuer man that dares reproue her error Who vndertakes that taske must make account at first To take hot warres in hand and beare away the worst Therefore a many Workes worthy the light haue died Before their birth in brests of Fathers terrified Not by rough deeds alone but euen by foolish threats Yet onely noise of words base cowards onely beats Then feare who list for me the common peoples crie And who so list be mute if other-minded I Scorning the feeble force of such a vaine indeuour Will freely spight of feare say what I censure euer And though my present State permit me not such scope Mine vn-forbidden pen with Errors pride shall cope Close Prison now a-daies th' extreamest miserie The world doth deeme I deeme direct the contrarie And there-with-all will proue that euen Aduersities Are to be wished more then most Prosperities And for Imprisonment though that be most lamented Of all the griefes wherewith men feare to be tormented Yet that 's the Sate most stor'd with pleasure and delight And the most gain-full too to any Christian wight A Paradox no doubt more true then creditable The which my selfe sometimes haue also thought a fable While guile-full vanities fed not but fill'd my minde For strengthening sustenance with vn-substantiall winde I hated Death to death I also did detest All sicknes and disease that might a man molest But most I did abhorre that base esteemed State Which to subiections Law our selues doth subiugate And our sweet life enthralls vnto anothers will For as my fancie wisht I would haue walked still Death thought I soone hath done and euery griefe besides The more extreame it is the lesser time abides But now besides that I esteemd the
and partly to sound the opinion of others that also the lofty Phrase the graue inditement the facound termes of the French Salust for the like resemblance could not be followed nor sufficiently expressed in our rude and impolished English language Wherein I more boldly then aduisedly with your Maiesties licence declared my simple opinion not calling to mind that I was to giue my verdit in presence of so sharp and clear-eied a Censor as your Highnesse is But rashly I alleadged that it was nothing impossible euen to follow the footesteps of the same great Poet Salust and to translate his verse which neuerthelesse is of it selfe exquisite succinctly and sensibly in our owne vulgar speech Wherevpon it pleased your Maiestie among the rest of his works to assigne me The Historie of Iudith as an agreeable Subiect to your Highnesse to be turned by me into English verse Not for any speciall gift or Science that was in me who am inferiour in knowledge and erudition to the least of your Maiesties Court but by reason paraduenture of my bold assertion your Maiestie who will not haue the meanest of your house vnoccupied would haue mee to beare the yoke and driue forth the penance that I had rashly procured Indeede the burden appeared heauie and the charge almost insupportable to me neuerthelesse the feruent desire which I had to obtemper vnto your Maiesties commandement the earnest intention to verifie my rash speaking and the assured confidence which I ankred on your Highnesse helpe and correction encouraged mee so lightned on such wise my heauy burthen that I haue with lesse paine brought my half despaired worke to finall end In the which I haue so behaued my selfe that through your Maiesties concurrence I haue not exceeded the number of the lynes written by my Author In euerie one of the which he also hath two syllables mo then any English beares And this notwithstanding I suppose your Maiestie shall finde little of my Authors meaning pretermitted Wherfore if thus much be done by me who am of another profession and of so simple literature I leaue it to bee considered by your Maiestie what such as are consummate in letters and knowes the waightie words the pithie sentences the polished tearms and full efficacie of the English tongue would haue done Receiue them Sir of your owne seruant this little worke at your owne commandement enterprised corrected by your Maiesties owne hand and dedicated to your owne Highnesse If I haue done well let the praise redound to your Maiestie whose censure I haue vnderlyen If otherwise let my default of skill bee imputed to my selfe or at the least my good entention allowed whereby others may haue occasion to doe better To your Highnesse consideration referring Sir both my diligence done in this smal translation and the inueterate affection which I haue and ought alwaies to beare vnto your Maiestie I commit with all humilitie your Highnes your Realme and estate to the gouernment of God who gouerneth all the World IR SONNET SInce ye immortall sisters nine hes left All other countries lying farre or neere To follow him who from them all you reft And now hes causde your residence be heere Who though a stranger yet he lov'd so deere This Realme and me so as he spoild his awne And all the brookes and banks and fountains cleere That be therein of you as he hath shawne In this his work then let your breath be blawne In recompence of this his willing minde On me that sine may with my pen be drawne His praise For though himselfe be not inclyn'd Nor preaceth but to touch the Laurer tree Yet well he merits crownd therwith to be FINIS SONNET THe Muses nyne haue not reueald to mee What sacred seeds are in their garden sowen Nor how their Salust gaines the Laurer tree Which throw thy toyle in Brittain ground is growen But sith they see thy trauell truely showen In Vertues schoole th' expiring time to spend So haue they to his Highness made it knowen Whose Princely power may dewly thee defend Then you that on the Holy Mount depend In crystallayr and drinks the cleared spring Of Poetrie I doe you recommend To the protection of this godly King Who for his vertues and his gifts diuine Is only Monark of the Muses nyne FINIS M. V. F. The Authors admonition to the Reader BEloued Reader it is about fourteene yeares past since I was commanded by the late Illustrate and most vertuous Princesse Iean Queene of Nauarre to reduce the Historie of Iudith in forme of a Poeme Epique Wherein I haue not so much aimed to followe the phrase or text of the Bible as I haue preased without wandring from the verity of the History to imitate Homer in his Iliades Virgill in his Aenel dos and others who hath left to vs works of such like matter therby to render my work so much the more delectable And if the effect hath not answered to my desire I beseech thee to lay the fault vpon her who proposed to me so meane a Theame or subiect and not on me who could not honestly disobey Yet in so much as I am the first in Fraunce who in a iust Poeme hath treated in our tongue of sacred things I hope of thy fauour to receiue some excuse seeing that things of so great weight cannot be both perfectly begunne and ended together If thou neither allow my stile nor workmanship at least thou shalt be driuen to allowe the honest pretence and holy desire which I haue to see the youth of Fraunce so holily by mine example exercised I may not forget that they doe greatly wrong me who thinks that in discriuing the Catastrophe of this History truely tragicall I am becomne a voluntary Aduocate to these troublesome and sedicious spirits who for to serue their temerarious passioÌ„s and priuate inspiratioÌ„s conspires against the liues of placed princes For so much doe I disassent that this example and the like ought to be drawen in consequence that I am verily perswaded that the act of Ahud of Iaell and of Iudith who vnder colour of obeysance pretext of amiâ—y layd their reuenging hands vpon Aeglon Sisara and Holophernes had been worthy of a hundreth gallowes a hundreth fires and a hundreth wheeles if they had not been peculiarly chosen of God for to vnloose the chains and break the bands which retain'd the Hebrew people in more then Aegyptian seruitude and expresly called to kill those Tyrants with a death as shamefull as their liues were wicked and abhominable But seeing this question is so diffuse that it cannot be absolued in fewe words and that my braine is too weak for so high an enterprise I send you to those who haue spent more oyle and time in turning the leaues of the sacred scriptures then I haue done for the present It me sufficeth for the time to admonish the Reader to attempt nothing without a clear and indubitable vocation of God against those
translatour This godly Pooeme to a Christian King To him who God in goodnesse hath erect For princely Piller to his owne elect For lawfull Lord to raign with trueth and right For louesom Laurer to the vertuous wight Him I beseech this trauell to defend That to his pleasure I the same may end VVHen Izrell was in quiet rest and peace And fruitfully the ground gaue her encreise Which seauenty yeer vntilled lay beforne And nothing bare but thistle weed and thorne It pleased God vpon his iust correction T' awake his owne that were of his election Least that the longsom peace should them withholde And dull their spirits as doth the warriour bolde Who spoyls his horse with pampring in the stable That makes him for the manaige more vnable He spred their land with bands of enemies stout Whose cloudes of shot bedimd their land about Their Hoaste with arrowes pikes and standards stood The Army of Holopherne As bristle-pointed as a thorniâ— wood Their multitude of men the riuers dri'd Which throw the wealthy Iuda sweet did slide So that flood Iordane finding dry his banke For shame he blusht and down his head he shrankâ— For woe that he his credit could not keep To send one waue for tribute to the deep Scarse had the Haruest-man with hook in hand Dispoylde the fruit and let the stubble stand Scarse had the hungry Gleaner put in bindc The scattered grain the Shearer left behinde And scarse the flapping flaile began to thresh When vnto Iacob newes was brought afresh That Holophern his frontiers did inuade And past all Rivers straits and murders made So vile that none he left that drew the breath But olde and young he put to sodain death The sucking babes vpon their mothers knee His cruell cut-throates made them all to dee Then like a flock of sheep that doth beholde A wolfe come from the wood vpon their fold Shapes no defence but runnes athwart the lands And shortly makes of one a hundreth bands So Isaaks sonnes indreading for to feel This tyrant who pursued them at the heel The Hebrews Dissundring fled and sought their liues to saue In hils and dales and euery desert caue The sheep heard of his flocke had now no care Fear of the enemy But fearing death fled to som mountain bare The Crafts man now his lumes away hath layde The Marchant lest his traffike and his trade To hide himself more safely in a vault Then in a Rampier to sustain th' assault The Lords esteemde them selfes in surer holde In Dennes of beasts then castles gilt with golde Fear lent the wings for aged folke to flie And made them mount to places that were hie Fear made the wofull women for to bear Their cradles sweet to hilles that highest were Fear made the wofull childe to waile and weep For want of speed on foot and hand to creep All where was nothing heard but hideous cries And pitious plaints that did the harts agrise O Lord sayd they wilt thou still day by day The arrowes of thine anger neuer stay Affliction causeth prayer Wilt thou that Calde conquere vs again Shall Iuda yet the Heathen yoke sustain Wilt thou again that they make every towne But stony heaps of houses casten down Again shall sacrilegious fire deuoure Thy holy house where we do thee adore Then Ioachim the priest of God most hie Who ouer Iuda then had chief degrie Stood like a Pylot stout in tempest great Who seeing winde and weather for to threat Yet to his mates his fear no terrour drawes Nor leaues his ship vnto the wrackfull wawes But with disguising fear his face vp casts And stoutly doth gain-stand the balefull blasts Right so this prudent prelate sent in haste Two hundreth men to passe where men were plac't In places strong and thence commanded them For to repair vnto Ierusalem Now since th' Erernall did reueale his will Vpon the sacred top of Syna Hill The Arke of God which wisedom more did holde In Tables two then all the Greeks haue tolde And more then euer Rome could comprehend In huge of learned books that they pend Sam. 1. 4. Long wandred it throw trybes throw kin and kin Sam. 2. 6. And found no certain place of resting in Yea somtime it the shamefull spoyl hath been To sacrilegious hands of Palestine Vntill that time that Iessies holy race For euer lodged it in Iebus place But for that Dauids hands with blood were fiâ—d Ierusalem Throu infinits of humains he had kild The king of peace would haue a king of rest To build his Temple farre aboue the best Sam. 2. 7. His house whose front vpreard so high and eaven That lightlied earth and seem'd to threat the heaven Vntill that wicked time a tyrant vile Of name and deed that bare the semble stile Nabuchadnezar That did this king that building braue he wrackt And to the sacred ground all whole it sackt Yet when long after Abrahms holy race Of Tyger banks had left the captiue place Esd. 6. With combers great they redified with pain That most renowmed house of God again Which though vnto the first it seemd as small As to a Princes house a shepheards hall And though the hugenes were not as it was Yet sure the height and beauty did surpas And overseilde the famous work of Pharie Ephesus Temple and the tombe of Carie The Rhodian Collos and the Caldean wall That Semirame set vp with tourrets tall Also the wondrous work of this same Temple Might serue a Câ—esiphon for his exemple Lysippus eke to carue by square and line Or guide Apelles pensile most divine Heer in this place all Izrel most deuoute Withdrew themselues to Salem round about As when the Heav'n his sluces opens wide And makes the floods vpon the ground to glide The brooks that breaks adoun from diuers hils With course impetuous till one deep distils Amongst the Dames that there deuoutest were The holy Iudith fairest did appear Like Phoebus that aboue the starre doth shine It seem'd that she was made on moulde diuine This primate then assisted with the kinne Of great Eleazar priests whose head and chinne Was neuer shav'n deuoutly on he preast A pearled Myter on his balmed creast And with a holy Alb with garnettes spred And golden Belles his sacred bodie cled And slew and burnt the bulks as was the guise Of many a kid and kalfe for sacrifise And with their blood the Altars hornes he dyed And praying thus to God immortall cryed O Lord of Hoastes we com not vnto thee Prayer To wey our merits with thy maiestie Nor to protest before thy heauenly might That sacklesly thy scourge doth on vs light But rather we confesse as true it is Our sinnes haue iustly merite more then this But Lord if thou thy couenant would forget Which thou with Abrahm made and so wilt set For mercy great thy iustice most seuear Thou should a greater plague vpon vs rear Change then our proces from thy iustice seat And
folke vncircumcis'd our land destroy Because we him offend while we haue breath Alas yet honour honour him in death And if we lose and all be ouercome Let patience winne the glory of martyrdome Forsooth though Assurs soldiers braue and bold Extinguish quite the race of Izak old Yet shall they not deface the liuing Lorde As these Apostats falsly do afforde For he who peopled first this world so round But with one man from whom the rest abound And who long after in an arke of wood Repaird the waste made by the genrall flood May he not eke transforme the hardned stone To people who will honour him alone And may not he do now as he hath donne Who gaue to Abrams barren wife a sonne Them giuing Children moe then in the heauen Are starrie Circles light as firie leauen And mo then Northren windes that driues the Rack Of Cyrene sands in number can compack Who will obserue his lawe an hundreth folde More zealously then wee who should it holde ' Then fathers chose you warres for better tels 'To lose like Iewes then winne like infidels ' Let not the greede of gaine your hearts attame 'To leaue the right preferre not feare to shame Scarce enden was th' Oration of this Lord When all the Princes with a sound accord By word and deed confirmde his good aduise The chiefe Priest gladdest of this enterprise Vnto the heauen held vp his hands and face And sayd I thanke the Lord who of his grace ' Conioynes no lesse our wils then bolds our harts 'A sure presage that God is on our parts This done vnto his princes he diuides The tribes and townes and ordaines them for guides For feare least some of them led with ambition In Izrell might stirre-vp some sedition So they withdrew and stoutly did prouide This furious storme of Mars for to abide Then as ye see sometime the honie Bees Comparison Exerce themselfs on buddes of sweetest trees Where they sometime assault the buzzing waspe That comes too neere their flowrs away to claspe Or when they hony draw from smelling Time Or from the palme or Roses of the prime And how they draw their wax with wondrous art Obseruing iointure iust in euerie part Both vp and downe they build ten thousand shops With equal spaceful fild vpto the tops Or where the master Bee of thousand bands Conducts the rest in legions throw the lands Who daily keeps within their Cities wall Their house their work their lawes and maners all So thus the sonnes of Iacob ply'd their paine VVith hote desire their quarrell to sustaine Some built the breaches of their broken town Preparations of defence That Heaven and Panim yre had casten down Some other found a cautell gainst the Ramme To saue the wall vnbroken where it camme Thus Iacobs towns on all sides had their flanks VVith Gabions strong with bulwarks and with banks Some others busie went and came in routs To terrace towers some vnder baskets louts Some others also wanting time and might To strength their towns yet vs'd all kinde of slight To dig vp ditches deepe for cisterns good To draw them to the best and neerest flood While th' Armorers with hammers hard and great On stiâ—hies strong the sturdy steelâ— doth â—eate And makes thereof a corpslet or a â—acke Sometime a helme sometime a mace doeth make While sheepherds they enarme vnus'd to danger While simple birds and whiles the wandring stranger Thetilling Culter then aspeare was made The crooked Sithe became an euened blade The people foode forgets no ease they take Some on a horse some on his proper backe Some on a Cart some on a Cammell beares Corne wine and flesh to serue for many yeares As done these Emets that in sommer tide Comparison Comes out in swarmes their houses to prouide In haruest time their toyle may best be seene In paths where they their cariage bring betweene Their youth they send to gather-in the store Their sick and old at home do keep the â—kore And ouer grainels great they take the charge Oft turning corne within a chamber large When it is dight least it do sproâ—te or seede Or come againe or weevels in it breede FINIS THE SVMMARIE OF The II. BOOKE VVE haue heard before how the people of God vsed all diligence to maintaine the libertie of Gods true religion their Countrey Now is set forth the extreame pride of Hoâ—ophernes who thought with one word to ouerthrow them all But to make himselfe some pastime he assembleth his Councell to vnderstand of them what people they were that inhabited the mountaines in the Frontieres of IVDEA that durst make him resistance Vpon this he is informed by the mouth of one of his chiefe captaines of that which he looked not for to wiâ—te a discourse of the History of the IEVVES from the time of ABRAHAMS comming out of Caldea to enter into the land of Promise vnto them deliuerance from the Captiuitie of Babylon following the order of the times quoted by the holy scriptures with the praises of the prouidence of the almightie God in defending of his Church and a sharpe threatning to those that dare presume to disquiet the same The chiefe Counsellers of the Heathen hearing this became more trueth incenâ—ing their Generall to murder this Captaine But HOLOPHERNE with vaine ambition deferâ—eth their bloody request and after that he had outraged him in words he further blasphemeth the liuing Lord. And lastly caused him to be bound hand and â—oote and so caried neere to the Citie of Bethulia where he is by the besâ—oged Souldiers brought into the Citie and there declareth his case exhorting them to continue constant to God and their Countrey and promiseth his assistance to his liues end THE SECOND BOOKE of IVDITH Now Holophern in Scythique Rampier stood With standards pight of youthly heathen blood Of nothing thinking lesse then warre and fight But in deuising pastime day and night Till he was war that Iacob would aduance Against his Panim force and arrogance A packe of what a packe of countrey clownes Quoth Holophern that them to battell bownes With beggers bolts and 〈…〉 to arrest My warriours strong with whom I haue supprest Both Tigris swift and faire Euphrates stream People of Asia With frosty Taurus and rocke Niphathoame Are they not wrackt ye Cheefs of Moabits And valiant Ephrem ye strong Ammoniâ—s Ye that as neighbours knowes this folke of olde That scattered thus doe all these mountaines hold Tell me what men are they of what off-spring What is their force their customes and their king ' For wise is he that wots with whom he playes ' And halfe is victor as the Prouerbe sayes The Lord of Ammon then with reverence due Right wisely spaâ—k the Duke and yet for true He was a Panim both of faith and kinde But so with fained tongue he spake his minde And all the Hebrews acts discourst so well That Esdr ' and Moses seemd in him to dwell As
Ecbatan and now growes weed and herbe Where sometime stood his palaces superbe So that where erst the lute and lowde Haubois Were wont to sound with sweete concordant nois Now shriking owles and other monsters moe In funerall sound fulfils the place with woe My potent Prince when all this warre was ceast Consumed moneths foure in Royall feast In Niniue the great which banket done He me commanded to assemble sone His Royall hoste to punish all and some That to his former ayd disdaind to come And that I shortly should with sword and flame Reuenge his honour but alas Madame Full farre am I from that I would pursew For comming here thy nation to subdew I vanquisht am by thee so that deaths might Shall shortly close mine eyes with endles night If you not with a louing kisse to me Restore my life O worthy Prince quoth she Continue your discours and to me tell What great aduentures to your Hoste befell Then he retooke his tale he left alate And made a long discours of all his state Part true part false as do some warriours braue Who speaking of their Acts will lye and raue My Camp assembled then gan I t'enflame Oration My soldiers harts thus for to win them fame Companions now if euer ye pretend To winne renoume that neuer shall haue end Go forwards now plague these inhumain Lands That on our sacred Legats layd their hands Reuenge reuenge ye men your most hie Prince That ever Scepter bare in rich prouince That euer came adowne with mighty arme From circled starres Alarm ' soldats alarme Take blades in hand and brands of burning yre To waste the western world with sword and fyre With bloody seas bedewe ech mount and vvood And make your horses fearce to swimme in blood Receiue the Scepter great and crowne of might Of all this world vvhich is to you behight Receiue this laude that for your conquest braue Shall draw your fames from the forgetfull graue Receiue yee valiant men the noble spoyle Of many-a land that ye shall put to foyle Let men behold that sees you day by day How ye are cloyde with honour spoile and pray Thus ended I. And as my words were spent They bet their bucklers showing them content With courage bolde to fight with me and byde Then sixscore thousand men I had to guide Or moe and so from Niniuè we past And marched vnto Bectilè at last I through Edessi Amidi and Carran came Where sometime dwelt your father Abraham I wan the mount vvhose thwarting hornes diuyds All Asie and serues for bounds on sundrie syds To manie great Empyrs I â—lew I brent All in my way My fellon soldiers vvent Like moawers with their sithes in sowple hands Who leaues not after them a straw that stands But ample swathes of grasse on ground doth cast And showes what way their sharped sithes haue past All Lydia knowes that nought now growes in it But weeds And Phuli-and Tharsis feeles it yit I was welâ—eare the straits that closeth all Phoenice and th' Ishique Rouers like a wall When Rosea Solea Mops Anchiali ' and Iscia And sweete Egei and short the whole Cilicia This passage took before and lay in wait To stay my Armie for to passe this straight If I the harmes and hasâ—ards all should tell Of all th' affairs and bloody frayes that fell And succours sent the day should slide away Before my tale For that Cilicia I say Through great aduantage of their ground so narrow Defended them from both the speare and arrow So that my Hoste that gaue before the chace To puissant kings now fled with great disgrace Craking Then foming in despite despaire and yre I cast my selfe where shot flew like the fyre And though they hurt me in a hundred parts And though my buckler bare a wood of darts Yet left not I but with audacious face I brauely fought and made them all giue place My army followde where my arme made way With trenching blade on bodies dead that lay The greatest coward that my captains led Pursewd and â—lew the most of them that fled The Cidnus streame vvho for his siluer flood Esteemd a king ran now with humaine blood The Pyram fearce in seas discharged than Full many-a helm and sword and worthy man In short as your owne riuer seems to rest With swelling tyds and frothy foods represt Within his bank yet furiously him wreaks With weightie force and banks and bridges breaks And stroies the Plaines and makes for many-a day More wrak then if his channels open lay In semble sort their bands I did enchace That kept the entrance of that craggie place I brunt I â—lew cast down all that I fand And Asia spoild I entred th' easter Land I wan Celeâ— and raged pitti-les Vpon the fruitfull shore of Euphrates I bet the desart Rapse and Eagria Land Who knowes the vertue of my conquering hand From thence to seaward sewing mine entent I wasted Madian Northward then I went To Lâ—ban-ward Damascus ouerrinning With other towns Abilâ—a and Hippas winning From thence vvith curious mind my standerds styes The hill where sunne is seen to set and ryes And so from thence I forward led mine hoste To th' Occident on the Phoenicâ—an coste Then Sidon Bible Beryte Tyre and Gaze With Ascalon and Assot in a maze For feare sent humbly to my sacred seat Wise messengers my fauour to intreat We come not here my Lord said they with armes For to resist the chok of thy Gens â—'armes But Prince we come of thee for to resaue Both life and death and what law vve shall haue Our townes are thine our citties and our hills Our fields our flocks our wealth is at your wills Our seruice and our treasures great and small Our selfs our wyues and our faire children all Now only rests to thee if so thee please To take vs thus O God what greater ease O God vvhat greater good may vs befall Then vnto such a Chiefe for to be thrall Who weilds the valiant lance and ballance right With vertue like the Gods of greatest might So were to me as gratious to beholde Their townes and Citties both for young and old With crownes and presents of the Flora sweet And costly odours humbly did me greete At sounds of hornes and pypes they dauncing vvent With goods and bodies me for to present Then I abusing not the law of armes Entreated them and did to them no harmes Nor to their Lands But first their forts I mand With men of mine and theirs tooke in my Band. For where that I my people farthest drew My camp in bands from bands to armies grew As doth the Danow which begins to flow By Raurak fields with snakish crangling slow Then swels his floods with sixty riuers large That in the Golfe Euxinus doth discharge I vvende Madame that Izrell like the rest Would yeeld to me that I should not be strest Against their brest to moue my murdring speare But as I