Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A43379
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Occasional verses of Edward Lord Herbert, Baron of Cherbery and Castle-Island deceased in August, 1648.; Poems. Selections
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Herbert of Cherbury, Edward Herbert, Baron, 1583-1648.
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1665
(1665)
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Wing H1508; ESTC R2279
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35,027
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105
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OCCASIONAL VERSES OF EDWARD Lord HERBERT BARON OF CHERBERY AND CASTLE-ISLAND Deceased in August 1648. LONDON Printed by T. R. for Thomas Dring at the George in Fleet-street near Cliffords-Inn 1665. To the Right Honourable EDWARD Lord HERBERT Baron of Cherbery in England and Castle-Island in Ireland My Lord THIS Collection of some of the scattered Copies of Verses composed in various and perplexed times by Edward Lord Herbert your late Grand-father belongs of double right to your Lordship as Heir and Executor And had it been in his power t' have bequeathed his Learning by Will as his Library and personal Estate it may be presumed he would have given it to you as the best Legacy But Learning being not of our Gift though of our Acquisition nor of the Parapharnalia of a Ladies Chamber nor of the casual and fortunate Goods of the World it must be acknowledged of a transcendency beyond natural things and a beam of the Divinity For by the powers of Knowledge Men are not only distinguished from Men but carried above the reach of ordinary Persons to give Reasons even of their Belief not that Men believe because they know but know because they believe Faith must precede Knowledg and yet Men are not bound t' accept matters of Religion though Religion be th' object and employment of Faith not of reasoning meerly without Reason and probable Inducements That the learned Centuries are past and Learning in declension is too great a truth which may introduce Atheisme with Ignorance for as Ignorance is the Mother of Devotion amongst the Papists so 't is the Mother of Atheisme amongst th' Ignorant The great and most dangerous design of our Church and National Enemies is to make us out of love with Learning as a Mechanick thing and beneath the Spirits of the Nobility and of Princes Whereas nothing improves and inlightens th' understandings of great Persons but Learning and not only innobles them far above their birth but inables them t' impose on others and to give rather then take advice The Learned Generous and Vertuous Person needs no Ancestors And what can so properly be call'd ours as what is of our purchase Gentiles agunt sub nomine Christiano was an old Reproach upon the Primitive Christians and now Men out-act the Gentiles The Goods of this life are all Hydropick Quo plus bibuntur plus sitiuntur Men are the dryer for drinking and the poorer for covetousness no satiety no fulness but in spiritual things The way of Vertue appeared to th' Heathen to be th' only way to Happiness and yet they knew not many Vertues which are the Glory of Christianity as Humility Denying of our selves Taking up the Cross Forgiving and loving our Enemies which th' Heathen took for follies rather then Vertues As for Poetry it bears date before Prose and was of so great authority with the common People and the wiser sort of Antiquity that it was in veneration with their sacred Writ and Records from which they derived their Divinity and belief concerning their Gods and that their Poets as Orpheus Linus and Musaeus were descended of the Gods and divinely inspired from th' extraordinary Motions of their Minds and from the Relations of strange Visions Raptures and Apparitions My Lord Excuse the liberty of this Dedication and believe me Your Lordships Uncle and Humble Servant HENRY HERBERT March 18. 1664 5. TO HIS WATCH When he could not sleep UNcessant Minutes whil'st you move you tell The time that tells our life which though it run Never so fast or farr you 'r new begun Short steps shall overtake for though life well May scape his own Account it shall not yours You are Death's Auditors that both divide And summ what ere that life inspir'd endures Past a beginning and through you we bide The doom of Fate whose unrecall'd Decree You date bring execute making what 's new Ill and good old for as we die in you You die in Time Time in Eternity Ditty DEep Sighs Records of my unpitied Grief Memorials of my true though hopeless Love Keep time with my sad thoughts till wish'd Relief My long despairs for vain and caussess prove Yet if such hap never to you befall I give you leave break time break heart and all Lord thus I sin repent and sin again As if Repentance only were in me Leave for new Sin thus do I entertain My short time and thy Grace abusing thee And thy long-suffering which though it be Ne'r overcome by Sin yet were in vain If tempted oft thus we our Errours see Before our Punishment and so remain Without Excuse and Lord in them 't is true Thy Laws are just but why dost thou distrain Ought else for life save life that is thy due The rest thou mak'st us owe and mayst to us As well forgive But oh my sins renew Whil'st I do talk with my Creator thus A Description I Sing her worth and praises Ey Of whom a Poet cannot ly The little World the Great shall blaze Sea Earth her Body Heaven her Face Her Hair Sun-beams whose every part Lightens enflames each Lover's Heart That thus you prove the Axiom true Whilst the Sun help'd Nature in you Her Front the White and Azure Sky In Light and Glory raised Ey Being o'recast by a Cloudy frown All Hearts and Eyes dejecteth down Her each Brow a Coelestial Bow Which through this Sky her Light doth show Which doubled if it strange appear The Sun 's likewise is doubled there Her either Cheek a Blushing Morn Which on the Wings of Beauty born Doth never set but only fair Shineth exalted in her hair Within her Mouth Heavens Heav'n reside Her Words the Soul 's there Glorifi'd Her Nose th' Aequator of this Globe Where Nakedness Beauties best Robe Presents a form all Hearts to win Last Nature made that dainty Chin Which that it might in every fashion Answer the rest a Constellation Like to a Desk she there did place To write the Wonders of her Face In this Coelestial Frontispiece Where Happiness eternal lies First aranged stand three Senses This Heavens Intelligences Whose several Motions sweet combin'd Come from the first Mover her Mind The weight of this harmonique Sphere The Atlas of her Neck doth bear Whose Favours Day to Us imparts When Frowns make Night in Lovers Hearts Two foming Billows are her Breasts That carry rais'd upon their Crests The Tyrian Fish More white 's their Fome Then that whence Venus once did come Here take her by the Hand my Muse With that sweet Foe to make my Truce To compact Manna best compar'd Whose dewy inside's not full hard Her Waste's an envers'd Pyramis Upon whose Cone Love's Trophee is Her Belly is that Magazine At whose peep Nature did resigne That pretious Mould by which alone There can be framed such a One At th' entrance of which hidden Treasure Happy making above measure Two Alabaster pillars stand To warn all passage from that Land At foot whereof engraved