never tast deaths woe But let them sleepe Lord and mee mourne a space For if above all these my sinnes abound 'T is late to aske abundance of thy grace When wee are there here on this lowly ground Teach mee how to repent for that 's as good As if thou'hadst seal'd my pardon with thy blood V. If poysonous mineralls and if that tree Whose fruit threw death on else immortall us If lecherous goats if serpents envious Cannot be damn'd Alas why should I bee Why should intent or reason borne in mee Make sinnes else equall in mee more heinous And mercy being easie and glorious To God in his sterne wrath why threatens hee But who am I that dare dispute with thee O God Oh! of thine onely worthy blood And my teares make a heavenly Lethean flood And drowne in it my sinnes blacke memorie That thou remember them some claime as debt I thinke it mercy if thou wilt forget VI. Death be not proud though some have called thee Mighty and dreadfull for thou art not soe For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not poore death nor yet canst thou kill mee From rest and sleepe which but thy pictures bee Much pleasure then from thee much more must flow And soonest our best men with thee doe goe Rest of their bones and soules deliverie Thou art slave to Fate chance kings and desperate men And doth with poyson warre and sicknesse dwell And poppie or charmes can make us sleepe as well And better then thy stroake why swell'st thou then One short sleepe past wee wake eternally And death shall be no more death thou shalt die VII Spit in my face you Jewes and pierce my side Buffet and scoffe scourge and crucifie mee For I have sinn'd and sinn'd and onely hee Who could do no iniquitie hath dyed But by my death can not be satisfied My sinnes which passe the Jewes impiety They kill'd once an inglorious man but I Crucifie him daily being now glorified Oh let mee then his strange love still admire Kings pardon but he bore our punishment And Iacob came cloth'd in vile harsh attire But to supplant and with gainfull intent God cloth'd himselfe in vile mans flesh that so Hee might be weake enough to suffer woe VIII Why are wee by all creatures waited on Why doe the prodigall elements supply Life and food to mee being more pure then I Simple and further from corruption Why brook'st thou ignorant horse subjection Why dost thou bull and bore so seelily Dissemble weaknesse and by'one mans stroke die Whose whole kinde you might swallow feed upon Weaker I am woe is mee and worse then you You have not sinn'd nor need be timorous But wonder at a greater wonder for to us Created nature doth these things subdue But their Creator whom sin nor nature tyed For us his Creatures and his foes hath dyed IX What if this present were the worlds last night Marke in my heart O Soule where thou dost dwell The picture of Christ crucified and tell Whether his countenance can thee affright Teares in his eyes quench the amasing light Blood fills his frownes which from his pierc'd head fell And can that tongue adjudge thee unto hell Which pray'd forgivenesse for his foes fierce spight No no but as in my idolatrie I said to all my profane mistresses Beauty of pitty foulnesse onely is A signe of rigour so I say to thee To wicked spirits are horrid shapes assign'd This beauteous forme assumes a pitious minde X. Batter my heart three person'd God for you As yet but knocke breathe shine and seeke to mend That I may rise and stand o'erthrow mee ' and bend Your force to breake blowe burn and make me new I like an usurpt towne to'another due Labour to'admit you but Oh to no end Reason your viceroy in mee mee should defend But is captiv'd and proves weake or untrue Yet dearely'I love you and would be lov'd faine But am betroth'd unto your enemie Divorce mee ' untie or breake that knot againe Take mee to you imprison mee for I Except you'enthral mee never shall be free Nor ever chast except you ravish mee XI Wilt thou love God as he thee then digest My Soule this wholsome meditation How God the Spirit by Angels waited on In heaven doth make his Temple in thy brest The Father having begot a Sonne most blest And still begetting for he ne'r begonne Hath deign'd to chuse thee by adoption Coheire to'his glory ' and Sabbaths endlesse rest And as a robb'd man which by search doth finde His stolne stuffe sold must lose or buy'it againe The Sonne of glory came downe and was slaine Us whom he'had made and Satan stolne to unbinde 'T was much that man was made like God before But that God should be made like man much more XII Father part of his double interest Unto thy kingdome thy Sonne gives to mee His joynture in the knottie Trinitie Hee keepes and gives to me his deaths conquest This Lambe whose death with life the world hath blest Was from the worlds beginning slaine and he Hath made two Wills which with the Legacie Of his and thy kingdome doe thy Sonnes invest Yet such are these laws that men argue yet Whether a man those statutes can fulfill None doth but thy all-healing grace and Spirit Revive againe what law and letter kill Thy lawes abridgement and thy last command Is all but love Oh let this last Will stand EPIGRAMS Hero and Leander BOth rob'd of aire we both lye in one ground Both whom one fire had burnt one water drownd Pyramus and Thisbe Two by themselves each other love and feare Slaine cruell friends by parting have joyn'd here Niobe By childrens births and death I am become So dry that I am now mine owne sad tombe A burnt ship Out of a fired ship which by no way But drowning could be rescued from the flame Some men leap'd forth and ever as they came Neere the foes ships did by their shot decay So all were lost which in the ship were found They in the sea being burnt they in the burnt ship drown'd Fall of a wall Under an undermin'd and shot-bruis'd wall A too-bold Captaine perish'd by the fall Whose brave misfortune happiest men envi'd That had a towne for tombe his bones to hide A lame begger I am unable yonder begger cries To stand or moue if he say true hee lies A selfe accuser Your mistris that you follow whores still taxeth you 'T is strange that she should thus confesse it though'it be true A licentious person Thy sinnes and haires may no man equall call For as thy sinnes increase thy haires doe fall Antiquary If in his Studie he hath so much care To'hang all old strange things let his wife beware Disinherited Thy father all from thee by his last Will Gave to the poore Thou hast good title still Phryne Thy flattering picture Phryne is like thee Onely in this that you both painted be An obscure writer
I Am the Recusant in that resolute state What hurts it mee to be'excommunicate Elegie VIII Natures lay Ideot I taught thee to love And in that sophistrie Oh thou dost prove Too subtile Foole thou didst not understand The mystique language of the eye nor hand Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the aire Of sighes and say this lies this sounds despaire Nor by the'eyes water call a maladie Desperately hot or changing feaverously I had not taught thee then the Alphabet Of flowers how they devisefully being set And bound up might with speechlesse secrecie Deliver arrands mutely and mutually Remember since all thy words us'd to bee To every suitor I if my friends agree Since houshold charmes thy husbands name to teach Were all the love trickes that thy wit could reach And since an houres discourse could scarce have made One answer in thee and that ill arraid In broken proverbs and torne sentences Thou art not by so many duties his That from the worlds Common having sever'd thee Inlaid thee neither to be seene nor see As mine who have with amorous delicacies Refin'd thee'into a blis-full paradise Thy graces and good words my creatures bee I planted knowledge and lifes tree in thee Which Oh shall strangers taste Must I alas Frame and enamell Plate and drinke inglasse Chafe waxe for others seales breake a colts force And leave him then beeing made a ready horse THE STORME To Mr Christopher Brooke THou which art I 't is nothing to be soe Thou which art still thy selfe by these shalt know Part of our passage And a hand or eye By Hilliard drawne is worth an history By a worse painter made and without pride When by thy judgment they are dignifi'd My lines are such 'T is the preheminence Of friendship onely to'impute excellence England to whom we'owe what we be and have Sad that her sonnes did seeke a forraine grave For Fates or Fortunes drifts none can Southsay Honour and misery have one face and way From out her pregnant intrailes sigh'd a winde Which at th'ayres middle marble roome did finde Such strong resistance that it selfe it threw Downeward againe and so when it did view How in the port our fleet deare time did leese Withering like prisoners which lye but for fees Mildly it kist our sailes and fresh and sweet As to a stomack sterv'd whose insides meete Meate comes it came and swole our sailes when wee So joyd as Sara ' her swelling joy'd to see But 't was but so kinde as our countrimen Which bring friends one dayes way and leave them then Then like two mighty Kings which dwelling farre blew Asunder meet against a third to warre The South and West winds joyn'd and as they blew Waves like a rowling trench before them threw Sooner then you read this line did the gale Like shot not fear'd till felt our sailes assaile And what at first was call'd a gust the same Hath now a stormes a non a tempests name Ionas I pitty thee and curse those men Who when the storm rag'd most did wake thee then Sleepe is paines easiest salue and doth fullfill All offices of death except to kill But when I wakt I saw that I saw not I and the Sunne which should teach mee'had forgot East West day night and I could onely say If the world had lasted now it had beene day Thousands our noyses were yet wee ' mongst all Could none by his right name but thunder call Lightning was all our light and it rain'd more Then if the Sunne had drunke the sea before Some coffin'd in their cabbins lye ' equally Griev'd that they are not dead and yet must dye And as sin-burd'ned soules from grave will creepe At the last day some forth their cabbins peepe And tremblingly'aske what newes and doe heare so Like jealous husbands what they would not know Some sitting on the hatches would seeme there With hideous gazing to feare away feare Then note they the ships sicknesses the Mast Shak'd with this ague and the Hold and Wast With a salt dropsie clog'd and all our tacklings Snapping like too-high-stretched treble strings And from our totterd sailes ragges drop downe so As from one hang'd in chaines a yeare agoe Even our Ordinance plac'd for our defence Strive to breake loose and scape away from thence Pumping hath tir'd our men and what 's the gaine Seas into seas throwne we suck in againe Hearing hath deaf'd our saylers and if they Knew how to heare there 's none knowes what to say Compar'd to these stormes death is but a qualme Hell somewhat lightsome and the' Bermuda calme Darknesse lights eldest brother his birth-right Claim'd o'r this world and to heaven hath chas'd light All things are one and that one none can be Since all formes uniforme deformity Doth cover so that wee except God say Another Fiat shall have no more day So violent yet long these furies bee That though thine absence sterve me ' I wish not thee THE CALME OUr storme is past and that storms tyrannous rage A stupid calme but nothing it doth swage The fable is inverted and farre more A blocke afflicts now then a storke before Stormes chafe and soone weare out themselves or us In calmes Heaven laughs to see us languish thus As steady'as I can wish that my thoughts were Smooth as thy mistresse glasse or what shines there The sea is now And as the Iles which wee Seeke when wee can move our ships rooted bee As water did in stormes now pitch runs out As lead when a fir'd Church becomes one spout And all our beauty and our trimme decayes Like courts removing or like ended playes The fighting place now seamens ragges supply And all the tackling is a frippery No use of lanthornes and in one place lay Feathers and dust to day and yesterday Earths hollownesses which the worlds lungs are Have no more winde then the upper valt of aire We can nor lost friends nor sought foes recover But meteorlike save that wee move not hover Onely the Calenture together drawes Deare friends which meet dead in great fishes jawes And on the hatches as on Altars lyes Each one his owne Priest and owne Sacrifice Who live that miracle do multiply Where walkers in hot Ovens doe not dye If in despite of these wee swimme that hath No more refreshing then our brimstone Bath But from the sea into the ship we turne Like parboyl'd wretches on the coales to burne Like Bajazet encag'd the sheepheards scoffe Or like-slacke sinew'd Sampson his haire off Languish our ships Now as a Miriade Of Ants durst th' Emperours lov'd snake invade The crawlin Gallies Sea-goales finny chips Might brave our venices now bed-ridde ships Whether a rotten state and hope of gaine Or to disuse mee from the queasie paine Of being belov'd and loving or the thirst Of honour or faire death out pusht mee first I lose my end for here as well as I A desperate may live and a coward die Stagge dogge
our land waters teares of passion vent Our waters then above our firmament Teares which our Soule doth for her sins let fall Take all a brackish tast and Funerall And even those teares which should wash sin are sin We after Gods Noe drowne the world againe Nothing but man of all invenom'd things Doth worke upon itselfe with inborne stings Teares are false Spectacles we cannot see Through passions mist what wee are or what shee In her this sea of death hath made no breach But as the tide doth wash the slimie beach And leaves embroderd workes upon the sand So is her flesh refin'd by deaths cold hand As men of China ' after an ages stay Do take up Porcelane where they buried Clay So at this grave her limbecke which refines The Diamonds Rubies Saphires Pearles Mines Of which this flesh was her soule shall inspire Flesh of such stuffe as God when his last fire Annuls this world to recompence it shall Make and name then th'Elixar of this All. They say the sea when it gaines loseth too If carnall Death the yonger brother doe Usurpe the body 'our soule which subject is To th' elder death by sinne is freed by this They perish both when they attempt the just For graves our trophies are and both deaths dust So unobnoxious now she'hath buried both For none to death sinnes that to sinne is loth Nor doe they die which are not loth to die So hath she this and that virginity Grace was in her extremely diligent That kept her from sinne yet made her repent Of what small spots pure white complaines Alas How little poyson cracks a christall glasse She sinn'd but just enough to let us see That extreme truth lack'd little of a lye Making omissions acts laying the touch Of sinne on things that sometimes may be such As Moses Cherubines whose natures doe Surpasse all speed by him are winged too So would her soule already'in heaven seeme then To clyme by teares the common staires of men How fit she was for God I am content To speake that death his vaine hast may repent How fit for us how even and how sweet How good in all her titles and how meet To have reform'd this forward heresie That woman can no parts of friendship bee How Morall how Divine shall not be told Lest they that heare her vertues thinke her old And lest we take Deaths part and make him glad Of such a prey and to his tryumph adde Elegie on Mris Boulstred DEath I recant and say unsaid by mee What ere hath slip'd that might diminish thee Spirituall treason atheisme 't is to say That any can thy Summons disobey Th' earths face is but thy Table there are set Plants cattell men dishes for Death to eate In a rude hunger now hee millions drawes Into his bloody or plaguy or sterv'd jawes Now hee will seeme to spare and doth more wast Eating the best first well preserv'd to last Now wantonly he spoiles and eates us not But breakes off friends and lets us peecemeale rot Nor will this earth serve him he sinkes the deepe Where harmelesse fish monastique silence keepe Who were Death dead by Roes of living sand Might spunge that element and make it land He rounds the aire and breakes the hymnique notes In birds Heavens choristers organique throats Which if they did not dye might seeme to bee A tenth ranke in the heavenly hierarchie O strong and long-liv'd death how cam'st thou in And how without Creation didst begin Thou hast and shalt see dead before thou dyest All the foure Monarchies and Antichrist How could I thinke thee nothing that see now In all this All nothing else is but thou Our births and life vices and vertues bee Wastfull consumptions and degrees of thee For wee to live our bellowes weare and breath Nor are wee mortall dying dead but death And though thou beest O mighty bird of prey So much reclaim'd by God that thou must lay All that thou kill'st at his feet yet doth hee Reserve but few and leaves the most to thee And of those few now thou hast overthrowne One whom thy blow makes not ours nor thine own She was more stories high hopelesse to come To her Soule thou'hast offer'd at her lower roome Her Soule and body was a King and Court But thou hast both of Captaine mist and fort As houses fall not though the King remove Bodies of Saints rest for their soules above Death gets'twixt soules and bodies such a place As sinne insinuates 'twixt just men and grace Both worke a separation no divorce Her Soule is gone to usherup her corse Which shall be'almost another soule for there Bodies are purer then best Soules are here Because in her her virtues did outgoe Her yeares would'st thou O emulous death do so And kill her young to thy losse must the cost Of beauty ' and wit apt to doe harme be lost What though thou found'st her proofe'gainst sins of youth Oh every age a diverse sinne pursueth Thou should'st have stay'd and taken better hold Shortly ambitious covetous when old She might have prov'd and such devotion Might once have stray'd to superstition If all her vertues must have growne yet might Abundant virtue'have bred a proud delight Had she persever'd just there would have bin Some that would sinne mis-thinking she did sinne Such as would call her friendship love and faine To sociablenesse a name profane Or sinne by tempting or not daring that By wishing though they never told her what Thus might'st thou'have slain more soules had'st thou not crost Thy selfe and to triumph thine army lost Yet though these wayes be lost thou hast left one Which is immoderate griefe that she is gone But we may scape that sinne yet weepe as much Our teares are due because we are not such Some teares that knot of friends her death must cost Because the chaine is broke but no linke lost To Sr Henry Goodyere WHo makes the Past a patterne for next yeare Turnes no new leafe but still the same things reads Seene things he sees againe heard things doth heare And makes his life but like a paire of beads A Palace when 't is that which it should be Leaves growing and stands such or else decayes But hee which dwels there is not so for hee Strives to urge upward and his fortune raise So had your body'her morning hath her noone And shall not better her next change is night But her faire larger guest to'whom Sun and Moone Are sparkes and short liv'd claimes another right The noble Soule by age growes lustier Her appetite and her digestion mend Wee must not sterve nor hope to pamper her With womens milke and pappe unto the end Provide you manlyer dyet you have seene All libraries which are Schools Camps Courts But aske your Garners if you have not beene In harvests too indulgent to your sports Would you redeeme it then your selfe transplant A while from hence Perchance outlandish ground Beares no
Wardship to thine Angels be Native in heavens faire Palaces Where we shall be but denizen'd by thee As th' earth conceiving by the Sunne Yeelds faire diversitie Yet never knowes which course that light doth run So let mee study that mine actions bee Worthy their sight though blinde in how they see VII The Patriarches And let thy Patriarches Desire Those great Grandfathers of thy Church which saw More in the cloud then wee in fire Whom Nature clear'd more then us grace and law And now in Heaven still pray that wee May use our new helpes right Be sanctified and fructifie in mee Let not my minde be blinder by more light Nor Faith by Reason added lose her sight VIII The Prophets Thy Eagle-sighted Prophets too Which were thy Churches Organs and did sound That harmony which made of two One law and did unite but not confound Those heavenly Poëts which did see Thy will and it expresse In rythmique feet in common pray for mee That I by them excuse not my excesse In seeking secrets or Poëtiquenesse IX The Apostles And thy illustrious Zodiacke Of twelve Apostles which ingirt this All From whom whosoever do not take Their light to darke deep pits throw downe and fall As through their prayers thou'hast let mee know That their bookes are divine May they pray still and be heard that I goe Th' old broad way in applying O decline Mee when my comment would make thy word mine X. The Martyrs And since thou so desirously Did'st long to die that long before thou could'st And long since thou no more couldst dye Thou in thy scatter'd mystique body wouldst In Abel dye and ever since In thine let their blood come To begge for us a discreet patience Of death or of worse life for Oh to some Not to be Martyrs is a martyrdome XI The Confessors Therefore with thee triumpheth there A Virgin Squadron of white Confessors Whose bloods betroth'd not marryed were Tender'd not taken by those Ravishers They know and pray that wee may know In every Christian Hourly tempestuous persecutions grow Tentations martyr us alive A man Is to himselfe a Dioclesian XII The Virgins The cold white snowie Nunnery Which as thy mother their high Abbesse sent Their bodies backe againe to thee As thou hadst lent them cleane and innocent Though they have not obtain'd of thee That or thy Church or I Should keep as they our first integrity Divorce thou sinne in us or bid it die And call chast widowhead Virginitie XIII The Doctors Thy sacred Academie above Of Doctors whose paines have unclasp'd and taught Both bookes of life to us for love To know thy Scriptures tells us we are wrought In thy other booke pray for us there That what they have misdone Or mis-said wee to that may not adhere Their zeale may be our sinne Lord let us runne Meane waies and call them stars but not the Sunne XIV And whil'st this universall Quire That Church in triumph this in warfare here Warm'd with one all-partaking fire Of love that none be lost which cost thee deare Prayes ceaslesly ' and thou hearken too Since to be gratious Our taske is treble to pray beare and doe Heare this prayer Lord O Lord deliver us FroÌ„ trusting in those prayers though powr'd out thus XV. From being anxious or secure Dead clods of sadnesse or light squibs of mirth From thinking that great courts immure All or no hâ—ppinesse or that this earth Is only for our prison fram'd Or that thou art covetous To them whom thou lovest or that they are maim'd From reaching this worlds sweet who seek thee thus With all their might Good Lord deliver us XVI From needing danger to bee good From owing thee yesterdaies teares to day From trusting so much to thy blood That in that hope wee wound our soule away From bribing thee with Almes to excuse Some sinne more burdenous From light affecting in religion newes From thinking us all soule neglecting thus Our mutuall duties Lord deliver us XVII From tempting Satan to tempt us By our connivence or slack companie From measuring ill by vitious Neglecting to choake sins spawne Vanitie From indiscreet humilitie Which might be scandalous And cast reproach on Christianitie From being spies or to spies pervious From thirst or scorne of flame deliver us XVIII Deliver us for thy descent Into the Virgin whose wombe was a place Of midle kind and thou being sent To'ungratious us staid'st at her full of grace And through thy poore birth where first thou Glorifiedst Povertie And yet soone after riches didst allow By accepting Kings gifts in the Epiphanie Deliver and make us to both waies free XIX And though that bitter agonie Which is still the agonie of pious wits Disputing what distorted thee And interrupted evennesse with fits And through thy free confession Though thereby they were then Made blind so that thou might'st from theÌ„ have gone Good Lord deliver us and teach us when Wee may not and we may blinde unjust men XX. Through thy submitting all to blowes Thy face thy clothes to spoile thy fame to scorne All waies which rage or Justice knowes And by which thou could'st shew that thou wast born And through thy gallant humblenesse Which thou in death did'st shew Dying before thy soule they could expresse Deliver us from death by dying so To this world ere this world doe bid us goe XXI When senses which thy souldiers are Wee arme against thee and they fight for sinne When want sent but to tame doth warre And worke despaire a breach to enter in When plenty Gods image and seale Makes us Idolatrous And love it not him whom it should reveale When wee are mov'd to seeme religious Only to vent wit Lord deliver us XXII In Churches when the'infirmitie Of him which speakes diminishes the Word When Magistrates doe mis-apply To us as we judge lay or ghostly sword When plague which is thine Angell raignes Or wars thy Champions swaie When Heresie thy second deluge gaines In th' houre of death the'Eve of last judgement day Deliver us from the sinister way XXIII Heare us O heare us Lord to thee A sinner is more musique when he prayes Then spheares or Angels praises bee In Panegyrique Allelujaes Heare us for till thou heare us Lord We know not what to say Thine eare to'our sighes teares thoughts gives voice and word O Thou who Satan heard'st in Jobs sicke day Heare thy selfe now for thou in us dost pray XXIV That wee may change to evennesse This intermitting aguish Pietie That snatching cramps of wickednesse And Apoplexies of fast sin may die That musique of thy promises Not threats in Thunder may Awaken us to our just offices What in thy booke thou dost or creatures say That we may heare Lord heare us when wee pray XXV That our eares sicknesse wee may cure And rectifie those Labyrinths aright That wee by harkning not procure Our praise nor others dispraise so invite That wee get not a slipperinesse And senslesly decline
his Clergie not to pray Though of the learn'dst sort Me thinkes that they Of the same trade are Judges not so fit There 's no such emulation as of wit Of such the Envy might as much perchance Wrong him and more then th' others ignorance It was his Fate I know 't to be envy'd As much by Clerkes as lay men magnifi'd And why but ' cause he came late in the day And yet his Penny earn'd and had as they No more of this least some should say that I Am strai'd to Satyre meaning Elegie No no had DONNE need to be judg'd or try'd A Jury I would summon on his side That had no sides nor factions past the touch Of all exceptions freed from Passion such As nor to feare nor fratter e'r were bred These would I bring though called from the dead Southampton Hambleton Pēbrooke Dorsets Earles Huntingdon Bedfords Countesses the Pearles Once of each sexe If these suffice not I Ten decem tales have of Standers by All which for DONNE would such a verdict give As can belong to none that now doth live But what doe I A diminution 't is To speake of him in verse so short of his Whereof he was the master All indeed Compar'd with him pip'd on an Oaten reed O that you had but one ' mongst all your brothers Could write for him as he hath done for others Poets I speake to When I see 't I 'll say My eye-sight betters as my yeares decay Meane time a quarrell I shall ever have Against these doughty keepers from the grave Who use it seemes their old Authoritie When Verses men immortall make they cry Which had it been a Recipe true tri'd Probatum esset DONNE had never dy'd For mee if e'r I had least sparke at all Of that which they Poetique fire doe call Here I confesse it fetched from his hearth Which is gone out now he is gone to earth This only a poore flash a lightning is Before my Muses death as after his Farewell faire soule and deigne receive from mee This Type of that devotion I owe thee From whom while living as by voice and penne I learned more then from a thousand men So by thy death am of one doubt releas'd And now beleeve that miracles are ceas'd Epitaph HEere lies Deane Donne Enough Those words Shew him as fully as if all the stone His Church of Pauls contains were through inscrib'd alone Or all the walkers there to speake him brib'd None can mistake him for one such as Hee DONNE Deane or Man more none shall ever see Not man No though unto a Sunne each eye Were turn'd the whole earth so to overspie A bold brave word Yet such brave Spirits as knew His Spirit will say it is lesse bold then true Epitaph upon Dr. DONNE By Endy Porter THis decent Urne a sad inscription weares Of Donnes departure from us to the spheares And the dumbe stone with silence seemes to tell The changes of this life wherein is well Exprest A cause to make all joy to cease And never let our sorrowes more take ease For now it is impossible to finde One fraught with vertues to inrich a minde But why should death with a promiscuous hand At one rude stroke impoverish a land Thou strict Attorney unto stricter Fate Didst thou confiscate his life out of hate To his rare Parts Or didst thou throw thy dart With envious hand at some Plebeyan heart And he with pious vertue stept betweene To save that stroke and so was kill'd unseene By thee O 't was his goodnesse so to doe Which humane kindnesse never reacht unto Thus the hard lawes of death were satisfi'd And he left us like Orphan friends and di'de Now from the Pulpit to the peoples eares Whose speech shall send repentant sighes and teares Or tell mee if a purer Virgin die Who shall hereafter write her Elegie Poets be silent let your numbers sleepe For he is gone that did all phansie keepe Time hath no Soule but his exalted verse Which with amazements we may now reherse FINIS The sicknes of the World Impossibility of health Shortnesse of life Smalnesse of stature Decay of nature in other parts Disformity of parts Disorder in the world Weaknesse in the want of correspondence of heaven and earth Conclusion A iust disestimation of this world Contemplation of our state in our death-bed Her liberty by death Of our company in this life and in the next Of essentiall joy in this life and in the next Of accidentall joyes in both places Conclusion La Corona
And one of those small bodies fitted so This soule inform'd and abled it to roe It selfe with finnie oares which she did fit Her scales seem'd yet of parchment and as yet Perchance a fish but by no name you could call it XXIV When goodly like a ship in her full trim A swan so white that you may unto him Compare all whitenesse but himselfe to none Glided along and as he glided watch'd And with his arched necke this poore fish catch'd It mov'd with state as if to looke upon Low things it scorn'd and yet before that one Could thinke he sought it he had swallowed cleare This and much such and unblam'd devour'd there All but who too swift too great or well arm'd were XXV Now swome a prison in a prison put And now this Soule in double walls was shut Till melted with the Swans digestive fire She left her house the fish and vapour'd forth Fate not affording bodies of more worth For her as yet bids her againe retire T'another fish to any new desire Made a new prey For he that can to none Resistance make nor complaint sure is gone Weaknesse invites but silence feasts oppression XXVI Pace with the native streame this fish doth keepe And journeyes with her towards the glassie deepe But oft retarded once with a hidden net Though with great windowes for when need first taught These tricks to catch food thē they were not wrought As now with curious greedinesse to let None scape but few and fit for use to get As in this trap a ravenous pike was tane Who though himselfe distrest would faine have slain This wretch So hardly are ill habits left again XXVII Here by her smallnesse shee two deaths orepast Once innocence scap'd and left the oppressor fast The net through-swome she keepes the liquid path And whether she leape up sometimes to breath And suck in aire or finde it underneath Or working parts like mills or limbecks hath To make the wether thinne and airelike faith Cares not but safe the Place she 's come unto Where fresh with salt waves meet and what to doe She knowes not but betweene both makes a boord or two XXVIII So farre from hiding her guests water is That she showes them in bigger quantities Then they are Thus doubtfull of her way For game and not for hunger a sea Pie Spied through this traiterous spectacle from high The seely fish where it disputing lay And t' end her doubts and her beares her away Exalted she'is but to the exalters good As are by great ones men which lowly stood It 's rais'd to be the Raisers instrument and food XXIX Is any kinde subject to rape like fish Ill unto man they neither doe nor wish Fishers they kill not nor with noise awake They doe not hunt nor strive to make a prey Of beasts nor their yong sonnes to beare away Foules they pursue not nor do undertake To spoile the nests industruous birds do make Yet them all these unkinde kinds feed upon To kill them is an occupation And lawes make fasts lents for their destruction XXX A sudden stiffe land-winde in that selfe houre To sea-ward forc'd this bird that did devour The fish he cares not for with ease he flies Fat gluttonies best orator at last So long hee hath flowen and hath flowen so fast That leagues o'er-past at sea now tir'd hee lyes And with his prey that till then languisht dies The soules no longer foes two wayes did erre The fish I follow and keepe no calender Of the other he lives yet in some great officer XXXI Into an embrion fish our Soule is throwne And in due time throwne out againe and growne To such vastnesse as if unmanacled From Greece Morea were and that by some Earthquake unrooted loose Morea swome Or seas from Africks body had severed And torne the hopefull Promontories head This fish would seeme these and when all hopes faile A great ship overset or without saile Hulling might when this was a whelp be like this whale XXXII At every stroake his brazen finnes do take More circles in the broken sea they make Then cannons voices when the aire they teare His ribs are pillars and his high arch'd roofe Of barke that blunts best steele is thunder-proofe Swimme in him swallowed Dolphins without feare And feele no sides as if his vast wombe were Some Inland sea and ever as hee went Hee spouted rivers up as if he ment To joyne our seas with seas above the firmament XXXIII He hunts not fish but as an officer Stayes in his court at his owne net and there All suitors of all sorts themselves enthrall So on his backe lyes this whale wantoning And in his gulfe-like throat sucks every thing That passeth neare Fish chaseth fish and all Flyer and follower in this whirlepoole fall O might not states of more equality Consist and is it of necessity That thousand guiltlesse smals to make one great must die XXXIV Now drinkes he up seas and he eates up flocks He justles Ilands and he shakes firme rockes Now in a roomefull house this Soule doth float And like a Prince she sends her faculties To all her limbes distant as Provinces The Sunne hath twenty times both crab and goate Parched since first lanch'd forth this living boate 'T is greatest now and to destruction Nearest There 's no pause at perfection Greatnesse a period hath but hath no station XXXV Two little fishes whom hee never harm'd Nor fed on their kinde two not throughly arm'd With hope that they could kill him nor could doe Good to themselves by his death they did not eate His flesh nor suck those oyles which thence outstreat Conspir'd against him and it might undoe The plot of all that the plotters were two But that they fishes were and could not speake How shall a Tyran wise strong projects breake If wreches can on them the common anger wreake XXXVI The flaile-find Thresher and steel-beak'd Sword-fish Onely attempt to doe what all doe wish The Thresher backs him and to beate begins The sluggard Whale yeelds to oppression And t'hide himselfe from shame and danger downe Begins to sinke the Swordfish upward spins And gores him with his beake his staffe-like finnes So were the one his sword the other plyes That now a scoffe and prey this tyran dyes And his owne dole feeds with himselfe all companies XXXVII Who will revenge his death or who will call Those to account that thought and wrought his fall The heires of slaine kings wee see are often so Transported with the joy of what they get That they revenge and obsequies forget Nor will against such men the people goe Because h 'is now dead to whom they should show Love in that act Some kings by vice being growne So needy of subjects love that of their won They thinke they lose if love be to the dead Prince shown XXXVIII This Soule now free from prison and passion Hath yet a little indignation That so small hammers
should so soone downe beat So great a castle And having for her house Got the streight cloyster of a wreched mouse As basest men that have not what to eate Nor enjoy ought doe farre more hate the great Then they who good repos'd estates possesse This Soule late taught that great things might by lesse Be slain to gallant mischiefe doth herselfe addresse XXXIX Natures great master-peece an Elephant The onely harmlesse great thing the giant Of beasts who thought no more had gone to make one wise But to be just and thankfull loth to offend Yet nature hath given him no knees to bend Himselfe he up-props on himselfe relies And foe to none suspects no enemies Still sleeping stood vex't not his fantasie Blacke dreames like an unbent bow carelesly His sinewy Proboscis did remisly lie XL. In which as in a gallery this mouse Walk'd and surveid the roomes of this vast house And to the braine the soules bed chamber went And gnaw'd the life cords there Like a whole towne Cleane undermin'd the slaine beast tumbled downe With him the murtherer dies whom envy sent To kill not scape for only hee that ment To die did ever kill a man of better roome And thus he made his foe his prey and tombe Who cares not to turn back may any whither come XLI Next hous'd this Soule a Wolves yet unborne whelp Till the best midwife Nature gave it helpe To issue It could kill as soone as goe Abel as white and milde as his sheepe were Who in that trade of Church and kingdomes there Was the first type was still infested soe With this wolfe that it bred his losse and woe And yet his bitch his sentinell attends The flocke so neere so well warnes and defends That the wolfe hopelesse else to corrupt her intends XLII Hee tooke a course which since succesfully Great men have often taken to espie The counsels or to breake the plots of foes To Abels tent he stealeth in the darke On whose skirts the bitch slept ere she could barke Attach'd her with streight gripes yet hee call'd those Embracements of love to loves worke he goes Where deeds move more then words nor doth she show Nor much resist nor needs hee streighten so His prey for were shee loose she would not barke nor goe XLIII Hee hath engag'd her his she wholy bides Who not her owne none others secrets hides If to the flocke he come and Abell there She faines hoarse barkings but she biteth not Her faith is quite but not her love forgot At last a trap of which some every where Abell had plac'd ends all his losse and feare By the Wolves death and now just time it was That a quicke soule should give life to that masse Of blood in Abels bitch and thither this did passe XLIV Some have their wives their sisters some begot But in the lives of Emperours you shall not Reade of a lust the which may equall this This wolfe begot himselfe and finished What he began alive when hee was dead Sonne to himselfe and father too hee is A ridling lust for which Schoolemen would misse A proper name The whelpe of both these lay In Abels tent and with soft Moaba His sister being yong it us'd to sport and play XLV Hee soone for her too harsh and churlish grew And Abell the dam dead would use this new For the field being of two kindes made He as his dam from sheepe drove wolves away And as his Sire he made them his owne prey Five yeares he liv'd and cosened with his trade Then hopelesse that his faults were hid betraid Himselfe by flight and by all followed From dogges a wolfe from wolves a dogge he fled And like a spie to both sides false he perished XLVI It quickned next a toyfull Ape and so Gamesome it was that it might freely goe From tent to tent and with the children play His organs now so like theirs hee doth finde That why he cannot laugh and speake his minde He wonders Much with all most he doth stay With Adams fift daughter Siphatecia Doth gaze on her and where she passeth passe Gathers her fruits and tumbles on the grasse And wisest of that kinde the first true lover was XLVII He was the first that more desir'd to have One then another first that ere did crave Love by mute signes and had no power to speake First that could make love faces or could doe The valters sombersalts or us'd to wooe With hoiting gambolls his owne bones to breake To make his mistresse merry or to wreake Her anger on himselfe Sinnes against kinde They easily doe that can let feed their minde With outward beauty beauty they in boyes and beasts do find XLVIII By this misled too low things men have prov'd And too high beasts and angels have beene lov'd This Ape though else through-vaine in this was wise He reach'd at things too high but open way There was and he knew not she would say nay His toyes prevaile not likelier meanes he tries He gazeth on her face with teare-shot eyes And up lifts subtly with his russet pawe Her kidskinne apron without feare or awe Of nature nature hath no gaole though shee hath law XLIX First she was silly and knew not what he ment That vertue by his touches chaft and spent Succeeds an itchie warmth that melts her quite She knew not first now cares not what he doth And willing halfe and more more then halfe Tooth She neither puls nor pushes but outright Now cries and now repents when Tethelemite Her brother entred and a great stone threw After the Ape who thus prevented flew This house thus batter'd downe the Soule possest a new L. And whether by this change she lose or win She comes out next where the Ape would have gone in Adam and Eve had mingled bloods and now Like Chimiques equall fires her temperate wombe Had stew'd and form'd it and part did become A spungie liver that did richly allow Like a free conduit on a high hils brow Life keeping moisture unto every part Part hardned it selfe to a thicker heart Whose busie furnaces lifes spirits do impart LI. Another part became the well of sense The tender well arm'd feeling braine from whence Those sinowie strings which do our bodies tie Are raveld out and fast there by one end Did this Soule limbes these limbes a soule attend And now they joyn'd keeping some quality Of every past shape she knew treachery Rapine deceit and lust and ills enow To be a woman Themech she is now Sister and wife to Caine Caine that first did plow LII Who ere thou beest that read'st this sullen Writ Which just so much courts thee as thou dost it Let me arrest thy thoughts wonder with mee Why plowing building ruling and the rest Or most of those arts whence our lives are blest By cursed Cains race invented be And blest Seth vext us with Astronomie Ther 's nothing simply good nor ill alone Of every quality
comparison The onely measure is and judge opinion HOLY SONNETS La Corona 1. DEigne at my hands this crown of prayer and praise Weav'd in my low devout melancholie Thou which of good hast yea art treasury All changing unchang'd Antient of dayes But doe not with a vile crowne of fraile bayes Reward my muses white sincerity But what thy thorny crowne gain'd that give mee A crowne of Glory which doth flower alwayes The ends crowne our workes but thou crown'st our ends For at our end begins our endlesse rest The first last end now zealously possest With a strong sober thirst my soule attends 'T is time that heart and voice be lifted high Salvation to all that will is nigh ANNVNCIATION 2 Salvation to all that will is nigh That All which alwayes is All every where Which cannot sinne and yet all sinnes must beare Which cannot die yet cannot chuse but die Loe faithfull Virgin yeelds himselfe to lye In prison in thy wombe and though he there Can take no sinne nor thou give yet he'will weare Taken from thence flesh which deaths force may trie Ere by the spheares time was created thou Wast in his minde who is thy Sonne and Brother Whom thou conceiv'st conceiv'd yea thou art now Thy Makers maker and thy Fathers mother Thou'hast light in darke and shutst in little roome Immensity cloysterd in thy deare wombe NATIVITIE 3 Immensitie cloysterd in thy deare wombe Now leaves his welbelov'd imprisonment There he hath made himselfe to his intent Weake enough now into our world to come But Oh for thee for him hath th'Inne no roome Yet lay him in this stall and from the Orient Starres and wisemen will travell to prevent Th' effects of Herods jealous generall doome Seest thou my Soule with thy faiths eyes how he Which fils all place yet none holds him doth lye Was not his pity towards thee wondrous high That would have need to be pittied by thee Kisse him and with him into Egypt goe With his kinde mother who partakes thy woe TEMPLE 4 With his kinde mother who partakes thy woe Ioseph turne backe see where your child doth sit Blowing yea blowing out those sparks of wit Which himselfe on the Doctors did bestow The Word but lately could not speake and loe It sodenly speakes wonders whence comes it That all which was and all which should be writ A shallow seeming child should deeply know His Godhead was not soule to his manhood Nor had time mellowed him to this ripenesse But as for one which hath a long taske 'T is good With the Sunne to beginne his businesse He in his ages morning thus began By miracles exceeding power of man CRVCIFYING 5 By miracles exceeding power of man Hee faith in some envie in some begat For what weake spirits admire ambitious hate In both affections many to him ran But Oh! the worst are most they will and can Alas and do unto the immaculate Whose creature Fate is now prescribe a Fate Measuring selfe-lifes infinity to span Nay to an inch loe where condemned hee Beares his owne crosse with paine yet by and by When it beares him he must beare more and die Now thou art lifted up draw mee to thee And at thy death giving such liberall dole Moyst with one drop of thy blood my dry soule RESVRRECTION 6 Moyst with one drop of thy blood my dry soule Shall though she now be in extreme degree Too stony hard and yet too fleshly bee Freed by that drop from being starv'd hard or foule And life by this death abled shall controule Death whom thy death slue nor shall to mee Feare of first or last death bring miserie If in thy little booke my name thou enroule Flesh in that long sleep is not putrified But made that there of which and for which 't was Nor can by other meanes be glorified May then sinnes sleep and death soone from me passe That wak't from both I againe risen may Salute the last and everlasting day ASCENTION 7 Salute the last and everlasting day Joy at the uprising of this Sunne and Sonne Yee whose just teares or tribulation Have purely washt or burnt your drossie clay Behold the Highest parting hence away Lightens the darke clouds which hee treads upon Nor doth hee by ascending show alone But first hee and hee first enters the way O strong Ramme which hast batter'd heaven for mee Mild lambe which with thy blood hast mark'd the path Bright torch which shin'st that I the way may see Oh with thy owne blood quench thy owne just wrath And if thy holy Spirit my Muse did raise Deigne at my hands this crowne of prayer and praise Holy Sonnets I. AS due by many titles I resigne My selfe to thee O God first I was made By thee and for thee and when I was decay'd Thy blood bought that the which before was thine I am thy sonne made with thy selfe to shine Thy servant whose paines thou hast still repaid Thy sheepe thine Image and till I betray'd My selfe a temple of thy Spirit divine Why doth the devill then usurpe on mee Why doth he steale nay ravish that 's thy right Except thou rise and for thine owne worke fight Oh I shall soone despaire when I doe see That thou lov'st mankind well yet wilt'not chuse me And Satan hates mee yet is loth to lose mee II. Oh my blacke Soule now thou art summoned By sicknesse deaths herald and champion Thou art like a pilgrim which abroad hath done Treason and durst not turne to whence hee is fled Or like a thiefe which till deaths doome be read Wisheth himselfe delivered from prison But damn'd and hal'd to execution Wisheth that still he might be imprisoned Yet grace if thou repent thou canst not lacke But who shall give thee that grace to beginne Oh make thy selfe with holy mourning blacke And red with blushing as thou art with sinne Or wash thee in Christs blood which hath this might That being red it dyes red soules to white III. This is my playes last scene here heavens appoint My pilgrimages last mile and my race Idly yet quickly runne hath this last pace My spans last inch my minutes latest point And gluttonous death will instantly unjoynt My body and my soule and I shall sleepe a space But my'ever-waking part shall see that face Whose feare already shakes my every joynt Then as my soule to'heaven her first seate takes flight And earth borne body in the earth shall dwell So fall my sinnes that all may have their right To where they' are bred and would presse me to hell Impute me righteous thus purg'd of evill For thus I leave the world the flesh the devill IV. At the round earths imagin'd corners blow Your trumpets Angells and arise arise From death you numberlesse infinities Of soules and to your scattred bodies goe All whom the flood did and fire shall o'erthrow All whom warre death age agues tyrannies Despaire law chance hath slaine and you whose eyes Shall behold God and
and all which from or towards flies Is paid with life or pray or doing dyes Fate grudges us all and doth subtly lay A scourge ' gainst which wee all forget to pray He that at sea prayes for more winde as well Under the poles may begge cold heat in hell What are wee then How little more alas Is man now then before he was he was Nothing for us wee are for nothing fit Chance or our selves still disproportion it Wee have no power no will no sense I lye I should not then thus feele this miserie To Sr Henry Wotton SIr more then kisses letters mingle Soules For thus friends absent speake This ease controules The tediousnesse of my life But for these I could ideate nothing which could please But I should wither in one day and passe To'a botle'of Hay that am a locke of Grasse Life is a voyage and in our lifes wayes Countries Courts Towns are Rockes or Remoraes They breake or stop all ships yet our state 's such That though then pitch they staine worse wee must touch If in the furnace of the raging line Or under th' adverse icy pole thou pine Thou know'st two temperate Regions girded in Dwell there But Oh what refuge canst thou winne Parch'd in the Court and in the country frozen Shall cities built of both extremes be chosen Can dung and garlike be'a perfume or can A Scorpion or Torpedo cure a man Cities are worst of all three of all three O knottie riddle each is worst equally Cities are Sepulchers they who dwell there Are carcases as if no such they were And Courts are Theaters where some men play Princes some slaves all to one end and of one clay The Country is a desert where no good Gain'd as habits not borne is understood There men become beasts and prone to more evils In cities blockes and in a lewd court devills As in the first Chaos confusedly Each elements qualities were in the'other three So pride lust covetize being severall To these three places yet all are in all And mingled thus their issue incestuous Falshood is denizon'd Virtue is barbarous Let no man say there Virtues flintie wall Shall locke vice in mee I 'll do none but know all Men are spunges which to poure out receive Who know false play rather then lose deceive For in best understandings sinne beganne Angels sinn'd first then Devills and then man Onely perchance beasts sinne not wretched wee Are beasts in all but white integritie I thinke if men which in these places live Durst looke in themselves and themselves retrive They would like strangers greet themselves seeing then Utopian youth growne old Italian Be thou thine owne home and in thy selfe dwell Inne any where continuance maketh hell And seeing the snaile which every where doth rome Carrying his owne house still still is at home Follow for he is easie pac'd this snaile Bee thine owne Palace or the world 's thy goale And in the worlds sea do not like corke sleepe Upon the waters face nor in the deepe Sinke like a lead without a line but as Fishes glide leaving no print where they passe Nor making sound so closely thy course goe Let men dispute whether thou breath or no Onely'in this one thing be no Galenist To make Courts hot ambitions wholesome do not take A dramme of Countries dulnesse do not adde Correctives but as chymiques purge the bad But Sir I advise not you I rather doe Say o'er those lessons which I learn'd of you Whom free from German schismes and lightnesse Of France and faire Italies faithlesnesse Having from these suck'd all they had of worth And brought home that faith which you carried forth I throughly love But if my selfe I'have wonne To know my rules I have and you have DONNE The Crosse SInce Christ embrac'd the Crosse it selfe dare I His image th' image of his Crosse deny Would I have profit by the sacrifice And dare the chosen Altar to despise It bore all other sinnes but is it fit That it should beare the sinne of scorning it Who from the picture would avert his eye How would he flye his paines who there did dye From mee no Pulpit nor misgrounded law Nor scandall taken shall this Crosse withdraw It shall not for it cannot for the losse Of this Crosse were to mee another Crosse Better were worse for no affliction No Crosse is so extreme as to have none Who can blot out the Crosse which th' instrument Of God dew'd on mee in the Sacrament Who can deny mee power and liberty To stretch mine armes and mine owne Crosse to be Swimme and at every stroake thou art thy Crosse The Mast and yard make one where seas do tosse Looke downe thou spiest out Crosses in small things Looke up thou seest birds rais'd on crossed wings All the Globes frame and spheares is nothing else But the Meridians crossing Parallels Materiall Crosses then good physicke bee But yet spirituall have chiefe dignity These for extracted chimique medicine serve And cure much better and as well preserve Then are you your own physicke or need none When Still'd or purg'd by tribulation For when that Crosse ungrudg'd unto you stickes Then are you to your selfe a Crucifixe As perchance Carvers do not faces make But that away which hid them there do take Let Crosses soe take what hid Christ in thee And be his image or not his but hee But as oft Alchimists doe coyners prove So may a selfe-dispising get selfe-love And then as worst surfets of best meates bee Soe is pride issued from humility For 't is no child but monster therefore Crosse Your joy in crosses else 't is double losse And crosse thy senses else both they and thou Must perish soone and to destruction bowe For if the'eye seeke good objects and will take No crosse from bad wee cannot scape a snake So with harsh hard sowre stinking crosse the rest Make them indifferent call nothing best But most the eye needs crossing that can rome And move To th' other th' objects must come home And crosse thy heart for that in man alone Pants downewards and hath palpitation Crosse those dejections when it downeward tends And when it to forbidden heights pretends And as the braine through bony walls doth vent By sutures which a Crosses forme present So when thy braine workes ere thou utter it Crosse and correct concupiscence of witt Be covetous of Crosses let none fall Crosse no man else but crosse thy selfe in all Then doth the Crosse of Christ worke faithfully Within our hearts when wee love harmlesly The Crosses pictures much and with more care That Crosses children which our Crosses are Elegie on the Lady Marckham MAn is the World and death th' Ocean To which God gives the lower parts of man This Sea invirons all and though as yet God hath set markes and bounds twixt us and it Yet doth it rore and gnaw and still pretend And breaks our banke when ere it takes a friend Then
come Full of the common joy I utter'd some Reade then this nuptiall song which was not made Either the Court or mens hearts to invade But since I 'am dead and buried I could frame No Epitaph which might advance my fame So much as this poore song which testifies I did unto that day some sacrifice I. The time of the Mariage THou art repriv'd old yeare thou shalt not die Though thou upon thy death bed lye And should'st within five dayes expire Yet thou art rescu'd by a mightier fire Then thy old Soule the Sunne When he doth in his largest circle runne The passage of the West or East would thaw And open wide their easie liquid jawe To all our ships could a Promethean art Either unto the Northerne Pole impart The fire of these inflaming eyes or of this loving heart II. Equality of persons But undiscerning Muse which heart which eyes In this new couple dost thou prize When his eye as inflaming is As hers and her heart loves as well as his Be tryed by beauty and than The bridegroome is a maid and not a man If by that manly courage they be tryed Which scornes unjust opinion then the bride Becomes a man Should chance or envies Art Divide these two whom nature scarce did part Since both have th'enflaming eye and both the loving heart III. Raysing of the Bridegroome Though it be some divorce to thinke of you Single so much one are you two Let me here contemplate thee First cheerfull Bridegroome and first let mee see How thou prevent'st the Sunne And his red foming horses dost outrunne How having laid downe in thy Soveraignes brest All businesses from thence to reinvest Them when these triumphs cease thou forward art To shew to her who doth the like impart The fire of thy inflaming eyes and of thy loving heart IIII. Raising of the Bride But now to Thee faire Bride it is some wrong To thinke thou wert in Bed so long Since Soone thou lyest downe first t is fit Thou in first rising should'st allow for it Pouder thy Radiant haire Which if without such ashes thou would'st weare Thou which to all which come to looke upon Are meant for Phoebus would'st be Phaëton For our ease give thine eyes th'unusuall part Of joy a Teare so quencht thou maist impart To us that come thy inflaming eyes to him thy loving heart V. Her Apparrelling Thus thou descend'st to our infirmitie Who can the Sun in water see Soe dost thou when in silke and gold Thou cloudst thy selfe since wee which doe behold Are dust and wormes 't is just Our objects be the fruits of wormes and dust Let every Jewell be a glorious starre Yet starres are not so pure as their spheares are And though thou stoope t o'appeare to us in part Still in that Picture thou intirely art Which thy inflaming eyes have made within his loving heart VI. Going to the Chappell Now from your Easts you issue forth and wee As men which through a Cipres see The rising sun doe thinke it two Soe as you goe to Church doe thinke of you But that vaile being gone By the Church rites you are from thenceforth one The Church Triumphant made this match before And now the Militant doth strive no more Then reverend Priest who Gods Recorder art Doe from his Dictates to these two impart All blessings which are seene Or thought by Angels eye or heart VII The Benediction Blest payre of Swans Oh may you interbring Daily new joyes and never sing Live till all grounds of wishes faile Till honor yea till wisedome grow so stale That new great heights to trie It must serve your ambition to die Raise heires and may here to the worlds end live Heires from this King to take thankes you to give Nature and grace doe all and nothing Art May never age or error overthwart With any West these radiant eyes with any North this heart VIII Feasts and Revells But you are over-blest Plenty this day Injures it causeth time to stay The tables groane as though this feast Would as the flood destroy all fowle and beast And were the doctrine new That the earth mov'd this day would make it true For every part to dance and revell goes They tread the ayre and fal not where they rose Though six houres since the Sunne to bed did part The masks and banquets will not yet impart A sunset to these weary eyes A Center to this heart IX The Brides going to bed What mean'st thou Bride this companie to keep To sit up till thou faine wouldst sleep Thou maist not when thou art laid doe so Thy selfe must to him a new banquet grow And you must entertaine And doe all this daies dances o'r againe Know that if Sun and Moone together doe Rise in one point they doe not set so to Therefore thou maist faire Bride to bed depart Thou art not gone being gone where e'r thou art Thou leav'st in him thy watchfull eyes in him thy loving heart X. The Bridegroomes comming As he that sees a starre fall runs apace And findes a gellie in the place So doth the Bridegroome hast as much Being told this starre is falne and findes her such And as friends may looke strange By a new fashion or apparrells change Their soules though long acquainted they had beene These clothes their bodies never yet had seene Therefore at first shee modestly might start But must forthwith surrender every part As freely as each to each before gave either eye or heart XI The good night Now as in Tullias tombe one lampe burnt cleare Unchang'd for fifteene hundred yeare May these love-lamps we here enshrine In warmth light lasting equall the divine Fire ever doth aspire And makes all like it selfe turnes all to fire But ends in ashes which these cannot doe For none of these is fuell but fire too This is joyes bonfire then where loves strong Arts Make of so noble individuall parts One fire of foure inflaming eyes and of two loving hearts Idios As I have brought this song that I may doe A perfect sacrifice I 'll burne it too Allophanes No Sr. This paper I have justly got For in burnt incense the perfume is not His only that presents it but of all What ever celebrates this Festivall Is common since the joy thereof is so Nor may your selfe be Priest But let me goe Backe to the Court and I will lay'it upon Such Altars as prize your devotion Epithalamion made at Lincolnes Inne THe Sun-beames in the East are spred Leave leave faire Bride your solitary bed No more shall you returne to it alone It nourseth sadnesse and your bodies print Like to a grave the yielding downe doth dint You and your other you meet there anon Put forth put forth that warme balme-breathing thigh Which whē next time you in these sheets wil smother There it must meet another Which never was but must be oft more nigh Come glad from thence goe gladder then you came To day put
nature put thee in And to deliver up to God that state Of which he gave thee the vicariate Which is thy soule and body as intire As he who takes endeavours doth require But didst not stay t' enlarge his kingdome too By making others what thou didst to doe Why shouldst thou Triumph now when Heav'n no more Hath got by getting thee then t 'had before For Heav'n and thou even when thou livedst here Of one another in possession were But this from Triumph most disables thee That that place which is conquered must bee Left safe from present warre and likely doubt Of imminent commotions to breake out And hath he left us so or can it bee His territory was no more then Hee No we were all his charge the Diocis Of ev'ry exemplar man the whole world is And he was joyned in commission With Tutelar Angels sent to every one But though this freedome to upbraid and chide Him who Triumph'd were lawfull it was ty'd With this that it might never reference have Unto the Senate who this triumph gave Men might at Pompey jeast but they might not At that authoritie by which he got Leave to Triumph before by age he might So though triumphant soule I dare to write Mov'd with a reverentiall anger thus That thou so earely wouldst abandon us Yet I am farre from daring to dispute With that great soveraigntie whose absolute Prerogative hath thus dispens'd with thee ' Gainst natures lawes which just impugners bee Of early triumphs And I though with paine Lessen our losse to magnifie thy gaine Of triumph when I say It was more fit That all men should lacke thee then thou lack it Though then in our time be not suffered That testimonie of love unto the dead To die with them and in their graves be hid As Saxon wives and French soldarii did And though in no degree I can expresse Griefe in great Alexanders great excesse Who at his friends death made whole townes devest Their walls and bullwarks which became them best Doe not faire soule this sacrifice refuse That in thy grave I doe interre my Muse Who by my griefe great as thy worth being cast Behind hand yet hath spoke and spoke her last Elegie AS the sweet sweat of Roses in a Still As that which frō chaf'd muskats pores doth trill As the Almighty Balme of th' early East Such are the sweat drops of my Mistris breast And on her necke her skin such lustre sets They seeme no sweat drops but pearle coronets Ranke sweaty froth thy Mistresse's brow defiles Like spermatique issue of ripe menstruous boiles Or like the skumme which by needs lawlesse law Enforc'd Sanserra's starved men did draw From parboild shooes and bootes and all the rest Which were with any soveraigne fatnes blest And like vile stones lying in saffrond tinne Or warts or wheales it hangs upon her skinne Round as the world 's her head on every side Like to the fatall Ball which fell on Ide Or that whereof God had such jealousie As for the ravishing thereof we die Thy head is like a rough-hewne statue of jeat Where marks for eyes nose mouth are yet scarce set Like the first Chaos or flat seeming face Of Cynthia when th' earths shadowes her embrace Like Proserpines white beauty-keeping chest Or Joues best fortunes urne is her faire brest Thine's like worme eaten trunkes cloth'd in seals skin Or grave that 's dust without and stinke within And like that slender stalke at whose end stands The wood-bine quivering are her armes and hands Like rough bark'd elmboughes or the russet skin Of men late scurg'd for madnes or for sinne Like Sun-parch'd quarters on the citie gate Such is thy tann'd skins lamentable state And like a bunch of ragged carrets stand The short swolne fingers of her gouty hand Then like the Chymicks masculine equall fire Which in the Lymbecks warme wombe doth inspire Into th' earths worthlesse part a soule of gold Such cherishing heat her best lov'd part doth hold Thine's like the dread mouth of a fired gunne Or like hot liquid metalls newly runne Into clay moulds or like to that Aetna Where round about the grasse is burnt away Are not your kisses then as filthy and more As a worme sucking an invenom'd sore Doth not thy fearefull hand in feeling quake As one which gath'ring flowers still feares a snake Is not your last act harsh and violent As where a Plough a stony ground doth rent So kisse good Turtles so devoutly nice Are Priests in handling reverent sacrifice And nice in searching wounds the Surgeon is As wee when wee embrace or touch or kisse Leave her and I will leave comparing thus She and comparisons are odious Elegie The Autumnall NO Spring nor Summer Beauty hath such grace As I have seen in one Autumnall face Yong Beauties force our love and that 's a Rape This doth but counsaile yet you cannot scape If t' were a shame to love here t' were no shame Affections here take Reverences name Were her first yeares the Golden Age That 's true But now they' are gold oft tried and ever new That was her torrid and inflaming time This is her tolerable Tropique clyme Faire eyes who askes more heate then comes from hence He in a fever wishes pestilence Call not these wrinkles graves If graves they were They were Loves graves for else he is no where Yet lies not love dead here but here doth sit Vow'd to this trench like an Anachorit And here till hers which must be his death come He doth not digge a Grave but build a Tombe Iere dwells he though he sojourne ev'ry where In Progresse yet his standing house is here Iere where still Evening is not noone nor night Where no voluptuousnesse yet all delight In all her words unto all hearers fit You may at Revels you at counsaile sit This is loves timber youth his under-wood There he as wine in Iune enrages blood Which then comes seasonabliest when our tast And appetite to other things is past Xerxes strange Lydian love the Platane tree Was lov'd for age none being so large as shee Or else because being yong nature did blesse Her youth with ages glory Barrennesse If we love things long sought Age is a thing Which we are fifty yeares in compassing If transitory things which soone decay Age must be lovelyest at the latest day But name not Winter-faces whose skin 's slacke Lanke as an unthrifts purse but a soules sacke Whose Eyes seeke light within for all here 's shade Whose mouthes are holes rather worne out then made Whos 's every tooth to a severall place is gone To vexe their soules at Resurrection Name not these living Deaths-heads unto mee For these not Ancient but Antique be I hate extreames yet I had rather stay With Tombs then Cradles to weare out a day Since such loves motion natural is may still My love descend and journey downe the hill Not panting after growing beauties so I shall ebbe out
lips eyes thighs differ from thy two But so as thine from one another doe And oh no more the likenesse being such Why should they not alike in all parts touch Hand to strange hand lippe to lippe none denies Why should they brest to brest or thighs to thighs Likenesse begets such strange selfe flatterie That touching my selfe all seemes done to thee My selfe I embrace and mine owne hands I kisse And amorously thanke my selfe for this Me in my glasse I call thee But alas When I would kisse teares dimme mine eyes and glasse O cure this loving madnesse and restore Me to mee shee my halfe my all my more So may thy cheekes red outweare scarlet dye And their white whitenesse of the Galaxy So may thy mighty amazing beauty move Envy ' in all women and in all men love And so be change and sicknesse farre from thee As thou by comming neere keep'st them from me The Annuntiation and Passion TAmely fraile body'abstaine to day to day My soule eates twice Christ hither and away She sees him man so like God made in this That of them both a circle embleme is Whose first and last concurre this doubtfull day Of feast or fast Christ came and went away Shee sees him nothing twice at once who'is all Shee sees a Cedar plant it selfe and fall Her Maker put to making and the head Of life at once not yet alive yet dead She sees at once the virgin mother stay Reclus'd at home Publique at Golgotha Sad and rejoyc'd shee 's seen at once and seen At almost fiftie and at scarce fifteene At once a Sonne is promis'd her and gone Gabriell gives Christ to her He her to John Not fully a mother Shee 's in Orbitie At once receiver and the legacie All this and all betweene this day hath showne Th' Abridgement of Christs story which makes one As in plaine Maps the furthest West is East Of the'Angels Ave ' and Consummatum est How well the Church Gods Court of faculties Deales in some times and seldome joyning these As by the selfe-fix'd Pole wee never doe Direct our course but the next starre thereto Which showes where the'other is and which we say Because it strayes not farre doth never stray So God by his Church neerest to him wee know And stand firme if wee by her motion goe His Spirit as his fiery Pillar doth Leade and his Church as cloud to one end both This Church by letting those daies joyne hath shown Death and conception in mankinde is one Or 't was in him the same humility That he would be a man and leave to be Or as creation he hath made as God With the last judgement but one period His imitating Spouse would joyne in one Manhoods extremes He shall come he is gone Or as though one blood drop which thence did fall Accepted would have serv'd he yet shed all So though the least of his paines deeds or words Would busie a life she all this day affords This treasure then in grosse my Soule uplay And in my life retaile it every day Goodfriday 1613. Riding Westward LEt mans Soule be a Spheare and then in this The intelligence that moves devotion is And as the other Spheares by being growne Subject to forraigne motion lose their owne And being by others hurried every day Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey Pleasure or businesse so our Soules admit For their first mover and are whirld by it Hence is 't that I am carryed towards the West This day whē my Soules forme bends toward the East There I should see a Sunne by rising set And by that setting endlesse day beget But that Christ on this Crosse did rise and fall Sinne had eternally benighted all Yet dare I'almost be glad I do not see That spectacle of too much weight for mee Who sees Gods face that is selfe life must dye What a death were it then to see God dye It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke It made his footstoole crack and the Sunne winke Could I behold those hands which span the Poles And tune all spheares at once peirc'd with those holes Could I behold that endlesse height which is Zenith to us and our Antipodes Humbled below us or that blood which is The seat of all our Soules if not of his Made durt of dust or that flesh which was worne By God for his apparell rag'd and torne If on these things I durst not looke durst I Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye Who was Gods partner here and furnish'd thus Halfe of that Sacrifice which ransom'd us Though these things as I ride be from mine eye They' are present yet unto my memory For that looks towards them thou look'st towards mee O Saviour as thou hang'st upon the tree I turne my backe to thee but to receive Corrections till thy mercies bid thee leave O thinke mee worth thine anger punish mee Burne off my rusts and my deformity Restore thine Image so much by thy grace That thou may'st know mee and I 'll turne my face THE LITANIE I. The FATHER FAther of Heaven and him by whom It and us for it and all else for us Thou madest and govern'st ever come And re-create mee now growne ruinous My heart is by dejection clay And by selfe-murder red From this red earth O Father purge away All vicious tinctures that new fashioned I may rise up from death before I 'am dead II. The SONNE O Sonne of God who seeing two things Sinne and death crept in which were never made By bearing one tryed'st with what stings The other could thine heritage invade O be thou nail'd unto my heart And crucified againe Part not from it though it from thee would part But let it be by applying so thy paine Drown'd in thy blood and in thy passion slaine III. The HOLY GHOST O Holy Ghost whose temple I Am but of mudde walls and condensed dust And being sacrilegiously Halfe wasted with youths fires of pride and lust Must with new stormes be weatherbeat Double in my heart thy flame Which let devout sad teares intend and let Though this glasse lanthorne flesh do suffer maime Fire Sacrifice Priest Altar be the same IV. The TRINITY O Blessed glorious Trinity Bones to Philosophy but milke to faith Which as wise serpents diversly Most slipperinesse yet most entanglings hath As you distinguish'd undistinct By power love knowledge bee Give mee a such selfe different instinct Of these let all mee elemented bee Of power to love to know you unnumbred three V. The Virgin MARY For that faire blessed Mother-maid Whose flesh redeem'd us That she-Cherubin Which unlock'd Paradise and made One claime for innocence and disseiz'd sinne Whose wombe was a strange heav'n for there God cloath'd himselfe and grew Our zealous thankes wee poure As her deeds were Our helpes so are her prayers nor can she sue In vaine who hath such titles unto you VI. The Angels And since this life our nonage is And wee in
From hearing bold wits jeast at Kings excesse To'admit the like of majestie divine That we may locke our eares Lord open thine XXVI That living law the Magistrate Which to give us and make us physicke doth Our vices often aggravate That Preachers taxing sinne before her growth That Satan and invenom'd men Which well if we starve dine When they doe most accuse us may see then Us to amendment heare them thee decline That we may open our eares Lord lock thine XXVII That learning thine Ambassador From thine allegeance wee never tempt That beauty paradises flower For physicke made from poyson be exempt That wit borne apt high good to doe By dwelling lazily On Natures nothing be not nothing too That our affections kill us not nor dye Heare us weake ecchoes O thou eare and cry XXVIII Sonne of God heare us and since thou By taking our blood owest it us againe Gaine to thy selfe or us allow And let not both us and thy selfe be slaine O lambe of God which took'st our sinne Which could not stick to thee O let it not returne to us againe But Patient and Physition being free As sinne is nothing let it no where be SEnd home my long strayd eyes to mee Which Oh too long have dwelt on thee Yet since there they have learn'd such ill Such forc'd fashions And false passions That they be Made by thee Fit for no good sight keep them still Send home my harmlesse heart againe Which no unworthy thought could staine Which if it be taught by thine To make jestings Of protestings And breake both Word and oath Keepe it for then 't is none of mine Yet send me back my heart and eyes That I may know and see thy lyes And may laugh and joy when thou Art in anguish And dost languish For some one That will none Or prove as false as thou art now A nocturnall upon S. Lucies day Being the shortest day T Is the yeares midnight and it is the dayes Lucies who scarce seaven houres herself unmaskes The Sunne is spent and now his flasks Send forth light squibs no constant rayes The worlds whole sap is sunke The generall balme th'hydroptique earth hath drunk Whither as to the beds-feet life is shrunke Dead and enterr'd yet all these seeme to laugh Compar'd with mee who am their Epitaph Study me then you who shall lovers bee At the next world that is at the next Spring For I am every dead thing In whom love wrought new Alchimie For his art did expresse A quintessence even from nothingnesse From dull privations and leane emptinesse He ruin'd mee and I am re-begot Of absence darknesse death things which are not All others from all things draw all that 's good Life soule forme spirit whence they beeing have I by loves limbecke am the grave Of all that 's nothing Oft a flood Have wee two wept and so Drownd the whole world us two oft did we grow To be two Chaosses when we did show Care to ought else and often absences Withdrew our soules and made us carcasses But I am by her death which word wrongs her Of the first nothing the Elixer grown Were I a man that I were one I needs must know I should preferre If I were any beast Some ends some means Yea plants yea stones detest And love all all some properties invest If I an ordinary nothing were As shadow a light and body must be here But I am None nor will my Sunne renew You lovers for whose sake the lesser Sunne At this time to the Goat is runne To fetch new lust and give it you Enjoy your summer all Since shee enjoyes her long nights festivall Let mee prepare towards her and let mee call This houre her Vigill and her eve since this Both the yeares and the dayes deep midnight is Witchcraft by a picture I Fixe mine eye on thine and there Pitty my picture burning in thine eye My picture drown'd in a transparent teare When I looke lower I espie Hadst thou the wicked skill By pictures made and mard to kill How many wayes mightst thou performe thy will But now I have drunke thy sweet salt teares And though thou poure more I 'll depart My picture vanish'd vanish feares That I can be endamag'd by that art Though thou retaine of mee One picture more yet that will bee Being in thine owne heart from all malice free COme live with mee and bee my love And wee will some new pleasures prove Of golden sands and christall brookes With silken lines and silver hookes There will the river whispering runne Warm'd by thy eyes more then the Sunne And there the'inamor'd fish will stay Begging themselves they may betray When thou wilt swimme in that live bath Each fish which every channell hath Will amorously to thee swimme Gladder to catch thee then thou him If thou to be so seene beest loath By Sunne or Moone thou darknest both And if my selfe have leave to see I need not their light having thee Let others freeze with angling reeds And cut their legges which shells and weeds Or treacherously poore fish beset With strangling snare or windowie net Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest The bedded fish in banks out-wrest Or curious traitors sleavesicke flies Bewitch poore fishes wandring eyes For thee thou needst no such deceit For thou thy selfe art thine owne bait That fish that is not catch'd thereby Alas is wiser farre then I. The Apparition WHen by thy scorne O murdresse I am dead And that thou thinkst thee free From all solicitation from mee Then shall my ghost come to thy bed And thee fain'd vestall in worse armes shall see Then thy sicke taper will begin to winke And he whose thou art then being tyr'd before Will if thou stirre or pinch to wake him thinke Thou call'st for more And in false sleepe will from thee shrinke And then poore Aspen wretch neglected thou Bath'd in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lye A veryer ghost then I What I will say I will not tell thee now Lest that preserve thee ' and since my love is spent I 'had rather thou shouldst painfully repent Then by my threatnings rest still innocent Dull sublunary lovers love Whose soule is sense cannot admit Absence because it doth remove Those things which elemented it But we by a love so much refin'd That our selves know not what it is Inter-assured of the mind Care lesse eyes lips hands to misse Our two soules therefore which are one Though I must goe endure not yet A breach but an expansion Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate If they be two they are two so As stiffe twin compasses are two Thy soule the fixt foot makes no show To move but doth if the'other doe And though it in the center sit Yet when the other far doth rome It leanes and hearkens after it And growes erect as that comes home Such wilt thou be to mee who must Like th' other foot obliquely runne Thy firmnes makes my circle just
mee The Canonization FOr Godsake hold your tongue and let me love Or chide my palsie or my gout My five gray haires or ruin'd fortune flout With wealth your state your minde with Arts improve Take you a course get you a place Observe his honour or his grace Or the Kings reall or his stamped face Contemplate what you will approve So you will let me love Alas alas who 's injur'd by my love What merchants ships have my sighs drown'd Who saies my teares have overflow'd his ground When did my colds a forward spring remove When did the heats which my veines fill Adde one more to the plaguie Bill Soldiers finde warres and Lawyers finde out still Litigious men which quarrels move Though she and I do love Call us what you will wee are made such by love Call her one mee another flye We' are Tapers too and at our owne cost die And wee in us finde the'Eagle and the dove The Phoenix ridle hath more wit By us we two being one are it So to one neutrall thing both sexes fit Wee dye and rise the same and prove Mysterious by this love Wee can dye by it if not live by love And if unfit for tombes and hearse Our legends bee it will be fit for verse And if no peece of Chronicle wee prove We 'll build in sonnets pretty roomes As well a well wrought urne becomes The greatest ashes as halfe-acre tombes And by these hymnes all shall approve Us Canoniz'd for Love And thus invoke us You whom reverend love Made one anothers hermitage You to whom love was peace that now is rage Who did the whole worlds soule contract drove Into the glasses of your eyes So made such mirrors and such spies That they did all to you epitomize Countries Townes Courts Beg frow above A patterne of our love The triple Foole. I am two fooles I know For loving and for saying so In whining Poëtry But where 's that wise man that would not be I If she would not deny Then as th' earths inward narrow crooked lanes Do purge sea waters fretfull salt away I thought if I could draw my paines Through Rimes vexation I should them allay Griefe brought to numbers cannot be so fierce For he tames it that fetters it in verse But when I have done so Some man his art and voice to show Doth Set and sing my paine And by delighting many frees againe Griefe which verse did restraine To Love and Griefe tribute of Verse belongs But not of such as pleases when'tis read Both are increased by such songs For both their triumphs so are published And I which was two fooles do so grow three Who are a little wise the best fooles bee Lovers infinitenesse IF yet I have not all thy love Deare I shall never have it all I cannot breath one other sigh to move Nor can intreat one other teare to fall And all my treasure which should purchase thee Sighs teares and oathes and letters I have spent Yet no more can be due to mee Then at the bargaine made was ment If then thy gift of love were partiall That some to mee some should to others fall Deare I shall never have Thee All. Or if then thou gavest mee all All was but All which thou hadst then But if in thy heart since there be or shall New love created bee by other men Which have their stocks intire and can in teares In sighs in oathes and letters outbid mee This new love may beget new feares For this love was not vowed by thee And yet is was thy gift being generall The ground thy heart is mine what ever shall Grow there deare I should have it all Yet I would not have all yet Hee that hath all can have no more And since my love doth every day admit New growth thou shouldst have new rewards in store Thou canst not every day give me thy heart If thou canst give it then thou never gavest it Loves riddles are that though thy heart depart It stayes at home and thou with losing savest it But wee will have a way more liberall Then changing hearts to joyne them so wee shall Be one and one anothers All. Song SWeetest love I do not goe For wearinesse of thee Nor in hope the world can show A fitter Love for mee But since that I Must dye at last 't is best To use my selfe in jest Thus by fain'd deaths to dye Yesternight the Sunne went hence And yet is here to day He hath no desire nor sense Nor halfe so short a way Then feare not mee But beleeve that I shall make Speedier journeyes since I take More wings and spurres then hee O how feeble is mans power That if good fortune fall Cannot adde another houre Nor a lost houre recall But come bad chance And wee joyne to'it our strength And wee teach it art and length It selfe o'r us to'advance When thou sigh'st thou sigh'st not winde But sigh'st my soule away When thou weep'st unkindly kinde My lifes blood doth decay It cannot bee That thou lov'st mee as thou say'st If in thine my life thou waste Thou art the best of mee Let not thy divining heart Forethinke me any ill Destiny may take thy part And may thy feares fulfill But thinke that wee Are but turn'd aside to sleepe They who one another keepe Alive ne'r parted bee The Legacie VVHen I dyed last and Deare I dye As often as from thee I goe Though it be but an houre agoe And Lovers houres be full eternity I can remember yet that I Something did say and something did bestow Though I be dead which sent mee I should be Mine owne executor and Legacie I heard mee say Tell her anon That my selfe that 's you not I Did kill me and when I felt mee dye I bid mee send my heart when I was gone But I alas could there finde none When I had ripp'd me ' and search'd where hearts did lye It kill'd mee againe that I who still was true In life in my last Will should cozen you Yet I found something like a heart But colours it and corners had It was not good it was not bad It was intire to none and few had part As good as could be made by art It seem'd and therefore for our losses sad I meant to send this heart in stead of mine But oh no man could hold it for t was thine A Feaver OH doe not die for I shall hate All women so when thou art gone That thee I shall not celebrate When I remember thou wast one But yet thou canst not die I know To leave this world behinde is death But when thou from this world wilt goe The whole world vapors with thy breath Or if when thou the worlds soule goest It stay t is but thy carkasse then The fairest woman but thy ghost But corrupt wormes the worthyest men O wrangling schooles that search what fire Shall burne this world had none the wit Unto this knowledge
to be possessor Of old or new love himselfe being false or weake Thought his paine and shame would be lesser If on womankind he might his anger wreake And thence a law did grow One might but one man know But are other creatures so Are Sunne Moone or Starres by law forbidden To smile where they list or lend away their light Are birds divorc'd or are they chidden If they leave their mate or lie abroad a night Beasts doe no joyntures lose Though they new lovers choose But we are made worse then those Who e'r rigg'd faire ship to lie in harbors And not to seeke new lands or not to deale withall Or built faire houses set trees and arbors Only to lock up or else to let them fall Good is not good unlesse A thousand it possesse But doth wast with greedinesse The Dreame DEare love for nothing lesse then thee Would I have broke this happy dreame It was a theame For reason much too strong for phantasie Therefore thou wakd'st me wisely yet My Dreame thou brok'st not but continued'st it Thou art so truth that thoughts of thee suffice To make dreames truths and fables histories Enter these armes for since thou thoughtst it best Not to dreame all my dreame let 's act the rest As lightning or a Tapers light Thine eyes and not thy noise wak'd mee Yet I thought thee For thou lovest truth an Angell at first sight But when I saw thou sawest my heart And knew'st my thoughts beyond an Angels art When thou knew'st what I dreamt whē thou knew'st whē Excesse of joy would wake me and cam'st then I must confesse it could not chuse but bee Prophane to thinke thee any thing but thee Comming and staying show'd thee thee But rising makes me doubt that now Thou art not thou That love is weake where feare 's as strong as hee 'T is not all spirit pure and brave If mixture it of Feare Shame Honor have Perchance as torches which must ready bee Men light and put out so thou deal'st with mee Thou cam'st to kindle goest to come Then I Will dreame that hope againe but else would die A Valediction of weeping LEt me powre forth My teares before thy face whil'st I stay here For thy face coines them and thy stampe they beare And by this Mintage they are something worth For thus they bee Pregnant of thee Fruits of much griefe they are emblemes of more When a teare falls that thou falst which it bore So thou and I are nothing then when on a divers shore On a round ball A workeman that hath copies by can lay An Europe Afrique and an Asia And quickly make that which was nothing All So doth each teare Which thee doth weare A globe yea world by that impression grow Till thy teares mixt with mine doe overflow This world by waters sent from thee my heaven dissolved so O more then Moone Draw not up seas to drowne me in thy spheare Weepe me not dead in thine armes but forbeare To teach the sea what it may doe too soone Let not the winde Example finde To doe me more harme then it purposeth Since thou and I sigh one anothers breath Who e'r sighes most is cruellest and hasts the others death Loves Alchymie SOme that have deeper digg'd loves Myne then I Say where his centrique happinesse doth lie I have lov'd and got and told But should I love get tell till I were old I should not finde that hidden mysterie Oh 't is imposture all And as no chymique yet th'Elixar got But glorifies his pregnant pot If by the way to him befall Some odoriferous thing or medicinall So lovers dreame a rich and long delight But get a winter-seeming summers night Our ease our thrift our honor and our day Shall we for this vaine Bubles shadow pay Ends love in this that my man Can be as happy'as I can If he can Endure the short scorne of a Bridegroomes play That loving wretch that sweares 'T is not the bodies marry but the mindes Which he in her Angelique findes Would sweare as justly that he heares In that dayes rude hoarse minstralsey the spheares Hope not for minde in women at their best Sweetnesse and wit they' are but Mummy possest The Flea MArke but this flea and marke in this How little that which thou deny'st me is It suck'd me first and now sucks thee And in this flea our two bloods mingled bee Thou know'st that this cannot be said A sinne nor shame nor losse of maidenhead Yet this enjoyes before it wooe And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two And this alas is more then wee would doe Oh stay three lives in one flea spare Where wee almost yea more then maryed are This flea is you and I and this Our mariage bed and mariage temple is Though parents grudge and you w' are met And cloysterd in these living walls of Jet Though use make you apt to kill mee Let not to that selfe murder added bee And sacrilege three sinnes in killing three Cruell and sodaine hast thou since Purpled thy naile in blood of innocence Wherein could this flea guilty bee Except in that drop which it suckt from thee Yet thou triumph'st and saist that thou Find'st not thy selfe nor mee the weaker now 'T is true then learne how false feares bee Just so much honor when thou yeeld'st to mee Will wast as this flea's death tooke life from thee The Curse WHo ever guesses thinks or dreames he knowes Who is my mistris wither by this curse His only and only his purse May some dull heart to love dispose And shee yeeld then to all that are his foes May he be scorn'd by one whom all else scorne Forsweare to others what to her he' hath sworne With feare of missing shame of getting torne Madnesse his sorrow gout his cramp may hee Make by but thinking who hath made him such And may he feele no touch Of conscience but of fame and bee Anguish'd not that 't was sinne but that 't was shee In early and long scarcenesse may he rot For land which had been his if he had not Himselfe incestuously an heire begot May he dreame Treason and beleeve that hee Meant to performe it and confesse and die And no record tell why His sonnes which none of his may bee Inherite nothing but his infamie Or may he so long Parasites have fed That he would faine be theirs whom he hath bred And at the last be circumcis'd for bread The venom of all stepdames gamsters gall What Tyrans and their subjects interwish What Plants Myne Beasts Foule Fish Can contribute all ill which all Prophets or Poets spake And all which shall Be annex'd in schedules unto this by mee Fall on that man For if it be a shee Nature before hand hath out-cursed mee AN ANATOMIE OF THE WORLD Wherein By occasion of the untimely death of Mistris ELIZABETH DRVRY the frailty and the decay of this whole World is represented The first Anniversary
influence all impression came But by receivers impotencies lame Who though she could not transubstantiate All states to gold yet guilded every state So that some Princes have some temperance Some Counsellers some purpose to advance The common profit and some people have Some stay no more then Kings should give to crave Some women have some taciturnity Some nunneries some graines of chastitie She that did thus much and much more could doe But that our age was Iron and rustie too Shee she is dead she 's dead when thou knowst this Thou knowst how drie a Cinder this world is And learn'st thus much by our Anatomy That 't is in vaine to dew or mollifie It with thy teares or sweat or blood nothing Is worth our travaile griefe or perishing But those rich joyes which did possesse her heart Of which she 's now partaker and a part But as in cutting up a man that 's dead The body will not last out to have read On every part and therefore men direct Their speech to parts that are of most effect So the worlds carcasse would not last if I Were punctuall in this Anatomy Nor smels it well to hearers if one tell Them their disease who faine would think thy're well Here therefore be the end and blessed maid Of whom is meant what ever hath been said Or shall be spoken well by any tongue Whose name refines course lines and makes prose song Accept this tribute and his first yeares rent Who till his darke short tapers end be spent As oft as thy feast sees this widowed earth Will yearely celebrate thy second birth That is thy death for though the soule of man Be got when man is made 't is borne but than When man doth die our body 's as the wombe And as a Mid-wife death directs it home And you her creatures whom she workes upon And have your last and best concoction From her example and her vertue if you In reverence to her do thinke it due That no one should her praises thus rehearse As matter fit for Chronicle not verse Vouchsafe to call to minde that God did make A last and lasting'st peece a song He spake To Moses to deliver unto all That song because hee knew they would let fall The Law the Prophets and the History But keepe the song still in their memory Such an opinion in due measure made Me this great office boldly to invade Nor could incomprehensiblenesse deterre Mee from thus trying to emprison her Which when I saw that a strict grave could doe I saw not why verse might not do so too Verse hath a middle nature heaven keepes Soules The Grave keepes bodies Verse the Fame enroules A Funerall ELEGIE 'T Is lost to trust a Tombe with such a guest Or to confine her in a marble chest Alas what 's Marble Jeat or Porphyrie Priz'd with the Chrysolite of either eye Or with those Pearles and Rubies which she was Joyne the two Indies in one Tombe 't is glasse And so is all to her materials Though every inch were ten Escurials Yet she 's demolish'd can wee keepe her then In works of hands or of the wits of men Can these memorials ragges of paper give Life to that name by which name they must live Sickly alas short-liv'd aborted bee Those carcasse verses whose soule is not shee And can shee who no longer would be shee Being such a Tabernacle stoop to be In paper wrapt or when shee would not lie In such a house dwell in an Elegie But'tis no matter wee may well allow Verse to live so long as the world will now For her death wounded it The world containes Princes for armes and counsellors for braines Lawyers for tongues Divines for hearts and more The rich for stomackes and for backs the poore The officers for hands merchants for feet By which remote and distant Countries meet But those fine spirits which do tune and set This Organ are those peeces which beget Wonder and love and these were shee and shee Being spent the world must needs decrepit bee For since death will proceed to triumph still He can finde nothing after her to kill Except the world it selfe so great was shee Thus brave and confident may Nature bee Death cannot give her such another blow Because shee cannot such another show But must wee say she 's dead may 't not be said That as a sundred clocke is peecemeale laid Not to be lost but by the makers hand Repollish'd without errour then to stand Or as the Affrique Niger streame enwombs It selfe into the earth and after comes Having first made a naturall bridge to passe For many leagues farre greater then it was May 't not be said that her grave shall restore Her greater purer firmer then before Heaven may say this and joy in 't but can wee Who live and lacke her here this vantage see What is 't to us alas if there have beene An Angell made a Throne or Cherubin Wee lose by 't and as aged men are glad Being tastlesse growne to joy in joyes they had So now the sick starv'd world must feed upon This joy that we had her who now is gone Rejoyce then Nature and this World that you Fearing the last fires hastning to subdue Your force and vigour ere it were neere gone Wisely bestow'd and laid it all on one One whose cleare body was so pure and thinne Because it need disguise no thought within 'T was but a through-light scarfe her minde t'inroule Or exhalation breath'd out from her Soule One whom all men who durst no more admir'd And whom who ere had worke enough desir'd As when a Temple 's built Saints emulate To which of them it shall be consecrate But as when heaven lookes on us with new eyes Those new starres every Artist exercise VVhat place they should assigne to them they doubt Argue ' and agree not till those starres goe out So the world studied whose this peece should be Till shee can be no bodies else nor shee But like a Lampe of Balsamum desir'd Rather t' adorne then last she soone expir'd Cloath'd in her virgin white integritie For marriage though it doth not staine doth die To scape th'infirmities which wait upon VVoman she went away before sh'was one And the worlds busie noyse to overcome Tooke so much death as serv'd for opium For though she could not nor could chuse to dye She'ath yeelded to too long an extasie Hee which not knowing her said History Should come to reade the booke of destiny How faire and chast humble and high she'ad been Much promis'd much perform'd at not fifteene And measuring future things by things before Should turne the leafe to reade and reade no more VVould thinke that either destiny mistooke Or that some leaves were torne out of the booke But 't is not so Fate did but usher her To yeares of reasons use and then inferre Her destiny to her selfe which liberty She tooke but for thus much thus much
do die Her modestie not suffering her to bee Fellow-Commissioner with Destinie She did no more but die if after her Any shall live which dare true good prefer Every such person is her deligate T' accomplish that which should have beene her Fate They shall make up that Booke and shall have thanks Of Fate and her for filling up their blankes For future vertuous deeds are Legacies VVhich from the gift of her example rise And 't is in heav'n part of spirituall mirth To see how well the good play her on earth OF THE PROGRESSE OF THE SOULE Wherein By occasion of the Religious death of Mistris ELIZABETH DRVRY the incommodities of the Soule in this life and her exaltation in the next are contemplated The second Anniversary The Harbinger to the PROGRESSE TWo Soules move here and mine a third must move Paces of admiration and of love Thy Soule deare virgin whose this tribute is Mov'd from this mortall Spheare to lively blisse And yet moves still and still aspires to see The worlds last day thy glories full degree Like as those starres which thou o'r-lookest farre Are in their place and yet still moved are No soule whiles with the luggage of this clay It clogged is can follow thee halfe way Or see thy flight which doth our thoughts outgoe So fast that now the lightning moves but slow But now thou art as high in heaven flowne As heaven's from us what soule besides thine owne Can tell thy joyes or say he can relate Thy glorious Journals in that blessed state I envie thee Rich soule I envy thee Although I cannot yet thy glory see And thou great spirit which hers follow'd hast So fast as none can follow thine so fast So far as none can follow thine so farre And if this flesh did not the passage barre Hadst caught her let me wonder at thy flight Which long agone hadst lost the vulgar sight And now mak'st proud the better eyes that they Can see thee less'ned in thine ayery way So while thou mak'st her soule by progresse knowne Thou mak'st a noble progresse of thine owne From this worlds carkasse having mounted high To that pure life of immortalitie Since thine aspiring thoughts themselves so raise That more may not beseeme a creatures praise Yet still thou vow'st her more and every yeare Mak'st a new progresse while thou wandrest here Still upward mount and let thy Makers praise Honor thy Laura and adorne thy laies And since thy Muse her head in heaven shrouds Oh let her never stoope below the clouds And if those glorious sainted soules may know Or what wee doe or what wee sing below Those acts those songs shall still content them best Which praise those awfull Powers that make them blest OF THE PROGRESSE OF THE SOULE The second Anniversarie NOthing could make me sooner to confesse That this world had an everlastingnesse Then to consider that a yeare is runne Since both this lower world 's and the Sunnes Sunne The Lustre and the vigor of this all Did set 't were blasphemie to say did fall But as a ship which hath strooke saile doth runne By force of that force which before it wonne Or as sometimes in a beheaded man Though at those two Red seas which freely ranne One from the Trunke another from the Head His soule he sail'd to her eternall bed His eyes will twinckle and his tongue will roll As though he beckned and cal'd backe his soule He graspes his hands and he pulls up his feet And seemes to reach and to step forth to meet His soule when all these motions which we saw Are but as Ice which crackles at a thaw Or as a Lute which in moist weather rings Her knell alone by cracking of her strings So struggles this dead world now shee is gone For there is motion in corruption As some daies are at the Creation nam'd Before the Sunne the which fram'd daies was fram'd So after this Sunne 's set some shew appeares And orderly vicissitude of yeares Yet a new deluge and of Lethe flood Hath drown'd us all All have forgot all good Forgetting her the maine reserve of all Yet in this deluge grosse and generall Thou seest me strive for life my life shall bee To be hereafter prais'd for praysing thee Immortall maid who though thou would'st refuse The name of Mother be unto my Muse A Father since her chast Ambition is Yearely to bring forth such a child as this These Hymnes may worke on future wits and so May great Grand children of thy prayses grow And so though not revive embalme and spice The world which else would putrisie with vice For thus Man may extend thy progeny Untill man doe but vanish and not die These Hymnes thy issue may encrease so long As till Gods great Venite change the song Thirst for that time O my insatiate soule And serve thy thirst with Gods safe-fealing Bowle Be thirstie still and drinke still till thou goe To th' only Health to be Hydroptique so Forget this rotten world And unto thee Let thine owne times as an old storie bee Be not concern'd studie not why nor when Doe not so much as not beleeve a man For though to erre be worst to try truths forth Is far more businesse then this world is worth The world is but a carkasse thou art fed By it but as a worme that carkasse bred And why should'st thou poore worme consider more When this world will grow better then before Then those thy fellow wormes doe thinke upon That carkasses last resurrection Forget this world and scarce thinke of it so As of old clothes cast off a yeare agoe To be thus stupid is Alacritie Men thus Lethargique have best Memory Look upward that 's towards her whose happy state We now lament not but congratulate Shee to whom all this world was but a stage Where all sat harkning how her youthfull age Should be emploi'd because in all shee did Some Figure of the Golden times was hid Who could not lacke what e'r this world could give Because shee was the forme that made it live Nor could complaine that this world was unfit To be staid in then when shee was in it Shee that first tried indifferent desires By vertue and vertue by religious fires Shee to whose person Paradise adher'd As Courts to Princes shee whose eyes ensphear'd Star-light enough t' have made the South controule Had shee beene there the Star-full Northerne Pole Shee she is gone she is gone when thou knowest this What fragmentary rubbidge this world is Thou knowest and that it is not worth a thought He honors it too much that thinkes it nought Thinke then my soule that death is but a Groome Which brings a Taper to the outward roome Whence thou spiest first a little glimmering light And after brings it nearer to thy sight For such approaches doth heaven make in death Thinke thy selfe labouring now with broken breath And thinke those broken and soft Notes to
elemented them shall stay And though diffus'd and spread in infinite Shall recollect and in one All unite So madame as her Soule to heaven is fled Her flesh rests in the earth as in the bed Her vertues do as to their proper spheare Returne to dwell with you of whom they were As perfect motions are all circular So they to you their sea whence lesse streames are Shee was all spices you all metalls so In you two wee did both rich Indies know And as no fire nor rust can spend or waste One dramme of gold but what was first shall last Though it bee forc'd in water earth salt aire Expans'd in infinite none will impaire So to your selfe you may additions take But nothing can you lesse or changed make Seeke not in seeking new to seeme to doubt That you can can match her or not be without But let some faithfull booke in her roome be Yet but of Iudith no such booke as shee Elegie TO make the doubt cleare that no woman's true Was it my fate to prove it strong in you Thought I but one had breathed purest aire And must she needs be false because she 's faire Is it your beauties marke or of your youth Or your perfection not to study truth Or thinke you heaven is deafe or hath no eyes Or those it hath smile at your perjuries Are vowes so cheape with women or the matter Whereof they are made that they are writ in water And blowne away with winde Or doth their breath Both hot and cold at once make life and death Who could have thought so many accents sweet Form'd into words so many sighs should meete As from our hearts so many oathes and teares Sprinkled among all sweeter by our feares And the divine impression of stolne kisses That seal'd the rest should now prove empty blisses Did you draw bonds to forfet signe to breake Or must we reade you quite from what you speake And finde the truth out the wrong way or must Hee first desire you false would wish you just O I prophane though most of women be This kinde of beast my thought shall except thee My dearest Love though froward jealousie With circumstance might urge thy'inconstancie Sooner I 'll thinke the Sunne will cease to cheare The teeming earth and that forget to beare Sooner that rivers will runne back or Thames With ribs of Ice in June would bind his streames Or Nature by whose strength the world endures Would change her course before you alter yours But O that treacherous breast to whom weake you Did trust our Counsells and wee both may rue Having his falshood found too late 't was hee That made me cast you guilty and you me Whilst he black wrech betray'd each simple word Wee spake unto the cunning of a third Curst may hee be that so our love hath slaine And wander on the earth wretched as Cain Wretched as hee and not deserve least pitty In plaguing him let misery be witty Let all eyes shunne him and hee shunne each eye Till hee be noysome as his infamie May he without remorse deny God thrice And not be trusted more on his Soules price And after all selfe torment when hee dyes May Wolves teare out his heart Vultures his eyes Swine eate his bowels and his falser tongue That utter'd all be to some Raven flung And let his carrion coarse be a longer feast To the Kings dogges then any other beast Now have I curst let us our love revive In mee the flame was never more alive I could beginne againe to court and praise And in that pleasure lengthen the short dayes Of my lifes lease like Painters that do take Delight not in made worke but whiles they make I could renew those times when first I saw Love in your eyes that gave my tongue the law To like what you lik'd and at maskes and playes Commend the selfe same Actors the same wayes Aske how you did and often with intent Of being officious be impertinent All which were such soft pastimes as in these Love was as subtilly catch'd as a disease But being got it is a treasure sweet Which to defend is harder then to get And ought not be prophan'd on either part For though 't is got by chance 't is kept by art NO Lover saith I love nor any other Can judge a perfect Lover Hee thinkes that else none can or will agree That any loves but hee I cannot say I lov'd for who can say Hee was kill'd yesterday Love with excesse of heat more yong then old Death kills with too much cold Wee dye but once and who lov'd last did die Hee that saith twice doth lye For though hee seeme to move and stirre a while It doth the sense beguile Such life is like the light which bideth yet When the lifes light is set Or like the heat which fire in solid matter Leaves behinde two houres after Once I love and dyed and am now become Mine Epitaph and Tombe Here dead men speake their last and so do I Love-slaine loe here I dye A Hymne to Christ at the Authors last going into Germany IN what torne ship soever I embarke That ship shall be my embleme of thy Arke What sea soever swallow mee that flood Shall be to mee an embleme of thy blood Though thou with clouds of anger do disguise Thy face yet through that maske I know those eyes Which though they turne away sometimes They never will despise I sacrifice this Iland unto thee And all whom I lov'd there and who lov'd mee When I have put our seas twixt them and mee Put thou thy seas betwixt my sinnes and thee As the trees sap doth seeke the root below In winter in my winter now I goe Where none but thee th' Eternall root Of true Love I may know Nor thou nor thy religion dost controule The amorousnesse of an harmonious Soule But thou would'st have that love thy selfe As thou Art jealous Lord so I am jealous now Thou lov'st not till from loving more thou free My soule Who ever gives takes libertie O if thou car'st not whom I love Alas thou lov'st not mee Seale then this bill of my Divorce to All On whom those fainter beames of love did fall Marry those loves which in youth scattered bee On Fame Wit Hopes false mistresses to thee Churches are best for Prayer that have least light To see God only I goe out of sight And to scape stormy dayes I chuse An Everlasting night The Lamentations of Ieremy for the most part according to Tremelius CHAP. I. 1 HOw sits this citie late most populous Thus solitary and like a widdow thus Amplest of Nations Queene of Provinces She was who now thus tributary is 2 Still in the night shee weepes and her teares fall Downe by her cheekes along and none of all Her lovers comfort her Perfidiously Her friends have dealt and now are enemie 3 Unto great bondage and afflictions Juda is captive led Those nations