bee Division and thy happyest Harmonie Thinke thee laid on thy death-bed loose and slacke And thinke that but unbinding of a packe To take one precious thing thy soule from thence Thinke thy selfe patch'd with fevers violence Anger thine ague more by calling it Thy Physicke chide the slacknesse of the fit Thinke that thou hear'st thy knell and think no more But that as Bels cal'd thee to Church before So this to the Triumphant Church calls thee Thinke Satans Sergeants round about thee bee And thinke that but for Legacies they thrust Give one thy Pride to'another give thy Lust Give them those sinnes which they gave thee before And trust th' immaculate blood to wash thy score Thinke thy friends weeping round thinke that they Weepe but because they goe not yet thy way Thinke that they close thine eyes and thinke in this That they confesse much in the world amisse Who dare not trust a dead mans eye with that Which they from God and Angels â—â—er not Thinke that they shroud thee up think from thence They reinvest thee in white innocence Thinke that thy body rots and if so low Thy soule exalted so thy thoughts can goe Think thee a Prince who of themselves create Wormes which insensibly devoure their State Thinke that they bury thee and thinke that right Laies thee to sleepe but a Saint Lucies night Thinke these things cheerefully and if thou bee Drowsie or slacke remember then that shee Shee whose complexion was so even made That which of her ingredients should invade The other three no Feare no Art could guesse So far were all remov'd from more or lesse But as in Mithridate or just perfumes Where all good things being met no one presumes To governe or to triumph on the rest Only because all were no part was best And as though all doe know that quantities Are made of lines and lines from Points arise None can these lines or quantities unjoynt And say this is a line or this a point So though the Elements and Humors were In her one could not say this governes there Whose even constitution might have woon Any disease to venter on the Sunne Rather then her and make a spirit feare That hee too disuniting subject were To whose proportions if we would compare Cubes th' are unstable Circles Angular She who was such a chaine as Fate employes To bring mankinde all Fortunes it enjoyes So fast so even wrought as one would thinke No accident could threaten any linke Shee shee embrac'd a sicknesse gave it meat The purest blood and breath that e'r it eate And hath taught us that though a good man hath Title to heaven and plead it by his Faith And though he may pretend a conquest since Heaven was content to suffer violence Yea though hee plead a long possession too For they 're in heaven on earth who heavens workes do Though hee had right and power and place before Yet death must usher and unlocke the doore Thinke further on thy selfe my Soule and thinke How thou at first wast made but in a sinke Thinke that it argued some infirmitie That those two soules which then thou foundst in me Thou fedst upon and drewst into thee both My second soule of sense and first of growth Thinke but how poore thou wast how obnoxious Whom a small lumpe of flesh could poyson thus This curded milke this poore unlittered whelpe My body could beyond escape or helpe Infect thee with Originall sinne and thou Couldst neither then refuse nor leave it now Thinke that no stubborne sullen Anchorit Which fixt to a pillar or a grave doth sit Bedded and bath'd in all his ordures dwels So fowly as our Soules in their first built Cels. Thinke in how poore a prison thou didst lie After enabled but to suck and crie Thinke when 't was growne to most 't was a poore Inne A Province pack'd up in two yards of skinne And that usurp'd or threatned with a rage Of sicknesses or their true mother Age. But thinke that death hath now enfranchis'd thee Thou hast thy'expansion now and libertie Thinke that a rustie Peece discharg'd is flowne In peeces and the bullet is his owne And freely flies this to thy Soule allow Thinke thy shell broke thinke thy Soule hatch'd but now And think this slow-pac'd soule which late did cleave To'a body and went but by the bodies leave Twenty perchance or thirty mile a day Dispatches in a minute all the way Twixt heaven and earth she stayes not in the ayre To looke what Meteors there themselves prepare She carries no desire to know nor sense Whether th'ayres middle region be intense For th' Element of fire she doth not know Whether she past by such a place or no She baits not at the Moone nor cares to trie Whether in that new world men live and die Venus retards her not to'enquire how shee Can being one starre Hesper and Vesper bee Hee that charm'd Argus eyes sweet Mercury Workes not on her who now is growne all eye Who if she meet the body of the Sunne Goes through not staying till his course be runne Who findes in Mars his Campe no corps of Guard Nor is by Iove nor by his father bard Bee ere she can consider how she went At once is at and through the Firmament And as these starres were but so many beads Strung on one string speed undistinguish'd leads Her through those Spheares as through the beads a string Whose quick successioÌ„ makes it still one thing As doth the pith which lest our bodies slacke Strings fast the little bones of necke and backe So by the Soule doth death string Heaven and Earth For when our Soule enjoyes this her third birth Creation gave her one a second grace Heaven is as neare and present to her face As colours are and objects in a roome Where darknesse was before when Tapers come This must my Soule thy long-short Progresse bee To'advance these thoughts Remember then that she She whose faire body no such prison was But that a Soule might well be pleas'd to passe An age in her she whose rich beauty lent Mintage to other beauties for they went But for so much as they were like to her Shee in whose body if we dare preferre This low world to so high a marke as shee The Westerne treasure Easterne spicetie Europe and Afrique and the unknowne rest Were easily found or what in them was best And when w'have made this large discoverie Of all in her some one part then will bee Twenty such parts whose plenty and riches is Enough to make twenty such worlds as this Shee whom had they knowne who did first betroth The Tutelar Angels and assigned one both To Nations Cities and to Companies To Functions Offices and dignities And to each severall man to him and him They would have given her one for every limbe She of whose soule if wee may say 't was gold Her body was th'Electrum and did hold Many degrees of that
on perfection and a womans name Daughters of London you which bee Our Golden Mines and furnish'd Treasurie You which are Angels yet still bring with you Thousands of Angels on your mariage daies Help with your presence and devise to praise These rites which also unto you grow due Conceitedly dresse her and be assign'd By you fit place for every flower and jewell Make her for love fit fewell As gay as Flora and as rich as Inde So may shee faire and rich in nothing lame To day put on perfection and a womans name And you frolique Patricians Some of these Senators wealths deep oceans Ye painted courtiers barrels of others wits Yee country men who but your beasts love none Yee of those fellowships whereof hee 's one Of study and play made strange Hermaphrodits Here shine This Bridegroom to the Temple bring Loe in yon path which store of straw'd flowers graceth The sober virgin paceth Except my sight faile 't is no other thing Weep not nor blush here is no griefe nor shame To day put on perfection and a womans name Thy two-leav'd gates faire Temple unfold And these two in thy sacred bosome hold Till mystically joyn'd but one they bee Then may thy leane and hunger-starved wombe Long time expect their bodies and their tombe Long after their owne parents fatten thee All elder claimes and all cold barrennesse All yeelding to new loves bee far for ever Which might these two dissever Alwaies all th' other may each one possesse For the best Bride best worthy of praise and fame To day puts on perfection and a womans name Winter dayes bring much delight Not for themselves but for they soon bring night Other sweets wait thee then these diverse meats Other disports then dancing jollities Other love tricks then glancing with the eyes But that the Sun still in our halfe Spheare sweates Hee flies in winter but he now stands still Yet shadowes turne Noone point he hath attain'd His steeds will bee restrain'd But gallop lively downe the Westerne hill Thou shalt when he hath come the worlds half frame To night but on perfection and a womans name The amorous evening starre is rose Why then should not our amorous starre inclose Her selfe in her wish'd bed Release your strings Musicians and dancers take some truce With these your pleasing labours for great use As much wearinesse as perfection brings You and not only you but all toyl'd beasts Rest duly at night all their toyles are dispensed But in their beds commenced Are other labours and more dainty feasts She goes amaid who least she turne the same To night puts on perfection and a womans name Thy virgins girdle now untie And in thy nuptiall bed loves alter lye A pleasing sacrifice now dispossesse Thee of these chaines and robes which were put on T' adorne the day not thee for thou alone Like vertue ' and truth art best in nakednesse This bed is onely to virginitie A grave but to a better state a cradle Till now thou wast but able To be what now thou art then that by thee No more be said I may bee but I am To night put on perfection and a womans name Even like a faithfull man content That this life for a better should be spent So shee a mothers rich stile doth preferre And at the Bridegroomes wish'd approach doth lye Like an appointed lambe when tenderly The priest comes on his knees t'embowell her Now sleep or watch with more joy and O light Of heaven to morrow rise thou hot and early This Sun will love so dearely Her rest that long long we shall want her sight Wonders are wrought for shee which had no maime To night puts on perfection and a womans name To the Countesse of Bedford MADAME I Have learn'd by those lawes wherein I am a little conversant that hee which bestowes any cost upon the dead obliges him which is dead but not the heire I do not therefore send this paper to your Ladyship that you should thanke mee for it or thinke that I thanke you in it your favours and benefits to mee are so much above my merits that they are even above my gratitude if that were to be judged by words which must expresse it But Madame since your noble brothers fortune being yours the evidences also concerning it are yours so his vertue being yours the evidences concerning it belong also to you of which by your acceptance this may be one peece in which quality I humbly present it and as a testimony how intirely your familie possesseth Your Ladiships most humble and thankfull servant JOHN DONNE Obsequies to the Lord Harringtons brother To the Countesse of Bedford FAire soule which wast not onely as all soules bee Then when thou wast infused harmony But did'st continue so and now dost beare A part in Gods great organ this whole Spheare If looking up to God or downe to us Thou finde that any way is pervious Twixt heav'n and earth and that mans actions doe Come to your knowledge and affections too See and with joy mee to that good degree Of goodnesse growne that I can studie thee And by these meditations refin'd Can unapparell and enlarge my minde And so can make by this soft extasie This place a map of heav'n my selfe of thee Thou seest mee here at midnight now all rest Times dead-low water when all mindes devest To morrows businesse when the labourers have Such rest in bed that their last Church-yard grave Subject to change will scarce be'a type of this Now when the clyent whose last hearing is To morrow sleeps when the condemned man Who when hee opes his eyes must shut them than Againe by death although sad watch hee keepe Doth practice dying by a little sleepe Thou at this midnight seest mee and as soone As that Sunne rises to mee midnight's noone All the world growes transparent and I see Through all both Church and State in seeing thee And I discerne by favour of this light My selfe the hardest object of the sight God is the glasse as thou when thou dost see Him who sees all seest all concerning thee So yet unglorified I comprehend All in these mirrors of thy wayes and end Though God be our true glass through which we see All since the beeing of all things is hee Yet are the trunkes which doe to us derive Things in proportion fit by perspective Deeds of good men for by their living here Vertues indeed remote seeme to be nere But where can I affirme or where arrest My thoughts on his deeds which shall I call best For fluid vertue cannot be look'd on Nor can endure a contemplation As bodies change and as I do not weare Those Spirits humors blood I did last yeare And as if on a streame I fixe mine eye That drop which I looked on is presently Pusht with more waters from my sight and gone So in this sea of vertues can no one Bee'insisted on vertues as rivers passe Yet still remaines
ill For that first marriage was our funerall One woman at one blow then kill'd us all And singly one by one they kill us now We doe delightfully our selves allow To that consumption and profusely blinde Wee kill our selves to propagate our kinde And yet we do not that we are not men There is not now that mankinde which was then When as the Sunne and man did seeme to strive Joynt tenants of the world who should survive When Stagge and Raven and the long-liv'd tree Compar'd with man dy'd in minoritie When if a slow pac'd starre had stolne away From the observers marking he might stay Two or three hundred yeares to see 't againe And then make up his observation plaine When as the age was long the sise was great Mans growth confess'd and recompenc'd the meat So spacious and large that every Soule Did a faire Kingdome and large Realme controule And when the very stature thus erect Did that soule a good way towards heaven direct Where is this mankinde now who lives to age Fit to be made Methusalem his page Alas we scarce live long enough to try Whether a true made clocke run right or lie Old Gransires talke of yesterday with sorrow And for our children wee reserve to morrow So short is life that every pesant strives In a torne house or field to have three lives And as in lasting so in length is man Contracted to an inch who was a spanne For had a man at first in forrests stray'd Or shipwrack'd in the Sea one would have laid A wager that an Elephant or Whale That met him would not hastily assaile A thing so equall to him now alas The Fairies and the Pigmies well may passe As credible mankinde decayes so soone We' are scarce our Fathers shadowes cast at noone Onely death ads t' our length nor are wee growne In stature to be men till we are none But this were light did our lesse volume hold All the old Text or had wee chang'd to gold Their silver or dispos'd into lesse glasse Spirits of vertue which then scatter'd was But 't is not so w' are not retir'd but dampt And as our bodies so our mindes are crampt 'T is shrinking not close weaving that hath thus In minde and body both bedwarfed us Wee seeme ambitious Gods whole worke t' undoe Of nothing hee made us and we strive too To bring our selves to nothing backe and wee Doe what wee can to do 't so soone as hee With new diseases on our selves wee warre And with new Physicke a worse Engin farre Thus man this worlds Vice-Emperour in whom All faculties all graces are at home And if in other creatures they appeare They 're but mans Ministers and Legats there To worke on their rebellions and reduce Them to Civility and to mans use This man whom God did wooe and loth t' attend Till man came up did downe to man descend This man so great that all that is is his Oh what a trifle and poore thing he is If man were any thing he 's nothing now Helpe or at least some time to wast allow T' his other wants yet when he did depart With her whom we lament hee lost his heart She of whom th'Ancients seem'd to prophesie When they call'd vertues by the name of shee Shee in whom vertue was so much refin'd That for allay unto so pure a minde Shee tooke the weaker Sex shee that could drive The poysonous tincture and the staine of Eve Out of her thought and deeds and purifie All by a true religious Alchymie She she is dead shee 's dead when thou knowest this Thou knowest how poore a trifling thing man is And learn'st thus much by our Anatomie The heart being perish'd no part can be free And that except thou feed not banquet on The supernaturall food Religion Thy better growth growes withered and scant Be more then man or thou' rt lesse then an Ant. Then as mankinde so is the worlds whole frame Quite out of joynt almost created lame For before God had made up al the rest Corruption entred and deprav'd the best It seis'd the Angells and then first of all The world did in her cradle take a fall And turn'd her braines and tooke a generall maime Wronging each joynt of th'universall frame The noblest part man felt it first and than Both beasts and plants curst in the curse of man So did the world from the first houre decay That evening was beginning of the day And now the Springs and Sommers which we see Like sonnes of women after fiftie bee And new Philosophy calls all in doubt The Element of fire is quite put out The Sun is lost and th' earth and no mans wit Can well direct him where to looke for it And freely men confesse that this world 's spent When in the Planets and the firmament They seeke so many new they see that this Is crumbled out againe to his Atomies 'T is all in peeces all coherence gone All just supply and all Relation Prince Subject Father Sonne are things forgot For every man alone thinkes he hath got To be a Phoenix and that then can bee None of that kinde of which he is but hee This is the worlds condition now and now She that should all parts to reunion bow She that had all Magnetique force alone To draw and fasten sundred parts in one She whom wise nature had invented then When she observ'd that every sort of men Did in their voyage in this worlds Sea stray And needed a new compasse for their way She that was best and first originall Of all faire copies and the generall Steward to Fate she whose rich eyes and breast Guilt the West-Indies and perfum'd the East Whose having breath'd in this world did bestow Spice on those Iles and bad them still smell so And that rich Indie which doth gold interre Is but as single money coyn'd from her She to whom this world must it selfe refer As Suburbs or the Microcosme of her Shee shee is dead shee 's dead when thou knowest this Thou knowest how lame a criple this world is And learn'st thus much by our Anatomy That this worlds generall sicknesse doth not lie In any humour or one certaine part But as thou sawest it rotten at the heart Thou seest a Hectique feaver hath got hold Of the whole substance not to be contrould And that thou hast but one way not t' admit The worlds infection to be none of it For the worlds subtilst immateriall parts Feele this consuming wound and ages darts For the worlds beauty is decai'd or gone Beauty that 's colour and proportion We thinke the heavens enjoy their Sphericall Their round proportion embracing all But yet their various and perplexed course Observ'd in divers ages doth enforce Men to finde out so many Eccentrique parts Such divers downe right lines such overthwarts As disproportion that pure forme It teares The Firmament in eight and forty sheires And in these
Constellations then arise New starres and old doe vanish from our eyes As though heav'n suffered earthquakes peace or war When new Towers rise and old demolish't are They have impal'd within a Zodiake The free-borne Sun and keepe twelve Signes awake To watch his steps the Goat and Crab controule And fright him backe who else to either Pole Did not these tropiques fetter him might runne For his course is not round nor can the Sunne Perfit a Circle or maintaine his way One inch direct but where he rose to day He comes no more but with a couzening line Steales by that point and so is Serpentine And seeming weary with his reeling thus He meanes to sleepe being now falne nearer us So of the Starres which boast that they doe runne In Circle still none ends where he begun All their proportion's lame it sinkes it swels For of Meridians and Parallels Man hath weav'd out a net and this net throwne Upon the Heavens and now they are his owne Loth to goe up the hill or labour thus To goe to heaven we make heaven come to us We spur we reine the starres and in their race They 're diversly content t' obey our peace But keepes the earth her round proportion still Doth not a Tenarus or higher hill Rise so high like a Rocke that one might thinke The floating Moone would shipwrack there sinke Seas are so deepe that Whales being strucke to day Perchance to morrow scarse at middle way Of their wish'd journies end the bottome die And men to sound depths so much line untie As one might justly thinke that there would rise At end thereof one of th'Antipodies If under all a vault infernall bee Which sure is spacious except that we Invent another torment that there must Millions into a straight hot roome be thrust Then solidnesse and roundnesse have no place Are these but warts and pockholes in the face Of th' earth Thinke so but yet confesse in this The worlds proportion disfigured is That those two legges whereon it doth rely Reward and punishment are bent awry And Oh it can no more be questioned That beauties best proportion is dead Since even griefe it selfe which now alone Is left us is without proportion Shee by whose lines proportion should bee Examin'd measure of all Symmetree Whom had that Ancient seen who thought soules madâ— Of Harmony he would at next have said That Harmony was shee and thence infer That soules were but Resultances from her And did from her into our bodies goe As to our eyes the formes from objects flow Shee who if those great Doctors truly said That the Arke to mans proportion was made Had been a type for that as that might be A type of her in this that contrary Both Elements and Passions liv'd at peace In her who caus'd all Civill war to cease Shee after whom what forme soe'r we see Is discord and rude incongruitie She she is dead she 's dead when thou know'st this Thou knowest how ugly a monster this world is And learn'st thus much by our Anatomie That here is nothing to enamour thee And that not only faults in inward parts Corruptions in our braines or in our hearts Poysoning the fountaines whence our actions spring Endanger us but that if every thing Be not done fitly'and in proportion To satisfie wise and good lookers on Since most men be such as most thinke they bee They 're lothsome too by this deformitie For good and well must in our actions meet Wicked is not much worse then indiscreet But beauties other second Element Colour and lustre now is as neere spent And had the world his just proportion Were it a ring still yet the stone is gone As a compassionate Turcoyse which doth tell By looking pale the wearer is not well As gold falls sicke being stung with Mercury All the worlds parts of such complexion bee When nature was most busie the first weeke Swadling the new borne earth God seem'd to like That she should sport her selfe sometimes and play To mingle and vary colours every day And then as though shee could not make enough Himselfe his various Rainbow did allow Sight is the noblest sense of any one Yet sight hath only colour to feed on And colour is decai'd summers robe growes Duskie and like an oft dyed garment showes Our blushing red which us'd in cheekes to spred Is inward sunke and only our soules are red Perchance the world might have recovered If she whom we lament had not beene dead But shee in whom all white and red and blew Beauties ingredients voluntary grew As in an unvext Paradise from whom Did all things verdure and their lustre come Whose composition was miraculous Being all colour all diaphanous For Ayre and Fire but thick grosse bodies were And liveliest stones but drowsie and pale to her She she is dead shee 's dead when thou know'st this Thou knowest howwan a Ghost this our world is And learn'st thus much by our Anatomie That it should more affright then pleasure thee And that since all faire colour then did sinke 'T is now but wicked vanitie to thinke To colour vicious deeds with good pretence Or with bought colors to illude mens sense Nor in ought more this worlds decay appeares Then that her influence the heav'n forbeares Or that the Elements doe not feele this The father or the mother barren is The cloudes conceive not raine or doe not powre In the due birth time downe the balmy showre Th' ayre doth not motherly sit on the earth To hatch her seasons and give all things birth Spring-times were common cradles but are tombes And false-conceptions fill the generall wombes Th' ayre showes such Meteors as none can see Not only what they meane but what they bee Earth such new wormes as would have troubled much Th'Aegyptian Mages to have made more such What Artist now dares boast that he can bring Heaven hither or constellate any thing So as the influence of those starres may bee Imprison'd in an Hearbe or Charme or Tree And doe by touch all which those stars could doe The art is lost and correspondence too For heaven gives little and the earth takes lesse And man least knowes their trade and purposes If this commerce twixt heaven and earth were not Embarr'd and all this traffique quite forgot She for whose losse we have lamented thus Would worke more fully and pow'rfully on us Since herbes and roots by dying lose not all But they yea ashes too are medicinall Death could not quench her vertue so but that It would be if not follow'd wondred at And all the world would be one dying swan To sing her funerall praise and vanish than But as some Serpents poyson hurteth not Except it be from the live Serpent shot So doth her vertue need her here to fit That unto us shee working more then it But shee in whom to such maturity Vertue was growne past growth that it must die She from whose
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
grow good But I remaine a poyson'd fountaine still But not your beauty vertue knowledge blood Are more above all flattery then my will And if I flatter any 't is not you But my owne judgement who did long agoe Pronounce that all these praises should be true And vertue should your beauty ' and birth outgrow Now that my prophesies are all fulfill'd Rather then God should not be honour'd too And all these gifts confess'd which hee instill'd Your selfe were bound to say that which I doe So I but your Recorder am in this Or mouth or Speaker of the universe A ministeriall notary for 't is Not I but you and fame that make this verse I was your Prophet in your yonger dayes And now your Chaplaine God in you to praise To M. I. W. ALl haile sweet Poët more full of more strong fire Then hath or shall enkindle any spirit I lov'd what nature gave thee but this merit Of wit and Art I love not but admire Who have before or shall write after thee Their workes though toughly laboured will bee Like infancie or age to mans firme stay Or earely and late twilights to mid-day Men say and truly that they better be Which be envyed then pittied therefore I Because I wish thee best doe thee envie O wouldst thou by like reason pitty mee But care not for mee I that ever was In Natures and in fortunes gifts alas Before thy grace got in the Muses Schoole A monster and a begger am a foole Oh how I grieve that late borne modesty Hath got such root in easie waxen hearts That men may not themselves their owne good parts Extoll without suspect of surquedrie For but thy selfe no subject can be found Worthy thy quill nor any quill resound Thy worke but thine how good it were to see A Poëm in thy praise and writ by thee Now if this song be too'harsh for rime yet as The Painters bad god made a good devill 'T will be good prose although the verse be evill If thou forget the rime as thou dost passe Then write then I may follow and so bee Thy debter thy'eccho thy foyle thy zanee I shall be thought if mine like thine I shape All the worlds Lyon though I be thy Ape To M. T. W. HAst thee harsh verse as fast as thy lame measure Will give thee leave to him My pain pleasure I have given thee and yet thou art too weake Feete and a reasoning soule and tongue to speake Tell him all questions which men have defended Both of the place and paines of hell are ended And 't is decreed our hell is but privation Of him at least in this earths habitation And 't is where I am where in every street Infections follow overtake and meete Live I or die by you my love is sent And you' are my pawnes or else my Testament To M. T. W. PRegnant again with th' old twins Hope and Feare Oft have I askt for thee both how and where Thou wert and what my hopes of letters were As in our streets sly beggers narrowly Watch motions of the givers hand or eye And evermore conceive some hope thereby And now thy Almes is given thy letter'is read The body risen againe the which was dead And thy poore starveling bountifully fed After this banquet my Soule doth say grace And praise thee for'it and zealously imbrace Thy love though I thinke thy love in this case To be as gluttons which say ' midst their meat They love that best of which they most do eat At once from hence my lines and I depart I to my soft still walks they to my Heart I to the Nurse they to the child of Art Yet as a firme house though the Carpenter Perish doth stand as an Embassadour Lyes safe how e'r his king be in danger So though I languish prest with Malancholy My verse the strict Map of my misery Shall live to see that for whose want I dye Therefore I envie them and doe repent That from unhappy mee things happy'are sent Yet as a Picture or bare Sacrament Accept these lines and if in them there be Merit of love bestow that love on mee To M. C. B. THy friend whom thy deserts to thee enchaine Urg'd by this unexcusable occasion Thee and the Saint of his affection Leaving behinde doth of both wants complaine And let the love I beare to both sustaine No blott nor maime by this division Strong is this love which ties our hearts in one And strong that love pursu'd with amorous paine But though besides thy selfe I leave behind Heavens liberall and earths thrice-faire Sunne Going to where sterne winter aye doth wonne Yet loves hot fires which martyr my sad minde Doe send forth scalding sighes which have the Art To melt all Ice but that which walls her heart To M. S. B. O Thou which to search out the secret parts Of the India or rather Paradise Of knowledge hast with courage and advise Lately launch'd into the vast Sea of Arts Disdaine not in thy constant travailing To doe as other Voyagers and make Some turnes into lesse Creekes and wisely take Fresh water at the Heliconian spring I sing not Siren like to tempt for I Am harsh nor as those Scismatiques with you Which draw all wits of good hope to their crew But seing in you bright sparkes of Poetry I though I brought no fuell had desire With these Articulate blasts to blow the fire To M. B. B. IS not thy sacred hunger of science Yet satisfy'd Is not thy braines rich hive Fulfil'd with hony which thou dost derive From the Arts spirits and their Quintessence Then weane thy selfe at last and thee withdraw From Cambridge thy old nurse and as the rest Here toughly chew and sturdily digest Th' immense vast volumes of our common law And begin soone lest my griefe grieve thee too Which is that that which I should have begun In my youthes morning now late must be done And I as Giddy Travellers must doe Which stray or sleepe all day and having lost Light and strength darke and tir'd must then ride post If thou unto thy Muse be marryed Embrace her ever ever multiply Be far from me that strange Adulterie To tempt thee and procure her widdowhood My nurse for I had one because I 'am cold Divorc'd her selfe the cause being in me That I can take no new in Bigamye Not my will only but power doth withhold Hence comes it that these Rymes which never had Mother want matter aud they only have A little forme the which their Father gave They are prophane imperfect oh too bad To be counted Children of Poetry Except confirm'd and Bishoped by thee To M. R. W. IF as mine is thy life a slumber be Seeme when thou read'st these lines to dreame of me Never did Morpheus nor his brother weare Shapes soe like those Shapes whom they would appeare As this my letter is like me for it Hath my name words hand feet heart minde
this my Extasie And revelation of you both I see I should write here as in short Galleries The Master at the end large glasses ties So to present the roome twice to our eyes So I should give this letter length and say That which I said of you there is no way From either but by the other not to stray May therefore this be enough to testifie My true devotion free from flattery He that beleeves himselfe doth never lie To the Countesse of Salisbury August 1614. FAire great and good since seeing you wee see What Heaven can doe and what any Earth can be Since now your beauty shines now when the Sunne Growne stale is to so low a value runne That his disshevel'd beames and scattered fires Serve but for Ladies Periwigs and Tyres In lovers Sonnets you come to repaire Gods booke of creatures teaching what is faire Since now when all is withered shrunke and dri'd All Vertues ebb'd out to a dead low tyde All the worlds frame being crumbled into sand Where every man thinks by himselfe to stand Integritie friendship and confidence Ciments of greatnes being vapor'd hence And narrow man being fill'd with little shares Court Citie Church are all shops of small-wares All having blowne to sparkes their noble fire And drawne their sound gold-ingot into wyre All trying by a love of littlenesse To make abridgments and to draw to lesse Even that nothing which at first we were Since in these times your greatnesse doth appeare And that we learne by it that man to get Towards him that 's infinite must first be great Since in an age so ill as none is fit So much as to accuse much lesse mend it For who can judge or witnesse of those times Where all alike are guiltie of the crimes Where he that would be good is thought by all A monster or at best fantasticall Since now you durst be good and that I doe Discerne by daring to contemplate you That there may be degrees of faire great good Through your light largenesse vertue understood If in this sacrifice of mine be showne Any small sparke of these call it your owne And if things like these have been said by mee Of others call not that Idolatrie For had God made man first and man had seene The third daies fruits and flowers and various greene He might have said the best that he could say Of those faire creatures which were made that day And when next day he had admir'd the birth Of Sun Moone Stars fairer then late-prais'd earth Hee might have said the best that he could say And not be chid for praising yesterday So though some things are not together true As that another is worthiest and that you Yet to say so doth not condemne a man If when he spoke them they were both true than How faire a proofe of this in our soule growes Wee first have soules of growth and sense and those When our last soule our soule immortall came Were swallowed into it and have no name Nor doth he injure those soules which doth cast The power and praise of both them on the last No more doe I wrong any I adore The same things now which I ador'd before The subject chang'd and measure the same thing In a low constable and in the King I reverence His power to worke on mee So did I humbly reverence each degree Of faire great good but more now I am come From having found their walkes to finde their home And as I owe my first soules thankes that they For my last soule did fit and mould my clay So am I debtor unto them whose worth Enabled me to profit and take forth This new great lesson thus to study you Which none not reading others first could doe Nor lacke I light to read this booke though I In a darke Cave yea in a Grave doe lie For as your fellow Angells so you doe Illustrate them who come to study you The first whom we in Histories doe finde To have profest all Arts was one borne blind He lackt those eyes beasts have as well as wee Not those by which Angels are seene and see So though I 'am borne without those eyes to live Which fortune who hath none her selfe doth give Which are fit meanes to see bright courts and you Yet may I see you thus as now I doe I shall by that all goodnesse have discern'd And though I burne my librarie be learn'd An Epithalamion Or mariage Song on the Lady Elizabeth and Count Palatine being married on St. Valentines day I. HAile Bishop Valentine whose day this is All the Aire is thy Diocis And all the chirping Choristers And other birds are thy Parishioners Thou marryest every yeare The Lirique Larke and the grave whispering Dove The Sparrow that neglects his life for love The household Bird with the red stomacher Thou mak'st the black bird speed as soone As doth the Goldfinch or the Halcyon The husband cocke lookes out and straight is sped And meets his wife which brings her feather-bed This day more cheerfully then ever shine This day which might enflāe thy self Old Valentine II. Till now Thou warmd'st with multiplying loves Two larkes two sparrowes or two Doves All that is nothing unto this For thou this day couplest two Phoenixes Thou mak'st a Taper see What the sunne never saw and what the Arke Which was of foules and beasts the cage and park Did not containe one bed containes through Thee Two Phoenixes whose joyned breasts Are unto one another mutuall nests Where motion kindles such fires as shall give Yong Phoenixes and yet the old shall live Whose love and courage never shall decline But make the whole year through thy day O Valētine III. Up then faire Phoenix Bride frustrate the Sunne Thy selfe from thine affection Takest warmth enough and from thine eye All lesser birds will take their Jollitie Up up faire Bride and call Thy starres from out their severall boxes take Thy Rubies Pearles and Diamonds forth and make Thy selfe a constellation of them All And by their blazing signifie That a Great Princess falls but doth not die Bee thou a new starre that to us portends Ends of much wonder And be Thou those ends Since thou dost this day in new glory shine May all men date Records from this thy Valentine IIII. Come forth come forth and as one glorious flame Meeting Another growes the same So meet thy Fredericke and so To an unseparable union goe Since separation Falls not on such things as are infinite Nor things which are but one can disunite You' are twice inseparable great and one Goe then to where the Bishop staies To make you one his way which divers waies Must be effected and when all is past And that you' are one by hearts and hands made fast You two have one way left your selves to'entwine Besides this Bishops knot O Bishop Valentine V. But oh what ailes the Sunne that here he staies Longer to day then other daies
Staies he new light from these to get And finding here such store is loth to set And why doe you two walke So slowly pac'd in this procession Is all your care but to be look'd upon And be to others spectacle and talke The feast with gluttonous delaies Is eaten and too long their meat they praise The masquers come too late and ' I thinke will stay Like Fairies till the Cock crow them away Alas did not Antiquity assigne A night as well as day to thee O Valentine VI. They did and night is come and yet wee see Formalities retarding thee What meane these Ladies which as though They were to take a clock in peeces goe So nicely about the Bride A Bride before a good night could be said Should vanish from her cloathes into her bed As Soules from bodies steale and are not spy'd But now she is laid What though shee bee Yet there are more delayes For where is he He comes and passes through Spheare after Spheare First her sheetes then her Armes then any where Let not this day then but this night be thine Thy day was but the eve to this O Valentine VII Here lyes a shee Sunne and a hee Moone here She gives the best light to his Spheare Or each is both and all and so They unto one another nothing owe And yet they doe but are So just and rich in that coyne which they pay That neither would nor needs forbeare nor stay Neither desires to be spar'd nor to spare They quickly pay their debt and then Take no acquittance but pay again They pay they give they lend and so let fall No such occasion to be liberall More truth more courage in these two do shine Then all thy turtles have and sparrows Valentine VIII And by this act of these two Phenixes Nature againe restored is For since these two are two no more Ther 's but one Phenix still as was before Rest now at last and wee As Satyres watch the Sunnes uprise will stay Waiting when your eyes opened let out day Onely desir'd because your face wee see Others neare you shall whispering speake And wagers lay at which side day will breake And win by'observing then whose hand it is That opens first a curtaine hers or his This will be tryed to morrow after nine Till which houre wee thy day enlarge O Valentine ECCLOGUE 1613. December 26. Allophanes finding Idios in the country in Christmas time reprehends his absence from court at the mariage Of the Earle of Sommerset Idios gives an account of his purpose therein and of his absence thence Allophanes VNseasonable man statue of ice What could to countries solitude entice Thee in this yeares cold and decrepit time Natures instinct drawes to the warmer clime Even small birds who by that courage dare In numerous fleets saile through their Sea the aire What delicacie can in fields appeare Whil'st Flora ' herselfe doth a freeze jerkin weare Whil'st windes do all the trees and hedges strip Of leafes to furnish roddes enough to whip Thy madnesse from thee and all springs by frost Have taken cold and their sweet murmures lost If thou thy faults or fortunes would'st lament With just solemnity do it in Lent At Court the spring already advanced is The Sunne stayes longer up and yet not his The glory is farre other other fires First zeale to Prince and State then loves desires Burne in one brest and like heavens two great lights The first doth governe dayes the other nights And then that early light which did appeare Before the Sunne and Moone created were The Princes favour is defus'd o'r all From which all Fortunes Names and Natures fall Then from those wombes of starres the Brides bright eyes At every glance a constellation flyes And sowes the Court with starres and doth prevent In light and power the all-ey'd firmament First her eyes kindles other Ladies eyes Then from their beames their jewels lusters rise And from their jewels torches do take fire And all is warmth and light and good desire Most other Courts alas are like to hell Where in darke places fire without light doth dwell Or but like Stoves for lust and envy get Continuall but artificiall heat Here zeale and love growne one all clouds disgest And make our Court an everlasting East And can'st thou be from thence Idios No I am there As heaven to men dispos'd is every where So are those Courts whose Princes animate Not onely all their house but all their State Let no man thinke because he is full he hath all Kings as their patterne God are liberall Not onely in fulnesse but capacitie Enlarging narrow men to feele and see And comprehend the blessings they bestow So reclus'd hermits often times do know More of heavens glory then a worldling can As man is of the world the heart of man Is an epitome of Gods great booke Of creatures and man need no farther looke So is the Country of Courts where sweet peace doth As their one common soule give life to both I am not then from Court Allophanes Dreamer thou art Think'st thou fantastique that thou hast a part In the Indian fleet because thou hast A little spice or Amber in thy taste Because thou art not frozen art thou warme Seest thou all good because thou seest no harme The earth doth in her inner bowels hold Stuffe well dispos'd and which would faine be gold But never shall except it chance to lye So upward that heaven gild it with his eye As for divine things faith comes from above So for best civill use all tinctures move From higher powers From God religion springs Wisdome and honour from the use of Kings Then unbeguile thy selfe and know with mee That Angels though on earth employd they bee Are still in heav'n so is hee still at home That doth abroad to honest actions come Chide thy selfe then O foole which yesterday Might'st have read more then all thy books bewray Hast thou a history which doth present A Court where all affections do assent Unto the Kings and that that Kings are just And where it is no levity to trust Where there is no ambition but to'obey Where men need whisper nothing and yet may Where the Kings favours are so plac'd that all Finde that the King therein is liberall To them in him because his favours bend To vertue to the which they all pretend Thou hast no such yet here was this and more An earnest lover wise then and before Our little Cupidhath sued Livery And is no more in his minority Hee is admitted now into that brest Where the Kings Counsells and his secrets rest What hast thou lost O ignorant man Idios I knew All this and onely therefore I withdrew To know and feele all this and not to have Words to expresse it makes a man a grave Of his owne thoughts I would not therefore stay At a great feast having no grace to say And yet I scap'd not here for being
that vertuous man there was And as if man feeds on mans flesh and so Part of his body to another owe Yet at the last two perfect bodies rise Because God knowes where every Atome lyes So if one knowledge were made of all those Who knew his minutes well hee might dispose His vertues into names and ranks but I Should injure Nature Vertue and Destinie Should I divide and discontinue so Vertue which did in one intirenesse grow For as hee that would say spirits are fram'd Of all the purest parts that can be nam'd Honours not spirits halfe so much as hee Which sayes they have no parts but simple bee So is't of vertue for a point and one Are much entirer then a million And had Fate meant to have his vertues told It would have let him live to have beene old So then that vertue in season and then this We might have seene and said that now he is Witty now wise now temperate now just In good short lives vertues are faine to thrust And to be sure betimes to get a place When they would exercise lacke time and space So was it in this person forc'd to bee For lack of time his owne epitome So to exhibit in few yeares as much As all the long breath'd Chronicles can touch As when an Angell down from heav'n doth flye Our quick thought cannot keepe him company Wee cannot thinke now hee is at the Sunne Now through the Moon now he through th' aire doth run Yet when he 's come we know he did repaire To all twixt Heav'n and Earth Sunne Moon and Aire And as this Angell in an instant knowes And yet wee know this sodaine knowledge growes By quick amassing severall formes of things Which he successively to order brings When they whose slow-pac'd lame thoughts cannot goe So fast as hee thinke that he doth not so Just as a perfect reader doth not dwell On every syllable nor stay to spell Yet without doubt hee doth distinctly see And lay together every A and B So in short liv'd good men is'not understood Each severall vertue but the compound good For they all vertues paths in that pace tread As Angells goe and know and as men read O why should then these men these lumps of Balme Sent hither the worlds tempest to becalme Before by deeds they are diffus'd and spred And so make us alive themselves be dead O Soule O circle why so quickly bee Thy ends thy birth and death clos'd up in thee Since one foot of thy compasse still was plac'd In heav'n the other might securely'have pac'd In the most large extent through every path Which the whole world or man the abridgment hath Thou knowst that though the tropique circles have Yea and those small ones which the Poles engrave All the same roundnesse evennesse and all The endlesnesse of the equinoctiall Yet when we come to measure distances How here how there the Sunne affected is When he doth faintly worke and when prevaile Onely great circles then can be our scale So though thy circle to thy selfe expresse All tending to thy endlesse happinesse And wee by our good use of it may trye Both how to live well young and how to die Yet since we must be old and age endures His Torrid Zone at Court and calentures Of hot ambitions irrelegions ice Zeales agues and hydroptique avarice Infirmities which need the scale of truth As well as lust and ignorance of youth Why did'st thou not for these give medicines too And by thy doing tell us what to doe Though as small pocket-clocks whose every wheele Doth each mismotion and distemper feele Whose hands get shaking palsies and whose string His sinewes slackens and whose Soule the spring Expires or languishes whose pulse the flye Either beates not or beates unevenly Whose voice the Bell doth rattle or grow dumbe Or idle ' as men which to their last houres come If these clockes be not wound or be wound still Or be not set or set at every will So youth is easiest to destruction If then wee follow all or follow none Yet as in great clocks which in steeples chime Plac'd to informe whole towns to'imploy their time An error doth more harme being generall When small clocks faults only'on the wearer fall So worke the faults of age on which the eye Of children servants or the State relie Why wouldst not thou then which hadst such a soule A clock so true as might the Sunne controule And daily hadst from him who gave it thee Instructions such as it could never be Disordered stay here as a generall And great Sun-dyall to have set us All O why wouldst thou be any instrument To this unnaturall course or why consent To this not miracle but Prodigie That when the ebbs longer then flowings be Vertue whose flood did with thy youth begin Should so much faster ebb out then flow'in Though her flood was blowne in by thy first breath All is at once sunke in the whirle-poole death Which word I would not name but that I see Death else a desert growne a Court by thee Now I grow sure that if a man would have Good companie his entry is a grave Mee thinkes all Cities now but Anthills bee Where when the severall labourers I see For children house Provision taking paine They' are all but Ants carrying eggs straw and grain And Church-yards are our cities unto which The most repaire that are in goodnesse rich There is the best concourse and confluence There are the holy suburbs and from thence Begins Gods City New Jerusalem Which doth extend her utmost gates to them At that gate then Triumphant soule dost thou Begin thy Triumph But since lawes allow That at the Triumph day the people may All that they will ' gainst the Triumpher say Let me here use that freedome and expresse My griefe though not to make thy Triumph lesse By law to Triumphs none admitted bee Till they as Magistrates get victorie Though then to thy force all youthes foes did yield Yet till fit time had brought thee to that field To which thy ranke in this state destin'd thee That there thy counsailes might get victorie And so in that capacitie remove All jealousies 'twixt Prince and subjects love Thou could'st no title to this triumph have Thou didst intrude on death usurp'st a grave That though victoriously thou hadst fought as yet But with thine owne affections with the heate Of youths desires and colds of ignorance But till thou should'st successefully advance Thine armes'gainst forraine enemies which are Both Envy and acclamation popular For both these engines equally defeate Though by a divers Mine those which are great Till then thy War was but a civill War For which to Triumph none admitted are No more are they who though with good successe â—n a defensive war their power expresse Before men triumph the dominion Must be enlarg'd and not preserv'd alone Why should'st thou then whose battailes were to win Thy selfe from those straits
with them who home-ward goe Elegie IMage of her whom I love more then she Whose faire impression in my faithfull heart Makes mee her Medall and makes her love mee As Kings do coynes to which their stamps impart The value goe and take my heart from hence Which now is growne too great and good for me Honours oppresse weake spirits and our sense Strong objects dull the more the lesse wee see When you are gone and Reason gone with you Then Fantasie is Queene and Soule and all She can present joyes meaner then you do Convenient and more proportionall So if I dreame I have you I have you For all our joyes are but fantasticall And so I scape the paine for paine is true And sleepe which locks up sense doth lock out all After a such fruition I shall wake And but the waking nothing shall repent And shall to love more thankfull Sonnets make Then if more honour teares and paines were spent But dearest heart and dearer image stay Alas true joyes at best are dreame enough Though you stay here you passe too fast away For even at first lifes Taper is a snuffe Fill'd with her love may I be rather grown Mad with much heart then ideott with none Elegie on Prince Henry LOoke to mee faith and looke to my faith God For both my centers feele this period Of waight one center one of greatnesse is And Reason is that center Faith is this For into'our reason flow and there do end All that this naturall world doth comprehend Quotidian things and equidistant hence Shut in for man in one circumference But for th'enormous greatnesses which are So disproportion'd and so angulare As is Gods essence place and providence Where how when what soules do departed hence These things eccentrique else on faith do strike Yet neither all nor upon all alike For reason put to'her best extension Almost meetes faith and makes both centers one And nothing ever came so nere to this As contemplation of that Prince wee misse For all that faith might credit mankinde could Reason still seconded that this prince would If then least moving of the center make More then if whole hell belch'd the world to shake What must this do centers distracted so That wee see not what to beleeve or know Was it not well beleev'd till now that hee Whose reputation was an extasie On neighbour States which knew not why to wake Till hee discover'd what wayes he would take For whom what Princes angled when they tryed Met a Torpedo and were stupified And others studies how he would be bent Was his great fathers greatest instrument And activ'st spirit to convey and tie This soule of peace through Christianity Was it not well beleev'd that hee would make This generall peace th' Eternall overtake And that his times might have stretch'd out so farre As to touch those of which they emblems are For to confirme this just beleefe that now The last dayes came wee saw heav'n did allow That but from his aspect and exercise In peacefull times Rumors of war did rise But now this faith is heresie we must Still stay and vexe our great grand mother Dust Oh is God prodigall hath he spent his store Of plagues on us and onely now when more Would ease us much doth he grudge misery And will not let 's enjoy our curse to dy As for the earth throwne lowest downe of all T' were an ambition to desire to fall So God in our desire to dye doth know Our plot for ease in being wretched so Therefore we live though such a life wee have As but so many mandrakes on his grave What had his growth and generation done When what we are his putrefaction Sustaines in us Earth which griefes animate Nor hath our world now other Soule then that And could griefe get so high as heav'n that Quire Forgetting this their new joy would desire With griefe to see him hee had staid below To rectifie our errours They foreknow Is th' other center Reason faster then Where should we looke for that now we' are not men For if our Reason be'our connexion Of causes now to us there can be none For as if all the substances were spent 'T were madnesse to enquire of accident So is't to looke for reason hee being gone The onely subject reason wrought upon If Fate have such a chaine whose divers links Industrious man discerneth as hee thinks When miracle doth come and so steale in A new linke man knowes not where to begin At a much deader fault must reason bee Death having broke off such a linke as hee But now for us with busie proofe to come That we'have no reason would prove wee had some So would just lamentations Therefore wee May safelyer say that we are dead then hee So if our griefs wee do not well declare We'have double excuse he 'is not dead and we are Yet I would not dy yet for though I bee Too narrow to thinke him as hee is hee Our Soules best baiting and midd-period In her long journey of considering God Yet no dishonour I can reach him thus As he embrac'd the fires of love with us Oh may I since I live but see or heare That she-Intelligence which mov'd this spheare I pardon Fate my life who ere thou bee Which hast the noble conscience thou art shee I conjure thee by all the charmes he spoke By th'oathes which onely you two never broke By all the soules yee sigh'd that if you see These lines you wish I knew your history So much as you two mutuall heav'ns were here I were an Angell singing what you were Psalme 137. I. BY Euphrates flowry side We did bide From deare Juda farre absented Tearing the aire with our cryes And our eyes With their streames his streame augmented II. When poore Syons dolefull state Desolate Sacked burned and inthrall'd And the Temple spoil'd which wee Ne'r should see To our mirthlesse mindes wee call'd III. Our mute harpes untun'd unstrung Up wee hung On greene willowes neere beside us Where we sitting all forlorne Thus in scorne Our proud spoylers 'gan deride us IV. Come sad Captives leave your moanes And your groanes Under Syons ruines bury Tune your harps and sing us layes In the praise Of your God and let 's be merry V. Can ah can we leave our moanes And our groanes Under Syons ruines bury Can we in this Land sing Layes In the praise Of our God and here be merry VI. No deare Syon if I yet Do forget Thine affliction miserable Let my nimble joynts become Stiffe and numme To touch warbling harpe unable VII Let my tongue lose singing skill Let it still To my parched roofe be glewed If in either harpe or voice I rejoyce Till thy joyes shall be renewed VIII Lord curse Edom's traiterous kinde Beare in minde In our ruines how they revell'd Sack kill burne they cry'd out still Sack burne kill Downe with all let all be levell'd IX And thou Babel when the
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
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
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
wee understood Her by her sight her pure and eloquent blood Spoke in her cheekes and so distinctly wrought That one might almost say her body thought Shee shee thus richly and largely hous'd is gone And chides us slow-pac'd snailes who crawle upon Our prisons prison earth nor thinke us well Longer then whil'st wee beare our brittle shell But 't were but little to have chang'd our roome If as we were in this our living Tombe Oppress'd with ignorance wee still were so Poore soule in this thy flesh what dost thou know Thou know'st thy selfe so little as thou know'st not How thou didst die nor how thou wast begot Thou neither know'st how thou at first cam'st in Nor how thou took'st the poyson of mans sinne Nor dost thou though thou know'st that thou art so By what way thou art made immortall know Thou art too narrow wretch to comprehend Even thy selfe yea though thou wouldst but bend To know thy body Have not all soules thought For many ages that our body is wrought Of aire and fire and other Elements And now they thinke of new ingredients And one Soule thinkes one and another way Another thinkes and 't is an even lay Knowst thou but how the stone doth enter in The bladders cave and never brake the skinne Know'st thou how blood which to the heart doth flow Doth from one ventricle to th' other goe And for the putrid stuffe which thou dost spit Know'st thou how thy lungs have attracted it There are no passages so that there is For ought thou know'st piercing of substances And of those many opinions which men raise Of Nailes and Haires dost thou know which to praise What hope have wee to know our selves when wee Know not the least things which for our use be Wee see in Authors too stiffe to recant A hundred controversies of an Ant And yet one watches starves freeses and sweats To know but Catechismes and Alphabets Of unconcerning things matters of fact How others on our stage their parts did Act What Caesar did yea and what Cicero said Why grasse is greene or why our blood is red Are mysteries which none have reach'd unto In this low forme poore soule what wilt thou doe When wilt thou shake off this Pedantery Of being taught by sense and Fantasie Thou look'st through spectacles small things seeme great Below But up unto the watch-towre get And see all things despoyl'd of fallacies Thou shalt not peepe through lattices of eyes Nor heare through Labyrinths of eares nor learne By circuit or collections to discerne In heaven thou straight know'st all concerning it And what concernes it not shalt straight forget There thou but in no other schoole maist bee Perchance as learned and as full as shee Shee who all libraries had throughly read At home in her owne thoughts and practised So much good as would make as many more Shee whose example they must all implore Who would or doe or thinke well and confesse That all the vertuous Actions they expresse Are but a new and worse edition Of her some one thought or one action She who in th' art of knowing Heaven was growne Here upon earth to such perfection That she hath ever since to Heaven she came In a far fairer point but read the same Shee shee not satisfied with all this waight For so much knowledge as would over-fraight Another did but ballast her is gone As well t' enjoy as get perfection And cals us after her in that shee tooke Taking her selfe our best and worthiest booke Returne not my Soule from this extasie And meditation of what thou shalt bee To earthly thoughts till it to thee appeare With whom thy conversation must be there With whom wilt thou converse what station Canst thou chose out free from infection That will not give thee theirs nor drinke in thine Shalt thou not finde a spungie slacke Divine Drinke and sucke in th' instructions of great men And for the word of God vent them agen Are there not some Courts and then no things bee So like as Courts which in this let us see That wits and tongues of Libellers are weake Because they do more ill then these can speake The poyson's gone through all poysons affect Chiefly the chiefest parts but some effect In nailes and haires yea excrements will show So lyes the poyson of sinne in the most low Up up my drowsie Soule where thy new eare Shall in the Angels songs no discord heare Where thou shalt see the blessed Mother-maid Joy in not being that which men have said Where she is exalted more for being good Then for her interest of Mother-hood Up to those Patriarchs which did longer sit Expecting Christ then they'have enjoy'd him yet Up to those Prophets which now gladly see Their Prophesies growne to be Historie Up to th'Apostles who did bravely runne All the Suns course with more light then the Sunne Up to those Martyrs who did calmly bleed Oyle to th'Apostles Lamps dew to their seed Up to those Virgins who thought that almost They made joyntenants with the Holy Ghost If they to any should his Temple give Up up for in that squadron there doth live She who hath carried thither new degrees As to their number to their dignities Shee who being to her selfe a State injoy'd All royalties which any State employ'd For shee made warres and triumph'd reason still Did not o'rthrow but rectifie her will And she made peace for no peace is like this That beauty and chastity together kisse She did high justice for she crucified Every first motion of rebellious pride And she gave pardons and was liberall For onely her selfe except she pardon'd all Shee coy'nd in this that her impression gave To all our actions all the worth they have She gave protections the thoughts of her brest Satans rude Officers could ne'r arrest As these prerogatives being met in one Made her a soveraigne State religion Made her a Church and these two made her all She who was all this All and could not fall To worse by company for she was still More Antidote then all the world was ill Shee shee doth leave it and by Death survive All this in Heaven whether who doth not strive The more because shee s there he doth not know That accidentall joyes in Heaven doe grow But pause my soule And study ere thou fall On accidentall joyes th'essentiall Still before Accessories doe abide A triall must the principall be tride And what essentiall joy can'st thou expect Here upon earth what permanent effect Of transitory causes Dost thou love Beauty And beauty worthy'st is to move Poore cousened cousenor that she and that thou Which did begin to love are neither now You are both fluid chang'd since yesterday Next day repaires but ill last dayes decay Nor are although the river keepe the name Yesterdaies waters and to daies the same So flowes her face and thine eyes neither now That Saint nor Pilgrime which your loving vow Concern'd remaines
but whil'st you thinke you bee Constant you' are hourely in inconstancie Honour may have pretence unto our love Because that God did live so long above Without this Honour and then lov'd it so That he at last made creatures to bestow Honour on him not that he needed it But that to his hands man might grow more fit But since all Honours from inferiours flow For they doe give it Princes doe but shew Whom they would have so honor'd and that this On such opinions and capacities Is built as rise and fall to more and lesse Alas 't is but a casuall happinesse Hath ever any man to'himselfe assign'd This or that happinesse to'arrest his minde But that another man which takes a worse Thinks him a foole for having tane that course They who did labour Babels tower to'erect Might have considered that for that effect All this whole solid Earth could not allow Nor furnish forth materialls enough And that his Center to raise such a place Was farre too little to have beene the Base No more affords this world foundation To erect true joy were all the meanes in one But as the Heathen made them severall gods Of all Gods benefits and all his rods For as the Wine and Corne and Onions are Gods unto them so Agues bee and warre And as by changing that whole precious Gold To such small Copper coynes they lost the old And lost their only God who ever must Be sought alone and not in such a thrust So much mankinde true happinesse mistakes No Joy enjoyes that man that many makes Then Soule to thy first pitch worke up againe Know that all lines which circles doe containe For once that they the Center touch doe touch Twice the circumference and be thou such Double on heaven thy thoughts on earth emploid All will not serve Only who have enjoy'd The sight of God in fulnesse can thinke it For it is both the object and the wit This is essentiall joy where neither hee Can suffer diminution nor wee 'T is such a full and such a filling good Had th'Angels once look'd on him they had stood To fill the place of one of them or more Shee whom wee celebrate is gone before She who had here so much essentiall joy As no chance could distract much lesse destroy Who with Gods presence was acquainted so Hearing and speaking to him as to know His face in any naturall Stone or Tree Better then when in Images they bee Who kept by diligent devotion Gods Image in such reparation Within her heart that what decay was growne Was her first Parents fault and not her owne Who being solicited to any act Still heard God pleading his safe precontract Who by a faithfull confidence was here Betroth'd to God and now is married there Whose twilights were more cleare then our mid-day Who dreamt devoutlier then most use to pray Who being here fil'd with grace yet strove to bee Both where more grace and more capacitie At once is given she to Heaven is gone Who made this world in some proportion A heaven and here became unto us all Joy as our joyes admit essentiall But could this low world joyes essentiall touch Heavens accidentall joyes would passe them much How poore and lame must then our casuall bee If thy Prince will his subjects to call thee My Lord and this doe swell thee thou art than By being greater growne to bee lesse Man When no Physitian of redresse can speake A joyfull casuall violence may breake A dangerous Apostem in thy breast And whil'st thou joyest in this the dangerous rest The bag may rise up and so strangle thee What e'r was casuall may ever bee What should the nature change Or make the same Certaine which was but casuall when it came All casuall joy doth loud and plainly say Only by comming that it can away Only in Heaven joyes strength is never spent And accidentall things are permanent Joy of a soules arrivall ne'r decaies For that soule ever joyes and ever staies Joy that their last great Consummation Approaches in the resurrection When earthly bodies more celestiall Shall be then Angels were for they could fall This kinde of joy doth every day admit Degrees of growth but none of losing it In this fresh joy 't is no small part that shee Shee in whose goodnesse he that names degree Doth injure her 'T is losse to be cal'd best There where the stuffe is not such as the rest Shee who left such a bodie as even shee Only in Heaven could learne how it can bee Made better for shee rather was two soules Or like to full on both sides written Rols Where eyes might reade upon the outward skin As strong Records for God as mindes within Shee who by making full perfection grow Peeces a Circle and still keepes it so Long'd for and longing for it to heaven is gone Where shee receives and gives addition Here in a place where mis-devotion frames A thousand Prayers to Saints whose very names The anciēt Church knew not Heaven knows not yet And where what lawes of Poetry admit Lawes of Religion have at least the same Immortall Maide I might invoke thy name Could any Saint provoke that appetite Thou here should'st make me a french convertite But thou would'st not nor would'st thou be content To take this for my second yeares true Rent Did this Coine beare any other stampe then his That gave thee power to doe me to say this Since his will is that to posteritie Thou should'st for life and death a patterne bee And that the world should notice have of this The purpose and th' authoritie is his Thou art the Proclamation and I am The Trumpet at whose voyce the people came The Extasie WHere like a pillow on a bed A Pregnant banke swel'd up to rest The violets reclining head Sat we two one anothers best Our hands were firmely cimented With a fast balme which thence did spring Our eye-beames twisted and did thred Our eyes upon one double string So to'entergraft our hands as yet Was all the meanes to make us one And pictures in our eyes to get Was all our propagation As 'twixt two equall Armies Fate Suspends uncertaine victorie Our soules which to advance their state Were gone out hung 'twixt her and mee And whil'st our soules negotiate there Wee like sepulchrall statues lay All day the same our postures were And wee said nothing all the day If any so by love refin'd That he soules language understood And by good love were growen all minde Within convenient distance stood He though he knowes not which soule spake Because both meant both spake the same Might thence a new concoction take And part farre purer then he came This Extasie doth unperplex We said and tell us what we love Wee see by this it was not sexe Wee see we saw not what did move But as all severall soules containe Mixture of things they know not what Love these mixt soules doth
With whom shee dwells no place of rest afford In streights shee meets her Persecutors sword 4 Emptie are the gates of Sion and her waies Mourne because none come to her solemne dayes Her Priests doe groane her maides are comfortlesse And shee 's unto her selfe a bitternesse 5 Her foes are growne her head and live at Peace Because when her transgressions did increase The Lord strooke her with sadnesse Th' enemie Doth drive her children to captivitie 6 From Sions daughter is all beauty gone Like Harts which seeke for Pasture and find none Her Princes are and now before the foe Which still pursues them without strength they go 7 Now in their daies of Teares Jerusalem Her men slaine by the foe none succouring them Remembers what of old shee esteemed most Whiles her foes laugh at her for what she hath lost 8 Jerusalem hath sinn'd therefore is shee Remov'd as women in uncleannesse bee Who honor'd scorne her for her foulnesse they Have seene her selfe doth groane and turne away 9 Her foulnesse in her skirts was seene yet she Remembred not her end Miraculously Therefore shee fell none comforting Behold O Lord my affliction for the Foe growes bold 10 Upon all things where her delight hath beene The foe hath stretch'd his hand for shee hath seene Heathen whom thou command'st should not doe so Into her holy Sanctuary goe 11 And all her people groane and seeke for bread And they have given only to be fed All precious things wherein their pleasure lay How cheape I'am growne O Lord behold and weigh 12 All this concernes not you who passe by mee O see and marke if any sorrow bee Like to my sorrow which Jehova hath Done to mee in the day of his fierce wrath 13 That fire which by himselfe is governed He hath cast from heaven on my bones and spred A net before my feet and mee o'rthrowne And made me languish all the day alone 14 His hand hath of my sinnes framed a yoake Which wreath'd and cast upon my neck hath broke My strength The Lord unto those enemies Hath given mee from whence I cannot rise 15 He under foot hath troden in my sight My strong men He did company invite To breake my young men he the winepresse hath Trod upon Juda's daughter in his wrath 16 For these things doe I weepe mine eye mine eye Casts water out For he which should be nigh To comfort mee is now departed farre The foe prevailes forlorne my children are 17 There 's none though Sion do stretch out her hand To comfort her it is the Lords command That Iacobs foes girt him Ierusalem Is as an uncleane woman amongst them 18 But yet the Lord is just and righteous still I have rebell'd against his holy will O heare all people and my sorrow see My maides my young men in captivitie 19 I called for my lovers then but they Deceiv'd mee and my Priests and Elders lay Dead in the citie for they sought for meat Which should refresh their soules they could not get 20 Because I am in streights Iehova see My heart return'd my bowells muddy bee Because I have rebell'd so much as fast The sword without as death within doth wast 21 Of all which heare I mourne none comforts mee My foes have heard my griefe and glad they be That thou hast done it But thy promis'd day Will come when as I suffer so shall they 22 Let all their wickednesse appeare to thee Doe unto them as thou hast done to mee For all my sinnes The sighs which I have had Are very many and my heart is sad CHAP. II. 1 HOw over Sions daughter hath God hung His wraths thicke cloud and from heaven hath flung To earth the beauty of Israel and hath Forgot his foot-stoole in the day of wrath 2 The Lord unsparingly hath swallowed All Jacobs dwellings and demolished To ground the strengths of Iuda and prophan'd The Princes of the Kingdome and the land 3 In heat of wrath the horne of Israel hee Hath cleane cut off and lest the enemie Be hindred his right hand he doth retire But is towards Iacob All-devouring fire 4 Like to an enemie he bent his bow His right hand was in posture of a foe To kill what Sions daughter did desire ' Gainst whom his wrath he poured forth like fire 5 For like an enemie Iehova is Devouring Israel and his Palaces Destroying holds giving additions To Iuda's daughters lamentations 6 Like to a garden hedge he hath cast downe The place where was his congregation And Sions feasts and sabbaths are forgot Her King her Priest his wrath regardeth not 7 The Lord forsakes his Altar and detests His Sanctuary and in the foes hands rests Palace and the walls in which their cries Are heard as in the true solemnities 8 The Lord hath cast a line so to confound And levell Sions walls unto the ground He drawes not back his hand which doth oreturne The wall and Rampart which together mourne 9 Their gates are sunke into the ground and hee Hath broke the barre their King and Princes bee Amongst the heathen without law nor there Unto their Prophets doth the Lord appeare 10 There Sions Elders on the ground are plac'd And silence keepe Dust on their heads they cast In sack cloth have they girt themselves and low The Virgins towards ground their heads do throw 11 My bowells are growne muddy and mine eyes Are faint with weeping and my liver lies Pour'd out upon the ground for miserie That sucking children in the streets doe die 12 When they had cryed unto their Mothers where Shall we have bread and drinke they fainted there And in the street like wounded persons lay Till 'twixt their mothers breasts they went away 13 Daughter Ierusalem Oh what may bee A witnesse or comparison for thee Sion to case thee what shall I name like thee Thy breach is like the sea what help can bee 14 For the vaine foolish things thy Prophets sought Thee thine iniquities they have not taught Which might disturne thy bondage but for thee False burthens and false causes they would see 15 The passengers doe clap their hands and hisse And wag their head at thee and say Is this That citie which so many men did call Joy of the earth and perfectest of all 16 Thy foes doe gape upon thee and they hisse And gnash their teeth and say Devoure wee this For this is certainly the day which wee Expected and which now we finde and see 17 The Lord hath done that which he purposed Fulfill'd his word of old determined He hath throwne downe and not spar'd and thy foe Made glad above thee and advanc'd him so 18 But now their hearts against the Lord do call Therefore O walls of Sion let teares fall Downe like a river day and night take thee No rest but let thine eye incessant be 19 Arise cry in the night poure for thy sinnes Thy heart like water when the watch begins Lift up thy hands to God
of all our Soules devotion As vertue was in the first blinded age Are not heavens joyes as valiant to asswage Lusts as earths honour was to them Alas As wee do them in meanes shall they surpasse Us in the end and shall thy fathers spirit Meete blinde Philosophers in heaven whose merit Of strict life may be imputed faith and heare Thee whom hee taught so easie wayes and neare To follow damn'd O if thou dar'st feare this This feare great courage and high valour is Dar'st thou ayd mutinous-Dutch and dar'st thou lay Thee in ships woodden Sepulchers a prey To leaders rage to stormes to shot to dearth Dar'st thou dive seas and dungeons of the earth Hast thou couragious fite to thaw the ice Of frozen North discoueries and thrise Colder then Salamanders like divine Children in th'oven fires of Spaine and the line Whose countries limbecks to our bodies bee Canst thou for gaine beare and must every hee Which cryes not Goddesse to thy Mistresse draw Or eate thy poysonous words courage of straw O desperate coward wilt thou seeme bold and To thy foes and his who made thee to stand Sentinell in his worlds garrison thus yeeld And for forbidden warres leave th' appointed field Know thy foe the foule devill h 'is whom thou Strivest to please for hate not love would allow Thee faine his whole Realme to be quit and as The world 's all parts wither away and passe So the worlds selfe thy other lov'd foe is In her decrepit wayne and thou loving this Dost love a withered and worne strumpet last Flesh it selfe death and joyes which flesh can taste Thou lovest and thy faire goodly soule which doth Give this flesh power to taste joy thou dost loath Seeke true religion O where Mirreus Thinking her unhous'd her and fled from us Seekes her at Rome there because hee doth know That shee was there a thousand yeares agoe He loves the ragges so as wee here obey The statecloth where the Prince sate yesterday Crants to such brave Loves will not be inthrall'd But loves her onely who at Geneva is call'd Religion plaine simple sullen yong Contemptuous yet unhansome As among Lecherous humors there is one that judges No wenches wholsome but course country drudges Graius stayes still at home here and because Some Preachers vile ambitious bauds and lawes Still new like fashions bids him thinke that shee Which dwels with us is onely perfect hee Imbraceth her whom his Godfathers will Tender to him being tender as Wards still Take such wives as their Guardians offer or Pay valewes Carelesse Phrygius doth abhorre All because all cannot be good as one Knowing some women whores dares marry none Graccus loves all as one and thinkes that so As women do in divers countries goe In divers habits yet are still one kinde So doth so is Religion and this blindnesse too much light breeds but unmoved thou Of force must one and forc'd but one allow And the right aske thy father which is shee Let him aske his though truth and falshood bee Neare twins yet truth a little elder is Be busie to seeke her beleeve mee this Hee 's not of none nor worst that seekes the best To adore or scorne an image or protest May all be bad doubt wisely in strange way To stand inquiring right is not to stray To sleepe or runne wrong is on a huge hill Cragg'd and steep Truth stands and hee that will Reach her about must and about must goe And what the hills suddennes resists winne so Yet strive so that before age deaths twilight Thy Soule rest for none can worke in that night To will implyes delay therefore now doe Hard deeds the bodies paines hard knowledge to The mindes indeavours reach and mysteries Are like the Sunne dazling yet plaine to all eyes Keepe the truth which thou hast found men do not stand In so ill case that God hath with his hand Sign'd Kings blanck-charters to kill whom they hate Nor are they Vicars but hangmen to Fate Foole and wretch wilt thou let thy Soule be tyed To mans lawes by which she shall not be tryed At the last day Will it then boot thee To say a Philip or a Gregory A Harry or a Martin taught thee this Is not this excuse for mere contraries Equally strong cannot both sides say so That thou mayest rightly obey power her bounds know Those past her nature name is chang'd to be Then humble to her is idolatrie As streames are Power is those blest flowers that dwell At the rough streames calme head thrive and do well But having left their roots and themselves given To the streames tyrannous rage alas are driven Through mills rockes woods and at last almost Consum'd in going in the sea are lost So perish Soules which more chuse mens unjust Power from God claym'd then God himselfe to trust Satyre IIII. WEll I may now receive and die My sinne Indeed is great but I have beene in A Purgatorie such as fear'd hell is A recreation and scant map of this My minde neither with prides itch nor yet hath been Poyson'd with love to see or to bee seene I had no suit there nor new suite to shew Yet went to Court But as Glaze which did goe To Masse in jest catch'd was faine to disburse The hundred markes which is the Statutes curse Before he scapt So'it pleas'd my destinie Guilty of my sin of going to thinke me As prone to all ill and of good as forgetfull as proud as lustfull and as much in debt As vaine as witlesse and as false as they Which dwell in Court for once going that way Therefore I suffered this Towards me did runne A thing more strange then on Niles slime the Sunne E'r bred or all which into Noahs Arke came A thing which would have pos'd Adam to name Stranger then seaven Antiquaries studies Then Africks Monsters Guianaes rarities Stranger then strangers One who for a Dane In the Danes Massacre had sure beene slaine If he had liv'd then And without helpe dies When next the Prentises'gainst Strangers rise One whom the watch at noone lets scarce goe by One to whom the examining Justice sure would cry Sir by your priesthood tell me what you are His cloths were strāge though coarse black though bare Sleevelesse his jerkin was and it had beene Velvet but 't was now so much ground was seene Become Tufftaffatie and our children shall See it plaine Rashe awhile then nought at all This thing hath travail'd and saith speakes all tongues And only knoweth what to all States belongs Made of th' Accents and best phrase of all these He speakes one language If strange meats displease Art can deceive or hunger force my tast But Pedants motley tongue souldiers bumbast Mountebankes drugtongue nor the termes of law Are strong enough preparatives to draw Me to beare this yet I must be content With his tongue in his tongue call'd complement In which he can win widdowes and
it and dignifie it But infinite nothings are but one such Yet since even Chymeraes have some name and titles I am also Yours To Sr. H. G. SIR IN the history or stile of friendship which is best written both in deeds and words a letter which is of a mixed nature and hath something of both is a mixt parenthesis It may be left out yet it contributes though not to the beeing yet to the verdure and freshnesse thereof Letters have truly the same office as oathes As these amongst light and empty men are but fillings and pauses and interjections but with waightier they are sad attestations So are letters to some complement and obligation to others For mine as I never authorized my servant to lye in my behalfe for if it were officious in him it might be worse in mee so I allow my letters much lesse that civill dishonesty both because they goe from mee more considerately and because they are permanent for in them I may speake to you in your chamber a yeare hence before I know not whom and not heare my selfe They shall therefore ever keepe the sincerity and intemeratenesse of the fountaine whence they are derived And as wheresoever these leaves fall the root is in my heart so shall they as that sucks good affections towards you there have ever true impressions thereof Thus much information is in very leaves that they can tell what the tree is and these can tell you I am a friend and an honest man Of what generall use the fruit should speake and I have none and of what particular profit to you your application and experimenting should tell you and you can make none of such a nothing Yet even of barren Sicamores such as I there were use if either any light flashings or scorching vehemencies or sudden showers made you need so shadowie an example or Remembrancer But Sir your fortune and minde do you this happy injury that they make all kinde of fruits uselesse unto you Therefore I have placed my love wisely where I need communicate nothing All this though perchance you reade it not till Michaelmas was told you at Michin 15. Aug. 1607. To Sr H. G. SIR IT should be no interruption to your pleasures to heare mee often say that I love you and that you are as much my meditation as my selfe I often compare not you and mee but the Spheare in which your resolutions are and my wheele both I hope concentrique to God for me thinkes the new Astronomie is thus applyable well that wee which are a little earth should rather move towards God then that hee which is fulfilling and can come no whither should move towards us To your life full of variety nothing is old nor new to mine And as to that life all stickings and hesitations seeme stupid and stony so to this all fluid slipperinesses and transitory migrations seeme giddy and feathery In that life one is ever in the porch or posterne going in or out never within his house himself It is a garment made of remnants a life raveld out into ends a line discontinued a number of small wretched points uselesse because they concurre not A life built of past future not proposing any constant present They have more pleasures then wee but not more pleasure they joy oftner wee longer and no man but of so much understanding as may deliver him from being a foole would change with a mad-man which had a better proportion of wit in his often Lucidis You know they which dwell farthest from the Sunne if in any convenient distance have longer dayes better appetites better digestion better growth and longer life And all these advantages have their mindes who are well removed from the scorchings and dazlings and exhalings of the worlds glory but neither of our lifes are in such extremes for you living at Court without ambition which would burne you or envy which would devest others live in the Sunne not in the fire and I which live in the Country without stupifying am not in darknesse but in shadow which is not no light but a pallid watrish and diluted one As all shadowes are of one colour if you respect the body from which they are cast for our shadows upon clay will be dirty and in a garden greene and flowery so all retyrings into a shadowie life are alike from all causes and alike subject to the barbarousnesse and insipid dulnes of the countrie Only the employment and that upon which you cast and bestow your pleasure businesse or bookes gives it the tincture and beauty But truly wheresoever we are if wee can but tell our selves truly what where we would be we may make any state place such For we are so composed that if abundance or glory scorch melt us we have an earthly cave our bodies to go into by consideration coole our selves and if we be frozen and contracted with lower and darke fortunes wee have within us a torch a soule lighter and warmer then any without we are therefore our owne umbrellas and our owne Sun◠These Sir are the Sallads and Onyons of Michin sent to you with as wholsome affection as your other friends send Melons and Quelque choses from Court and London If I present you not as good dyet as they I would yet say grace to theirs and bid much good do it you I send you with this a letter which I sent to the Countesse It is not my use nor duty to do so But for your having of it there were but two consents and I am sure you have mine and you are sure you have hers I also writ to her Ladiship for the verses shee shewed in the garden which I did not onely to extort them nor onely to keepe my promise of writing for that I had done in the other letter and perchance shee hath forgotten the promise nor onely because I thinke my letters just good enough for a Progresse but because I would write apace to her whilst it is possible to expresse that which I yet know of her for by this growth I see how soone she will be ineffable To the Countesse of Bedford Happiest and worthyest Lady I Do not remember that ever I have seen a petition in verse I would not therefore be singular nor adde these to your other papers I have yet adventured so neare as to make a petitiō for verse It is for those your Ladiship did me the honor to see in a Twicknam garden except you repēt your making having mended your judgement by thinking worse that is better because juster of their subject They must needs be an excellent exercise of your wit which speake so well of so ill I humbly begge them of your Ladiship with two such promises as to any other of your compositions were threatnings That I will not shew them that I will not beleeve them And nothing should be so used which comes from your braine or heart
If I should confesse a fault in the boldnesse of asking them or make a fault by doing it in a longer letter your Ladiship might use your stile and old fashion of the Court towards mee and pay mee with a pardon Here therefore I humbly kisse your Ladiships faire learned hands and wish you good wishes and speedy grants Your Ladiships servant JO. DONNE To Sr H. G. SIR BEcause I am in a place and season where I see every thing bud forth I must do so too and vent some of my meditations to you the rather because all other buds being yet without taste or vertue my letters may be like them The pleasantnes of the season displeases mee Every thing refreshes and I wither and I grow older and not better My strength diminishes and my load growes and being to passe more and more stormes I finde that I have not only cast out all my ballast which nature and time gives reason discretion so am as empty light as vanity can make me but I have over-fraught my selfe with vice and so am riddingly subject to two contrary wrackes sinking and over-setting and under the iniquity of such a disease as enforces the patient when hee is almost starv'd not onely to fast but to purge for I have much to take in and much to cast out Sometimes I thinke it easier to discharge my selfe of vice then of vanity as one may sooner carry the fire out of a roome then the smoke And then I see it was a new vanity to thinke so And when I thinke sometimes that vanity because it is thinne and airy may be expelled with vertue or businesse or substantiall vice I finde that I give entrance thereby to new vices Certainly as the earth water one sad the other fluid make but one body so to vice and vanity there is but one Centrum morbi And that which later Physitiās say of our bodies is fitter for our mindes for that which they call destruction which is a corruption and want of those fundamentall parts whereof we consist is vice And that Collectio Stercorum which is but the Excrement of that corruption is our vanity and indiscretion Both these have but one root in mee and must bee pulled out at once or never But I am so far from digging to it that I know not where it is For it is not in mine eyes only but in every sense nor in my concupiscence only but in every power and affection Sir I was willing to let you see how impotent a man you love not to dishearten you from doing so still for my vices are not infectious nor wandring They came not yesterday nor meane to goe away to day They Inne not but dwell in mee and see themselves so welcome and finde in mee so good bad company of one another that they will not change especially to one not apprehensive nor easily accessible but I doe it that your counsell might cure mee and if you deny that your example shall for I will as much strive to be like you as I will wish you to continue good To Sir H. G. SIR I Hope you are now welcome to London and well and well comforted in your fathers health and love and well contented that we aske you how you doe and tell you how we are which yet I cannot of my selfe If I knew that I were ill I were well For we consist of three parts a Soule and Body and Mind which I call those thoughts and affections and passions which neither Soule nor Body hath alone but have beene begotten by their communication as Musique results out of our breath and a Cornet And of all these the diseases are cures if they be knowne Of our Soules sicknesses which are sinnes the knowledge is to acknowledge and that is her physick in which wee are not dieted by drams and scruples for we cannot take too much Of our bodies infirmities though our knowledge be partly ab extrinseco from the opinion of the Physitian and that the subject and matter be flexible and various Yet their rules are certaine and if the matter be rightly applyed to the rule our knowledge thereof is also certaine But of the diseases of the minde there is no Cryterium no Canon no rule for our owne tast and apprehension interpretation should be the judge and that is the disease it selfe Therefore sometimes when I finde my selfe transported with jollity and love of company I hang leads at my heeles and reduce to my thoughts my fortunes my yeares the duties of a man of a friend of a husband of a father and all the incumbencies of a family When sadnesse dejects me either I countermine it with another sadnesse or I kindly squibs about mee againe and flie into sportfulnesse and company And I finde ever after all that I am like an Exorcist which had long laboured about one which at last appeares to have the Mother that I still mistake my disease And I still vexe my selfe with this because if I know it not no body can know it And I comfort my selfe because I see dispassioned men are subject to the like ignorances For divers mindes out of the same thing often draw contrary conclusions as Augustine thought devout Anthony to bee therfore full of the holy Ghost because not being able to read he could say the whole Bible and interpret it And Thyraeus the Jesuite for the same reason doth thinke all the Anabaptists to be possessed And as often out of contrary things men draw one conclusion As To the Romane Church Magnificence and Splendor hath ever beene an argument of Gods favour and Poverty and Affliction to the Greeke Out of this variety of mindes it proceeds that though all our Soules would goe to one end Heaven and all our bodies must goe to one end the Earth Yet our third part the minde which is our naturall Guide here chuses to every man a severall way Scarce any man likes what another doth nor advisedly that which himselfe But Sir I am beyond my purpose I meant to write a letter and I am fallen into a discourse and I doe not only take you from some businesse but I make you a new businesse by drawing you into these meditations In which yet let my opennes be an argument of such love as I would fain expresse in some worthier fashion Elegies upon the Author TO THE MEMORIE OF MY EVER DESIRED FRIEND Dr. DONNE TO have liv'd eminent in a degree Beyond our lofty'st flights that is like Thee Or t' have had too much merit is not safe For such excesses finde no Epitaph At common graves we have Poetique eyes Can melt themselves in easie Elegies Each quill can drop his tributary verse And pin it like the Hatchments to the Hearse But at Thine Poeme or Inscription Rich soule of wit and language we have none Indeed a silence does that tombe befit Where is no Herald left to blazon it Widow'd invention justly doth
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