Rise, thou best and brightest morning!
Rosy with a double red;
With thine own blush thy cheeks adorning,
And the dear drops this day were shed.
All the purple pride, that laces
The crimson curtains of thy bed,
Guilds thee not with so sweet graces,
Nor setts thee in so rich a red.
Of all the fair-cheek't flowrs that fill thee,
None so fair thy bosom strowes,
As this modest maiden lilly
Our sins haue sham'd into a rose.
Bid thy golden god, the sun,
Burnisht in his best beames rise,
Put all his red-ey'd rubies on;
These rubies shall putt out their eyes.
Let him make poor the purple East,
Search what the world's close cabinets keep,
Rob the rich births of each bright nest
That flaming in their fair beds sleep.
Let him embraue his own bright tresses
With a new morning made of gemmes;
And wear, in those his wealthy dresses,
Another day of diadems.
When he hath done all he may
To make himselfe rich in his rise,
All will be darknes to the day
That breakes from one of these bright eyes.
And soon this sweet truth shall appear,
Dear Babe, ere many dayes be done;
The Morn shall come to meet Thee here,
And leaue her own neglected sun.
Here are beautyes shall bereaue him
Of all his eastern paramours.
His Persian louers all shall leaue him,
And swear faith to Thy sweeter powres;
Nor while they leave him shall they lose the sun,
But in Thy fairest eyes find two for one.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
St. ii. line 1,
'All the purple pride that laces;'
the reference is to the empurpled lighter and lace- (or gauze-)
like clouds of the morning. The heavier clouds are the 'crimson
curtains,' the 'purple laces' the fleecy, lace-like, and empurpled
streakings of the lighter and dissolving clouds, which
the Poet likens to the lace that edged the coverlet, and possibly
other parts of the bed and bedstead. Shakespeare describes a
similar appearance with the same word, but uses it in the sense
of inter or cross lacing, when he makes Juliet say (iii. 5),
'look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder East.'
So too in stanza v. 'each sparkling nest,' the flame-coloured
clouds are intended. 'Nest,' like 'bud,' is a favourite word
with Crashaw, and he uses it freely. In 1648 edition, st. iii.
line 2 reads 'showes;' stanza v. line 2, 'cabinets;' stanza viii.
line 5, 'and meet;' stanza ix. 'paramours' = lovers, wooers, not
as now signifying loose love. G.
Decoration E
Decoration A
IN THE GLORIOVS EPIPHANIE OF OVR
LORD GOD:
A HYMN SVNG AS BY THE THREE KINGS.[38]
1 Kinge. Bright Babe! Whose awfull beautyes make1
The morn incurr a sweet mistake;
2 Kinge. For Whom the officious Heauns deuise
To disinheritt the sun's rise:
3 Kinge. Delicately to displace5
The day, and plant it fairer in Thy face.
1 Kinge. O Thou born King of loues!
2 Kinge. Of lights!
3 Kinge. Of ioyes!
Chorus. Look vp, sweet Babe, look vp and see10
For loue of Thee,
Thus farr from home
The East is come
To seek her self in Thy sweet eyes.
1 Kinge. We, who strangely went astray,15
Lost in a bright
Meridian night.
2 Kinge. A darknes made of too much day.
3 Kinge. Becken'd from farr
By Thy fair starr,20
Lo, at last haue found our way.
Chorus. To Thee, Thou Day of Night! Thou East of West!
Lo, we at last haue found the way
To Thee, the World's great vniuersal East,
The generall and indifferent Day.25
1 Kinge. All-circling point! all-centring sphear!
The World's one, round, æternall year:
2 Kinge. Whose full and all-vnwrinkled face
Nor sinks nor swells with time or place;
3 Kinge. But euery where and euery while30
Is one consistent, solid smile:
1 Kinge. Not vext and tost
2 Kinge. 'Twixt Spring and frost;
3 Kinge. Nor by alternate shredds of light,
Sordidly shifting hands with shades and Night.35
Chorus. O little all! in Thy embrace
The World lyes warm, and likes his place;
Nor does his full globe fail to be
Kist on both his cheeks by Thee.
Time is too narrow for Thy year,40
Nor makes the whole World Thy half-sphear.
1 Kinge. To Thee, to Thee
From him we flee.
2 Kinge. From him, whom by a more illustrious ly,
The blindnes of the World did call the eye.45
3 Kinge. To Him, Who by these mortall clouds hast made
Thyself our sun, though Thine Own shade.
1 Kinge. Farewell, the World's false light!
Farewell, the white
Ægypt; a long farewell to thee50
Bright idol, black idolatry:
The dire face of inferior darknes, kis't
And courted in the pompus mask of a more specious mist.
2 Kinge. Farewell, farewell
The proud and misplac't gates of Hell,55
Pertch't in the Morning's way perched.
And double-guilded as the doores of Day:
The deep hypocrisy of Death and Night
More desperately dark, because more bright.
3 Kinge. Welcome, the World's sure way!60
Heavn's wholsom ray.
Chorus. Wellcome to vs; and we
(Sweet!) to our selues, in Thee.
1 Kinge. The deathles Heir of all Thy Father's day!
2 Kinge. Decently born!65
Embosom'd in a much more rosy Morn:
The blushes of Thy all-vnblemisht mother.
3 Kinge. No more that other
Aurora shall sett ope
Her ruby casements, or hereafter hope70
From mortall eyes
To meet religious welcomes at her rise.
Chorus. We (pretious ones!) in you haue won
A gentler Morn, a iuster sun.
1 Kinge. His superficiall beames sun-burn't our skin;75
2 Kinge. But left within
3 Kinge. The Night and Winter still of Death and Sin.
Chorus. Thy softer yet more certaine darts
Spare our eyes, but peirce our harts:
1 Kinge. Therfore with his proud Persian spoiles80
2 Kinge. We court Thy more concerning smiles.
3 Kinge. Therfore with his disgrace
We guild the humble cheek of this chast place;
Chorus. And at Thy feet powr forth his face.
1 Kinge. The doating Nations now no more85
Shall any day but Thine adore.
2 Kinge. Nor—much lesse—shall they leaue these eyes
For cheap Ægyptian deityes.
3 Kinge. In whatsoe're more sacred shape
Of ram, he-goat, or reuerend ape;90
Those beauteous rauishers opprest so sore
The too-hard-tempted nations.
1 Kinge. Neuer more
By wanton heyfer shall be worn
2 Kinge. A garland, or a guilded horn:95
The altar-stall'd ox, fatt Osyris now
With his fair sister cow
3 Kinge. Shall kick the clouds no more; but lean and tame,
Chorus. See His horn'd face, and dy for shame:
And Mithra now shall be no name.100
1 Kinge. No longer shall the immodest lust
Of adulterous godles dust
2 Kinge. Fly in the face of Heau'n; as if it were
The poor World's fault that He is fair.105
3 Kinge. Nor with peruerse loues and religious rapes
Reuenge Thy bountyes in their beauteous shapes;
And punish best things worst; because they stood
Guilty of being much for them too good.
1 Kinge. Proud sons of Death! that durst compell110
Heau'n it self to find them Hell:
2 Kinge. And by strange witt of madnes wrest
From this World's East the other's West.
3 Kinge. All-idolizing wormes! that thus could crowd
And vrge their sun into Thy cloud;115
Forcing His sometimes eclips'd face to be
A long deliquium to the light of Thee.
Chorus. Alas! with how much heauyer shade
The shamefac't lamp hung down his head
For that one eclipse he made,120
Then all those he suffered!
1 Kinge. For this he look't so bigg; and euery morn
With a red face confes't his scorn.
Or hiding his vex't cheeks in a hir'd mist
Kept them from being so vnkindly kis't.125
2 Kinge. It was for this the Day did rise
So oft with blubber'd eyes:
For this the Evening wept; and we ne're knew
But call'd it deaw.
3 Kinge. This dayly wrong130
Silenc't the morning-sons, and damp't their song:
Chorus. Nor was't our deafnes, but our sins, that thus
Long made th' harmonious orbes all mute to vs.
1 Kinge. Time has a day in store
When this so proudly poor135
And self-oppressèd spark, that has so long
By the loue-sick World bin made
Not so much their sun as shade:
Weary of this glorious wrong
From them and from himself shall flee140
For shelter to the shadow of Thy tree:
Chorus. Proud to haue gain'd this pretious losse
And chang'd his false crown for Thy crosse.
2 Kinge. That dark Day's clear doom shall define
Whose is the master Fire, which sun should shine:145
That sable judgment-seat shall by new lawes
Decide and settle the great cause
Of controuerted light:
Chorus. And Natur's wrongs rejoyce to doe Thee right.
3 Kinge. That forfeiture of Noon to Night shall pay150
All the idolatrous thefts done by this Night of Day;
And the great Penitent presse his own pale lipps
With an elaborate loue-eclipse:
To which the low World's lawes
Shall lend no cause,155
Chorus. Saue those domestick which He borrowes
From our sins and His Own sorrowes.
1 Kinge. Three sad hours' sackcloth then shall show to vs
His penance, as our fault, conspicuous:
2 Kinge. And He more needfully and nobly proue160
The Nations' terror now then erst their loue.
3 Kinge. Their hated loues changd into wholsom feares:
Chorus. The shutting of His eye shall open their's.
1 Kinge. As by a fair-ey'd fallacy of Day
Miss-ledde, before, they lost their way;165
So shall they, by the seasonable fright
Of an vnseasonable Night,
Loosing it once again, stumble on true Light:
2 Kinge. And as before His too-bright eye
Was their more blind idolatry;170
So his officious blindnes now shall be
Their black, but faithfull perspectiue of Thee:
3 Kinge. His new prodigious Night,
Their new and admirable light,
The supernaturall dawn of Thy pure Day;175
While wondring they
(The happy conuerts now of Him
Whom they compell'd before to be their sin)
Shall henceforth see
To kisse him only as their rod,180
Whom they so long courted as God.
Chorus. And their best vse of him they worship't, be
To learn of him at last, to worship Thee.
1 Kinge. It was their weaknes woo'd his beauty;
But it shall be185
Their wisdome now, as well as duty,
To injoy his blott; and as a large black letter
Vse it to spell Thy beautyes better;
And make the Night it self their torch to Thee.
2 Kinge. By the oblique ambush of this close night190
Couch't in that conscious shade
The right-ey'd Areopagite
Shall with a vigorous guesse inuade
And catch Thy quick reflex; and sharply see
On this dark ground195
To descant Thee.
3 Kinge. O prize of the rich Spirit! with what feirce chase
Of his strong soul, shall he
Leap at thy lofty face,
And seize the swift flash, in rebound200
From this obsequious cloud,
Once call'd a sun,
Till dearly thus vndone;
Chorus. Till thus triumphantly tam'd (O ye two
Twinne svnnes!) and taught now to negotiate you.205
1 Kinge. Thus shall that reuerend child of Light,
2 Kinge. By being scholler first of that new Night,
Come forth great master of the mystick Day;
3 Kinge. And teach obscure mankind a more close way
By the frugall negatiue light210
Of a most wise and well-abusèd Night
To read more legible Thine originall ray;
Chorus. And make our darknes serue Thy Day:
Maintaining 'twixt Thy World and oures
A commerce of contrary powres,215
A mutuall trade
'Twixt sun and shade,
By confederat black and white
Borrowing Day and lending Night.219
1 Kinge. Thus we, who when with all the noble powres
That (at Thy cost) are call'd, not vainly, ours:
We vow to make braue way
Vpwards, and presse on for the pure intelligentiall prey;
2 Kinge. At least to play
The amorous spyes225
And peep and proffer at Thy sparkling throne;
3 Kinge. In stead of bringing in the blissfull prize
And fastening on Thine eyes:
Forfeit our own
And nothing gain230
But more ambitious losse at last, of brain;
Chorus. Now by abasèd liddes shall learn to be
Eagles; and shutt our eyes that we may see.
The Close.
[Chorus.] Therfore to Thee and Thine auspitious ray235
(Dread Sweet!) lo thus
At last by vs,
The delegated eye of Day
Does first his scepter, then himself, in solemne tribute pay.
Thus he vndresses240
His sacred vnshorn tresses;
At Thy adorèd feet, thus he layes down
1 Kinge. His gorgeous tire
Of flame and fire,
2 Kinge. His glittering robe. 3 Kinge. His sparkling crown;245
1 Kinge. His gold: 2 Kinge. His mirrh: 3 Kinge. His frankincense.
Chorus. To which he now has no pretence:
For being show'd by this Day's light, how farr
He is from sun enough to make Thy starr,
His best ambition now is but to be250
Somthing a brighter shadow, Sweet, of Thee.
Or on Heaun's azure forhead high to stand
Thy golden index; with a duteous hand
Pointing vs home to our own sun
The World's and his Hyperion.255
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
The title in 1648 edition is simply 'A Hymne for the Epiphanie.
Sung as by the three Kings.' Except the usual slight
changes of orthography, the following are all the variations between
the two texts necessary to record: and I give with them
certain corrective and explanatory notes:
line 25, 'indifferent' is = impartial, not as now 'unconcerned.'
Line 52, 1648 edition misprints 'his't' for 'kis't.' In the
51st line the 'bright idol' is the sun.
Line 83, ib. reads 'thy' for 'this.'
" 95, 'a guilded horn.' Cf. Juvenal, Satire x.
" 99, ib. is given to 3d King. Throughout we have corrected
a number of slips of the Paris printer in his figures.
Line 108, ib. spells 'to' for 'too.'
" 117, 'deliquium' = swoon, faint. In chemistry = melting.
" 122, 1648 edition reads 'his' for 'this;' and I have
adopted it.
Line 143, ib. reads 'deere:' a misprint.
" 155, ib. reads 'domesticks.'
" 180, ib. reads 'the' for 'their.'
" 186, ib. drops 'it.'
" 195, ib. reads 'what' for 'that,' and in next line 'his'
for 'this,' of 1652: both adopted.
Line 212, 'legible' is = legibly.
" 224 and onward, in 1648 is printed 'least,' in our text
(1652) 'lest.' Except in line 224 it is plainly = last, and so I
read it in 231st and 237th.
See our Essay for Miltonic parallels with lines in this remarkable
composition. Line 46, 'these mortal clouds,' i.e. of
infant flesh. Cf. Sosp. d' Herode, stanza xxiii.
'That He whom the sun serves should faintly peep
Through clouds of infant flesh.'
Line 114, 'And urge their sun into Thy cloud,' i.e. into becoming
Thy cloud, forcing him to become 'a long deliquium to the
light of thee.' Line 189, our text (1652) misprints 'in self.' Line
190, 'By the oblique ambush,' &c. The Kings continuing in the
spirit of prophecy, and with words not to be understood till their
fulfilment, pass on from the dimming of the sun at the Crucifixion
to a second dimming, but this time through the splendour of a
brighter light, at the conversion of him who was taken to preach
to the Gentiles in the court of the Areopagites. The speaker, or
rather Crashaw, takes the view which at first sight may seem to
be implied in the gospel narrative, that the light brighter than
midday shone round about Saul and his companions but not on
them, they being couched in the conscious shade of the daylight.
Throughout, there is a double allusion to this second
dimming of the sun as manifesting Christ to St. Paul and the
Gentiles, and to the dimming of the eyes, and the walking in darkness
for a time of him who as a light on Earth was to manifest
the True Light to the world. Throughout, too, there is a
kind of parallelism indicated between the two lesser lights. Both
rebellions were to be dimmed and brought into subjection, and
then to shine forth 'right-eyed' in renewed and purified splendour
as evidences of the Sun of Righteousness. Hence at the
close, the chorus calls them 'ye twin-suns,'—and the words,
'Till thus triumphantly tamed' refer equally to both. The
punctuation to make this clear should be '... sun, ... undone;
...' 'To negotiate you' (both word and metaphor being
rather unhappily chosen) means, to pass you current as the
true-stamped image of the Deity. 'O price of the rich Spirit'
(line 197) may be made to refer to 'thee [O Christ], price of the
rich spirit' of Paul, but 'may be' is almost too strong to apply
to such an interpretation. It is far more consonant to the structure
and tenor of the whole passage, to read it as an epithet
applied to St. Paul: 'O prize of the rich Spirit of grace.' I
have also without hesitation changed 'of this strong soul' into
'of his strong soul.' 'Oblique ambush' may refer to the oblique
rays of the sun now rays of darkness, but the primary
reference is to the indirect manner and 'vigorous guess,' by
which St. Paul, mentally glancing from one to the other light,
learned through the dimming of the sun to believe in the Deity
of Him who spake from out the dimming brightness. The
same thought, though with a strained and less successful effort
of expression, appears in the song of the third King, 'with that
fierce chase,' &c.
Line 251. 'Somthing a brighter shadow (Sweet) of Thee.' Apparently
a remembrance of a passage which Thomas Heywood,
in his 'Hierarchie of the Angels,' gives from a Latin translation
of Plato, 'Lumen est umbra Dei et Deus est Lumen
Luminis.' On which see our Essay. Perhaps the same gave
rise to the thought that the sun eclipsed God, or shut Him out
as a cloud or shade, or made night, e.g.
'And urge their sun . . . . . .
. . . . eclipse he made:' (lines 115-120).
'Not so much their sun as shade
. . . . by this night of day:' (lines 138-151). G.
TO THE QVEEN'S MAIESTY.[39]
Madame,1
'Mongst those long rowes of crownes that guild your race,
These royall sages sue for decent place:
The day-break of the Nations; their first ray,
When the dark World dawn'd into Christian Day,5
And smil'd i' th' Babe's bright face; the purpling bud
And rosy dawn of the right royall blood;
Fair first-fruits of the Lamb! sure kings in this,
They took a kingdom while they gaue a kisse.
But the World's homage, scarse in these well blown,10
We read in you (rare queen) ripe and full-grown.
For from this day's rich seed of diadems
Does rise a radiant croppe of royalle stemms,
A golden haruest of crown'd heads, that meet
And crowd for kisses from the Lamb's white feet:15
In this illustrious throng, your lofty floud
Swells high, fair confluence of all high-born bloud:
With your bright head, whole groues of scepters bend
Their wealthy tops, and for these feet contend.
So swore the Lamb's dread Sire: and so we see't,20
Crownes, and the heads they kisse, must court these feet.
Fix here, fair majesty! May your heart ne're misse
To reap new crownes and kingdoms from that kisse;
Nor may we misse the ioy to meet in you
The aged honors of this day still new.25
May the great time, in you, still greater be,
While all the year is your epiphany;
While your each day's deuotion duly brings
Three kingdomes to supply this day's three kings.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
In 1648 the title is 'To the Queene's Majestie upon his
dedicating to her the foregoing Hymne, viz. "A Hymne for the
Epiphanie,"' which there precedes, but in 1652 follows, the
dedicatory lines to the Queen. 1648 furnishes these variations:
line 7 misprints 'down' for 'dawn:' line 11 reads 'deare' for
'rare:' line 14 'royall' for 'golden:' line 18 corrects our text's
misprint of 'whose' for 'whole,' which I have accepted: line 20
reads 'great' for 'dread.'
In line 3 we read
'Those royall sages sue for decent place.'
We know that the King on Twelfth-day presented gold, frankincense
and myrrh, and so perhaps did the Queen. But these
gifts were not presented to the magi-kings, and Crashaw seems
to sue on behalf of 'these royall sages.' The explanation doubtless
is that this was a verse-letter to the Queen, enclosing as
a gift his Epiphany Hymn 'sung as by the three Kings.'
In line 5 'the purpling bud,' &c. requires study. Led by
the (erroneous) punctuation (face,) I supposed this clause to
refer to the 'Babe.' But would our Poet have said that the
'dawn of the world smiled on the Babe's face,' and in the same
breath have called the face a 'rosy dawn'? Looking to this,
and his rather profuse employment of 'bud,' I now believe the
clause to be another description of the kings, and punctuate
(face;). The rhythm of the passage is certainly improved
thereby and made more like that of Crashaw, and the words
'right royall blood,' which may be thought to become difficult,
can be thus explained. The races of the heathen kings were
not 'royal,' their authority being usurped and falsely derived
from false gods, and the kingly blood first became truly royal
when the kings recognised the supreme sovereignty of the King
of kings and the derivation of their authority from Him, and
when they were in turn recognised by Him. Hence the use of
the epithet 'purpling,' the Christian or Christ-accepting kings
being the first who were truly 'born in the purple,' or 'right
royall blood.'
In lines 15-18, as punctuated in preceding editions, the
Poet is made to arrange his words after a fashion hardly to
be called English, and to jumble his metaphors like a poetaster
or 4th of July orator in America. But both sense and poetry
are restored by taking the (!) after 'blood' as at least equal to
(:), and by replacing 'whose' by 'whole,' as in 1648. This
seems to us restoration, not change. Even thus read, however,
the passage is somewhat cloudy; but the construction is—the
groves of sceptres of your high-born ancestors bend with you
their wealthy tops, when you bow down your head. Our Poet is
fond of inversions, and they are sometimes more obscure than
they ought to be. Line 20 = Psalm i., and cf. Philip. ii. 11. G.
VPON EASTER DAY.[40]
Rise heire of fresh Eternity1
From thy virgin tombe!
Rise mighty Man of wonders, and Thy World with Thee!
Thy tombe the uniuersall East,
Nature's new wombe,5
Thy tombe, fair Immortalitie's perfumèd nest.
Of all the glories make Noone gay,
This is the Morne;
This Rock buds forth the fountaine of the streames of Day;
In Joye's white annalls live this howre10
When Life was borne;
No cloud scoule on His radiant lids, no tempest lower.
Life, by this Light's nativity
All creatures have;
Death onely by this Daye's just doome is forc't to dye,15
Nor is Death forc't; for may he ly
Thron'd in Thy grave,
Death will on this condition be content to dye.
Decoration C
SOSPETTO D' HERODE.
LIBRO PRIMO.[41]
ARGOMENTO.
Casting the times with their strong signes,
Death's master his owne death divines:
Strugling for helpe, his best hope is
Herod's suspition may heale his.
Therefore he sends a fiend to wake
foolish
The sleeping tyrant's fond mistake;
Who feares (in vaine) that He Whose birth
Meanes Heav'n, should meddle with his Earth.
I.
Muse, now the servant of soft loves no more,
Hate is thy theame, and Herod, whose unblest
Hand (O what dares not jealous greatnesse?) tore
A thousand sweet babes from their mothers' brest:
The bloomes of martyrdome. O be a dore
Of language to my infant lips, yee best
Of confessours: whose throates answering his swords,
Gave forth your blood for breath, spoke soules for words.
II.
Great Anthony! Spain's well-beseeming pride,
Thou mighty branch of emperours and kings;
The beauties of whose dawne what eye may bide?
Which with the sun himselfe weigh's equall wings;
Mappe of heroick worth! whom farre and wide
To the beleeving world, Fame boldly sings:
Deigne thou to weare this humble wreath, that bowes
To be the sacred honour of thy browes.
III.
Nor needs my Muse a blush, or these bright flowers
Other than what their owne blest beauties bring:
They were the smiling sons of those sweet bowers
That drink the deaw of life, whose deathlesse spring,
Nor Sirian flame nor Borean frost deflowers:
From whence heav'n-labouring bees with busie wing,
Suck hidden sweets, which well-digested proves
Immortall hony for the hive of loves.
IV.
Thou, whose strong hand with so transcendent worth,
Holds high the reine of faire Parthenope,
That neither Rome nor Athens can bring forth
A name in noble deeds rivall to thee!
Thy fame's full noise, makes proud the patient Earth,
Farre more then, matter for my Muse and mee.
The Tyrrhene Seas and shores sound all the same
And in their murmurs keepe thy mighty name.
V.
Below the bottome of the great Abysse,
There where one center reconciles all things:
The World's profound heart pants; there placèd is
Mischiefe's old master. Close about him clings
A curl'd knot of embracing snakes, that kisse
His correspondent cheekes: these loathsome strings
Hold the perverse prince in eternall ties
Fast bound, since first he forfeited the skies.
VI.
The judge of torments and the king of teares,
He fills a burnisht throne of quenchlesse fire:
And for his old faire roabes of light, he weares
A gloomy mantle of darke flames; the tire
That crownes his hated head on high appeares:
Where seav'n tall hornes (his empire's pride) aspire.
And to make up Hell's majesty, each horne
Seav'n crested Hydras, horribly adorne.
VII.
His eyes, the sullen dens of Death and Night,
Startle the dull ayre with a dismall red:
Such his fell glances, as the fatall light
Of staring comets, that looke kingdomes dead.
From his black nostrills, and blew lips, in spight
Of Hell's owne stinke, a worser stench is spread.
His breath Hell's lightning is: and each deepe groane
Disdaines to think that Heav'n thunders alone.
VIII.
His flaming eyes' dire exhalation,
Vnto a dreadfull pile gives fiery breath;
Whose unconsum'd consumption preys upon
The never-dying life of a long death.
In this sad house of slow destruction,
(His shop of flames) hee fryes himself, beneath
A masse of woes; his teeth for torment gnash,
While his steele sides sound with his tayle's strong lash.
IX.
Three rigourous virgins waiting still behind,
Assist the throne of th' iron-sceptred king.
With whips of thornes and knotty vipers twin'd
They rouse him, when his ranke thoughts need a sting.
Their lockes are beds of uncomb'd snakes that wind
About their shady browes in wanton rings.
Thus reignes the wrathfull king, and while he reignes,
His scepter and himselfe both he disdaines.
X.