He calls himself a son from heaven’s descent;
What can earth’s force avail ’gainst heaven’s defence?
His life by immortality is lent;
Then how can punishment his wrath incense?
Though death herself in his arraignment deck,
He hath his life’s preserver at a beck.
As doth the basilisk with poison’d sight 21
Blind every function of a mortal eye,
Disarm the body’s powers of vital might,
Rob heart of thought, make living life to die,
So do[391] the wicked with their vice’s look
Infect the spring of clearest virtue’s brook.
This basilisk, mortality’s chief foe,
And to the heart’s long-knitted artery,
Doth sometime perish at her shadow’s show,
Poisoning herself with her own poison’d eye:
Needs must the sting fall out with over-harming,
Needs must the tongue burn out in over-warming.
So fares it with the practisers of vice, 22
Laden with many venomous adders’ stings,
Sometimes are blinded with their own device,
And tune[392] that song which their destruction sings;
Their mischief blindeth their mischievous eyes,
Like basilisks, which in their shadow dies.
They go, and yet they cannot see their feet,
Like blinded pilgrims in an unknown way,
Blind in perceiving things which be most meet,
But need nor sight nor guide to go astray:
Tell them of good, they cannot understand;
But tell them of a mischief, that’s at hand.
The basilisk was made to blind the sight, 23
The adder for to sting, the worm to creep,
The viper to devour, the dog to bite,
The nightingale to wake when others sleep;
Only man differs from his Maker’s will,
Undoing what is good, and doing ill.
A godlike face he had, a heavenly hue, 24
Without corruption, image without spots;
But now is metamorphosèd anew,
Full of corruption, image full of blots;
Blotted by him that is the plot[393] of evil,
Undone, corrupted, vanquish’d by the devil.
Chap. III.
But every cloud cannot hide Phœbus’ face, 1
Nor shut the casement of his living flame;
Nor is there every soul which wanteth grace,
Nor every heart seduc’d with mischief’s name:
Life cannot live without corruption,
World cannot be without destruction.
Nor is the body all corrupt, or world
Bent wholly unto wickedness’ assault;
The adder is not always seen uncurl’d,
Nor every soul found guilty in one fault;
Some good, some bad; but those whom virtues guard,
Heaven is their haven, comfort their reward.
Thrice-happy habitation of delight, 2
Thrice-happy step of immortality,
Thrice-happy souls to gain such heavenly sight,
Springing from heaven’s perpetuity!
O peaceful place! but O thrice-peaceful souls,
Whom neither threats nor strife nor wars controls!
They are not like the wicked, for they live;
Nor they like to the righteous, for they die;
Each of their lives a differing nature give:
One thinks that life ends with mortality,
And that the righteous never live again,
But die as subjects to a grievous pain.
What labouring soul refuseth for to sweat, 4
Knowing his hire, his payment, his reward,
To suffer winter’s cold and summer’s heat,
Assurèd of his labour’s due regard?
The bee with summer’s toil will lade her hive,
In winter’s frost to keep herself alive.
And what divinest spirit would not toil,
And suffer many torments, many pains,
This world’s destruction, heavy labour’s foil,
When heaven is their hire, heaven’s joy their gains?
Who would not suffer torments for to die,
When death’s reward is immortality?
Pain is the entrance to eternal joy; 5
Death endeth life, and death beginneth life,
Beginneth happy, endeth in annoy,
Begins immortal peace, ends mortal strife;
Then, seeing death and pains bring joy and heaven,
What need we fear death’s pain, when life is given?
Say sickness, or infirmity’s disease
(As many harms hang over mortal heads),
Should be his world’s reward; yet heaven hath ease,
A salve to cure, and quiet resting beds:
God maketh in earth’s world lament our pleasure,
That in heaven’s world delight might be our treasure.
Fair may the shadow be, the substance foul; 6
After the trial followeth the trust;
The clearest skin may have the foulest soul;
The purest gold will sooner take the rust;
The brook, though ne’er so clear, may take some soil;
The hart, though ne’er so strong, may take some foil.
Wouldst thou be counted just? make thyself just,
Or purify thy mire-bespotted heart;
For God doth try thy actions ere he trust,
Thy faith, thy deeds, thy words, and what thou art;
He will receive no mud for clearest springs,
Nor thy unrighteous words for righteous things.
As God is perfect God and perfect good, 7
So he accepteth none but perfect minds;
They ever prosper, flourish, live, and bud,
Like blessèd plants, far from destruction’s winds;
Still bud, ne’er fade, still flourish, ne’er decay;
Still rise, ne’er fall, still spring, ne’er fade away.
Who would not covet to be such a plant,
Who would not wish to stand in such a ground,
Sith[394] it doth neither fruit nor blessing want,
Nor aught which in this plant might not be found?
They are the righteous which enjoy this earth,
The figure of an ever-bearing birth.
The small is always subject to the great, 8
The young to him which is of elder time,
The lowest place unto the highest seat,
And pale-fac’d Phœbe to bright Phœbus’ clime;
Vice is not governor of virtue’s place,
But blushes for to see so bright a face.
Virtue is chief, and virtue will be chief,
Chief good, and chief Astræa, justice’ mate,
Both for to punish and to yield relief,
And have dominion over every state,
To right the wrongs which wickedness hath done,
Delivering nations from life-lasting moan.
O you, whose causes plungeth in despair, 9
Sad-fac’d petitioners with grief’s request!
What seek you? here’s nor justice nor her heir,
But woe and sorrow, with death’s dumb arrest;
Turn up your woe-blind eyes unto the sky,
There sits the judge can yield you remedy.
Trust in his power, he is the truest God,
True God, true judge, true justice, and true guide;
All truth is placèd in his truth’s abode,
All virtues seated at his virtuous side;
He will regard your suit, and ease your plaint,
And mollify your misery’s constraint.
Then shall you see the judges of the earth 10
Summonèd with the trumpet of his ire,
To give account and reckoning from their birth,
Where[395] worthy or unworthy of their hire:
The godly shall receive their labour’s trial,
The wicked shall receive their joy’s denial.
They which did sleep in sin, and not regarded
The poor man’s fortune prostrate at their feet,
Even as they dealt, so shall they be rewarded,
When they their toilèd souls’ destruction meet;
From judges they petitioners shall be,
Yet want the sight which they do sue to see.
That labour which is grounded on delight, 11
That hope which reason doth enrich with hap,
That merit which is plac’d in wisdom’s might,
Secure from mischief’s bait or folly’s clap,
Wit’s labour, reason’s hope, and wisdom’s merit,
All three in one, make one thrice-happy spirit.
Why set I happiness ’fore mortal eyes,
Which covet[396] to be drench’d in misery,
Mantling their foolish minds in folly’s guise,
Despising wisdom’s perpetuity?
Sin’s labour, folly’s hope, and vice’s merit,
These three in one make a thrice-cursèd spirit.
Vain hope must needs consist in what is vain; 12
All foolish labours flow[397] from folly’s tears;
Unprofitable works proceed from pain,
And pain ill labour’s duest guerdon bears;
Three[398] vanities in one, and one in three,
Make three pains one, and one uncertainty.
A wicked king makes a more wicked land;
Heads once infected soon corrupt[399] the feet;
If the tree falls, the branches cannot stand,
Nor children, be their parents indiscreet;
The man infects the wife, the wife the child,
Like birds which in one nest be all defil’d.
The field which never was ordain’d to bear 13
Is happier far than a still-tillèd ground;
This sleeps with quietness in every year,
The other curs’d if any tares be found;
The barren happier than she that bears,
This brings forth joy, the other tares and tears.
The eunuch never lay in vice’s bed, 14
The barren woman never brought forth sin;
These two in heaven’s happiness are led,
She fruit in soul, he fruit in faith doth win:
O rare and happy man, for ever blest!
O rare and happy woman, heaven’s guest!
Who seeks to reap before the corn be ripe? 15
Who looks for harvest among winter’s frost?
Or who in grief will follow pleasure’s pipe?
What mariner can sail upon the coast?
That which is done in time is done in season,
And things done out of time are[400] out of reason.
The glorious labour is in doing good,
In time’s observance, and in nature’s will,
Whose fruit is also glorious for our food,
If glory may consist in labour’s skill,
Whose root is wisdom, which shall never wither,
But spring, and sprout, and love, and live together.
But every ground doth not bear blessèd plants, 16
Nor every plant brings forth expected fruit;
What this same ground may have, another wants;
Nor are all causes answer’d with one suit:
That tree whose root is sound, whose grounding strong,
May firmly stand when others lie along.
View nature’s beauty, mark her changing hue,
She is not always foul, not always fair,
Chaste and unchaste she is, true and untrue,
And some spring[401] from her in a lustful air;
And these adulterers be, whose seed shall perish;
Never shall lust and wickedness long flourish.
Although the flint be hard, the water soft, 17
Yet is it mollified with lightest drops;
Hard is the water when the wind’s aloft;
Small things in time may vanquish greatest stops:
The longer grows the tree, the greater moss;
The longer soil remains, the more the dross.
The longer that the wicked live[402] on earth,
The greater is their pain, their sin, their shame,
The greater vice’s reign and virtue’s dearth,
The greater goodness’ lack and mischief’s name;
When in their youth no honour they could get,
Old age could never pay so young a debt.
To place an honour in dishonour’s place, 18
Were but to make disparagement of both;
Both enemies, they could not brook the case,
For honour to subvert dishonour’s growth:
Dishonour will not change for honour’s room,
She hopes to stay after their bodies’ doom.
Or live they long, or die they suddenly,
They have no hope, nor comfort of reward;
Their hope of comfort is iniquity,
The bar by which they from their joys are barr’d:
O old-new end, made to begin new grief!
O new beginning, end of old relief!
Chap. IV.
If happiness may harbour in content, 1
If life in love, if love in better life,
Then unto many happiness is lent,
And long-departed joy might then be rife:[403]
Some happy if they live, some if they die,
Happy in life, happy in tragedy.
Content is happiness because content;
Bareness and barrenness are[404] virtue’s grace,
Bare because wealth to poverty is bent,
Barren in that it scorns ill-fortune’s place;
The barren earth is barren of her tares,
The barren woman barren of her cares.
The soul of virtue is eternity, 2
All-filling essence of divinest rage;
And virtue’s true eternal memory
Is barrenness, her soul’s eternal gage:
O happy soul, that is engagèd there,
And pawns his life that barren badge to wear!
See how the multitude, with humble hearts,
Lies prostrate for to welcome her return!
See how they mourn and wail when she departs!
See how they make their tears her trophy’s urn!
Being present, they desire her; being gone,
Their hot desire is turn’d to hotter moan.
As every one hath not one nature’s mould, 3
So every one hath not one nature’s mind;
Some think that dross which others take for gold,
Each difference cometh from a differing kind;
Some do despise what others do embrace,
Some praise the thing which others do disgrace.
The barren doth embrace their barrenness,
And hold it as a virtue-worthy meed;
The other calls conception happiness,
And hold it as a virtue-worthy deed;
The one is firmly grounded on a rock,
The other billows’ game and tempests’ mock.
Sometime the nettle groweth with the rose; 4
The nettle hath a sting, the rose a thorn;
This stings the hand, the other pricks the nose,
Harming that scent which her sweet birth had borne;
Weeds among herbs, herbs among weeds are found,
Tares in the mantle of a corny ground.
The nettle’s growth is fast, the rose’s slow,
The weeds outgrow the herbs, the tares the corn;
These may be well compar’d to vice’s show,
Which covets for to grow ere it be born:
As greatest danger doth pursue fast going,
So greatest danger doth ensue fast growing.
The tallest cedar hath the greatest wind, 5
The highest tree is subject unto falls;
High-soaring eagles soon are strucken blind;
The tongue must needs be hoarse with many calls:
The wicked, thinking for to touch the sky,
Are blasted with the fire of heaven’s eye.
So like ascending and descending air,
Both dusky vapours from two humorous clouds,
Lies witherèd the glory of their fair;[405]
Unpleasant branches wrench’d in folly’s floods;
Unprofitable fruits, like to a weed,
Made only to infect, and not to feed.
Made for to make a fast, and not a feast, 6
Made rather for infection than for meat,
Not worthy to be eaten of a beast,
Thy taste so sour, thy poison is so great;
Thou may’st be well comparèd to a tree,
Because thy branches are as ill as thee.
Thou hast begot thine own confusion,
The witnesses of what thou dost begin,
Thy doomers in thy life’s conclusion,
Which will, unask’d and ask’d, reveal thy sin:
Needs must the new-hatch’d birds bewray the nest,
When they are nursèd in a step-dame’s breast.
But righteousness is of another sex, 7
Her root is from an everlasting seed,
No weak, unable grounding doth connex
Her never-limited memorial’s deed;
She hath no branches for a tempest’s prey,
No deeds but scorns to yield unto decay.
She hath no wither’d fruit, no show of store,
But perfect essence of a complete power;
Say that she dies to world, she lives the more,
As who so righteous but doth wait death’s hour?
Who knows not death to be the way to rest?
And he that never dies is never blest.
Happy is he that lives, twice he that dies, 8
Thrice happy he which neither liv’d nor died,
Which never saw the earth with mortal eyes,
Which never knew what miseries are tried:
Happy is life, twice happy is our death,
But three times thrice he which had never breath.
Some think[406] that pleasure is achiev’d by years,
Or by maintaining of a wretched life,
When, out, alas! it heapeth tears on tears,
Grief upon grief, strife on beginning strife:
Pleasure is weak, if measurèd by length;
The oldest ages have[407] the weaker strength.
Three turnings are contain’d in mortal course, 9
Old, mean, and young; mean and old bring[408] age;
The youth hath strength, the mean decaying force,
The old are weak, yet strong in anger’s rage:
Three turnings in one age, strong, weak, and weaker,
Yet age nor youth is youth’s or age’s breaker.
Some say[409] that youth is quick in judging causes,
Some say[409] that age is witty, grave, and wise:
I hold of age’s side, with their applauses,
Which judges with their hearts, not with their eyes;
I say grave wisdom lies in grayest heads,
And undefilèd lives in age’s beds.
God is both grave and old, yet young and new, 10
Grave because agèd, agèd because young;
Long youth may well be callèd age’s hue,
And hath no differing sound upon the tongue:
God old, because eternities are old;
Young, for eternities one motion hold.
Some in their birth, some die[410] when they are born,
Some born, and some abortive, yet all die;
Some in their youth, some in old age forlorn,
Some neither young nor old, but equally:
The righteous, when he liveth with the sinner,
Doth hope for death, his better life’s beginner.
The swine delights to wallow in the mire, 11
The giddy drunkard in excess of wine;
He may corrupt the purest reason’s gyre,
And she turn virtue into vice’s sign:
Mischief is mire, and may infect that spring
Which every flow and ebb of vice doth bring.
Fishes are oft deceivèd by the bait,
The bait deceiving fish doth fish deceive;
So righteous are allur’d by sin’s deceit,
And oft enticèd into sinners’ weave:
The righteous be as fishes to their gin,
Beguil’d, deceiv’d, allurèd into sin.
The fisher hath a bait deceiving fish, 12
The fowler hath a net deceiving fowls;
Both wisheth to obtain their snaring wish,
Observing time, like night-observing owls;
The fisher lays his bait, fowler his net,
He hopes for fish, the other birds to get.
This fisher is the wicked, vice his bait,
This fowler is the sinner, sin his net;
The simple righteous falls in their deceit,
And like a prey, a fish, a fowl beset:
A bait, a net, obscuring what is good,
Like fish and fowl took up for vice’s food.
But baits nor nets, gins nor beguiling snares, 13
Vice nor the vicious sinner, nor the sin,
Can shut the righteous into prison’s cares,
Or set deceiving baits to mew them in;
They know their life’s deliverer, heaven’s God,
Can break their baits and snares with justice’ rod.
When vice abounds on earth, and earth in vice, 14
When virtue keeps her chamber in the sky,
To shun the mischief which her baits entice,
Her snares, her nets, her guiles, her company;
As soon as mischief reigns upon the earth,
Heaven calls the righteous to a better birth.
The blinded eyes can never see the way, 15
The blinded heart can never see to see,
The blinded soul doth always go astray;
All three want sight, in being blind all three:
Blind and yet see, they see and yet are blind,
The face hath eyes, but eyeless is the mind.
They see with outward sight God’s heavenly grace,
His grace, his love, his mercy on his saints;
With outward-facèd eye and eyèd face,
Their outward body inward soul depaints:
Of heart’s chief eye they chiefly are bereft,
And yet the shadow[s] of two eyes are left.
Some blinded be in face, and some in soul; 16
The face’s eyes are not incurable;
The other wanteth healing to be whole,
Or seems to some to be endurable;
Look in a blinded eye, bright is the glass,
Though brightness banishèd from what it was.
So, quoth the righteous, are these blinded hearts;
The outward glass is clear, the substance dark,
Both seem as if one took the other’s parts,
Yet both in one have not one brightness’ spark:
The outward eye is but destruction’s reader,
Wanting the inward eye to be the leader.
Our body may be call’d a commonweal,
Our head the chief, for reason harbours there, 17
From thence comes heart’s and soul’s united zeal;
All else inferiors be, which stand in fear:
This commonweal, rul’d by discretion’s eye,
Lives likewise if she live, dies if she die.
Then how can weal or wealth, common or proper,
Long stand, long flow, long flourish, long remain,
When wail is weal’s, and stealth is wealth’s chief stopper,
When sight is gone, which never comes again?
The wicked see[411] the righteous lose their breath,
But know not what reward they gain by death.
Though blind in sight, yet can they see to harm, 18
See to despise, see to deride and mock;
But their revenge lies in God’s mighty arm,
Scorning to choose them for his chosen flock:
He is the shepherd, godly are his sheep,
They wake in joy, these in destruction sleep.
The godly sleep in eyes, but wake in hearts; 19
The wicked sleep in hearts, but wake in eyes:
These ever wake, eyes are no sleepy parts;
These ever sleep, for sleep is heart’s disguise:
Their waking eyes do see their heart’s lament,
While heart securely sleeps in eyes’ content.
If they awake, sleep’s image doth molest them, 20
And beats into their waking memories;
If they do sleep, joy waking doth detest them,
Yet beats into their sleeping arteries:
Sleeping or waking, they have fear on fear,
Waking or sleeping, they are ne’er the near.[412]
If waking, they remember what they are,
What sins they have committed in their waking;
If sleeping, they forget tormenting’s fare,
How ready they have been in mischief’s making:
When they awake, their wickedness betrays them;
When they do sleep, destruction dismays them.
Chap. V.