He whom they did deny, now they extol;
He whom they do extol, they did deny;
He whom they did deride, they do enroll
In register of heavenly majesty:
Their thirst was ever thirst, repentance stopt it;
Their life was ever dead, repentance propt it.
And had it not, their thirst had burn’d their hearts, 13
Their hearts had cried out for their tongues’ reply,
Their tongues had raisèd all their bodies’ parts,
Their bodies, once in arms, had made all die:
Their foolish practices had made them wise,
Wise in their hearts, though foolish in their eyes.
But they, alas! were dead, to worship death,
Senseless in worshipping all shadow’d shows,
Breathless in wasting of so vain a breath,
Dumb in performance of their tongues’ suppose:
They in adoring death, in death’s behests,
Were punishèd with life and living beasts.
Thus for a shew of beasts they substance have, 14
The thing itself against the shadow’s will,
Which makes the shadows, sad woes in life’s grave,
As nought impossible in heaven’s skill:
God sent sad Ohs for shadows of lament,
Lions and bears in multitudes he sent:
Newly created beasts, which sight ne’er saw, 15
Unknown, which neither eye nor ear did know,
To breathe out blasts of fire against their law,
And cast out smoke with a tempestuous blow;
Making their eyes the chambers of their fears,
Darting forth fire as lightning from the spheres.
Thus marching one by one, and side by side, 16
By the profane, ill-limn’d, pale spectacles,
Making both fire and fear to be their guide,
Pull’d down their vain-adoring chronicles;
Then staring in their faces, spit forth fire,
Which heats and cools their frosty-hot desire:
Frosty in fear, unfrosty in their shame,
Cool in lament, hot in their power’s disgraces;
Like lukewarm coals, half kindled with the flame,
Sate white and red mustering within their faces:
The beasts themselves did not so much dismay them,
As did their ugly eyes’ aspècts decay them.
Yet what are beasts, but subjects unto man, 17
By the decree of heaven, degree of earth?
They have more strength than he, yet more he can,
He having reason’s store, they reason’s dearth;
But these were made to break subjection’s rod,
And shew the stubbornness of man to God.
Had they not been ordain’d to such intent,
God’s word was able to supplant their powers,
And root out them which were to mischief bent,
With wrath and vengeance, minutes in death’s hours;
But God doth keep a full, direct, true course,
And measures pity’s love with mercy’s force.
The wicked think[455] God hath no might at all, 18
Because he makes no show of what he is,
When God is loath to give their pride a fall,
Or cloud the day wherein they do amiss;
But should his strength be shewn, his anger rise,
Who could withstand the sun-caves of his eyes?
Alas, what is the world against his ire! 19
As snowy mountains ’gainst the golden sun,
Forc’d for to melt and thaw with frosty fire,
Fire hid in frost, though frost of cold begun:
As dew-distilling drops fall from the morn,
So n[e]w destruction’s claps fall from his scorn.
But his revenge lies smother’d in his smiles, 20
His wrath lies sleeping in his mercy’s joy,
Which very seldom rise at mischief’s coils,
And will not wake for every sinner’s toy:
Boundless his mercies are, like heaven’s grounds,
They have no limits they, nor heaven no bounds.
The promontory-top of his true love
Is like the end of never-ending streams,
Like Nilus’ water-springs, which inward move,
And have no outward shew of shadows’ beams:
God sees, and will not see, the sins of men,
Because they should amend: amend! O when?
The mother loves the issues of her womb, 21
As doth the father his begotten son;
She makes her lap their quiet-sleeping tomb,
He seeks to care for life which new begun:
What care hath He, think, then, that cares for all,
For agèd and for young, for great and small!
Is not that father careful, fill’d with care,
Loving, long-suffering, merciful, and kind,
Which made with love all things that in love are,
Unmerciful to none, to none unkind?
Had man been hateful, man had never been,
But perish’d in the spring-time of his green.
But how can hate abide where love remains? 22
Or how can anger follow mercy’s path?
How can unkindness hinder kindness’ gains?
Or how can murder bathe in pity’s bath?
Love, mercy, kindness, pity, either’s mate,
Do[456] scorn unkindness, anger, murder, hate.
Had it not been thy will to make the earth, 23
It still had been a chaos unto time;
But ’twas thy will that man should have a birth,
And be preserv’d by good, condemn’d by crime:
Yet pity reigns within thy mercies’ store,
Thou spar’st and lov’st us all; what would we more?
Chap. XII.
When all the elements of mortal life 1
Were placèd in the mansion of their skin,
Each having daily motion to be rife,[457]
Clos’d in that body which doth close them in,
God sent his holy Spirit unto man,
Which did begin when first the world began:
So that the body, which was king of all, 2
Is subject unto that which now is king,
Which chasteneth those whom mischief doth exhale,
Unto misdeeds from whence destructions spring:
Yet merciful it is, though it be chief,
Converting vice to good, sin to belief.
Old time is often lost in being bald, 3
Bald, because old, old, because living long;
It is rejected oft when it is call’d;
And wears out age with age, still being young:
Twice children we, twice feeble, and once strong;
But being old, we sin, and do youth wrong.
The more we grow in age, the more in vice,
A house-room long unswept will gather dust;
Our long-unthawèd souls will freeze to ice,
And wear the badge of long-imprison’d rust;
So those inhabitants in youth twice born,
Were old in sin, more old in heaven’s scorn.
Committing works as inky spots of fame, 4
Commencing words like foaming vice’s waves,
Committing and commencing mischief’s name,
With works and words sworn to be vice’s slaves:
As sorcery, witchcraft, mischievous deeds,
And sacrifice, which wicked fancies feeds.
Well may I call that wicked which is more, 5
I rather would be low than be too high;
O wondrous practisers, cloth’d all in gore,
To end that life which their own lives did buy!
More than swine-like eating man’s bowels up,
Their banquet’s dish, their blood their banquet’s cup.
Butchers unnatural, worse by their trade, 6
Whose house the bloody shambles of decay,
More than a slaughter-house which butchers made,
More than an Eschip,[458] seely[459] bodies prey:
Thorough whose hearts a bloody shambles runs;
They do not butcher beasts, but their own sons.
Chief murderers of their souls, which their souls bought; 7
Extinguishers of light, which their lives gave;
More than knife-butchers they, butchers in thought,
Sextons to dig their own-begotten grave;
Making their habitations old in sin,
Which God doth reconcile, and new begin.
That murdering place was turn’d into delight, 8
That bloody slaughter-house to peace’s breast,
That lawless palace to a place of right,
That slaughtering shambles to a living rest;
Made meet for justice, fit for happiness,
Unmeet for sin, unfit for wickedness.
Yet the inhabitants, though mischief’s slaves, 9
Were not dead-drench’d in their destruction’s flood;
God hop’d to raise repentance from sins’ graves,
And hop’d that pain’s delay would make them good;
Not that he was unable to subdue them,
But that their sins’ repentance should renew them.
Delay is took for virtue and for vice; 10
Delay is good, and yet delay is bad;
’Tis virtue when it thaws repentance’ ice,
’Tis vice to put off things we have or had:
But here it followeth repentance’ way,
Therefore it is not sin’s nor mischief’s prey.
Delay in punishment is double pain,
And every pain makes a twice-double thought,
Doubling the way to our lives’ better gain,
Doubling repentance, which is single bought;
For fruitless grafts, when they are too much lopt,
More fruitless are, for why their fruits are stopt.
So fares it with the wicked plants of sin, 11
The roots of mischief, tops of villany;
They worser are with too much punishing,
Because by nature prone to injury;
For ’tis but folly to supplant his thought
Whose heart is wholly given to be naught.
These seeded were in seed, O cursed plant!
Seeded with other seed, O cursed root!
Too much of good doth turn unto good’s want,
As too much seed doth turn to too much soot:
Bitter in taste, presuming of their height,
Like misty vapours in black-colour’d night.
But God, whose powerful arms one strength doth hold, 12
Scorning to stain his force upon their faces,
Will send his messengers, both hot and cold,
To make them shadows of their own disgraces:
His hot ambassador is fire, his cold
Is wind, which two scorn for to be controll’d.
For who dares say unto the King of kings,
What hast thou done, which ought to be undone?
Or who dares stand against thy judgment’s stings?
Or dare accuse thee for the nation’s moan?
Or who dare say, Revenge this ill for me?
Or stand against the Lord with villany?
What he hath done he knows; what he will do 13
He weigheth with the balance of his eyes;
What judgment he pronounceth must be so,
And those which he oppresseth cannot rise:
Revenge lies in his hands when he doth please;
He can revenge and love, punish and ease.
The carvèd spectacle which workmen make
Is subject unto them, not they to it;
They which from God a lively form do take,
Should much more yield unto their Maker’s wit;
Sith[460] there is none but he which hath his thought,
Caring for that which he hath made of nought.
The clay is subject to the potter’s hands, 14
Which with a new device makes a new moul;[461]
And what are we, I pray, but clayey bands,
With ashy body, join’d to cleaner soul?
Yet we, once made, scorn to be made again,
But live in sin, like clayey lumps of pain.
Yet if hot anger smother cool delight,
He’ll mould our bodies in destruction’s form,
And make ourselves as subjects to his might,
In the least fuel of his anger’s storm:
Not king nor tyrant dare ask or demand,
What punishment is this thou hast in hand?
We all are captives to thy regal throne; 15
Our prison is the earth, our bands our sins,
And our accuser our own body’s groan,
Press’d down with vice’s weights and mischief’s gins:
Before the bar of heaven we plead for favour,
To cleanse our sin-bespotted body’s savour.
Thou righteous art, our pleading, then, is right;
Thou merciful, we hope for mercy’s grace;
Thou orderest every thing with look-on sight,
Behold us, prisoners in earth’s wandering race;
We know thy pity is without a bound,
And sparest them which in some faults be found.
Thy power is as thyself, without an end, 16
Beginning all to end, yet ending none;
Son unto virtue’s son, and wisdom’s friend,
Original of bliss to virtue shewn;
Beginning good, which never ends in vice;
Beginning flames, which never end in ice.
For righteousness is good in such a name;
It righteous is, ’tis good in such a deed;
A lamp it is, fed with discretion’s flame;
Begins in seed, but never ends in seed:
By this we know the Lord is just and wise,
Which causeth him to spare us when he tries:
Just, because justice weighs what wisdom thinks; 17
Wise, because wisdom thinks what justice weighs;
One virtue maketh two, and two more links;
Wisdom is just, and justice never strays:
The help of one doth make the other better,
As is the want of one the other’s letter.
But wisdom hath two properties in wit,
As justice hath two contraries in force;
Heat added unto heat augmenteth it,
As too much water bursts a water-course:
God’s wisdom too much prov’d doth breed God’s hate,
God’s justice too much mov’d breeds God’s debate.
Although the ashy prison of fire-durst[462] 18
Doth keep the flaming heat imprison’d in,
Yet sometime will it burn, when flame it must,
And burst the ashy cave where it hath bin:[463]
So if God’s mercy pass the bounds of mirth,
It is not mercy then, but mercy’s dearth.
Yet how can love breed hate without hate’s love?
God doth not hate to love, nor love to hate;
His equity doth every action prove,
Smothering with love that spiteful envy’s fate;
For should the team[464] of anger trace his brow,
The very puffs of rage would drive the plough.
But God did end his toil when world begun; 19
Now like a lover studies how to please,
And win their hearts again whom mischief won,
Lodg’d in the mansion of their sin’s disease:
He made each mortal man two ears, two eyes,
To hear and see; yet he must make them wise.
If imitation should direct man’s life,
’Tis life to imitate a living corse;
The thing’s example makes the thing more rife;[465]
God loving is, why do we want remorse?[466]
He put repentance into sinful hearts,
And fed their fruitless souls with fruitful arts.
If such a boundless ocean of good deeds 20
Should have such influence from mercy’s stream,
Kissing both good and ill, flowers and weeds,
As doth the sunny flame of Titan’s beam;
A greater Tethys then should mercy be,
In flowing unto them which loveth thee.
The sun, which shines in heaven, doth light the earth, 21
The earth, which shines in sin, doth spite the heaven;
Sin is earth’s sun, the sun of heaven sin’s dearth,
Both odd in light, being of height not even:
God’s mercy then, which spares both good and ill,
Doth care for both, though not alike in will.
Can vice be virtue’s mate or virtue’s meat? 22
Her company is bad, her food more worse;
She shames to sit upon her betters’ seat,
As subject beasts wanting the lion’s force;
Mercy is virtue’s badge, foe to disdain;
Virtue is vice’s stop and mercy’s gain.
Yet God is merciful to mischief-flows,
More merciful in sin’s and sinners’ want;
God chasteneth us, and punisheth our foes,
Like sluggish drones amongst a labouring ant:
We hope for mercy at our bodies’ doom;
We hope for heaven, the bail of earthly tomb.
What hope they for, what hope have they of heaven? 23
They hope for vice, and they have hope of hell,
From whence their souls’ eternity is given,
But such eternity which pains can tell:
They live; but better were it for to die,
Immortal in their pain and misery.
Hath hell such freedom to devour souls?
Are souls so bold to rush in such a place?
God gives hell power of vice, which hell controls;
Vice makes her followers bold with armèd face;
God tortures both, the mistress and the man,
And ends in pain that which in vice began.
A bad beginning makes a worser end, 24
Without repentance meet the middle way,
Making a mediocrity their friend,
Which else would be their foe, because they stray:
But if repentance miss the middle line,
The sun of virtue ends in west’s decline.
So did it fare with these, which stray’d too far,
Beyond the measure of the mid-day’s eye,
In error’s ways, led without virtue’s star,
Esteeming beast-like powers for deity;
Whose heart no thought of understanding meant,
Whose tongue no word of understanding sent:
Like infant babes, bearing their nature’s shell 25
Upon the tender heads of tenderer wit,
Which tongue-tied are, having no tale to tell,
To drive away the childhood of their fit;
Unfit to tune their tongue with wisdom’s string,
Too fit to quench their thirst in folly’s spring.
But they were trees to babes, babes sprigs to them,
They not so good as these, in being nought;
In being nought, the more from vice’s stem,
Whose essence cannot come without a thought:
To punish them is punishment in season,
They children-like, without or wit or reason.
To be derided is to be half-dead, 26
Derision bears a part ’tween life and death;
Shame follows her with misery half-fed,
Half-breathing life, to make half-life and breath:
Yet here was mercy shewn, their deeds were more
Than could be wip’d off by derision’s score.
This mercy is the warning of misdeeds,
A trumpet summoning to virtue’s walls,
To notify their hearts which mischief feeds,
Whom vice instructs, whom wickedness exhales:
But if derision cannot murder sin,
Then shame shall end, and punishment begin.
For many shameless are, bold, stout in ill; 27
Then how can shame take root in shameless plants,
When they their brows with shameless furrows fill,
And plough[467] each place which one plough-furrow wants?
Then being arm’d ’gainst shame with shameless face,
How can derision take a shameful place?
But punishment may smooth their wrinkled brow,
And set shame on the forehead of their rage,
Guiding the fore-front of that shameless row,
Making it smooth in shame, though not in age;
Then will they say that God is just and true;
But ’tis too late, damnation will ensue.
Chap. XIII.
The branch must needs be weak, if root be so, 1
The root must needs be weak, if branches fall;
Nature is vain, man cannot be her foe,
Because from nature and at nature’s call:
Nature is vain, and we proceed from nature,
Vain therefore is our birth, and vain our feature.
One body may have two diseases sore,
Not being two, it may be join’d to two;
Nature is one itself, yet two and more,
Vain, ignorant of God, of good, of show,
Which not regards the things which God hath done,
And what things are to do, what new begun.
Why do I blame the tree, when ’tis the leaves? 2
Why blame I nature for her mortal men?
Why blame I men? ’tis she, ’tis she that weaves,
That weaves, that wafts unto destruction’s pen:
Then, being blameful both, because both vain,
I leave to both their vanity’s due pain.
To prize the shadow at the substance’ rate,
Is a vain substance of a shadow’s hue;
To think the son to be the father’s mate,
Earth to rule earth because of earthly view;
To think fire, wind, air, stars, water, and heaven,
To be as gods, from whom their selves are given:
Fire as a god? O irreligious sound! 3
Wind as a god? O vain, O vainest voice!
Air as a god? when ’tis but dusky ground;
Star as a god? when ’tis but Phœbe’s choice;
Water a god? which first by God was made;
Heaven a god? which first by God was laid.
Say all hath beauty, excellence, array,
Yet beautified they are, they were, they be,
By God’s bright excellence of brightest day,
Which first implanted our first beauty’s tree:
If then the painted outside of the show
Be radiant, what is the inward row?
If that the shadow of the body’s skin 4
Be so illumin’d with the sun-shin’d soul,
What is the thing itself which is within,
More wrench’d,[468] more cleans’d, more purified from foul?
If elemental powers have God’s thought,
Say what is God, which made them all of nought?
It is a wonder for to see the sky,
And operation of each airy power;
A marvel that the heaven should be so high,
And let fall such a low-distilling shower:
Then needs must He be high, higher than all,
Which made both high and low with one tongue’s call.
The workman mightier is than his hand-work, 5
In making that which else would be unmade;
The ne’er-thought thing doth always hidden lurk,
Without the maker in a making trade:
For had not God made man, man had not been,
But nature had decay’d, and ne’er been seen.
The workman never shewing of his skill
Doth live unknown to man, though known to wit;
Had mortal birth been never in God’s will,
God had been God, but yet unknown in it;
Then having made the glory of earth’s beauty,
’Tis reason earth should reverence him in duty.
The savage people have a supreme head, 6
A king, though savage as his subjects are;
Yet they with his observances are led,
Obeying his behests, whate’er they were:
The Turks, the Infidels, all have a lord,
Whom they observe in thought, in deed, in word.
And shall we, differing from their savage kind,
Having a soul to live and to believe,
Be rude in thought, in deed, in word, in mind,
Not seeking him which should our woes relieve?
O no, dear brethren! seek our God, our fame,
Then if we err, we shall have lesser blame.
How can we err? we seek for ready way; 7
O that my tongue could fetch that word again!
Whose very accent makes me go astray,
Breathing that erring wind into my brain:
My word is past, and cannot be recall’d;
It is like agèd time, now waxen bald.
For they which go astray in seeking God
Do miss the joyful narrow-footed path—
Joyful, thrice-joyful way to his abode!—
Nought seeing but their shadows in a bath;
Narcissus-like, pining to see a show,
Hindering the passage which their feet should go.
Narcissus fantasy did die to kiss, 8
O sugar’d kiss! died with a poison’d lip;
The fantasies of these do die to miss,
O tossèd fantasies in folly’s ship!
He died to kiss the shadow of his face;
These live and die to life’s and death’s disgrace.
A fault without amends, crime without ease, 9
A sin without excuse, death without aid;
To love the world, and what the world did please,
To know the earth, wherein their sins are laid:
They knew the world, but not the Lord that fram’d it;
They knew the earth, but not the Lord that nam’d it.
Narcissus drown’d himself for his self’s show, 10
Striving to heal himself did himself harm;
These drown’d themselves on earth with their selves’ woe,
He in a water-brook by fury’s charm;
They made dry earth wet with their folly’s weeping,
He made wet earth dry with his fury’s sleeping.