Thou might’st have chose more stinging words than these, 11
For this he knows he is, and more than less;
In saying what he is, thou dost appease
The foaming anger which his thoughts suppress:
Who knows not, if the best be made of clay,
The worst must needs be clad in foul array?
Thou, in performing of thy master’s will,
Dost teach him to obey his lord’s commands;
But he repugnant is, and cannot skill
Of true adoring, with heart-heav’d-up hand:
He hath a soul, a life, a breath, a name,
Yet he is ignorant from whence they came.
My soul, saith he, is but a map of shows, 12
No substance, but a shadow for to please;
My life doth pass even as a pastime goes,
A momentary time to live at ease;
My breath a vapour, and my name of earth,
Each one decaying of the other’s birth.
Our conversation best, for there is gains,
And gain is best in conversation’s prime;
A mart of lucre in our conscience reigns,
Our thoughts as busy agents for the time:
So we get gain, ensnaring simple men,
It is no matter how, nor where, nor when.
We care not how, for all misdeeds are ours; 13
We care not where, if before God or man;
We care not when, but when our crafts have powers
In measuring deceit with mischief’s fan;
For wherefore have we life, form, and ordaining,
But that we should deceive, and still be gaining?
I, made of earth, have made all earthen shops,
And what I sell is all of earthy sale;
My pots have earthen feet and earthen tops,
In like resemblance of my body’s veil;
But knowing to offend the heavens more,
I made frail images of earthy store.
O bold accuser of his own misdeeds! 14
O heavy clod, more than the earth can bear!
Was never creature cloth’d in savage weeds,
Which would not blush when they this mischief hear:
Thou told’st a tale which might have been untold,
Making the hearers blush, the readers old.
Let them blush still that hear, be old that read,[483]
Then boldness shall not reign, nor youth in vice;
Thrice miserable they which rashly speed
With expedition to this bold device;
More foolish than are fools, whose misery
Cannot be chang’d with new felicity.
Are not they fools which live without a sense? 15
Have not they misery which never joy?
Which take[484] an idol for a god’s defence,
And with their self-will’d thoughts themselves destroy?
What folly is more greater than is here?
Or what more misery can well appear?
Call you them gods which have no seeing eyes,
No noses for to smell, no ears to hear,
No life but that which in death’s shadow lies,
Which have no hands to feel, no feet to bear?
If gods can neither hear, live, feel, nor see,
A fool may make such gods of every tree.
And what was he that made them but a fool, 16
Conceiving folly in a foolish brain,
Taught and instructed in a wooden school,
Which made his head run of a wooden vein?
’Twas man which made them, he his making had;
Man, full of wood, was wood,[485] and so ran mad.
He borrowèd his life, and would restore
His borrow’d essence to another death;
He fain would be a maker, though before
Was made himself, and God did lend him breath:
No man can make a god like to a man;
He says he scorns that work, he further can.
He is deceiv’d, and in his great deceit 17
He doth deceive the folly-guided hearts;
Sin lies in ambush, he for sin doth wait,
Here is deceit deceiv’d in either parts;
His sin deceiveth him, and he his sin,
So craft with craft is mew’d in either gin.
The craftsman mortal is, craft mortal is,
Each function nursing up the other’s want;
His hands are mortal, deadly what is his,
Only his sins bud[486] in destruction’s plant:
Yet better he than what he doth devise,
For he himself doth live, that ever dies.
Say, call you this a god? where is his head? 18
Yet headless is he not, yet hath he none;
Where is his godhead? fled; his power? dead;
His reign? decayèd; and his essence? gone:
Now tell me, is this god the god of good?
Or else Silvanus monarch of the wood?
There have I pierc’d his bark, for he is so,
A wooden god, feign’d as Silvanus was;
But leaving him, to others let us go,
To senseless beasts, their new-adoring glass;
Beasts which did live in life, yet died in reason;
Beasts which did seasons eat, yet knew no season.
Can mortal bodies and immortal souls 19
Keep one knit union of a living love?
Can sea with land, can fish agree with fowls?
Tigers with lambs, a serpent with a dove?
O no, they cannot! then say, why do we
Adore a beast which is our enemy?
What greater foe than folly unto wit?
What more deformity than ugly face?
This disagrees, for folly is unfit,
The other contrary to beauty’s place:
Then how can senseless heads, deformèd shows,
Agree with you, when they are both your foes?
Chap. XVI.
O, call that word again! they are your friends, 1
Your life’s associates and your love’s content;
That which begins in them, your folly ends;
Then how can vice with vice be discontent?
Behold, deformity sits on your heads,
Not horns, but scorns, not visage, but whole beds.
Behold a heap of sins your bodies pale,
A mountain-overwhelming villany;
Then tell me, are you clad in beauty’s veil,
Or in destruction’s pale-dead livery?
Their life demonstrates, now alive, now dead,
Tormented with the beasts which they have fed.
You like to pelicans have fed your death, 2
With follies vain let blood from folly’s vein,
And almost starv’d yourselves, stopt up your breath,
Had not God’s mercy help’d and eas’d your pain:
Behold, a new-found meat the Lord did send,
Which taught you to be new and to amend.
A strange-digested nutriment, even quails, 3
Which taught them to be strange unto misdeeds:
When you implore his aid, he never fails
To fill their hunger whom repentance feeds:
You see, when life was half at death’s arrest,
He new-created life at hunger’s feast.
Say, is your god like this, whom you ador’d, 4
Or is this god like to your handy-frame?
If so, his power could not then afford
Such influence, which floweth from his name:
He is not painted, made of wood and stone,
But he substantial is, and rules alone.
He can oppress and help, help and oppress,
The sinful incolants[487] of his made earth;
He can redress and pain, pain and redress,
The mountain-miseries of mortal birth:
Now, tyrants, you are next, this but a show,
And merry index of your after-woe.
Your hot-cold misery is now at hand; 5
Hot, because fury’s heat and mercy’s cold;
Cold, because limping, knit in frosty band,
And cold and hot in being shamefac’d-bold:
They cruel were, take cruelty their part,
For misery is but too mean a smart.
But when the tiger’s jaws, the serpent’s stings, 6
Did summon them unto this life’s decay,
A pardon for their faults thy mercy brings,
Cooling thy wrath with pity’s sunny day:
O tyrants, tear your sin-bemirèd weeds,
Behold your pardon seal’d by mercy’s deeds!
That sting which painèd could not ease the pain, 7
Those jaws that wounded could not cure the wounds;
To turn to stings for help, it were but vain,
To jaws for mercy, which want[488] mercy’s bounds:
The stings, O Saviour, were pull’d out by thee!
Their jaws claspt up in midst of cruelty.
O sovereign salve, stop to a bloody stream! 8
O heavenly care and cure for dust and earth!
Celestial watch to wake terrestrial dream,
Dreaming in punishment, mourning in mirth;
Now know[489] our enemies that it is thee
Which helps and cures our grief and misery.
Our punishment doth end, theirs new begins; 9
Our day appears, their night is not o’erblown;
We pardon have, they punishment for sins;
Now we are rais’d, now they are overthrown;
We with huge beasts opprest, they with a fly;
We live in God, and they against God die.
A fly, poor fly, to follow such a flight!
Yet art thou fed, as thou wast fed before,
With dust and earth feeding thy wonted bite,
With self-like food from mortal earthly store:
A mischief-stinging food, and sting with sting,
Do ready passage to destruction bring.
Man, being grass, is hopp’d and graz’d upon, 10
With sucking grasshoppers of weeping dew;
Man, being earth, is worm’s vermilion,
Which eats the dust, and yet of bloody hue:
In being grass he is her grazing food,
In being dust he doth the worms some good.
These smallest actors were of greatest pain,
Of folly’s overthrow, of mischief’s fall;
But yet the furious dragons could not gain
The life of those whom verities exhale:
These folly overcame, they foolish were;
These mercy cur’d, and cures these godly are.
When poison’d jaws and venenated stings 11
Were both as opposite against content—
Because content with that which fortune brings—
They easèd were when thou thy mercies sent;
The jaws of dragons had not hunger’s fill,
Nor stings of serpents a desire to kill.
Appall’d they were and struck with timorous fears,
For where is fear but where destruction reigns?
Aghast they were, with wet-eye-standing tears,
Outward commencers of their inward pains;
They soon were hurt, but sooner heal’d and cur’d,
Lest black oblivion had their minds inur’d.
The lion, wounded with a fatal blow, 12
Is as impatient as a king in rage;
Seeing himself in his own bloody show
Doth rent the harbour of his body’s cage;
Scorning the base-hous’d earth, mounts to the sky,
To see if heaven can yield him remedy.
O sinful man! let him example be,
A pattern to thine eye, glass to thy face,
That God’s divinest word is cure to thee,
Not earth, but heaven, not man, but heavenly grace;
Nor herb nor plaster could help teeth or sting,
But ’twas thy word which healeth every thing.
We fools lay salves upon our body’s skin, 13
But never draw corruption from our mind;
We lay a plaster for to keep in sin,
We draw forth filth, but leave the cause behind;
With herbs and plasters we do guard misdeeds,
And pare away the tops, but leave the seeds.
Away with salves, and take our Saviour’s word!
In this word Saviour lies immortal ease;
What can thy cures, plasters, and herbs afford,
When God hath power to please and to displease?
God hath the power of life, death, help, and pain,
He leadeth down and bringeth up again.
Trust to thy downfal, not unto thy raise, 14
So shalt thou live in death, not die in life;
Thou dost presume, if give thyself the praise,
For virtue’s time is scarce, but mischief’s rife:[490]
Thou may’st offend, man’s nature is so vain;
Thou, now in joy, beware of after-pain.
First cometh fury, after fury thirst, 15
After thirst blood, and after blood a death;
Thou may’st in fury kill whom thou lov’d’st first,
And so in quaffing blood stop thine own breath;
And murder done can never be undone,
Nor can that soul once live whose life is gone.
What is the body but an earthen case 16
That subject is to death, because earth dies?
But when the living soul doth want God’s grace,
It dies in joy, and lives in miseries:
This soul is led by God, as others were,
But not brought up again, as others are.
This stirs no provocation to amend,
For earth hath many partners in one fall,
Although the Lord doth many tokens send,
As warnings for to hear when he doth call:
The earth was burnt and drown’d with fire and rain,
And one could never quench the other’s pain.
Although both foes, God made them then both friends, 17
And only foes to them which were their foes;
That hate begun in earth what in them ends,
Sin’s enemies they which made friends of those;
Both bent both forces unto single earth,
From whose descent they had their double birth.
’Tis strange that water should not quench a fire,
For they were heating-cold and cooling-hot;
’Tis strange that wails could not allay desire,
Wails water-kind, and fire desire’s knot;
In such a cause, though enemies before,
They would join friendship, to destroy the more.
The often-weeping eyes of dry lament 18
Do[491] pour forth burning water of despair,
Which warms the caves from whence the tears are sent,
And, like hot fumes, do foul their nature’s fair:[492]
This, contrary to icy water’s vale,
Doth scorch the cheeks and makes them red and pale.
Here fire and water are conjoin’d in one,
Within a red-white glass of hot and cold;
Their fire like this, double and yet alone,
Raging and tame, and tame and yet was bold;
Tame when the beasts did kill, and felt no fire
Raging upon the causers of their ire.
Two things may well put on two several natures, 19
Because they differ in each nature’s kind,
They differing colours have and differing features;
If so, how comes it that they have one mind?
God made them friends, let this the answer be;
They get no other argument of me.
What is impossible to God’s command?
Nay, what is possible to man’s vain care?
’Tis much, he thinks, that fire should burn a land,
When mischief is the brand which fires bear;
He thinks it more, that water should bear fire:
Then know it was God’s will; now leave t’ inquire.
Yet might’st thou ask, because importunate, 20
How God preserv’d the good; why? because good;
Ill fortune made not them infortunate,
They angels were, and fed with angels’ food:
Yet may’st thou say—for truth is always had—
That rain falls on the good as well as bad:
And say it doth; far be the letter P
From R, because of a more reverent style;
It cannot do without suppression be;
These are two bars against destruction’s wile;
Pain without changing P cannot be rain,
Rain without changing R cannot be pain:
But sun and rain are portions to the ground, 21
And ground is dust, and what is dust but nought?
And what is nought is naught, with alpha’s sound;
Yet every earth the sun and rain hath bought;
The sun doth shine on weeds as well as flowers,
The rain on both distills her weeping showers.
Yet far be death from breath, annoy from joy,
Destruction from all happiness’ allines![493]
God will not suffer famine to destroy
The hungry appetite of virtue’s signs:
These were in midst of fire, yet not harm’d,
In midst of water, yet but cool’d and warm’d.
And water-wet they were, not water-drown’d, 22
And fire-hot they were, not fire-burn’d;
Their foes were both, whose hopes destruction crown’d,
But yet with such a crown which ne’er return’d;
Here fire and water brought both joy and pain,
To one disprofit, to the other gain.
The sun doth thaw what cold hath freez’d before,
Undoing what congealèd ice had done,
Yet here the hail and snow did freeze the more,
In having heat more piercing than the sun;
A mournful spectacle unto their eyes,
That as they die, so their fruition dies.
Fury once kindled with the coals of rage 23
Doth hover unrecall’d, slaughters untam’d;
This wrath on fire no pity could assuage,
Because they pitiless which should be blam’d;
As one in rage, which cares not who he have,
Forgetting who to kill and who to save.
One deadly foe is fierce against the other, 24
As vice with virtue, virtue against vice;
Vice heartenèd by death, his heartless mother,
Virtue by God, the life of her device:
’Tis hard to hurt or harm a villany,
’Tis easy to do good to verity.
Is grass man’s meat? no, it is cattle’s food, 25
But man doth eat the cattle which eats grass,
And feeds his carcass with their nurs’d-up blood,
Lengthening the lives which in a moment pass:
Grass is good food if it be join’d with grace,
Else sweeter food may take a sourer place.
Is there such life in water and in bread, 26
In fish, in flesh, in herbs, in growing flowers?
We eat them not alive, we eat them dead;
What fruit then hath the word of living powers?
How can we live with that which is still dead?
Thy grace it is by which we all are fed.
This is a living food, a blessèd meat, 27
Made to digest the burden at our hearts,
That leaden-weighted food which we first eat,
To fill the functions of our bodies’ parts,
An indigested heap, without a mean,
Wanting thy grace, O Lord, to make it clean!
That ice which sulphur-vapours could not thaw, 28
That hail which piercing fire could not bore,
The cool-hot sun did melt their frosty jaw,
Which neither heat nor fire could pierce before;
Then let us take the spring-time of the day,
Before the harvest of our joys decay.
A day may be divided, as a year, 29
Into four climes, though of itself but one;
The morn the spring, the noon the summer’s sphere,
The harvest next, evening the winter’s moon:
Then sow new seeds in every new day’s spring,
And reap new fruit in day’s old evening.
Else if too late, they will be blasted seeds,
If planted at the noontide of their growing;
Commencers of unthankful, too late deeds,
Set in the harvest of the reaper’s going:
Melting like winter-ice against the sun,
Flowing like folly’s tide, and never done.
Chap. XVII.
O, fly the bed of vice, the lodge of sin! 1
Sleep not too long in your destruction’s pleasures;
Amend your wicked lives, and new begin
A more new perfect way to heaven’s treasures:
O, rather wake and weep than sleep and joy!
Waking is truth, sleep is a flattering toy.
O, take the morning of your instant good!
Be not benighted with oblivion’s eye;
Behold the sun, which kisseth Neptune’s flood,
And re-salutes the world with open sky:
Else sleep, and ever sleep; God’s wrath is great,
And will not alter with too late entreat.
Why wake I them which have a sleeping mind? 2
O words, sad sergeants to arrest my thoughts!
If wak’d, they cannot see, their eyes are blind,
Shut up like windolets, which sleep hath bought:
Their face is broad awake, but not their heart;
They dream of rising, but are loath to start.
These were the practisers how to betray
The simple righteous with beguiling words,
And bring them in subjection to obey
Their irreligious laws and sin’s accords:
But night’s black-colour’d veil did cloud their will,
And made their wish rest in performance’ skill.
The darksome clouds are summoners of rain, 3
In being something black and something dark;
But coal-black clouds make[494] it pour down amain,
Darting forth thunderbolts and lightning’s spark:
Sin of itself is black, but black with black
Augments the heavy burthen of the back.
They thought that sins could hide their sinful shames,
In being demi-clouds and semi-nights;
But they had clouds enough to make their games,
Lodg’d in black coverings of oblivious nights:
Then was their vice afraid to lie so dark,
Troubled with visions from Alastor’s[495] park.
The greater poison bears the greater sway, 4
The greatest force hath still the greatest face;
Should night miss course, it would infect the day
With foul-risse[496] vapours from a humorous place:
Vice hath some clouds, but yet the night hath more,
Because the night was fram’d and made before.
That sin which makes afraid was then afraid,
Although enchamber’d in a den’s content;
That would not drive back fear which comes repaid,
Nor yet the echoes which the visions sent;
Both sounds and shows, both words and action,
Made apparition’s satisfaction.
A night in pitchy mantle of distress, 5
Made thick with mists and opposite to light,
As if Cocytus’ mansion did possess
The gloomy vapours of suppressing sight;
A night more ugly than Alastor’s pack,
Mounting all nights upon his night-made back.
The moon did mourn in sable-suited veil;
The stars, her handmaids, were in black attire;
All nightly visions told a hideous tale;
The screech-owls made the earth their dismal quire:
The moon and stars divide their twinkling eyes
To lighten vice, which in oblivion lies.
Only appear’d a fire in doleful blaze, 6
Kindled by furies, rais’d by envious winds,
Dreadful in sight, which put them to amaze,
Having before fury-despairing minds:
What hair in reading would not stand upright?
What pen in writing would not cease to write?
Fire is God’s angel, because bright and clear,
But this an evil angel, because dread;
Evil to them which did already fear,
A second death to them which were once dead:
Annexing horror to dead-strucken life,
Connexing dolor to live nature’s strife.
Deceit was then deceiv’d, treason betray’d, 7
Mischief beguil’d, a night surpassing night,
Vice fought with vice, and fear was then dismay’d,
Horror itself appall’d at such a sight;
Sin’s snare was then ensnar’d, the fisher cought,[497]
Sin’s net was then entrapt, the fowler fought.
Yet all this conflict was but in a dream,
A show of substance and a shade of truth,
Illusions for to mock in flattering theme,
Beguiling mischief with a glass of ruth:
For boasts require a fall, and vaunts a shame,
Which two vice had in thinking but to game.
Sin told her creditors she was a queen, 8
And now become revenge to right their wrong,
With honey-mermaid’s speech alluring seen,
Making new-pleasing words with her old tongue:
If you be sick, quoth she, I’ll make you whole;
She cures the body, but makes sick the soul.