The sun of joy dried up their tear-wet eyes, 12
And sate as lord upon their sobbing heart;
For when one comfort lives, one sorrow dies,
Or ends in mirth what it begun in smart:
What greater grief than hunger-starvèd mood?
What greater mirth than satisfying food?
Quails from the fishy bosom of the sea
Came to their comforts which were living-starv’d;
But punishments fell in the sinners’ way,
Sent down by thunderbolts which they deserv’d:
Sin-fed these sinners were, hate-cherishèd;
According unto both they perishèd.
Sin-fed, because their food was seed of sins, 13
And bred new sin with old-digested meat;
Hate-cherishèd in being hatred’s twins,
And sucking cruelty from tiger’s teat:
Was it not sin to err and go astray?
Was it not hate to stop a stranger’s way?
Was it not sin to see, and not to know?
Was it not sin to know, and not receive?
Was it not hate to be a stranger’s foe,
And make them captives which did them relieve?
Yes, it was greatest sin first for to leave them,
And it was greatest hate last to deceive them.
O hungry cannibals! which know no fill, 14
But still do starving feed, and feeding starve,
How could you so deceive? how could you spill[510]
Their loving selves which did yourselves preserve?
Why did you suck your pelican to death,
Which fed you too, too well with his own breath?
O, say that cruelty can have no law,
And then you speak with a mild-cruel tongue;
Or say that avarice lodg’d in your jaw,
And then you do yourselves but little wrong:
Say what you will, for what you say is spite
’Gainst ill-come strangers, which did merit right.
You lay in ambush,—O deceitful snares, 15
Enticing baits, beguiling sentinels!—
You added grief to grief and cares to cares,
Tears unto weeping eyes where tears did dwell:
O multitudes of sin, legions of vice,
Which thaw[511] with sorrow sorrow’s frozen ice!
A banquet was prepar’d, the fare deceit,
The dishes poison, and the cup despite,
The table mischief, and the cloth a bait,
Like spinner’s web t’ entrap the strange fly’s flight;
Pleasure was strew’d upon the top of pain,
Which, once digested, spread through every vein.
O ill conductors of misguided feet, 16
Into a way of death, a path of guile!
Poor pilgrims, which their own destruction meet
In habitations of an unknown isle:
O, had they left that broad, deceiving way,
They had been right, and never gone astray!
But mark the punishment which did ensue
Upon those ill-misleading villanies;
They blinded were themselves with their self view,
And fell into their own-made miseries;
Seeking the entrance of their dwelling-places
With blinded eyes and dark misguided faces.
Lo, here was snares ensnar’d and guiles beguil’d, 17
Deceit deceiv’d and mischief was misled,
Eyes blinded sight and thoughts the hearts defil’d,
Life living in aspècts was dying dead;
Eyes thought for to mislead, and were misled,
Feet went to make mistreads, and did mistread.
At this proud fall the elements were glad,
And did embrace each other with a kiss,
All things were joyful which before were sad;
The pilgrims in their way, and could not miss:
As when the sound of music doth resound
With changing tune, so did the changèd ground.
The birds forsook the air, the sheep the fold; 18
The eagle pitchèd low, the swallow high;
The nightingale did sleep, and uncontroll’d
Forsook the prickle of her nature’s eye;
The seely[512] worm was friends with all her foes,
And suck’d the dew-tears from the weeping rose.
The sparrow tun’d the lark’s sweet melody,
The lark in silence sung a dirge of dole,
The linnet help’d the lark in malady;
The swans forsook the quire of billow-roll;
The dry-land fowl did make the sea their nest,
The wet-sea fish did make the land their rest.
The swans, the quiristers which did complain 19
In inward feeling of an outward loss,
And fill’d the quire of waves with laving pain,
Yet dancing in their wail with surge’s toss,
Forsook her[513] cradle-billow-mountain bed,
And hies her unto land, there to be fed:
Her sea-fare now is land-fare of content;
Old change is changèd new, yet all is change;
The fishes are her food, and they are sent
Unto dry land, to creep, to feed, to range:
Now coolest water cannot quench the fire,
But makes it proud in hottest hot desire.
The evening of a day is morn to night, 20
The evening of a night is morn to day;
The one is Phœbe’s clime which is pale-bright,
The other Phœbus’ in more light array;
She makes the mountains limp in chill-cold snow,
He melts their eyes and makes them weep for woe.
His beams, ambassadors of his hot will
Through the transparent element of air,
Do[514] only his warm ambassage fulfil,
And melt[515] the icy jaw of Phœbe’s hair;
Yet those, though fiery flames, could not thaw cold,
Nor break the frosty glue of winter’s mould.
Here nature slew herself, or, at the least, 21
Did tame the passage of her hot aspècts;
All things have nature to be worst or best,
And must incline to that which she affects;
But nature miss’d herself in this same part,
For she was weak, and had not nature’s heart.
’Twas God which made her weak and makes her strong,
Resisting vice, assisting righteousness,
Assisting and resisting right and wrong,
Making this epilogue in equalness;
’Twas God, his people’s aid, their wisdom’s friend,
In whom I did begin, with whom I end.
A Jove surgit opus; de Jove finit opus.