First Book, The. The Invocation -
The Invocation.
R OWZE thee, my soul; and drein thee from the dregs
Of vulgar thoughts; Skrue up the heightned pegs
Of thy sublime Theorboe foure notes higher,
And higher yet; that so, the shrill-mouth'd Quire
Of swift-wing'd Seraphims may come and joyn
And make thy consort more than halfe divine.
Invoke no Muse; Let heav'n be thy Apollo ;
And let his sacred influences hallow
Thy high-bred strains; Let his full beams inspire
Thy ravish'd brains with more heroick fire:
Snatch thee a Quill from the spread Eagle's wing,
And, like the morning Lark, mount up and sing:
Cast off these dangling plummets, that so clog
Thy lab ring heart, which gropes in this dark fog
Of dungeon-earth; Let flesh and bloud forbear
To stop thy flight, till this base world appear
A thin blew Lanskip: Let thy pineons sore
So high a pitch, that men may seem no more
Than Pismires, crawling on this Mole-hill earth.
Thy eare untroubled with their frantick mirth
Let not the fraillie of thy flesh disturb
Thy new-concluded peace; Let Reason curb
Thy hot-mouth'd Passion; and let heav'n's fire season
The fresh Conceits of thy corrected Reason
Disdain to warm thee at Lust's smokie fires,
Scorn, scorn to feed on thy old bloat desires:
Come, come, my soul, hoyse up thy higher sails,
The wind blowes fair! Shall we still creep like Snails,
That gild their wayes with their own native slimes?
No, we must flie like Eagles, and our Rhimes
Must mount to heav'n and reach th' Olympick ear;
Our heav'n-blown fire must seek no other Sphear.
Thou great Theanthropos , that giv'st and ground'st
Thy gifts in dust; and from our dunghill crown'st
Reflected Honour, taking by retail,
What thou hast giv'n in grosse, from lapsed, frail,
And sinfull man; that drink'st full draughts, wherein
Thy Children's leprous fingers, scurf'd with Sin,
Have padled; cleanse, O cleanse my crafty Soul
From secret crimes, and let my thoughts controul
My thoughts: O, teach me stoutly to deny
My self, that I may be no longer I;
Enrich my fancie clarifie my thoughts,
Refine my drosse; O, wink at humane faults;
And through this slender conduit of my Quill
Convey thy Current, whose clear streams may fill
The hearts of men with love, their tongues with prayse,
Crown me with Glory: Take, who list, the Bayes.
I
Jam I 14.
Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed.
Serphent. Eve. Serp .
Not eat? Not tast? Not touch? Not cast an eye
Upon the fruit of this fair Tree? And why?
Why eat'st thou not what Heav'n ordain'd for food?
Or canst thou think that bad which heav'n call'd Good?
Why was it made, if not to be enjoy'd?
Neglect of favours makes a favour vold:
Blessings unus'd, pervert into a Wast,
As well as Surfets; Woman, Do but tast:
See how the laden boughs make silent suit
To be enjoy'd; Look how their bending fruit
Meet thee half-way; Observe but how they crouch
To kisse thy hand; Coy woman, Do but touch:
Mark what a pure Vermilion blush has dy'd
Their swelling cheeks, and how for shame they hide
Their palsie heads, to see themselves stand by
Neglected: Woman, Do but cast an eye,
What bounteous heav'n ordain'd for use, refuse not;
Come, pull and eat: Y'abuse the thing ye use not Eve .
Wisest of Beasts, our great Creatour did
Reserve this Tree, and this alone forbid;
The rest are freely ours, which doubtlesse are
As pleasing to the tast; to th' eye, as fair;
But touching this, his strict commands are such
'Tis death to tast, no lesse than death to touch. Serp .
Pish; death's a fable: Did not heav'n inspire.
Your equall Elements with living Fire
Blown from the spring of life? Is not that breath
Immortall? Come; ye are as free from death
As He that made ye. Can the flames expire
Which he has kindled? Can ye quench his fire?
Did not the great Creatour's voice proclaim
What ere he made (from the blue spangled frame
To the poore leaf that trembles) very Good?
Blest he not both the Feeder, and the Food?
Tell, tell me then, what danger can accrue
From such blest Food, to such half-gods as you?
Curb needlesse fears, and let no fond conceit
Abuse your freedome; woman, Take, and eat Eve .
'Tis true; we are immortall; death is yet
Unborn and, till rebeillon make it debt,
Undue: I know the Fruit is good, untill
Presumtuous disobedience make it ill.
The lips that open to this Fruit's a portall
To let in death, and make immortall morta'll, Serp .
You cannot die; Come, woman, Tast and fear not Eve .
Shall Eve transgresse? I dare not, O I dare not. Serp .
Afraid? why draw'st thou back thy tim'rous arm?
Harm onely fals on such as fear a harm.
Heav'n knowes and fears the virtue of this Tree:
'T will make ye perfect Gods as well as He.
Stretch forth thy hand and let thy fondnesse never
Fear death; Do, pull, and eat, and live for ever Eve .
'Tis but an Apple; and it is-as good
To do as to desire. Fruit 's made for food;
Ile pull, and tast, and tempt my Adam too
To know the secrets of this dainty. Serp . Doe.
S. C HRYS , sup. Matth
He forced him not: He touched him not: Onely said , Cast thyself down; that we may know, whosoever obeyeth the Devil casteth himselfe down; For the Devil may suggest, compell he cannot ,
S. B ERN , in ser.
It is the Devil's part to suggest; Ours, not to consent. As oft as we resist him, so often we overcome him as often as we overcome him, so often we bring joy to the Angels, and glory to God; Who proposeth us, that we may contend, and assisteth us that we may conquer .
E PIG. I.
Unluckie Parliament! wherein, at last,
Both houses are agreed, and firmly past
An Act of death, confirm'd by higher Powers:
O had it had but such successe as Ours!
II
JamES I . 15
Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sinne; and sinne when it is finished bringeth forth death.
1.
Lament, lament; Look, look what thou hast done!
Lament the worlds, lamont thy own estate:
Look, look by doing how thou art undone;
Lament thy fall; lament thy change of State:
Thy faith is broken, and thy freedome gone,
See, see too soon, what thou lament'st too late
O thou that wert so many men nay all
Abbridg'd in one how has thy desp'rate fall
Destroy'd thy unborn seed destroy'd thy self withall.
2.
Uxorious Adam , whom thy Maker made
Equall to Angels that excell in pow'r,
What hast thou done? O why hast thou obey'd
Thy own destruction? Like a new-cropt flowre
How does the glory of thy beauty fade!
How are thy fortunes blasted in an houre!
How art thou cow'd, that badst the pow'r to quelt
The spite of new fall'n Angels, baffle Hell,
And vie with those that stood, and vanquish those that fell.
3.
See how the world (whose chast and pregnant womb
Of late conceiv'd, and brought forth nothing ill)
Is now degenerated, and become
A base Adultresse, whose false births do fill
The earth with Monsters, Monsters that do rome
And rage about and make a trade to kill:
Now Glutt'ny paunches; Lust begins to spawn;
Wrath takes revenge; and Avarice, a pawn;
Pale Envie pines, Pride swells, and Sloth begins to yawn.
4.
The Aire that whisper'd, now begins to rore,
And blustring Boreas blowes the boyling Tide:
The white-mouth'd Water now usurps the shore
And scorns the pow'r of her tridentall guide:
The Fire now burns, that did but warm before
And rules her ruler with resistlesse pride:
Fire, Water, Earth and Alre, that first were made
To be subdu'd, see how they now invade;
They rule whom once they serv'd command where once obey'd
5.
Behold; that nakednesse, that late bewray'd
Thy glory, now's become thy shame, thy wonder:
Behold; those Trees whose various fruits were made
For food, now turn'd a shade to shrowd thee under:
Behold; that voice (which thou hast disobey'd)
That late was musick, now affrights like thunder:
Poor man! Are not thy joynts grown sore with shaking,
To view th' effect of thy bold undertaking,
That in one houre didd'st marre what heav'n six dayes was making?
S. A UGUST . lib. I. de Lib. Arbit.
It is a most just punishment, that man should lose that freedome which man could not use yet had power to keep if he would; and that he who had knowledge to do what was right, and did not, should be deprived of the knowledge of what was right; and that he who would not do righteously when he had the power should lose the power to do it when he had the will.
H UGO de Anima.
They are justly punished that abuse lawfull things, but they are most justly punished, that use unlawfull things: Thus Lucifer fell from Heaven thus Adam lost his Paradise
E TIG. 2
See how these fruitfull kernels, being cast
Upon the earth, how thick they spring! how fast!
A full-ear'd crop and thriving rank and proud;
Prepost'rous man first sow'd, and then he plough'd.
III
P ROVERBS 14. 13
Even in laughter the heart is sorrowfull and the end of that mirth is heavinesse
1.
A L as fond Child
How are thy thoughts beguil'd.
To hope for hony from a nest of wasps?
Thou malst as well
Go seek for case in hell,
Or sprightly Nectar from the mouths of asps.
2.
The world s a hive,
From whence thou canst derive
No good, but what thy soul's vexation brings:
Put case thou meet
Some peti-peti sweet,
Each drop is guarded with a thousand stings.
3.
Why dost thou make
These murmuring troups forsake
The safe protection of their waxen homes?
This bive contains
No sweet that's worth thy pains;
There's nothing here alas, but empty combes.
4.
For trush and toyes
And grief-ingend'ring joyes,
What torment seems too sharp for flesh and bloud!
What bitter pills,
Compos'd of reall ills,
Man swallows down to purchase one false good!
5.
The dainties here,
Are least what they appear;
Though sweet in hopes, yet in fruition sowre:
The fruit that's yellow
Is found not alwayes mellow,
The fairest Tulip's not the sweetest flowre.
6.
Fond youth, give ore,
And vex thy soul no more
In seeking what were better farre unfound;
Alas thy gains
Are onely present pains
To gather Scorpions for a future wound.
7.
What's earth? or in it,
That longer then a minit
Can lend a free delight that can endure?
O who would droyl,
Or delve in such a soyl,
Where gain's uncertain and the pain is sure?
S. A UGUST.
Sweetnesse in temporall matters is deceitfull: It is a labour and a perpetuall fear; it is a dangerous pleasure, whose beginning is without providence and whose end is not without repentance
H UGO.
Luxury is an enticing pleasure a bastard mirth, which hath honey in her mouth gall in her heart and a sting in her tail.
E PIG. 3.
What, Cupid , are thy shafts already made?
And seeking honey, to set up thy trade?
True Embleme of thy sweets! Thy Bees do bring
Honey in their mouths, but in their talls a sting.
IV
P SALM 62. 9
To be laid in the ballance, it is altogether lighter then vanitie.
1.
P U t in another weight: 'Tis yet too light;
And yet: Fond Cupid put another in;
And yet another: Still there's under weight;
Put in another hundred: Put agin.
Adde world to world; then heap a thousand more
To that; then, to renew thy wasted store,
Take up more worlds on trust to draw thy balance lower.
2
Put in the flesh, with all her loads of pleasure;
Put in great Mammon's endlesse inventory;
Put in the pond'rous acts of mighty Cesar;
Put in the greater weight of Sweden's glory;
Adde Scipio's gauntlet; put in Plato's gown:
Put Circe's charms, put in the triple crown;
Thy balance will not draw; thy balance will not down.
3.
Lord, what a world is this, which day and night,
Men seek with so much toyl, with so much trouble?
Which weigh'd in equall scales is found so light
So poorly over-balanc'd with a bubble?
Good God! that frantick mortals should destroy
Their higher hopes, and place their idle joy
Upon such airy trash, upon so light a toy!
4.
Thou bold Impostour, how hast thou befool'd
The tribe of Man with counterfeit desire!
How has the breath of thy false bellows cool'd
Heav'n's free-born flames, and kindled bastard fire!
How hast thou vented drosse in stead of treasure,
And cheated man with thy false weights and measure,
Proclaiming bad for good: and gilding death with pleasure.
5.
The world's a craftie Strumpet, most affecting
And closely following those that most reject her:
But seeming carelesse, nicely disrespecting
And coyly flying those that most affect her:
If thou be free, she's strange, if strange she's free;
Flee, and she follows: Follow, and she'll flee:
Then she there's none more coy there's none more fond then she.
6.
O what a Crocodilian world is this,
Compos'd of treacheries, and ensnaring wiles!
She cloaths destruction in a formall kisse,
And lodges death in her deceitfull smiles;
She hugs the soul she hates: and there does prove
The veriest tyrant where she vowes to love,
And is a Serpent most, when most she seems a Dove
7.
Thrice happy he, whose nobler thoughts despise
To make an object of so easle gains;
Thrice happy he who scorns so poore a prize
Should be the crown of his herolck pains:
Thrice happy he, that ne'r was born to trie
Her frowns or smiles: or being born, did lie
In his sad nurse's arms an houre or two and die.
S. A UGUST. lib. Confess.
O you that dote upon this world, for what victory do ye fight? Your hopes can be crowned with no greater reward then the world can give; and what is the world but a brittle thing full of dangers wherein we travel from lesser to greater perils? O let all her vain, light, and momentany glory perish with her self, and let us be conversant with more eternall things. Alas, this world is miserable; life is short and death is sure .
E PIG. 4.
My soul, what's lighter then a feather? wind.
Then wind? The fire. And what then fire? The mind.
What's lighter then the mind? Athought. Then thought?
This bubble-world. What then this bubble? Nought.
V
1 C OR 7. 31
The fashion of this world passeth away
G O ne are those golden dayes, wherein
Pale conscience started not at ugly sinne:
When good old Saturne's peacefull Throne
Was unusurped by his beardlesse Son:
When jealous Ops ne'r fear'd th' abuse
Of her chast bed, or breach of nuptiall Truce:
When just Asiraea poys'd her Scales
In ruortall hearts, whose absence earth bewails:
When froth-born Venus and her brat,
With all that spurlous brood young Jove begat
In horrid shapes were yet unknowne;
Those Halcyon dayes, that golden age is gone.
There was no Client then to wait
The leisure of his long-tayl'd Advocate;
The Talion Law was in request,
And Chaunc'ry courts were kept in ev'ry brest;
Abused Statutes had no Tenters,
And men could deal secure without indentures:
There was no peeping hole to clear
The Wittal's eye from his incarnate fear;
There were no lustfull Cinders then
To broyl the Carbonado'd hearts of men;
The rosle cheek did then proclaim
A shame of Guilt, but not a guilt of shame:
There was no whining soul to start
At Cupid's twang, or curse his flaming dart:
The Boy had then but callow wings,
And fell Erynnis' Scorpions had no stings:
The better-acted world did move
Upon the fixed poles of Truth and Love,
Love esseno'd in the hearts of men;
Then Reason rul'd; there was no Passion then:
Till Lust and Rage began to enter,
Love the Circumference was, and love the Center
Untill the wanton dayes of Jove
The simple world was all compos'd of Love;
But Jove grew fleshly, false, unjust;
Inferiour beautie fill'd his veins with lust;
And Cucquean Juno's fury hurld
Fierce balls of rage into th' incestuous world:
Astraea fled, and love return'd
From earth earth boyl'd with lust, with rage it burn'd:
And ever since the world has been
Kept going with the scourge of Lust and Spleen
S. A MBROS.
Lust is a sharp spur to vice which alwayes putteth the affections into a false gallop.
H UGO.
Lust is an immoderate wantonnesse of the flesh a sweet poyson, a cruel pestilence; a perntcious potion, which weakeneth the body of man, and effeminateth the strength of an heroick mind.
S. A UGUST
Envy is the hatred of another's felicitie in respect of Supertours, because they are not equall to them; in respect of Inferiours lest he should be equall to them; in respect of equalls, because they are equall to them: Through envy proceeded the fall of the world and the death of Christ.
E PIG. 5.
What? Cupid , must the world be lasht so soon?
But made at morning, and be whipt at noon?
'Tis like the wagge that playes with Venus Doves
The more 'tis lasht the more perverse it proves.
VI
E CCIES 2. 17
All is vanitie and vexation of spirit
1.
H OW is the anxious soul of man befool'd
In his desire,
That thinks an Hectick fever may be cool'd
In flames of fire,
Or hopes to rake full heaps of burnisht gold
From nasty mire!
A whining Lover may as well request
A scornfull breast
To molt in gentle tears, as woo the world for rest.
2.
Let wit and all her studied plots effect.
The best they can;
Let smiling Fortune prosper and perfect
What wit began;
Let earth advise with both and so project
A happy man;
Let wit or fawning Fortune vie their best;
He may be blest
With all that earth can give: but earth can give no rest.
3.
Whose gold is double with a carefull hand
His cares are double:
The pleasure, honour, wealth of sea and land
Bring but a trouble;
The world it self and all the world's command
Is but a bubble.
The strong desires of man's insatiate breast
May stand possest
Of all that earth can give: but earth can give no rest.
4.
The world's a seeming Par'dise but her own
And man's tormenter;
Appearing fixt, yet but a rolling stone
Without a tenter;
It is a vast Circumference, where none
Can find a Center.
Of more then earth can earth make none possest:
And he that least
Regards this restlesse world shall in this world find rest.
5.
True rest consists not in the oft revying
Of worldly drosse;
Earth's mirie purchase is not worth the buying:
Her gain is losse;
Her rest but giddy toil, if not relying
Upon her crosse.
How worldlings droil for trouble! That fond breast
That is possest
Of earth without a crosse has earth without a rest.
C ASS. in Ps.
The Crosse is the invincible sanetuary of the humble, the dejection of the proud, the victory of Christ, the destruction of the devil, the confirmation of the faithfull the death of the unbeliever, the life of the just
D AMASCEN.
The Crosse of Christ is the key of Paradise: the weak man's staff: the Convert's convey: the upright man's perfection: the soul and bodie's health; the prevention of all evil and the procurer of all good.
E PIG. 6.
Worldlings whose whimpring folly holds the losses
Of honour pleasure, health, and wealth such crosses
Look here, and tell me what your Arms engrosse
When the best end of what ye hug's a crosse.
VII
1 P ETER 5. 8
Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a roring Lion walketh about seeking whom he may devoure
1.
W H y dost thou suffer lustfull sloth to creep,
Dull Cyprian lad, into thy wanton browes?
Is this a time to pay thine idle vowes
At Morpheus shrine? Is this a time to steep
Thy brains in wastfull slumbers? up and rouze
Thy leaden spirits: Is this a time to sleep?
Adjourn thy sanguine dreams: Awake, arise,
Call in thy thoughts: and let them all advise,
Hadst thou as many heads as thou hast wounded eyes.
2.
Look, look, what horrid furies do await
Thy flatt'ring slumbers! If thy drowzie head
But chance to nod thou fall'st into a bed
Of sulph'rous flames, whose torments want a date.
Fond boy, be wise; let not thy thoughts be fed
With Phrygian wisdome; fools are wise too late
Beware betimes, and let thy reason sever
Those gates which passion clos'd; wake now, or never:
For if thou nodd'st thou fall'st and falling fall'st for ever
3.
Mark, how the ready hands of death prepare:
His bow is bent, and he has notch'd his dart:
He aims, he levels at thy slumb'ring heart:
The wound is posting, O be wise, beware,
What? has the voyce of danger lost the art
To raise the spirit of neglected care?
Well, sleep thy fill, and take thy soft reposes;
But know withall, sweet tasts have sowre closes;
And he repents in thorns that sleeps in beds of roses
4.
Yet sluggard, wake, and gull thy soul no more,
With earth's false pleasure, and the world's delight
Whose fruit is fair, and pleasing to the sight,
But sowre in tast, false at the putrid core:
Thy flaring glasse is gems at her half light:
She makes thee seeming rich, but truly poore:
She boasts a kernell, and bestowes a shell;
Performs an inch of her fair promis'd ell:
Her words protest a Heav'n; her works produce a hell
5.
O thou the fountain of whose better part
Is earth'd, and gravell'd up with vain desire:
That dayly wallow'st in the fleshly mire
And base pollution of a lustfull heart,
That feel'st no passion but in wanton fire,
And own'st no torment but from Cupid's dart;
Behold thy Type: Thou sitst upon this ball
Of earth, secure, while death that flings at all,
Stands arm'd to strike thee down where flames attend thy fall.
S. B ERN.
Securitie is no where; It is neither in Heaven nor in Paradise, much lesse in the world: In Heaven the Angels fell from the divine presence; in Paradise, Adam fell from his place of pleasure; in the world Judas fell from the School of our Saviour
H UGO. .
I eat secure, I drink secure, I sleep secure, even as though I had past the day of death avoided the day of judgement, and escaped the torments of hell-fire: I play and laugh, as though I were already triumphing in the kingdome of Heaven
E PIG. 7.
Get up, my soul; Redeem thy slavish eyes,
From drowzy bondage: O beware; Be wise:
Thy fo's before thee; thou must fight or flie:
Life lies most open in a closed eye.
VIII
L UKE 6. 25
Woe be to you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep
T H e world's a popular disease, that reignes
Within the froward heart and frantick brains
Of poore distemper'd mortals; oft arising
From ill digestion, through th' unequall poysing
Of ill-weigh'd Elements; whose light directs
Malignant humours to mallgno effects
One raves, and labours with a boyling liver;
Rends hair by handfuls, cursing Cupid's quiver;
Another with a bloudy-flux of oaths
Vowes deep revenge: one dotes: the other loathes:
One frisks and sings, and vies a flagon more
To drench dry cares, and makes the welkin rore:
Another droops; the sunshine makes him sad;
Heav'n cannot please: One's mop'd; the tother's mad:
One hugs his gold; another lets it flie:
He knowing not for whom; nor tother why.
One spends his day in plots, his night in play;
Another sleeps and slugs both night and day:
One laughs at this thing; tother cries for that:
But neither one nor tother knowes for what.
Wonder of wonders! What we ought t' evite
As our disease, we hug as our delight:
'T is held a symptome of approching danger,
When disacquainted Sense becomes a stranger
And takes no knowledge of an old disease;
But when a noysome grief begins to please
The unresisting sense, it is a fear
That death has parli'd, and compounded there:
As when the dreadfull Thund'rer's awfull hand
Powres forth a viall on th' infected land;
At first th' affrighted Mortalls quake and fear
And ev'ry noise is thought the Thunderer;
But when the frequent soul-departing bell
Has pav'd their ears with her familiar knell
It is reputed but a nine dayes wonder,
They neither fear the Thund'rer not his Thunder:
So when the world (a worse disease) began
To smart for sinne, poore new created Man
Could seek for shelter, and his gen'rous Sonne
Knew by his wages what his hands bad done;
But bold-fac'd Mortalls in our blushlesse times
Can sinne and smile, and make a sport of crimes
Transgresse of custome, and rebell in ease;
We false-joy'd fools can triumph in disease,
And (as the carelesse Pilgrime being bit
By the Tarantula, begins a fit
Of life-concluding laughter) wast our breath
In lavish pleasure till we laugh to death.
HUGO de Anima.
What profit is there in vain glory, momentany mirth, the world's power, the fleshe's pleasure, full riches, noble descent and great desires? Where is their laughter? Where is their mirth? Where their insolence? their arrogance? From how much joy to how much sadnesse! After how much mirth, how much misery! From how great-glory are they fallen to how great torments! What hath fallen to them, may befall thee, because thou art a man: Thou art of earth; thou livest of earth; thou shalt return to earth. Death expecteth thee every-where; be wise therefore and expect death everywhere
E PIG . 8
What ayls the fool to laugh? Does something please
His vain concelt? Or is't a mere disease?
Fool, giggle on, and wast thy wanton breath;
Thy morning laughter breeds an ev'ning death.
IX
1 John 2. 17
The world passeth away, and all the lusts thereof.
1.
D R aw near, brave sparks, whose spirits scorn to light
Your hallow'd tapours, but at honour's flame;
You, whose heroick actions take delight
To varnish over a new-painted name;
Whose high-bred thoughts disdain to take their flight
But on th' Icarian wings of babbling fame;
Behold, how tott'ring are your high-built stories
Of earth, whereon you trust the ground-work of your glories.
2.
And you, more brain-sick Lovers that can prise
A wanton smile before eternall joyes;
That know no heav'n but in your Mistresse eyes;
That feel no pleasure but what sense enjoyes:
That can, like crown-distemper'd fools despise
True riches, and like babies whine for toyes:
Think ye, the Pageants of your hopes are able
To stand secure on earth when earth it self's unstable?
3.
Come, dunghill worldlings, you that root like swine
And cast up golden trenches where ye come:
Whose onely pleasure is to undermine
And view the secrets of your mother's wombe:
Come bring your Saint, pouch'd in his leather shrine
And summon all your griping Angels home.
Behold your world, the bank of all your store:
The world ye so admire; the world ye so adore.
4.
A feeble world, whose hot mouth'd pleasures tire
Before the race; before the start, retrait;
A faithlesse world, whose false delights expire
Before the term of half their promis'd date;
A fickle world, not worth the least desire,
Where ev'ry chance proclaims a change of State:
A feeble, faithlesse, fickle world, wherein
Each motion proves a vice; and ev'ry act a sin.
5.
The beautie, that of late was in her flowre
Is now a ruine, not to raise a lust:
He that was lately drench'd in Danae's showre
Is master now of neither gold nor trust;
Whose honour late was mann'd with princely powre.
His glory now lies buried in the dust;
O who would trust this world, or prize what 's in it,
That gives and takes and chops and changes ev'ry minit.
6.
Nor length of dayes, nor solid strength of brain
Can find a place wherein to rest secure;
The world is various, and the earth is vain:
There's nothing certain here there's nothing sure:
We trudge, we travel but from pain to pain,
And what's our onely grief's our onely cure:
The world's a torment; he that would endeavor
To find the way to rest must seek the way to leave her.
S. G REG . in ho.
Behold, the world is withered in it self, yet flourisheth in our hearts; every where death, every where grief, every where desolation: On every side we are smitten; on every side filled with bitternesse and yet with the blind mind of carnall desire we love her bitternesse: It flieth, and we follow it; it falleth, yet we stick to it. And because we cannot enjoy it fallen, we fall with it and enjoy it fallen.
E PIG . 9.
If Fortune hale, or envious Time but spurn,
The world turns round; and with the world we turn:
when Fortune sees, and Lynx ey'd Time is blind.
I'll trust thy joyes. O world; till then, the wind.
X
John 8. 44
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.
H E re's your right ground: wagge gently o'r this black;
Tis a short cast; y'are quickly at the jack
Rub, rub an inch or two; two crowns to one
On this boul's side: blow wind, 't is fairly thrown:
The next boul's worse that comes, come boul away;
Mammon , you know the ground untutour'd, play;
Your last was gone a yard of strength well spar'd,
Had touch'd the block; your hand is still too hard
Brave pastime, Readers, to consume that day,
Which without pastime flies too swift away!
See how they labour: as if day and night
Were both too short to serve their loose delight
See how their curved bodies wreath, and skrue
Such antick shapes as Proteus never knew:
One raps an oath, another deals a curse;
He never better boul'd; this never worse:
One rubs his itchlesse elbow, shrugs and laughs,
The tother bends his beetle-browes, and chafes:
Sometime they whoop, sometimes their Stygian cries
Send their black- Santos to the blushing skies:
Thus mingling humours in a mad confusion,
They make bad Premises, and worse Conclusion;
But where's the Palm that Fortune's hand allowes
To blesse the victour's honourable browes?
Come, Reader, come; I'll light thine eye the way
To view the Prize, the while the gamesters play;
Close by the jack, behold, gill fortune stands
To wave the game; see, in her partiall hands
The glorious garland's held in open show.
To chear the Lads, and crown the Conqrour's brow
The world's the jack; the gamesters that contend
Are Cupid, Mammon : that judiclous Friend,
That gives the ground, is Satan; and the boules
Are sinfull thoughts; the Prize, a crown for fools.
Who breathes that boules not; what bold tongue can say
Without a blush, he hath not boul'd to day;
It is the trade of man; and every sinner
Has plaid his rubbers: Every soule's a winner
The vulgar Proverb's crost: He hardly can
Be a good bouler and an honest man,
Good God, turn thou my Brazil thoughts a new;
New sole my boules, and make their bias true:
I'll cease to game, till fairer ground be given,
Nor wish to winne untill the mark be heaven.
S. B ERNARD lib. de Consid.
O you Sonnes of Adam, you covetous generation, what have ye to do with earthly riches, which are neither true, nor yours. Gold and silver are reall earth red and white, which the onely errour of man makes, or rather reputes, pretious; In short, if they be yours carry them with you .
S. H IEROME in Ep.
O Lust, thou infernall fire, whose fuell is gluttony, whose flame is pride; whose sparkles are wanton words; whose smoke is infamie; whose ashes are uncleannesse; whose end is hell .
E PIG . 10.
Mammon well follow'd: Cupid bravely led;
Both Touchers; equall Fortune makes a dead;
No reed can measure where the conquest lies;
Take my advise; compound, and share the Prize:
XI
E PHESIANS 2 2
Ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the airc
1.
O Whither will this mad-brain world at last
Be driv'n? where will her restlesse wheels arive?
Why hurries on her ill-match'd payre so fast?
O whither means her furious groom to drive?
What? will her rambling fits be never past?
For ever ranging? never once retrive?
Will earth's perpetuall progresse ne'r expire?
Her Team continuing in their fresh careire,
And yet they never rest and yet they never tire.
2.
Sol's hot-mouth'd steeds; whose nostrils vomit flame
And brazen lungs belch forth quotidian fire.
Their twelve houres task perform'd grow stiffe and lame
And their immortall spirits faint and tire:
At th' azure mountain's foot their labours claim
The priviledge of rest, where they retire
To quench their burning fetlocks, and to steep
Their flaming nostrils in the western deep,
And fresh their tired soules with strength-restoring sleep.
3.
But these prodigious backneyes, basely got
'Twixt men and devils, made for race nor flight
Can drag the idle world, expecting not
The bed of rest, but travel with delight;
Who neither weighing way, nor weather trot
Through dust and dirt, and droyl both night and day;
Thus droyl these fiends incarnate, whose free pains
Are fed with dropsies and venerial blains:
No need to use the whip; but strength, to rule the rains.
4.
Poore captive world! How has thy lightnesse given
A just occasion to thy foes illusion?
O how art thou betray'd, thus fairly driven
In seeming triumph to thy own confusion?
How is thy empty universe bereaven
Of all true joyes, by one false Joye's delusion?
So have I seen an unblown virgin fed
With sugar'd words so full that she is led
A fair attended Bride to a false Bankrupt's bed.
5.
Full, gracious Lord; Let not thine Arm forsake
The world, impounded in her own devises;
Think of that pleasure that thou once didst take
Amongst the Lillies and sweet Beds of spices,
Hale strongly, thou whose hand has pow'r to slake
The swift-foot fury of ten thousand vices:
Let not that dull-devouring Dragon boast,
His craft has wonne, what Judah's Lion lost;
Remember what it crav'd; Recount the price it cost.
I SIDOR . Ilb. 1. De Summo Bono.
By how much the nearer Satan perceiveth the world to an end, by so much the more fiercely he troubleth it with persecution; that knowing himself is to be damned, he may get company in his damnation .
C YPRIAN in Ep.
Broad and spatious is the road to infernal life: there are enticements and death-bringing pleasures. There the Devil flattereth, that he may deceive; smileth, that he may endamage; allureth that he may destroy .
E PIG . 11.
Nay soft and fair, good world; post not too fast;
Thy journey's end requires not half this hast.
Unlesse that arme thou so disdain'st reprives thee
Alas thou needs must go; the devil drives thee.
XII
I SAIAH 66. 11
Ye may suck, but not be satisfied with the breast of her consolation
1.
W H at, never fill'd? Be thy lips skrew'd so fast
To th' earth's full breast? For shame for shame unseise thee:
Thou tak'st a surfet where thou should'st but tast.
And mak'st too much not half enough to please thee.
Ah fool, forbear; Thou swallow'st at one breath
Both food and poyson down; thou draw'st both milk and death.
2.
The ub'rous breasts, when fairly drawn, repast
The thriving infant with their milkie flood,
But being overstrain'd, return at last
Unwholsome gulps compos'd of wind and bloud,
A mod'rate use does both repast and please;
Who strains beyond a mean draws in and gulps disease.
3.
But, O that mean whose good the least abuse
Makes bad, is too too hard to be directed;
Can thorns bring grapes, or crabs a pleasing juyce?
There's nothing wholsome, where the whole's infected.
Unseise thy lips: Earth's milk's a rip'ned core
That drops from her disease that matters from her sore.
4.
Think'st thou that paunch that burlyes out thy coat
Is thriving fat; or flesh that seems so brawny?
Thy paunch is dropsied and thy cheeks are bloat;
Thy lips are white and thy complexion tawny;
Thy skin's a bladder blown with watry tumours;
Thy flesh a trembling bog a quagmire full of humours.
5.
And thou whose thrivelesse hands are ever straining
Earth's fluent breasts into an empty sive,
That alwayes hast, yet alwayes art complaining
And whin'st for more then earth has pow'r to give;
Whose treasure flowes and flees away as fast;
That ever hast and hast yet hast not what thou hast:
6.
Go choose a substance, fool, that will remain
Within the limits of thy leaking measure;
Or else go seek an urne that will retain
The liquid body of thy slipp'ry treasure:
Alas, how poorely are thy labours crown'd?
Thy liquour's neither sweet nor yet thy vessel sound.
7.
What lesse then fool is Man, to prog and plot
And lavish out the cream of all his care,
To gain poore seeming goods, which, being got
Make firm possession but a thorow-fare:
Or if they stay, they furrow thoughts the deeper,
And being kept with care they loose their carefull keeper
S. G REG . Hom. 3. secund. parte Ezech.
If we give more to the flesh then we ought, we nourish an enemy; If we give not to her necessity what we ought, we destroy a citizen: The flesh is to be satisfied so farre as suffices to our good: whosoever alloweth so much to her as to make her proud, knoweth not how to be satisfied: To be satisfied is a great art: least by the satietie of the flesh we break forth into the iniquitle of her folly .
H UGO de Anima.
The heart is a small thing, but desireth great matters: It is not sufficient for a Kite's dinner yet the whole world is not sufficient for it
E PIG . 12.
What makes thee fool, so fat? Fool, thee so bare?
Ye suck the self-same milk, the self-same aire:
No mean betwixt all paunch, and skin and bone?
The mean's a vertue, and the world has none.
XIII
John 3. 19
Men love darknesse rather then light, because their deeds are evil.
L O rd when we leave the world and come to Thee
How dull how slug are wee!
How backward! how preposterous is the motion
Of our ungain devotion!
Our thoughts are milstones, and our souls are lead
And our destres are dead:
Our vowes are fairly promis'd, faintly paid;
Or broken, or not made:
Our better work (if any good) attends
Upon our private ends:
In whose performance one poore worldly scoff
Foyls us, or beats us off.
If thy sharp scourge find out some secret fault
We grumble or revolt:
And if thy gentle hand forbear, we stray
Or idly lose the way.
Is the road fair? we loyter: cloggd with mire?
We stick, or else retire:
A lamb appears a lyon; and we feare,
Each hush we see's a bear.
When our dull souls direct their thoughts to thee
The soft-pac'd spayl is not so slow as we;
But when at earth we dart our wing'd desire,
We burn, we burn like fire.
Like as the am rous needle joyes to bend
To her Magnetick friend:
Or as the greedy Lover's eye-balls flye
At his fair Mistres eye:
So, so we cling to earth; we flie and puff,
Yet flie not fast enough
If pleasure beckon with her balmy hand,
Her beck's a strong command:
If honour call us with her courtly breath,
An houre's delay is death:
If profit's golden finger'd charms enveigle's,
We clip more swift then Eagles;
Let Auster weep, or blustring Borcas rore
Till eyes or lungs be sore;
Let Neptune swell untill his dropsie-sides
Burst into broken tides:
Nor threat'ning rocks, nor winds, nor waves, nor fire
Can curb our fierce desire;
Not fire nor rocks can stop our furious minds,
Nor waves, nor winds.
How fast and fearelesse do our footsteps flee!
The lightfoot Roe-buck's not so swift as we.
S. August. sup. Psal. 64.
Two severall Lovers built two severall Cities. The love of God buildeth a Ferusation; The love of the world buildeth a Babylon: Let every one enquire of himself what he loveth, and he shall resolve himself of whence he is a Citizen .
S. August. lib. 3. Confess.
All things are driven by their own weight and tend to their own center: My weight is my love; by that I am driven whithersoever I am driven .
Ibidem.
Lord, he loveth thee the lesse, that loveth any thing with thee which he loveth not for thee
E PIG . 13.
Lord, scourge my Asse if she should make no hast
And curb my Stag if he should flie too fast:
If he be overswift, or she prove idle,
Let Love lend him a spur: Fear, her a bridle
XIV
P SALM 13. 3
Lighten mine eyes, O Lord, lest I sleep the sleep of death.
W I ll 't ne'r be morning? Will that promis'd light
Ne'r break, and clear these clouds of night?
Sweet Phospher , bring the day
Whose conqu'ring ray
May chase these fogs; Sweet Phospher , bring the day.
How long! how long shall these benighted eyes
Languish in shades, like feeble flies
Expecting Spring! How long shall darknesse soyl
The face of earth, and thus beguile
The souls of sprightfull action; when will day
Begin to dawn, whose new-born ray
May gild the wether-cocks of our devotion
And give our unsoul'd souls new motion!
Sweet Phospher , bring the day.
Thy light will fray
These horrid mists; Sweet Phospher bring the day
Let those have night, that slily love't immure
Their cloyster'd crimes, and sinne secure;
Let those have night, that blush to let men know
The basenesse they ne'r blush to do;
Let those have night, that love to take a nap
And loll in Ignorance's lap;
Let those whose eyes, like Ouls, abhorre the light
Let those have night that love the night:
Sweet Phospher , bring the day;
How sad delay
Afflicts dull hopes! Sweet Phospher , bring the day
Alas! my light in vain-expecting eyes
Can find no Objects but what rise
From this poore mortall blaze, a dying spark
Of Vulcan's forge, whose flames are dark
And dangerous, a dull blew-burning light
As melancholly as the night;
Here's all the Sunnes that glister in the Sphere
Of earth; Ah me! what comfort's here?
Sweet Phospher , bring the day;
Haste, haste away
Heav'n's loytring lamp; Sweet Phospher , bring the day.
Blow, Ignorance: O thou, whose idle knee
Rocks earth into a Lethargie,
And with thy sootie fingers hast bedight
The world's faire checks, blow blow thy spite;
Since thou hast pufft our greater Tapour do
Puffe on and out the lessor too;
If ere that breath-exiled flame return,
Thou hast not blown, as it will burn:
Sweet Phospher , bring the day;
Light will repay
The wrongs of night: Sweet Phospher , bring the day.
S. A UGUST in Joh. ser 19.
God is all to thee: If thou be hungry, he is bread; If thirsty he is water; If in darknesse, he is light; If naked, he is a robe of immortalitie .
A LANUS de Conq. Nat.
God is a light that is never darkned; An unwearied life, that cannot die; a fountain alwayes flowing; a garden of life; a seminary of wisdome a radicall beginning of all goodnesse .
E PIG . 14
My soul, if Ignorance puffe out this light,
Shee'll do a favour that intends a spight;
'T seems dark abroad; but take this light away
Thy windowes will discover break a day .
XV
R EVELATION 12
The Devil is come unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
1.
L O rd! canst thou see and suffer? is thy hand
Still bound to th' peace? Shall earth's black Monarch take
A full possession of thy wasted land?
O, will thy slumb'ring vengeance never wake
Till full-ag'd law-resisting Custome shake
The pillours of thy right by false command?
Unlock thy clouds, great Thund'rer, and come-down;
Behold whose Temples wear thy sacred Crown;
Redresse, redresse our wrongs; revenge, revenge thy own.
2.
See how the bold Usurper mounts the seat
Of royall Majesty; How overstrawing
Perils with pleasure, pointing ev'ry threat
With bugbear death, by torments over-awing
Thy frighted subjects; or by favours drawing
Their tempted hearts to his unjust retreat;
Lord, canst thou be so mild? and he so bold?
Or can thy flocks be thriving, when the fold
Is govern'd by a Fox? Lord canst thou see and hold?
3.
That swift-wing'd Advocate, that did commence
Our welcome suits before the King of kings,
That sweet Embassadour, that hurries hence
What ayres th' harmonlous soul or sighs or sings
See how she flutters with her idle wings;
Her wings are clipt, and eyes put out by sense;
Sense-conq'ring Faith is now grown blind and cold,
And basely cravend, that in times of old
Did conquer Heav'n it self do what th' Almightie could.
4.
Behold how double Fraud does scourge and tear
Astraea's wounded sides, plough'd up and rent
With knotted cords, whose fury has no care;
See how she stands a pris'ner to be sent,
A slave, into eternall banishment.
I know not whither O, I know not where:
Her Patent must be cancell'd in disgrace;
And sweet-lipt Fraud, with her divided face,
Must act Astraea's part, must take Astraea's place.
5.
Faith's pineons clipt? And fair Astraea gone?
Quick-seeing Faith now blind? and Justice see?
Has Justice now found wings? and has Faith none?
What do we here? who would not wish to be
Dissolv'd from earth, and with Astraea flee
From this blind dungeon to that Sunne-bright Throne?
Lord, is thy Scepter lost, or laid aside?
Is hell broke loose, and all her Fiends untied?
Lord, rise and rowze and rule and crush their furious pride.
P ETR . R AV . in Math.
The Devil is the authour of evil, the fountain of wickednesse, the adversary of the truth the corrupter of the world, man's perpetuall enemy; he planteth snares, diggeth ditches, spurreth bodies, he goadeth souls, he suggesteth thoughts, belcheth anger, exposeth vertues to hatred, maketh vices beloved, soweth errours, nourisheth contention, disturbeth peace, and scattereth affections .
M ACAR .
Let us suffer with those that suffer, and be crucified with those that are crucified, that we may be glorified with those that are glorified .
S AVANAR .
If there be no enemy, no fight; if no fight, no victorie: if no victory no crown .
E PIG . 15.
My soul, sit thou a patient looker on;
Judge not the Play before the Play is done:
Her Flot has many changes: Every day
Speaks a new Scene; the last act crowns the Play.
R OWZE thee, my soul; and drein thee from the dregs
Of vulgar thoughts; Skrue up the heightned pegs
Of thy sublime Theorboe foure notes higher,
And higher yet; that so, the shrill-mouth'd Quire
Of swift-wing'd Seraphims may come and joyn
And make thy consort more than halfe divine.
Invoke no Muse; Let heav'n be thy Apollo ;
And let his sacred influences hallow
Thy high-bred strains; Let his full beams inspire
Thy ravish'd brains with more heroick fire:
Snatch thee a Quill from the spread Eagle's wing,
And, like the morning Lark, mount up and sing:
Cast off these dangling plummets, that so clog
Thy lab ring heart, which gropes in this dark fog
Of dungeon-earth; Let flesh and bloud forbear
To stop thy flight, till this base world appear
A thin blew Lanskip: Let thy pineons sore
So high a pitch, that men may seem no more
Than Pismires, crawling on this Mole-hill earth.
Thy eare untroubled with their frantick mirth
Let not the fraillie of thy flesh disturb
Thy new-concluded peace; Let Reason curb
Thy hot-mouth'd Passion; and let heav'n's fire season
The fresh Conceits of thy corrected Reason
Disdain to warm thee at Lust's smokie fires,
Scorn, scorn to feed on thy old bloat desires:
Come, come, my soul, hoyse up thy higher sails,
The wind blowes fair! Shall we still creep like Snails,
That gild their wayes with their own native slimes?
No, we must flie like Eagles, and our Rhimes
Must mount to heav'n and reach th' Olympick ear;
Our heav'n-blown fire must seek no other Sphear.
Thou great Theanthropos , that giv'st and ground'st
Thy gifts in dust; and from our dunghill crown'st
Reflected Honour, taking by retail,
What thou hast giv'n in grosse, from lapsed, frail,
And sinfull man; that drink'st full draughts, wherein
Thy Children's leprous fingers, scurf'd with Sin,
Have padled; cleanse, O cleanse my crafty Soul
From secret crimes, and let my thoughts controul
My thoughts: O, teach me stoutly to deny
My self, that I may be no longer I;
Enrich my fancie clarifie my thoughts,
Refine my drosse; O, wink at humane faults;
And through this slender conduit of my Quill
Convey thy Current, whose clear streams may fill
The hearts of men with love, their tongues with prayse,
Crown me with Glory: Take, who list, the Bayes.
I
Jam I 14.
Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed.
Serphent. Eve. Serp .
Not eat? Not tast? Not touch? Not cast an eye
Upon the fruit of this fair Tree? And why?
Why eat'st thou not what Heav'n ordain'd for food?
Or canst thou think that bad which heav'n call'd Good?
Why was it made, if not to be enjoy'd?
Neglect of favours makes a favour vold:
Blessings unus'd, pervert into a Wast,
As well as Surfets; Woman, Do but tast:
See how the laden boughs make silent suit
To be enjoy'd; Look how their bending fruit
Meet thee half-way; Observe but how they crouch
To kisse thy hand; Coy woman, Do but touch:
Mark what a pure Vermilion blush has dy'd
Their swelling cheeks, and how for shame they hide
Their palsie heads, to see themselves stand by
Neglected: Woman, Do but cast an eye,
What bounteous heav'n ordain'd for use, refuse not;
Come, pull and eat: Y'abuse the thing ye use not Eve .
Wisest of Beasts, our great Creatour did
Reserve this Tree, and this alone forbid;
The rest are freely ours, which doubtlesse are
As pleasing to the tast; to th' eye, as fair;
But touching this, his strict commands are such
'Tis death to tast, no lesse than death to touch. Serp .
Pish; death's a fable: Did not heav'n inspire.
Your equall Elements with living Fire
Blown from the spring of life? Is not that breath
Immortall? Come; ye are as free from death
As He that made ye. Can the flames expire
Which he has kindled? Can ye quench his fire?
Did not the great Creatour's voice proclaim
What ere he made (from the blue spangled frame
To the poore leaf that trembles) very Good?
Blest he not both the Feeder, and the Food?
Tell, tell me then, what danger can accrue
From such blest Food, to such half-gods as you?
Curb needlesse fears, and let no fond conceit
Abuse your freedome; woman, Take, and eat Eve .
'Tis true; we are immortall; death is yet
Unborn and, till rebeillon make it debt,
Undue: I know the Fruit is good, untill
Presumtuous disobedience make it ill.
The lips that open to this Fruit's a portall
To let in death, and make immortall morta'll, Serp .
You cannot die; Come, woman, Tast and fear not Eve .
Shall Eve transgresse? I dare not, O I dare not. Serp .
Afraid? why draw'st thou back thy tim'rous arm?
Harm onely fals on such as fear a harm.
Heav'n knowes and fears the virtue of this Tree:
'T will make ye perfect Gods as well as He.
Stretch forth thy hand and let thy fondnesse never
Fear death; Do, pull, and eat, and live for ever Eve .
'Tis but an Apple; and it is-as good
To do as to desire. Fruit 's made for food;
Ile pull, and tast, and tempt my Adam too
To know the secrets of this dainty. Serp . Doe.
S. C HRYS , sup. Matth
He forced him not: He touched him not: Onely said , Cast thyself down; that we may know, whosoever obeyeth the Devil casteth himselfe down; For the Devil may suggest, compell he cannot ,
S. B ERN , in ser.
It is the Devil's part to suggest; Ours, not to consent. As oft as we resist him, so often we overcome him as often as we overcome him, so often we bring joy to the Angels, and glory to God; Who proposeth us, that we may contend, and assisteth us that we may conquer .
E PIG. I.
Unluckie Parliament! wherein, at last,
Both houses are agreed, and firmly past
An Act of death, confirm'd by higher Powers:
O had it had but such successe as Ours!
II
JamES I . 15
Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sinne; and sinne when it is finished bringeth forth death.
1.
Lament, lament; Look, look what thou hast done!
Lament the worlds, lamont thy own estate:
Look, look by doing how thou art undone;
Lament thy fall; lament thy change of State:
Thy faith is broken, and thy freedome gone,
See, see too soon, what thou lament'st too late
O thou that wert so many men nay all
Abbridg'd in one how has thy desp'rate fall
Destroy'd thy unborn seed destroy'd thy self withall.
2.
Uxorious Adam , whom thy Maker made
Equall to Angels that excell in pow'r,
What hast thou done? O why hast thou obey'd
Thy own destruction? Like a new-cropt flowre
How does the glory of thy beauty fade!
How are thy fortunes blasted in an houre!
How art thou cow'd, that badst the pow'r to quelt
The spite of new fall'n Angels, baffle Hell,
And vie with those that stood, and vanquish those that fell.
3.
See how the world (whose chast and pregnant womb
Of late conceiv'd, and brought forth nothing ill)
Is now degenerated, and become
A base Adultresse, whose false births do fill
The earth with Monsters, Monsters that do rome
And rage about and make a trade to kill:
Now Glutt'ny paunches; Lust begins to spawn;
Wrath takes revenge; and Avarice, a pawn;
Pale Envie pines, Pride swells, and Sloth begins to yawn.
4.
The Aire that whisper'd, now begins to rore,
And blustring Boreas blowes the boyling Tide:
The white-mouth'd Water now usurps the shore
And scorns the pow'r of her tridentall guide:
The Fire now burns, that did but warm before
And rules her ruler with resistlesse pride:
Fire, Water, Earth and Alre, that first were made
To be subdu'd, see how they now invade;
They rule whom once they serv'd command where once obey'd
5.
Behold; that nakednesse, that late bewray'd
Thy glory, now's become thy shame, thy wonder:
Behold; those Trees whose various fruits were made
For food, now turn'd a shade to shrowd thee under:
Behold; that voice (which thou hast disobey'd)
That late was musick, now affrights like thunder:
Poor man! Are not thy joynts grown sore with shaking,
To view th' effect of thy bold undertaking,
That in one houre didd'st marre what heav'n six dayes was making?
S. A UGUST . lib. I. de Lib. Arbit.
It is a most just punishment, that man should lose that freedome which man could not use yet had power to keep if he would; and that he who had knowledge to do what was right, and did not, should be deprived of the knowledge of what was right; and that he who would not do righteously when he had the power should lose the power to do it when he had the will.
H UGO de Anima.
They are justly punished that abuse lawfull things, but they are most justly punished, that use unlawfull things: Thus Lucifer fell from Heaven thus Adam lost his Paradise
E TIG. 2
See how these fruitfull kernels, being cast
Upon the earth, how thick they spring! how fast!
A full-ear'd crop and thriving rank and proud;
Prepost'rous man first sow'd, and then he plough'd.
III
P ROVERBS 14. 13
Even in laughter the heart is sorrowfull and the end of that mirth is heavinesse
1.
A L as fond Child
How are thy thoughts beguil'd.
To hope for hony from a nest of wasps?
Thou malst as well
Go seek for case in hell,
Or sprightly Nectar from the mouths of asps.
2.
The world s a hive,
From whence thou canst derive
No good, but what thy soul's vexation brings:
Put case thou meet
Some peti-peti sweet,
Each drop is guarded with a thousand stings.
3.
Why dost thou make
These murmuring troups forsake
The safe protection of their waxen homes?
This bive contains
No sweet that's worth thy pains;
There's nothing here alas, but empty combes.
4.
For trush and toyes
And grief-ingend'ring joyes,
What torment seems too sharp for flesh and bloud!
What bitter pills,
Compos'd of reall ills,
Man swallows down to purchase one false good!
5.
The dainties here,
Are least what they appear;
Though sweet in hopes, yet in fruition sowre:
The fruit that's yellow
Is found not alwayes mellow,
The fairest Tulip's not the sweetest flowre.
6.
Fond youth, give ore,
And vex thy soul no more
In seeking what were better farre unfound;
Alas thy gains
Are onely present pains
To gather Scorpions for a future wound.
7.
What's earth? or in it,
That longer then a minit
Can lend a free delight that can endure?
O who would droyl,
Or delve in such a soyl,
Where gain's uncertain and the pain is sure?
S. A UGUST.
Sweetnesse in temporall matters is deceitfull: It is a labour and a perpetuall fear; it is a dangerous pleasure, whose beginning is without providence and whose end is not without repentance
H UGO.
Luxury is an enticing pleasure a bastard mirth, which hath honey in her mouth gall in her heart and a sting in her tail.
E PIG. 3.
What, Cupid , are thy shafts already made?
And seeking honey, to set up thy trade?
True Embleme of thy sweets! Thy Bees do bring
Honey in their mouths, but in their talls a sting.
IV
P SALM 62. 9
To be laid in the ballance, it is altogether lighter then vanitie.
1.
P U t in another weight: 'Tis yet too light;
And yet: Fond Cupid put another in;
And yet another: Still there's under weight;
Put in another hundred: Put agin.
Adde world to world; then heap a thousand more
To that; then, to renew thy wasted store,
Take up more worlds on trust to draw thy balance lower.
2
Put in the flesh, with all her loads of pleasure;
Put in great Mammon's endlesse inventory;
Put in the pond'rous acts of mighty Cesar;
Put in the greater weight of Sweden's glory;
Adde Scipio's gauntlet; put in Plato's gown:
Put Circe's charms, put in the triple crown;
Thy balance will not draw; thy balance will not down.
3.
Lord, what a world is this, which day and night,
Men seek with so much toyl, with so much trouble?
Which weigh'd in equall scales is found so light
So poorly over-balanc'd with a bubble?
Good God! that frantick mortals should destroy
Their higher hopes, and place their idle joy
Upon such airy trash, upon so light a toy!
4.
Thou bold Impostour, how hast thou befool'd
The tribe of Man with counterfeit desire!
How has the breath of thy false bellows cool'd
Heav'n's free-born flames, and kindled bastard fire!
How hast thou vented drosse in stead of treasure,
And cheated man with thy false weights and measure,
Proclaiming bad for good: and gilding death with pleasure.
5.
The world's a craftie Strumpet, most affecting
And closely following those that most reject her:
But seeming carelesse, nicely disrespecting
And coyly flying those that most affect her:
If thou be free, she's strange, if strange she's free;
Flee, and she follows: Follow, and she'll flee:
Then she there's none more coy there's none more fond then she.
6.
O what a Crocodilian world is this,
Compos'd of treacheries, and ensnaring wiles!
She cloaths destruction in a formall kisse,
And lodges death in her deceitfull smiles;
She hugs the soul she hates: and there does prove
The veriest tyrant where she vowes to love,
And is a Serpent most, when most she seems a Dove
7.
Thrice happy he, whose nobler thoughts despise
To make an object of so easle gains;
Thrice happy he who scorns so poore a prize
Should be the crown of his herolck pains:
Thrice happy he, that ne'r was born to trie
Her frowns or smiles: or being born, did lie
In his sad nurse's arms an houre or two and die.
S. A UGUST. lib. Confess.
O you that dote upon this world, for what victory do ye fight? Your hopes can be crowned with no greater reward then the world can give; and what is the world but a brittle thing full of dangers wherein we travel from lesser to greater perils? O let all her vain, light, and momentany glory perish with her self, and let us be conversant with more eternall things. Alas, this world is miserable; life is short and death is sure .
E PIG. 4.
My soul, what's lighter then a feather? wind.
Then wind? The fire. And what then fire? The mind.
What's lighter then the mind? Athought. Then thought?
This bubble-world. What then this bubble? Nought.
V
1 C OR 7. 31
The fashion of this world passeth away
G O ne are those golden dayes, wherein
Pale conscience started not at ugly sinne:
When good old Saturne's peacefull Throne
Was unusurped by his beardlesse Son:
When jealous Ops ne'r fear'd th' abuse
Of her chast bed, or breach of nuptiall Truce:
When just Asiraea poys'd her Scales
In ruortall hearts, whose absence earth bewails:
When froth-born Venus and her brat,
With all that spurlous brood young Jove begat
In horrid shapes were yet unknowne;
Those Halcyon dayes, that golden age is gone.
There was no Client then to wait
The leisure of his long-tayl'd Advocate;
The Talion Law was in request,
And Chaunc'ry courts were kept in ev'ry brest;
Abused Statutes had no Tenters,
And men could deal secure without indentures:
There was no peeping hole to clear
The Wittal's eye from his incarnate fear;
There were no lustfull Cinders then
To broyl the Carbonado'd hearts of men;
The rosle cheek did then proclaim
A shame of Guilt, but not a guilt of shame:
There was no whining soul to start
At Cupid's twang, or curse his flaming dart:
The Boy had then but callow wings,
And fell Erynnis' Scorpions had no stings:
The better-acted world did move
Upon the fixed poles of Truth and Love,
Love esseno'd in the hearts of men;
Then Reason rul'd; there was no Passion then:
Till Lust and Rage began to enter,
Love the Circumference was, and love the Center
Untill the wanton dayes of Jove
The simple world was all compos'd of Love;
But Jove grew fleshly, false, unjust;
Inferiour beautie fill'd his veins with lust;
And Cucquean Juno's fury hurld
Fierce balls of rage into th' incestuous world:
Astraea fled, and love return'd
From earth earth boyl'd with lust, with rage it burn'd:
And ever since the world has been
Kept going with the scourge of Lust and Spleen
S. A MBROS.
Lust is a sharp spur to vice which alwayes putteth the affections into a false gallop.
H UGO.
Lust is an immoderate wantonnesse of the flesh a sweet poyson, a cruel pestilence; a perntcious potion, which weakeneth the body of man, and effeminateth the strength of an heroick mind.
S. A UGUST
Envy is the hatred of another's felicitie in respect of Supertours, because they are not equall to them; in respect of Inferiours lest he should be equall to them; in respect of equalls, because they are equall to them: Through envy proceeded the fall of the world and the death of Christ.
E PIG. 5.
What? Cupid , must the world be lasht so soon?
But made at morning, and be whipt at noon?
'Tis like the wagge that playes with Venus Doves
The more 'tis lasht the more perverse it proves.
VI
E CCIES 2. 17
All is vanitie and vexation of spirit
1.
H OW is the anxious soul of man befool'd
In his desire,
That thinks an Hectick fever may be cool'd
In flames of fire,
Or hopes to rake full heaps of burnisht gold
From nasty mire!
A whining Lover may as well request
A scornfull breast
To molt in gentle tears, as woo the world for rest.
2.
Let wit and all her studied plots effect.
The best they can;
Let smiling Fortune prosper and perfect
What wit began;
Let earth advise with both and so project
A happy man;
Let wit or fawning Fortune vie their best;
He may be blest
With all that earth can give: but earth can give no rest.
3.
Whose gold is double with a carefull hand
His cares are double:
The pleasure, honour, wealth of sea and land
Bring but a trouble;
The world it self and all the world's command
Is but a bubble.
The strong desires of man's insatiate breast
May stand possest
Of all that earth can give: but earth can give no rest.
4.
The world's a seeming Par'dise but her own
And man's tormenter;
Appearing fixt, yet but a rolling stone
Without a tenter;
It is a vast Circumference, where none
Can find a Center.
Of more then earth can earth make none possest:
And he that least
Regards this restlesse world shall in this world find rest.
5.
True rest consists not in the oft revying
Of worldly drosse;
Earth's mirie purchase is not worth the buying:
Her gain is losse;
Her rest but giddy toil, if not relying
Upon her crosse.
How worldlings droil for trouble! That fond breast
That is possest
Of earth without a crosse has earth without a rest.
C ASS. in Ps.
The Crosse is the invincible sanetuary of the humble, the dejection of the proud, the victory of Christ, the destruction of the devil, the confirmation of the faithfull the death of the unbeliever, the life of the just
D AMASCEN.
The Crosse of Christ is the key of Paradise: the weak man's staff: the Convert's convey: the upright man's perfection: the soul and bodie's health; the prevention of all evil and the procurer of all good.
E PIG. 6.
Worldlings whose whimpring folly holds the losses
Of honour pleasure, health, and wealth such crosses
Look here, and tell me what your Arms engrosse
When the best end of what ye hug's a crosse.
VII
1 P ETER 5. 8
Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a roring Lion walketh about seeking whom he may devoure
1.
W H y dost thou suffer lustfull sloth to creep,
Dull Cyprian lad, into thy wanton browes?
Is this a time to pay thine idle vowes
At Morpheus shrine? Is this a time to steep
Thy brains in wastfull slumbers? up and rouze
Thy leaden spirits: Is this a time to sleep?
Adjourn thy sanguine dreams: Awake, arise,
Call in thy thoughts: and let them all advise,
Hadst thou as many heads as thou hast wounded eyes.
2.
Look, look, what horrid furies do await
Thy flatt'ring slumbers! If thy drowzie head
But chance to nod thou fall'st into a bed
Of sulph'rous flames, whose torments want a date.
Fond boy, be wise; let not thy thoughts be fed
With Phrygian wisdome; fools are wise too late
Beware betimes, and let thy reason sever
Those gates which passion clos'd; wake now, or never:
For if thou nodd'st thou fall'st and falling fall'st for ever
3.
Mark, how the ready hands of death prepare:
His bow is bent, and he has notch'd his dart:
He aims, he levels at thy slumb'ring heart:
The wound is posting, O be wise, beware,
What? has the voyce of danger lost the art
To raise the spirit of neglected care?
Well, sleep thy fill, and take thy soft reposes;
But know withall, sweet tasts have sowre closes;
And he repents in thorns that sleeps in beds of roses
4.
Yet sluggard, wake, and gull thy soul no more,
With earth's false pleasure, and the world's delight
Whose fruit is fair, and pleasing to the sight,
But sowre in tast, false at the putrid core:
Thy flaring glasse is gems at her half light:
She makes thee seeming rich, but truly poore:
She boasts a kernell, and bestowes a shell;
Performs an inch of her fair promis'd ell:
Her words protest a Heav'n; her works produce a hell
5.
O thou the fountain of whose better part
Is earth'd, and gravell'd up with vain desire:
That dayly wallow'st in the fleshly mire
And base pollution of a lustfull heart,
That feel'st no passion but in wanton fire,
And own'st no torment but from Cupid's dart;
Behold thy Type: Thou sitst upon this ball
Of earth, secure, while death that flings at all,
Stands arm'd to strike thee down where flames attend thy fall.
S. B ERN.
Securitie is no where; It is neither in Heaven nor in Paradise, much lesse in the world: In Heaven the Angels fell from the divine presence; in Paradise, Adam fell from his place of pleasure; in the world Judas fell from the School of our Saviour
H UGO. .
I eat secure, I drink secure, I sleep secure, even as though I had past the day of death avoided the day of judgement, and escaped the torments of hell-fire: I play and laugh, as though I were already triumphing in the kingdome of Heaven
E PIG. 7.
Get up, my soul; Redeem thy slavish eyes,
From drowzy bondage: O beware; Be wise:
Thy fo's before thee; thou must fight or flie:
Life lies most open in a closed eye.
VIII
L UKE 6. 25
Woe be to you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep
T H e world's a popular disease, that reignes
Within the froward heart and frantick brains
Of poore distemper'd mortals; oft arising
From ill digestion, through th' unequall poysing
Of ill-weigh'd Elements; whose light directs
Malignant humours to mallgno effects
One raves, and labours with a boyling liver;
Rends hair by handfuls, cursing Cupid's quiver;
Another with a bloudy-flux of oaths
Vowes deep revenge: one dotes: the other loathes:
One frisks and sings, and vies a flagon more
To drench dry cares, and makes the welkin rore:
Another droops; the sunshine makes him sad;
Heav'n cannot please: One's mop'd; the tother's mad:
One hugs his gold; another lets it flie:
He knowing not for whom; nor tother why.
One spends his day in plots, his night in play;
Another sleeps and slugs both night and day:
One laughs at this thing; tother cries for that:
But neither one nor tother knowes for what.
Wonder of wonders! What we ought t' evite
As our disease, we hug as our delight:
'T is held a symptome of approching danger,
When disacquainted Sense becomes a stranger
And takes no knowledge of an old disease;
But when a noysome grief begins to please
The unresisting sense, it is a fear
That death has parli'd, and compounded there:
As when the dreadfull Thund'rer's awfull hand
Powres forth a viall on th' infected land;
At first th' affrighted Mortalls quake and fear
And ev'ry noise is thought the Thunderer;
But when the frequent soul-departing bell
Has pav'd their ears with her familiar knell
It is reputed but a nine dayes wonder,
They neither fear the Thund'rer not his Thunder:
So when the world (a worse disease) began
To smart for sinne, poore new created Man
Could seek for shelter, and his gen'rous Sonne
Knew by his wages what his hands bad done;
But bold-fac'd Mortalls in our blushlesse times
Can sinne and smile, and make a sport of crimes
Transgresse of custome, and rebell in ease;
We false-joy'd fools can triumph in disease,
And (as the carelesse Pilgrime being bit
By the Tarantula, begins a fit
Of life-concluding laughter) wast our breath
In lavish pleasure till we laugh to death.
HUGO de Anima.
What profit is there in vain glory, momentany mirth, the world's power, the fleshe's pleasure, full riches, noble descent and great desires? Where is their laughter? Where is their mirth? Where their insolence? their arrogance? From how much joy to how much sadnesse! After how much mirth, how much misery! From how great-glory are they fallen to how great torments! What hath fallen to them, may befall thee, because thou art a man: Thou art of earth; thou livest of earth; thou shalt return to earth. Death expecteth thee every-where; be wise therefore and expect death everywhere
E PIG . 8
What ayls the fool to laugh? Does something please
His vain concelt? Or is't a mere disease?
Fool, giggle on, and wast thy wanton breath;
Thy morning laughter breeds an ev'ning death.
IX
1 John 2. 17
The world passeth away, and all the lusts thereof.
1.
D R aw near, brave sparks, whose spirits scorn to light
Your hallow'd tapours, but at honour's flame;
You, whose heroick actions take delight
To varnish over a new-painted name;
Whose high-bred thoughts disdain to take their flight
But on th' Icarian wings of babbling fame;
Behold, how tott'ring are your high-built stories
Of earth, whereon you trust the ground-work of your glories.
2.
And you, more brain-sick Lovers that can prise
A wanton smile before eternall joyes;
That know no heav'n but in your Mistresse eyes;
That feel no pleasure but what sense enjoyes:
That can, like crown-distemper'd fools despise
True riches, and like babies whine for toyes:
Think ye, the Pageants of your hopes are able
To stand secure on earth when earth it self's unstable?
3.
Come, dunghill worldlings, you that root like swine
And cast up golden trenches where ye come:
Whose onely pleasure is to undermine
And view the secrets of your mother's wombe:
Come bring your Saint, pouch'd in his leather shrine
And summon all your griping Angels home.
Behold your world, the bank of all your store:
The world ye so admire; the world ye so adore.
4.
A feeble world, whose hot mouth'd pleasures tire
Before the race; before the start, retrait;
A faithlesse world, whose false delights expire
Before the term of half their promis'd date;
A fickle world, not worth the least desire,
Where ev'ry chance proclaims a change of State:
A feeble, faithlesse, fickle world, wherein
Each motion proves a vice; and ev'ry act a sin.
5.
The beautie, that of late was in her flowre
Is now a ruine, not to raise a lust:
He that was lately drench'd in Danae's showre
Is master now of neither gold nor trust;
Whose honour late was mann'd with princely powre.
His glory now lies buried in the dust;
O who would trust this world, or prize what 's in it,
That gives and takes and chops and changes ev'ry minit.
6.
Nor length of dayes, nor solid strength of brain
Can find a place wherein to rest secure;
The world is various, and the earth is vain:
There's nothing certain here there's nothing sure:
We trudge, we travel but from pain to pain,
And what's our onely grief's our onely cure:
The world's a torment; he that would endeavor
To find the way to rest must seek the way to leave her.
S. G REG . in ho.
Behold, the world is withered in it self, yet flourisheth in our hearts; every where death, every where grief, every where desolation: On every side we are smitten; on every side filled with bitternesse and yet with the blind mind of carnall desire we love her bitternesse: It flieth, and we follow it; it falleth, yet we stick to it. And because we cannot enjoy it fallen, we fall with it and enjoy it fallen.
E PIG . 9.
If Fortune hale, or envious Time but spurn,
The world turns round; and with the world we turn:
when Fortune sees, and Lynx ey'd Time is blind.
I'll trust thy joyes. O world; till then, the wind.
X
John 8. 44
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.
H E re's your right ground: wagge gently o'r this black;
Tis a short cast; y'are quickly at the jack
Rub, rub an inch or two; two crowns to one
On this boul's side: blow wind, 't is fairly thrown:
The next boul's worse that comes, come boul away;
Mammon , you know the ground untutour'd, play;
Your last was gone a yard of strength well spar'd,
Had touch'd the block; your hand is still too hard
Brave pastime, Readers, to consume that day,
Which without pastime flies too swift away!
See how they labour: as if day and night
Were both too short to serve their loose delight
See how their curved bodies wreath, and skrue
Such antick shapes as Proteus never knew:
One raps an oath, another deals a curse;
He never better boul'd; this never worse:
One rubs his itchlesse elbow, shrugs and laughs,
The tother bends his beetle-browes, and chafes:
Sometime they whoop, sometimes their Stygian cries
Send their black- Santos to the blushing skies:
Thus mingling humours in a mad confusion,
They make bad Premises, and worse Conclusion;
But where's the Palm that Fortune's hand allowes
To blesse the victour's honourable browes?
Come, Reader, come; I'll light thine eye the way
To view the Prize, the while the gamesters play;
Close by the jack, behold, gill fortune stands
To wave the game; see, in her partiall hands
The glorious garland's held in open show.
To chear the Lads, and crown the Conqrour's brow
The world's the jack; the gamesters that contend
Are Cupid, Mammon : that judiclous Friend,
That gives the ground, is Satan; and the boules
Are sinfull thoughts; the Prize, a crown for fools.
Who breathes that boules not; what bold tongue can say
Without a blush, he hath not boul'd to day;
It is the trade of man; and every sinner
Has plaid his rubbers: Every soule's a winner
The vulgar Proverb's crost: He hardly can
Be a good bouler and an honest man,
Good God, turn thou my Brazil thoughts a new;
New sole my boules, and make their bias true:
I'll cease to game, till fairer ground be given,
Nor wish to winne untill the mark be heaven.
S. B ERNARD lib. de Consid.
O you Sonnes of Adam, you covetous generation, what have ye to do with earthly riches, which are neither true, nor yours. Gold and silver are reall earth red and white, which the onely errour of man makes, or rather reputes, pretious; In short, if they be yours carry them with you .
S. H IEROME in Ep.
O Lust, thou infernall fire, whose fuell is gluttony, whose flame is pride; whose sparkles are wanton words; whose smoke is infamie; whose ashes are uncleannesse; whose end is hell .
E PIG . 10.
Mammon well follow'd: Cupid bravely led;
Both Touchers; equall Fortune makes a dead;
No reed can measure where the conquest lies;
Take my advise; compound, and share the Prize:
XI
E PHESIANS 2 2
Ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the airc
1.
O Whither will this mad-brain world at last
Be driv'n? where will her restlesse wheels arive?
Why hurries on her ill-match'd payre so fast?
O whither means her furious groom to drive?
What? will her rambling fits be never past?
For ever ranging? never once retrive?
Will earth's perpetuall progresse ne'r expire?
Her Team continuing in their fresh careire,
And yet they never rest and yet they never tire.
2.
Sol's hot-mouth'd steeds; whose nostrils vomit flame
And brazen lungs belch forth quotidian fire.
Their twelve houres task perform'd grow stiffe and lame
And their immortall spirits faint and tire:
At th' azure mountain's foot their labours claim
The priviledge of rest, where they retire
To quench their burning fetlocks, and to steep
Their flaming nostrils in the western deep,
And fresh their tired soules with strength-restoring sleep.
3.
But these prodigious backneyes, basely got
'Twixt men and devils, made for race nor flight
Can drag the idle world, expecting not
The bed of rest, but travel with delight;
Who neither weighing way, nor weather trot
Through dust and dirt, and droyl both night and day;
Thus droyl these fiends incarnate, whose free pains
Are fed with dropsies and venerial blains:
No need to use the whip; but strength, to rule the rains.
4.
Poore captive world! How has thy lightnesse given
A just occasion to thy foes illusion?
O how art thou betray'd, thus fairly driven
In seeming triumph to thy own confusion?
How is thy empty universe bereaven
Of all true joyes, by one false Joye's delusion?
So have I seen an unblown virgin fed
With sugar'd words so full that she is led
A fair attended Bride to a false Bankrupt's bed.
5.
Full, gracious Lord; Let not thine Arm forsake
The world, impounded in her own devises;
Think of that pleasure that thou once didst take
Amongst the Lillies and sweet Beds of spices,
Hale strongly, thou whose hand has pow'r to slake
The swift-foot fury of ten thousand vices:
Let not that dull-devouring Dragon boast,
His craft has wonne, what Judah's Lion lost;
Remember what it crav'd; Recount the price it cost.
I SIDOR . Ilb. 1. De Summo Bono.
By how much the nearer Satan perceiveth the world to an end, by so much the more fiercely he troubleth it with persecution; that knowing himself is to be damned, he may get company in his damnation .
C YPRIAN in Ep.
Broad and spatious is the road to infernal life: there are enticements and death-bringing pleasures. There the Devil flattereth, that he may deceive; smileth, that he may endamage; allureth that he may destroy .
E PIG . 11.
Nay soft and fair, good world; post not too fast;
Thy journey's end requires not half this hast.
Unlesse that arme thou so disdain'st reprives thee
Alas thou needs must go; the devil drives thee.
XII
I SAIAH 66. 11
Ye may suck, but not be satisfied with the breast of her consolation
1.
W H at, never fill'd? Be thy lips skrew'd so fast
To th' earth's full breast? For shame for shame unseise thee:
Thou tak'st a surfet where thou should'st but tast.
And mak'st too much not half enough to please thee.
Ah fool, forbear; Thou swallow'st at one breath
Both food and poyson down; thou draw'st both milk and death.
2.
The ub'rous breasts, when fairly drawn, repast
The thriving infant with their milkie flood,
But being overstrain'd, return at last
Unwholsome gulps compos'd of wind and bloud,
A mod'rate use does both repast and please;
Who strains beyond a mean draws in and gulps disease.
3.
But, O that mean whose good the least abuse
Makes bad, is too too hard to be directed;
Can thorns bring grapes, or crabs a pleasing juyce?
There's nothing wholsome, where the whole's infected.
Unseise thy lips: Earth's milk's a rip'ned core
That drops from her disease that matters from her sore.
4.
Think'st thou that paunch that burlyes out thy coat
Is thriving fat; or flesh that seems so brawny?
Thy paunch is dropsied and thy cheeks are bloat;
Thy lips are white and thy complexion tawny;
Thy skin's a bladder blown with watry tumours;
Thy flesh a trembling bog a quagmire full of humours.
5.
And thou whose thrivelesse hands are ever straining
Earth's fluent breasts into an empty sive,
That alwayes hast, yet alwayes art complaining
And whin'st for more then earth has pow'r to give;
Whose treasure flowes and flees away as fast;
That ever hast and hast yet hast not what thou hast:
6.
Go choose a substance, fool, that will remain
Within the limits of thy leaking measure;
Or else go seek an urne that will retain
The liquid body of thy slipp'ry treasure:
Alas, how poorely are thy labours crown'd?
Thy liquour's neither sweet nor yet thy vessel sound.
7.
What lesse then fool is Man, to prog and plot
And lavish out the cream of all his care,
To gain poore seeming goods, which, being got
Make firm possession but a thorow-fare:
Or if they stay, they furrow thoughts the deeper,
And being kept with care they loose their carefull keeper
S. G REG . Hom. 3. secund. parte Ezech.
If we give more to the flesh then we ought, we nourish an enemy; If we give not to her necessity what we ought, we destroy a citizen: The flesh is to be satisfied so farre as suffices to our good: whosoever alloweth so much to her as to make her proud, knoweth not how to be satisfied: To be satisfied is a great art: least by the satietie of the flesh we break forth into the iniquitle of her folly .
H UGO de Anima.
The heart is a small thing, but desireth great matters: It is not sufficient for a Kite's dinner yet the whole world is not sufficient for it
E PIG . 12.
What makes thee fool, so fat? Fool, thee so bare?
Ye suck the self-same milk, the self-same aire:
No mean betwixt all paunch, and skin and bone?
The mean's a vertue, and the world has none.
XIII
John 3. 19
Men love darknesse rather then light, because their deeds are evil.
L O rd when we leave the world and come to Thee
How dull how slug are wee!
How backward! how preposterous is the motion
Of our ungain devotion!
Our thoughts are milstones, and our souls are lead
And our destres are dead:
Our vowes are fairly promis'd, faintly paid;
Or broken, or not made:
Our better work (if any good) attends
Upon our private ends:
In whose performance one poore worldly scoff
Foyls us, or beats us off.
If thy sharp scourge find out some secret fault
We grumble or revolt:
And if thy gentle hand forbear, we stray
Or idly lose the way.
Is the road fair? we loyter: cloggd with mire?
We stick, or else retire:
A lamb appears a lyon; and we feare,
Each hush we see's a bear.
When our dull souls direct their thoughts to thee
The soft-pac'd spayl is not so slow as we;
But when at earth we dart our wing'd desire,
We burn, we burn like fire.
Like as the am rous needle joyes to bend
To her Magnetick friend:
Or as the greedy Lover's eye-balls flye
At his fair Mistres eye:
So, so we cling to earth; we flie and puff,
Yet flie not fast enough
If pleasure beckon with her balmy hand,
Her beck's a strong command:
If honour call us with her courtly breath,
An houre's delay is death:
If profit's golden finger'd charms enveigle's,
We clip more swift then Eagles;
Let Auster weep, or blustring Borcas rore
Till eyes or lungs be sore;
Let Neptune swell untill his dropsie-sides
Burst into broken tides:
Nor threat'ning rocks, nor winds, nor waves, nor fire
Can curb our fierce desire;
Not fire nor rocks can stop our furious minds,
Nor waves, nor winds.
How fast and fearelesse do our footsteps flee!
The lightfoot Roe-buck's not so swift as we.
S. August. sup. Psal. 64.
Two severall Lovers built two severall Cities. The love of God buildeth a Ferusation; The love of the world buildeth a Babylon: Let every one enquire of himself what he loveth, and he shall resolve himself of whence he is a Citizen .
S. August. lib. 3. Confess.
All things are driven by their own weight and tend to their own center: My weight is my love; by that I am driven whithersoever I am driven .
Ibidem.
Lord, he loveth thee the lesse, that loveth any thing with thee which he loveth not for thee
E PIG . 13.
Lord, scourge my Asse if she should make no hast
And curb my Stag if he should flie too fast:
If he be overswift, or she prove idle,
Let Love lend him a spur: Fear, her a bridle
XIV
P SALM 13. 3
Lighten mine eyes, O Lord, lest I sleep the sleep of death.
W I ll 't ne'r be morning? Will that promis'd light
Ne'r break, and clear these clouds of night?
Sweet Phospher , bring the day
Whose conqu'ring ray
May chase these fogs; Sweet Phospher , bring the day.
How long! how long shall these benighted eyes
Languish in shades, like feeble flies
Expecting Spring! How long shall darknesse soyl
The face of earth, and thus beguile
The souls of sprightfull action; when will day
Begin to dawn, whose new-born ray
May gild the wether-cocks of our devotion
And give our unsoul'd souls new motion!
Sweet Phospher , bring the day.
Thy light will fray
These horrid mists; Sweet Phospher bring the day
Let those have night, that slily love't immure
Their cloyster'd crimes, and sinne secure;
Let those have night, that blush to let men know
The basenesse they ne'r blush to do;
Let those have night, that love to take a nap
And loll in Ignorance's lap;
Let those whose eyes, like Ouls, abhorre the light
Let those have night that love the night:
Sweet Phospher , bring the day;
How sad delay
Afflicts dull hopes! Sweet Phospher , bring the day
Alas! my light in vain-expecting eyes
Can find no Objects but what rise
From this poore mortall blaze, a dying spark
Of Vulcan's forge, whose flames are dark
And dangerous, a dull blew-burning light
As melancholly as the night;
Here's all the Sunnes that glister in the Sphere
Of earth; Ah me! what comfort's here?
Sweet Phospher , bring the day;
Haste, haste away
Heav'n's loytring lamp; Sweet Phospher , bring the day.
Blow, Ignorance: O thou, whose idle knee
Rocks earth into a Lethargie,
And with thy sootie fingers hast bedight
The world's faire checks, blow blow thy spite;
Since thou hast pufft our greater Tapour do
Puffe on and out the lessor too;
If ere that breath-exiled flame return,
Thou hast not blown, as it will burn:
Sweet Phospher , bring the day;
Light will repay
The wrongs of night: Sweet Phospher , bring the day.
S. A UGUST in Joh. ser 19.
God is all to thee: If thou be hungry, he is bread; If thirsty he is water; If in darknesse, he is light; If naked, he is a robe of immortalitie .
A LANUS de Conq. Nat.
God is a light that is never darkned; An unwearied life, that cannot die; a fountain alwayes flowing; a garden of life; a seminary of wisdome a radicall beginning of all goodnesse .
E PIG . 14
My soul, if Ignorance puffe out this light,
Shee'll do a favour that intends a spight;
'T seems dark abroad; but take this light away
Thy windowes will discover break a day .
XV
R EVELATION 12
The Devil is come unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
1.
L O rd! canst thou see and suffer? is thy hand
Still bound to th' peace? Shall earth's black Monarch take
A full possession of thy wasted land?
O, will thy slumb'ring vengeance never wake
Till full-ag'd law-resisting Custome shake
The pillours of thy right by false command?
Unlock thy clouds, great Thund'rer, and come-down;
Behold whose Temples wear thy sacred Crown;
Redresse, redresse our wrongs; revenge, revenge thy own.
2.
See how the bold Usurper mounts the seat
Of royall Majesty; How overstrawing
Perils with pleasure, pointing ev'ry threat
With bugbear death, by torments over-awing
Thy frighted subjects; or by favours drawing
Their tempted hearts to his unjust retreat;
Lord, canst thou be so mild? and he so bold?
Or can thy flocks be thriving, when the fold
Is govern'd by a Fox? Lord canst thou see and hold?
3.
That swift-wing'd Advocate, that did commence
Our welcome suits before the King of kings,
That sweet Embassadour, that hurries hence
What ayres th' harmonlous soul or sighs or sings
See how she flutters with her idle wings;
Her wings are clipt, and eyes put out by sense;
Sense-conq'ring Faith is now grown blind and cold,
And basely cravend, that in times of old
Did conquer Heav'n it self do what th' Almightie could.
4.
Behold how double Fraud does scourge and tear
Astraea's wounded sides, plough'd up and rent
With knotted cords, whose fury has no care;
See how she stands a pris'ner to be sent,
A slave, into eternall banishment.
I know not whither O, I know not where:
Her Patent must be cancell'd in disgrace;
And sweet-lipt Fraud, with her divided face,
Must act Astraea's part, must take Astraea's place.
5.
Faith's pineons clipt? And fair Astraea gone?
Quick-seeing Faith now blind? and Justice see?
Has Justice now found wings? and has Faith none?
What do we here? who would not wish to be
Dissolv'd from earth, and with Astraea flee
From this blind dungeon to that Sunne-bright Throne?
Lord, is thy Scepter lost, or laid aside?
Is hell broke loose, and all her Fiends untied?
Lord, rise and rowze and rule and crush their furious pride.
P ETR . R AV . in Math.
The Devil is the authour of evil, the fountain of wickednesse, the adversary of the truth the corrupter of the world, man's perpetuall enemy; he planteth snares, diggeth ditches, spurreth bodies, he goadeth souls, he suggesteth thoughts, belcheth anger, exposeth vertues to hatred, maketh vices beloved, soweth errours, nourisheth contention, disturbeth peace, and scattereth affections .
M ACAR .
Let us suffer with those that suffer, and be crucified with those that are crucified, that we may be glorified with those that are glorified .
S AVANAR .
If there be no enemy, no fight; if no fight, no victorie: if no victory no crown .
E PIG . 15.
My soul, sit thou a patient looker on;
Judge not the Play before the Play is done:
Her Flot has many changes: Every day
Speaks a new Scene; the last act crowns the Play.
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