Satens polycy and enmity. June 22 72

Oh what a subtle enemy
Is Saten, who doth alway pry.

About to see wher he may lurk
And cuningly his mischief work.

He still doth search, & hunt about
If he can but, a hole find out.

He will at the ungaurded part
Be sure to creep, into the hart.

And if possesion he doe get
Hee doth soe strongly, us beset

That out he'l not be, got again
But more, & more, he strives to reign.

Wee may of him truly foretell
Give him an inch, he'l take an ell.

YEA .

And what if all the death, and all the dolor
Do but imbue with life of lustrous colour
Alien natures? if the blood we bled
Grow substance of another heart full-fed?
Thrice aureoled the sacrificial Lamb,
Rolled in a fair victorious oriflamme
Of His own slaughter! fiery pangs of glory,
Wherein a life dissolves to blend one story
With God's world-triumph, so alone fulfilling
True personal being, through the ordeal killing
Mere individual semblance of an hour;
While in the end all martyrs find a power

I. — Nay .

How may we trust Thee, Majesty Supreme!
We whose dim life fleets by, an idle dream,
Amid the ruining welter, and the wash
Of shattered Faiths, and holiest Hopes that flash
To annihilation in a moment, or slow wane,
Till what lay desert desert lies again,
Fooled for an hour with visions of ripe grain,
Withered ere harvest! Oh, the weary round
Of life and death halting within a bound
Of adamant, and fluctuating, ever
Goaded to dissonant, impotent endeavour!
Warring, we swarm to scale a phantom height,

Sad Sophonisba wistly notes the storie,
And giuing foorth a death-presaging grone:
Deare wronged Lady (quoth she) I am sorry,
That time will not permit me to bemone
Thy sad mischance, nor shalt thou grieue alone;
For why I hope our ghosts shall meet ere long,
Where each to other shall complaine our wrong.

O how my fortune doth resemble thine!
How like thy sorrowes are (alas) my woes!
Affricke thy country, Affricke likewise mine:
Both our destructions from one fountaine flowes:

Victorious Scipio , Carthage fatal foe,
The scourge of Affrick, and the glore of Rome,
Whose chiefest drift and aime is t' haue me goe,
T' attend his triumphes vainely shall consume,
Those idle hopes by which he doth presume,
With my disgrace, to grace his high renoune,
In his proud entry, to that more proud towne.

For why my better destiny now saies,
From Affrick, Europe shall no way deuide,
This wretched remnant of my worser daies,
The best being spent already here in pride:

Whose amorous youths, when once they feele the force
Of thy enuenomed shafts, shall freely story
Mee and my Massinissaes sad diuorce,
Feeding their Ladies eares with farre-fetchd glory,
Straining their toungs, their wits and memory,
In their best forme, with eloquence to show,
Such accidents as they desire to know.

One in his armes holding his deerest dame,
May haply court her with such words as these:
Faire worlds admired beauty, here I am,
Who not long since, amid ten thousand foes,

Oh! had I died when death was so expected,
It had not seem'd so grieuous far (alasse)
For while I stood at vnder and deiected,
Bearing the burden of a sad disgrace,
I would haue thought he pittied had my case,
Who had me kil'd in such a wofull plight,
" For death, in sorrow and despaire, seemes light.

But fortune false, her fury to fulfill,
Reseru'd me then to a more wretched end,
As to make him the author of my ill,
Who from all euils did euer me defend;

No, none ore me shall so insult or vaunt,
Whome slaue nor captiue they shall neuer see,
Though conquerd and orecome my selfe I graunt,
In all things else, yet of my liberty
None other liuing shall commander be;
Which I esteeme and prize at higher rate,
Then whatsoeuer riches, wealth, or state.

Shall I who in the highest chiefe degree
Of Fortunes fauour lately shin'd in grace,
Abase my selfe so low a slaue to be,
To those who ruin'd me and all my race?

No otherwise within her care-fraught breast,
This powerfull combat twixt her life and honor,
Is still maintain'd by turnes, whiles th' one is chac't,
Whiles th' other flies, whiles both do set vpon her,
Yet neither of them to their side can win her:
But now to honor, now to life giues place,
And dares not either freely to embrace.

Now in the midst of this intestine warre,
Vncertaine thus to either side to yeeld,
Her passions still augment, more growes her care;

Thy dainty corps fits better to receiue
The sweet imbracements of a louing friend,
Then to be made a morsell for the graue,
From whence againe it cannot be redeem'd:
Oh! that from thence it might be still exeem'd,
Thy beauty is too delicate a prey,
By lothsome wormes to be consum'd away.

Thus fearefull life did for her selfe protest,
Still seeking intertainment by delayes;
Till Honor mad to see her so possest,
With such inchanting, false, and Syren sayes,