Classic Poem

CHAPTER I .

Wisdom, elixir of the purest life,
Hath taught her lesson to judicial views,
To those that judge a cause, and end a strife,
Which sits in judgment's seat and justice use;
A lesson worthy of divinest care,
Quintessence of a true divinest fear:

Unwilling that exordium should retain
Her life-infusing speech, doth thus begin:
You, quoth she, that give remedy or pain,
Love justice, for injustice is a sin;
Give unto God his due, his reverend style,
And rather use simplicity than guile.

For him that guides the radiant eye of day,
Sitting in his star-chamber of the sky,
The horizons and hemispheres obey,
And winds, the fillers of vacuity;
Much less should man tempt God, when all obey,
But rather be a guide, and lead the way.

For tempting argues but a sin's attempt,
Temptation is to sin associate;
So doing, thou from God art clean exempt,
Whose love is never plac'd in his love's hate:
He will be found not of a tempting mind,
But found of those which he doth faithful find.

Temptation rather separates from God,
Converting goodness from the thing it was,
Heaping the indignation of his rod
To bruise our bodies like a brittle glass;
For wicked thoughts have still a wicked end,
In making God our foe, which was our friend.

They muster up revenge, encamp our hate,
Undoing what before they meant to do,
Stirring up anger and unlucky fate,
Making the earth their friend, the heaven their foe:
But when heaven's guide makes manifest his power,
The earth their friends doth them like foes devour.

O foolish men, to war against your bliss!
O hateful hearts, where wisdom never reign'd!
O wicked thoughts, which ever thought amiss!
What have you reap'd? what pleasure have you gain'd?
A fruit in show, a pleasure to decay,
This have you got by keeping folly's way.

For wisdom's harvest is with folly nipt,
And with the winter of your vice's frost,
Her fruit all scatter'd, her implanting ript,
Her name decayed, her fruition lost:
Nor can she prosper in a plot of vice,
Gaining no summer's warmth, but winter's ice.

Thou barren earth, where virtues never bud;
Thou fruitless womb, where never fruits abide;
And thou dry-wither'd sap which bears no good
But the dishonour of thy proud heart's pride:
A seat of all deceit, — deceit deceiv'd,
Thy bliss a woe, thy woe of bliss bereav'd!

This place of night hath left no place for day,
Here never shines the sun of discipline,
But mischief clad in sable night's array,
Thought's apparition — evil angel's sign;
These reign enhoused with their mother night,
To cloud the day of clearest wisdom's light.

O you that practise to be chief in sin,
Love's hate, hate's friend, friend's foe, foe's follower,
What do you gain? what merit do you win,
To be blaspheming vice's practiser?
Your gain is wisdom's everlasting hate,
Your merit grief, your grief your life's debate.

Thou canst not hide thy thought — God made thy thought,
Let this thy caveat be for thinking ill;
Thou know'st that Christ thy living freedom bought,
To live on earth according to his will:
God being thy creator, Christ thy bliss,
Why dost thou err? why dost thou do amiss?

He is both judge and witness of thy deeds,
He knows the volume which thy heart contains;
Christ skips thy faults, only thy virtue reads,
Redeeming thee from all thy vice's pains:
O happy crown of mortal man's content,
Sent for our joy, our joy in being sent!

Then sham'st thou not to err, to sin, to stray,
To come to composition with thy vice,
With new-purg'd feet to tread the oldest way,
Leading new sense unto thy old device?
Thy shame might flow in thy sin-flowing face,
Rather than ebb to make an ebb of grace.

For he which rules the orb of heaven and earth,
And the inequal course of every star,
Did know man's thoughts and secrets at his birth,
Whether inclin'd to peace or discord's jar:
He knows what man will be ere he be man,
And all his deeds in his life's living span.

Then 'tis impossible that earth can hide
Unrighteous actions from a righteous God,
For he can see their feet in sin that slide,
And those that lodge in righteousness' abode;
He will extend his mercy on the good,
His wrath on those in whom no virtues bud.

Many there be, that, after trespass done,
Will seek a covert for to hide their shame,
And range about the earth, thinking to shun
God's heavy wrath and meritorious blame;
They, thinking to fly sin, run into sin,
And think to end when they do new begin.

God made the earth, the earth denies their suit,
Nor can they harbour in the centre's womb;
God knows their thoughts, although their tongues be mute,
And hears the sounds from forth their bodies' tomb:
Sounds? ah! no sounds, but man himself he hears,
Too true a voice of man's most falsest fears.

O see destruction hovering o'er thy head,
Mantling herself in wickedness' array!
Hoping to make thy body as her bed,
Thy vice her nutriment, thy soul her prey:
Thou hast forsaken him that was thy guide,
And see what follows to assuage thy pride!

Thy roaring vice's noise hath cloy'd his ears,
Like foaming waves they have o'erwhelm'd thy joy;
Thy murmurings, which thy whole body bears,
Hath bred thy wail, thy wail thy life's annoy:
Unhappy thoughts, to make a soul's decay,
Unhappy soul, in suffering thoughts to sway!

Then sith the height of man's felicity
Is plung'd within the puddle of misdeeds,
And wades amongst discredit's infamy,
Blasting the merit of his virtues' seeds;
Beware of murmuring, — the chiefest ill,
From whence all sin, all vice, all pains distil.

O heavy doom proceeding from a tongue,
Heavy-light tongue — tongue to thy own decay,
In virtue weak, in wickedness too strong,
To mischief prone, from goodness gone astray;
Hammer to forge misdeeds, to temper lies,
Selling thy life to death, thy soul to cries!

Must death needs pay the ransom of thy sin
With the dead carcass of descending spirit?
Wilt thou of force be snared in his gin,
And place thy error in destruction's merit?
Life, seek not for thy death; death comes unsought,
Buying the life which not long since was bought.

Death and destruction never needs a call,
They are attendants on life's pilgrimage,
And life to them is as their playing ball,
Grounded upon destruction's anchorage;
Seek not for that which unsought will betide,
Ne'er wants destruction a provoking guide.

Will you needs act your own destruction?
Will you needs harbour your own overthrow?
Or will you cause your own eversion,
Beginning with despair, ending with woe?
Then dye your hearts in tyranny's array,
To make acquittance of destruction's pay.

What do you meditate but on your death?
What do you practise but your living fall?
Who of you all have any virtue's breath,
But ready armed at a mischief's call?
God is not pleased at your vice's savour,
But you best pleased when you lose his favour.

He made not death to be your conqueror,
But you to conquer over death and hell;
Nor you to be destruction's servitor,
Enhoused there where majesty should dwell:
God made man to obey at his behest,
And man to be obey'd of every beast.

He made not death to be our labour's hire,
But we ourselves made death through our desart;
Here never was the kingdom of hell-fire,
Before the brand was kindled in man's heart:
Now man defieth God, all creatures man,
Vice flourisheth, and virtue lieth wan.

O fruitful tree, whose root is always green,
Whose blossoms ever bud, whose fruits increase,
Whose top celestial virtue's seat hath been,
Defended by the sovereignty of peace!
This tree is righteousness; O happy tree,
Immortalised by thine own decree!

O hateful plant, whose root is always dry,
Whose blossoms never bud, whose fruits decrease,
On whom sits the infernal deity,
To take possession of so foul a lease!
This plant is vice; O too unhappy plant,
Ever to die, and never fill death's want!

Accursed in thy growth, dead in thy root,
Canker'd with sin, shaken with every wind,
Whose top doth nothing differ from the foot,
Mischief the sap, and wickedness the rind;
So the ungodly, like this wither'd tree,
Is slack in doing good, in ill too free.

Like this their wicked growth, too fast, too slow;
Too fast in sloth, too slow in virtue's haste;
They think their vice a friend when 'tis a foe,
In good, in wickedness, too slow, too fast:
And as this tree decays, so do they all,
Each one copartner of the other's fall.