Classic Poem

CHAPTER X.

Correction follows love, love follows hate,
For love in hate is hate in too much love;
So chastisement is preservation's mate,
Instructing and preserving those we prove:
So wisdom first corrects, then favoureth,
But fortune favours first, then wavereth.

First, the first father of this earthly world,
First man, first father call'd for after-time,
Unfashioned and like a heap was hurl'd,
Form'd and reform'd by wisdom out of slime;
By nature ill reform'd, by wisdom purer,
She mortal life, she better life's procurer.

Alas, what was he but a clod of clay?
What ever was he but an ashy cask?
By wisdom clothed in his best array,
If better may be best to choose a task:
One gave him time to live, she power to reign,
Making two powers one, one power twain.

But, O malign, ill-boding wickedness,
Like bursting gulfs o'erwhelming virtue's seed!
Too furious wrath, forsaking happiness,
Losing ten thousand joys with one dire deed:
Cain could see, but folly struck him blind,
To kill his brother in a raging mind.

O too unhappy stroke to end two lives!
Unhappy actor in death's tragedy,
Murdering a brother whose name murder gives,
Whose slaying action slaughters butchery:
A weeping part had earth in that same play,
For she did weep herself to death that day.

Water distill'd from millions of her eyes,
Upon the long-dried carcass of her time;
Her watery conduits were the weeping skies,
Which made her womb an overflowing clime:
Wisdom preserv'd it, which preserves all good,
And taught it how to make an ark of wood.

O that one board should save so many lives,
Upon the world's huge billow-tossing sea!
'Twas not the board, 'twas wisdom which survives,
Wisdom that ark, that board, that fence, that bay:
The world was made a water-rolling wave,
But wisdom better hope's assurance gave.

And when pale malice did advance her flag
Upon the raging standard of despite,
Fiend's sovereign, sin's mistress, and hell's hag,
Dun Pluto's lady, empress of the night;
Wisdom, from whom immortal joy begun,
Preserv'd the righteous as her faultless son.

The wicked perished, but they surviv'd;
The wicked were ensnar'd, they were preserv'd;
One kept in joy, the one of joy depriv'd;
One feeding, fed, the other feeding, starv'd:
The food which wisdom gives is nourishment,
The food which malice gives is languishment.

One feeds, the other feeds, but choking feeds;
Two contraries in meat, two differing meats;
This brings forth hate, and this repentance' seeds;
This war, this peace, this battles, this retreats:
And that example may be truly tried,
These liv'd in Sodom's fire, the other died.

The land will bear me witness they are dead,
Which, for their sakes, bear[s] nothing else but death;
The witness of itself with vices fed,
A smoky testimony of sin's breath:
This is my witness, my certificate,
And this is my sin-weeping sociate.

My pen will scarce hold ink to write these woes,
These woes, the blotted inky lines of sin;
My paper wrinkles at my sorrow's shows,
And like that land will bring no harvest in:
Had Lot's unfaithful wife been without fault,
My fresh-ink'd pen had never call'd her salt.

But now my quill, the tell-tale of all moans,
Is savoury bent to aggravate salt tears,
And wets my paper with salt-water groans,
Making me stick in agonising fears:
My paper now is grown to billows' might;
Sometimes I stay my pen, sometimes I write.

O foolish pilot I, blind-hearted guide,
Can I not see the clifts, but rent my bark!
Must I needs hoist up sails 'gainst wind and tide,
And leave my soul behind, my wisdom's ark?
Well may I be the glass of my disgrace,
And set my sin in other sinners' place.

But why despair I? here comes wisdom's grace,
Whose hope doth lead me unto better hap,
Whose presence doth direct my fore-run race,
Because I serve her as my beauty's map:
Like Cain I shall be restor'd to heaven,
From shipwreck's peril to a quiet haven.

When that by Cain's hand Abel was slain,
His brother Abel, brother to his ire,
Then Cain fled, to fly destruction's pain,
God's heavy wrath, against his blood's desire;
But being fetcht again by wisdom's power,
Had pardon for his deed, love for his lour.

By his repentance he remission had,
And relaxation from the clog of sin;
His painful labour labour's riches made,
His labouring pain did pleasure's profit win:
'Twas wisdom, wisdom made him to repent,
And newly plac'd him in his old content.

His body, which was once destruction's cave,
Black murder's territory, mischief's house,
By her these wicked sins were made his slave,
And she became his bride, his wife, his spouse;
Enriching him which was too rich before,
Too rich in vice, in happiness too poor.

Megaera, which did rule within his breast,
And kept foul Lerna's fen within his mind,
Both now displease him which once pleas'd him best,
Now murdering murder with his being kind;
These which were once his friends are now his foes,
Whose practice he retorts with wisdom's blows.

Yet still lie they in ambush for his soul,
But he, more wiser, keeps a wiser way;
They see him, and they bark, snarl, grin, and howl,
But wisdom guides his steps, he cannot stray;
By whom he conquers, and through whom he knows
The fear of God is stronger than his foes.

When man was clad in vice's livery,
And sold as bondman unto sin's command,
She, she forsook him not for infamy,
But freed him from his heart's imprison'd band;
And when he lay in dungeon of despite,
She interlin'd his grief with her delight.

Though servile she with him, she was content;
The prison was her lodge as well as his,
Till she the sceptre of the world had lent,
To glad his fortune, to augment his bliss;
To punish false accusers of true deeds,
And raise in him immortal glory's seeds.

Say, shall we call her wisdom, by her name,
Or new-invent a nominating style,
Reciting ancient worth to make new fame,
Or new-old hierarchy from honour's file?
Say, shall we file out fame for virtue's store,
And give a name not thought nor heard before?

Then should we make her two, where now but one,
Then should we make her common to each tongue:
Wisdom shall be her name, she wise alone;
If alter old for new, we do old wrong;
Call her still wisdom, mistress of our souls,
Our lives' deliverer from our foes' controls.

To make that better which is best of all,
Were to disarm the title of the power,
And think to make a raise, and make a fall,
Turn best to worst, a day unto an hour;
To give two sundry names unto one thing,
Makes it more commoner in echo's sling.

She guides man's soul, let her be call'd a queen;
She enters into man, call her a sprite;
She makes them godly which have never been;
Call her herself, the image of her might:
Those which for virtue plead, she prompts their tongue,
Whose suit no tyrant nor no king can wrong.

She stands as bar between their mouth and them;
She prompts their thoughts, their thoughts prompts speech's sound;
Their tongue's reward is honour's diadem,
Their labour's hire with duest merit crown'd:
She is as judge and witness of each heart,
Condemning falsehood, taking virtue's part.

A shadow in the day, star in the night;
A shadow for to shade them from the sun,
A star in darkness for to give them light,
A shade in day, a star when day is done;
Keeping both courses true in being true,
A shade, a star, to shade and lighten you.

And had she not, the sun's hot-burning fire
Had scorch'd the inward palace of your powers,
Your hot affection cool'd your hot desire;
Two heats once met make cool-distilling showers;
So likewise had not wisdom been your star,
You had been prisoner unto Phaebe's car.

She made the Red Sea subject to your craves,
The surges calms, the billows smoothest ways;
She made rough winds sleep silent in their caves,
And Æol watch, whom all the winds obeys;
Their foes, pursuing them with death and doom,
Did make the sea their church, the waves their tomb.

They furrow'd up a grave to lie therein,
Burying themselves with their own handy deed;
Sin digg'd a pit itself to bury sin,
Seed ploughed up the ground to scatter seed:
The righteous, seeing this same sudden fall,
Did praise the Lord, and seiz'd upon them all.

A glorious prize, though from inglorious hands,
A worthy spoil, though from unworthy hearts;
Toss'd with the ocean's rage upon the sands,
Victorious gain, gained by wisdom's arts,
Which makes the dumb to speak, the blind to see,
The deaf to hear, the babes have gravity.