Classic Poem

CHAPTER XIII.

The branch must needs be weak, if root be so,
The root must needs be weak, if branches fall;
Nature is vain, man cannot be her foe,
Because from nature and at nature's call:
Nature is vain, and we proceed from nature,
Vain therefore is our birth, and vain our feature.

One body may have two diseases sore,
Not being two, it may be join'd to two;
Nature is one itself, yet two and more,
Vain, ignorant of God, of good, of show,
Which not regards the things which God hath done,
And what things are to do, what new begun.

Why do I blame the tree, when 'tis the leaves?
Why blame I nature for her mortal men?
Why blame I men? 'tis she, 'tis she that weaves,
That weaves, that wasts unto destruction's pen:
Then, being blameful both, because both vain,
I leave to both their vanity's due pain.

To prize the shadow at the substance' rate,
Is a vain substance of a shadow's hue;
To think the son to be the father's mate,
Earth to rule earth because of earthly view;
To think fire, wind, air, stars, water, and heaven,
To be as gods, from whom their selves are given:

Fire as a god? O irreligious sound!
Wind as a god? O vain, O vainest voice!
Air as a god? when 'tis but dusky ground;
Star as a god? when 'tis but Phaebe's choice;
Water a god? which first by God was made;
Heaven a god? which first by God was laid.

Say all hath beauty, excellence, array,
Yet beautified they are, they were, they be,
By God's bright excellence of brightest day,
Which first implanted our first beauty's tree:
If then the painted outside of the show
Be radiant, what is the inward row?

If that the shadow of the body's skin
Be so illumin'd with the sun-shin'd soul,
What is the thing itself which is within,
More wrench'd, more cleans'd, more purified from soul?
If elemental powers have God's thought,
Say what is God, which made them all of nought.

It is a wonder for to see the sky,
And operation of each airy power;
A marvel that the heaven should be so high,
And let fall such a low-distilling shower:
Then needs must he be high, higher than all,
Which made both high and low with one tongue's call.

The workman mightier is than his hand-work,
In making that which else would be unmade;
The ne'er-thought thing doth always hidden lurk,
Without the maker in a making trade:
For had not God made man, man had not been,
But nature had decay'd, and ne'er been seen.

The workman never showing of his skill
Doth live unknown to man, though known to wit;
Had mortal birth been never in God's will,
God had been God, but yet unknown in it;
Then having made the glory of earth's beauty,
'Tis reason earth should reverence him in duty.

The savage people have a supreme head,
A king, though savage as his subjects are;
Yet they with his observances are led,
Obeying his behests, whate'er they were:
The Turks, the Infidels, all have a lord,
Whom they observe in thought, in deed, in word.

And shall we, differing from their savage kind,
Having a soul to live and to believe,
Be rude in thought, in deed, in word, in mind,
Not seeking him which should our woes relieve?
O no, dear brethren! seek our God, our fame,
Then if we err, we shall have lesser blame.

How can we err? we seek for ready way;
O that my tongue could fetch that word again!
Whose very accent makes me go astray,
Breathing that erring wind into my brain:
My word is past, and cannot be recall'd;
It is like aged time, now waxen bald.

For they which go astray in seeking God
Do miss the joyful narrow-footed path —
Joyful, thrice-joyful way to his abode! —
Nought seeing but their shadows in a bath;
Narcissus-like, pining to see a show,
Hindering the passage which their feet should go.

Narcissus fantasy did die to kiss,
O sugar'd kiss! died with a poison'd lip;
The fantasies of these do die to miss,
O tossed fantasies in folly's ship!
He died to kiss the shadow of his face;
These live and die to life's and death's disgrace.

A fault without amends, crime without ease,
A sin without excuse, death without aid;
To love the world, and what the world did please,
To know the earth, wherein their sins are laid:
They knew the world, but not the Lord that fram'd it;
They knew the earth, but not the Lord that nam'd it.

Narcissus drown'd himself for his self's show,
Striving to heal himself did himself harm;
These drown'd themselves on earth with their selves' woe,
He in a water-brook by fury's charm;
They made dry earth wet with their folly's weeping,
He made wet earth dry with his fury's sleeping.

Then leave him to his sleep; return to those
Which ever wake in misery's constraints,
Whose eyes are hollow caves and made sleep's foes,
Two dungeons dark with sin, blind with complaints:
They called images which man first found
Immortal gods, for which their tongues are bound.

Gold was a god with them, a golden god;
Like children in a pageant of gay toys,
Adoring images for saints' abode;
O vain, vain spectacles of vainer joys!
Putting their hope in blocks, their trust in stones;
Hoping to trust, trusting to hope in moans.

As when a carpenter cuts down a tree,
Meet for to make a vessel for man's use,
He pareth all the bark most cunningly
With the sharp shaver of his knife's abuse,
Ripping the seely womb with no entreat,
Making her woundy chips to dress his meat:

Her body's bones are often tough and hard,
Crooked with age's growth, growing with crooks,
And full of weather-chinks, which seasons marr'd,
Knobby and rugged, bending in like hooks;
Yet knowing age can never want a fault,
Encounters it with a sharp knife's assault;

And carves it well, though it be self-like ill,
Observing leisure, keeping time and place;
According to the cunning of his skill,
Making the figure of a mortal face,
Or like some ugly beast in ruddy mould,
Hiding each cranny with a painter's fold.

It is a world to see, to mark, to view,
How age can botch up age with crooked thread;
How his old hands can make an old tree new,
And dead-like he can make another dead!
Yet makes a substantive able to bear it,
And she an adjective, nor see nor hear it.

A wall it is itself, yet wall with wall
Hath great supportance, bearing either part;
The image, like an adjective, would fall,
Were it not closed with an iron heart:
The workman, being old himself, doth know
What great infirmities old age can show.

Therefore, to stop the river of extremes,
He burst into the flowing of his wit,
Tossing his brains with more than thousand themes,
To have a wooden stratagem so fit:
Wooden, because it doth belong to wood;
His purpose may be wise, his reason good:

His purpose wise? no, foolish, fond, and vain;
His reason good? no, wicked, vild, and ill;
To be the author of his own life's pain,
To be the tragic actor of his will;
Praying to that which he before had fram'd,
For welcome faculties, and not asham'd.

Calling to folly for discretion's sense,
Calling to sickness for sick body's health,
Calling to weakness for a stronger fence,
Calling to poverty for better wealth;
Praying to death for life, for this he pray'd,
Requiring help of that which wanteth aid;

Desiring that of it which he not had,
And for his journey that which cannot go;
And for his gain her futherance, to make glad
The work which he doth take in hand to do:
These windy words do rush against the wall;
She cannot speak, 'twill sooner make her fall.