Classic Poem

CHAPTER VI.

After this conflict between God and man,
Remorse took harbour in God's angry breast;
Astraea to be pitiful began,
All heavenly powers to lie in mercy's rest;
Forthwith the voice of God did redescend,
And his Astraea warn'd all to amend.

To you I speak, quoth she; hear, learn, and mark,
You that be kings, judges, and potentates,
Give ear, I say; wisdom, your strongest ark,
Sends me as messenger to end debates;
Give ear, I say, you judges of the earth,
Wisdom is born, seek out for wisdom's birth.

This heavenly embassage from wisdom's tongue,
Worthy the volume of all heaven's sky,
I bring as messenger to right your wrong;
If so, her sacred name might never die:
I bring you happy tidings; she is born,
Like golden sunbeams from a silver morn.

The lord hath seated you in judgment's seat,
Let wisdom place you in discretion's places;
Two virtues, one will make one virtue great,
And draw more virtues with attractive faces:
Be just and wise, for God is just and wise;
He thoughts, he words, he words and actions tries.

If you neglect your office's decrees,
Heap new lament on long-toss'd miseries,
Do and undo by reason of degrees,
And drown your sentences in briberies,
Favour and punish, spare and keep in awe,
Set and unset, plant and supplant the law;

O be assur'd there is a judge above,
Which will not let injustice flourish long;
If tempt him, you your own temptation move,
Proceeding from the judgment of his tongue:
Hard judgment shall he have which judgeth hard,
And he that barreth others shall be barr'd.

For God hath no respect of rich from poor,
For he hath made the poor and made the rich;
Their bodies be alike, though their minds soar,
Their difference nought but in presumption's pitch;
The carcass of a king is kept from foul,
The beggar yet may have the cleaner soul.

The highest men do bear the highest minds;
The cedars scorn to bow, the mushrooms bend;
The highest often superstition blinds,
But yet their fall is greatest in the end;
The winds have not such power of the grass,
Because it lowly stoopeth whenas they pass.

The old should teach the young observance' way,
But now the young doth teach the elder grace;
The shrubs do teach the cedars to obey,
These yield to winds, but these the winds outface:
Yet he that made the winds to cease and blow,
Can make the highest fall, the lowest grow.

He made the great to stoop as well as small,
The lions to obey as other beasts;
He cares for all alike, yet cares for all,
And looks that all should answer his behests;
But yet the greater hath the sorer trial,
If once he finds them with his law's denial.

Be warn'd, you tyrants, at the fall of pride;
You see how surges change to quiet calm,
You see both flow and ebb in folly's tide,
How fingers are infected by their palm:
This may your caveat be, you being kings,
Infect your subjects, which are lesser things.

Ill scents of vice once crept into the head
Doth pierce into the chamber of the brain,
Making the outward skin disease's bed,
The inward powers as nourishers of pain;
So if that mischief reigns in wisdom's place,
The inward thought lies figur'd in the face.

Wisdom should clothe herself in king's attire,
Being the portraiture of heaven's queen;
But tyrants are no kings, but mischief's mire,
Not sage, but shows of what they should have been;
They seek for vice, and how to go amiss,
But do not once regard what wisdom is.

They which are kings by name are kings by deed,
Both rulers of themselves and of their land;
They know that heaven is virtue's duest meed,
And holiness is knit in holy band:
These may be rightly called by their name,
Whose words and works are blaz'd in wisdom's flame.

To nurse up cruelty with mild aspect,
Were to begin, but never for to end;
Kindness with tigers never takes effect,
Nor proffer'd friendship with a foelike friend:
Tyrants and tigers have all natural mothers,
Tyrants her sons, tigers the tyrants' brothers.

No words' delight can move delight in them,
But rather plough the traces of their ire;
Like swine, that take the dirt before the gem,
And scorns that pearl which they should most desire:
But kings whose names proceed from kindness' sound
Do plant their hearts and thoughts on wisdom's ground.

A grounding ever moist, and never dry,
An ever-fruitful earth, no fruitless way,
In whose dear womb the tender springs do lie,
Which ever flows and never ebbs away;
The sun but shines by day, she day and night
Doth keep one stayed essence of her light.

Her beams are conducts to her substance' view,
Her eye is adamant's attractive force;
A shadow hath she none, but substance true,
Substance outliving life of mortal course:
Her sight is easy unto them which love her,
Her finding easy unto them which prove her.

The far-fet chastity of female sex
Is nothing but allurement into lust,
Which will forswear and take, scorn and annex,
Deny and practise it, mistrust and trust:
Wisdom is chaste, and of another kind;
She loves, she likes, and yet not lustful blind.

She is true love, the other love a toy;
Her love hath eyes, the other love is blind;
This doth proceed from God, this from a boy;
This constant is, the other vain-combin'd:
If longing passions follow her desire,
She offereth herself as labour's hire.

She is not coyish she, won by delay,
With sighs and passions, which all lovers use,
With not affection, death, or life's decay,
With lovers' toys, which might their loves excuse:
Wisdom is poor, her dowry is content;
She nothing hath, because she nothing spent.

She is not woo'd to love, nor won by wooing;
Nor got by labour, nor possess'd by pain;
The gain of her consists in honest doing;
Her gain is great in that she hath no gain:
He that betimes follows repentance' way
Shall meet with her his virtue's worthy pay.

To think upon her is to think of bliss,
The very thought of her is mischief's bar,
Depeller of misdeeds which do amiss,
The blot of vanity, misfortune's scar:
Who would not think, to reap such gain by thought;
Who would not love, when such a life is bought?

If thought be understanding, what is she?
The full perfection of a perfect power,
A heavenly branch from God's immortal tree,
Which death, nor hell, nor mischief can devour:
Herself is wisdom, and her thought is so;
Thrice happy he which doth desire to know!

She man-like woos, men women-like refuses
She offers love, they offer'd love deny,
And hold her promises as love's abuses,
Because she pleads with an indifferent eye;
They think that she is light, vain, and unjust,
When she doth plead for love, and not for lust.

Hard-hearted men, quoth she, can you not love?
Behold my substance, cannot substance please?
Behold my feature, cannot feature move?
Can substance nor my feature help or ease?
See heaven's joy defigur'd in my face,
Can neither heaven nor joy turn you to grace?

O, how desire sways her pleading tongue,
Her tongue her heart, her heart her soul's affection!
Fain would she make mortality be strong,
But mortal weakness yields rejection:
Her care is care of them, they careless are;
Her love loves them, they neither love nor care.

Fain would she make them clients in her law,
Whose law's assurance is immortal honour;
But them nor words, nor love, nor care can awe,
But still will fight under destruction's bonner:
Though immortality be their reward,
Yet neither words nor deeds will they regard.

Her tongue is hoarse with pleading, yet doth plead,
Pleading for that which they should all desire;
Their appetite is heavy, made of lead,
And lead can never melt without a fire:
Her words are mild, and cannot raise a heat,
Whilst they with hard repulse her speeches beat.

Requested they, for what they should request;
Entreated they, for what they should entreat;
Requested to enjoy their quiet rest,
Entreated like a sullen bird to eat;
Their eyes behold joy's maker which doth make it,
Yet must they be entreated for to take it.

You whose delight is plac'd in honour's game,
Whose game in majesty's imperial throne,
Majestic portraitures of earthly fame,
Relievers of the poor in age's moan;
If your content be seated on a crown,
Love wisdom, and your state shall never down.

Her crowns are not as earthly diadems,
But diapasons of eternal rest;
Her essence comes not from terrestrial stems,
But planted on the heaven's immortal breast:
If you delight in sceptres and in reigning,
Delight in her, your crown's immortal gaining.

Although the shadow of her glorious view
Hath been as accessary to your eyes,
Now will I show you the true substance' hue,
And what she is, which without knowledge lies;
From whence she is deriv'd, whence her descent,
And whence the lineage of her birth is lent:

Now will I show the sky, and not the cloud;
The sun, and not the shade; day, not the night;
Tethys herself, not Tethys in her flood;
Light, and not shadow of suppressing light;
Wisdom herself, true type of wisdom's grace,
Shall be apparent before heart and face.

Had I still fed you with the shade of life,
And hid the sun itself in envy's air,
Myself might well be called nature's strife,
Striving to cloud that which all clouds impair;
But envy, haste thee hence! I loathe thy eye,
Thy love, thy life, thyself, thy company.

Here is the banner of discretion's name,
Advanc'd on wisdom's ever-standing tower;
Here is no place for envy or her shame,
For Nemesis, or black Megaera's power:
He that is envious is not wisdom's friend;
She ever lives, he dies when envies end.

Happy, thrice-happy land, where wisdom reigns!
Happy, thrice-happy king, whom wisdom sways!
Where never poor laments, or souls complains,
Where folly never keeps discretion's ways;
That land, that king doth flourish, live, and joy,
Far from ill-fortune's reach or sin's annoy.

That land is happy, that king fortunate,
She in her days, he in his wisdom's force;
For fortitude is wisdom's sociate,
And wisdom truest fortitude's remorse:
Be therefore rul'd by wisdom, she is chief,
That you may rule in joy, and not in grief.