The Whole Works of William Browne of Tavistock ... Now first collected and edited, with a memoir of the poet, and notes, by W. Carew Hazlitt, of the Inner Temple |
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 | The Whole Works of William Browne |  |
When all the cruell torments he had borne,
Galled with chaines, and on the racke nigh torne,
Pinching with glowing pincers his owne heart;
All lame and restlesse, full of wounds and smart,
He to the Posterne creepes, so inward hies,
And from the gate a two-fold path descries,
One leading vp a hill, Repentance way;
And (as more worthy) on the right hand lay:
The other head-long, steepe, and lik'ned well
Vnto the path which tendeth downe to hell:
All steps that thither went shew'd no returning,
The port to paines, and to eternall mourning;
Where certaine Death liu'd, in an Ebon chaire,
The soules blacke homicide meager Despaire
Had his abode: there gainst the craggie rocks
Some dasht their braines out, with relentlesse knocks,
Others on trees (ô most accursed elues)
Are fastening knots, so to vndoe themselues.
Here one in sinne not daring to appeare
At Mercies seat with one repentant teare,
Within his brest was launcing of an eye,
That vnto God it might for vengeance cry:
There from a Rocke a wretch but newly fell,
All torne in pieces, to goe whole to Hell.
Here with a sleepie Potion one thinkes fit
To graspe with death, but would not know of it:
There in a poole two men their liues expire,
And die in water to reuiue in fire.
Here hangs the bloud vpon the guiltlesse stones:
There wormes consume the flesh of humane bones.
Here lyes an arme: a legge there: here a head,
Without other lims of men vnburied,
Scattring the ground, and as regardlesse hurl'd,
As they at vertue spurned in the world.
Galled with chaines, and on the racke nigh torne,
Pinching with glowing pincers his owne heart;
All lame and restlesse, full of wounds and smart,
He to the Posterne creepes, so inward hies,
And from the gate a two-fold path descries,
One leading vp a hill, Repentance way;
And (as more worthy) on the right hand lay:
The other head-long, steepe, and lik'ned well
Vnto the path which tendeth downe to hell:
All steps that thither went shew'd no returning,
The port to paines, and to eternall mourning;
Where certaine Death liu'd, in an Ebon chaire,
The soules blacke homicide meager Despaire
Had his abode: there gainst the craggie rocks
Some dasht their braines out, with relentlesse knocks,
Others on trees (ô most accursed elues)
Are fastening knots, so to vndoe themselues.
Here one in sinne not daring to appeare
At Mercies seat with one repentant teare,
141
That vnto God it might for vengeance cry:
There from a Rocke a wretch but newly fell,
All torne in pieces, to goe whole to Hell.
Here with a sleepie Potion one thinkes fit
To graspe with death, but would not know of it:
There in a poole two men their liues expire,
And die in water to reuiue in fire.
Here hangs the bloud vpon the guiltlesse stones:
There wormes consume the flesh of humane bones.
Here lyes an arme: a legge there: here a head,
Without other lims of men vnburied,
Scattring the ground, and as regardlesse hurl'd,
As they at vertue spurned in the world.
| The Whole Works of William Browne | |