The Shorter Poems of Ralph Knevet :: :: University of Virginia Library

(Faire naked Amazon)
Invincible in force,
Earths Martyr, but Heavens Minion,
Religions source,
The Mistris of the intellect,
A Mistris without blemish, or defect.

Great Monosyllable,
The large epitome,
Of bookes innumerable,
That honest bee:
Elder then Time thou art, yet youth
Doth flourish in thy lookes: Thy name is Truth.

Thy Habitation is
In some abstruse recesse,
Not obvious to the facultyes,
Of infirme crests:
Nor yet to sense, although shee trye
To reach thee, by the pole of phantasye.

Sciences (without Thee)
Are tales of Robin Hood;
No more then dreames of Fairyes bee;
Nothing is good

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Where Thou art absent, but thy presence
Gives worth, and reputation to each essence./

Commerce is (without Thee)
Mere Cousenage, and Warre,
Nothing but a grand larcenye:
Thy vertues are
Incomputable, and thy beauty
From Man, and Angells, chalengeth loves duety.

Democritus, Thee hidde
In a darke gloomy roome:
But once (I know) Thou dids't proceede
From the pure wombe,
Of an unviolated Mayde,
When that a starre thy birth to Kings bewray'd.

In little Bethleem,
Thou then dids't shew thy face;
And after (like the Spanish streame)
Thou for a space,
Lays't hid in Nazareth, untill
The Lord made thee appeare on Sion Hill.

To sweet Mount Olivet,
The King of Truth, and Peace,
Did oftentimes with his, retreate:
A fitt recesse
For Him, and for his contemplations,
Who th' Herald was of peace, unto all Nations.

Hee was the Word of Truth,
The light of Veritye,
Which it self disperst from his mouth,
Both farre and nigh:

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And though Hee, our Horizon left,
Yet of his rayes wee were not quite bereft:

For though from us Hee went,
Hee left us not alone:
But downe His Holy Spirit sent,
From his high Throne:
This is that Truth of truths, and peace,
Wherein consiste, our hopes and happynes.