Philosophical poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

What I was wisely taught in that still Night,
That Hyle is the Potentialitie
Of Gods dear Creatures, I embrace as right,
And them nigh blame of deep idolatrie
That give so much to that slight nullitie,
That they should make it root substantiall
Of nimble life, and that quick entitie
That doth so strongly move things naturall,
That life from hence should spring, that hither life should fall.

2

For how things spring from hence and be resolv'd
Into this mirksome sourse, first matter hight,
This muddy myst'rie they no'te well unfold.
If it be onely a bare passive might
With Gods and Natures goodly dowries dight,
Bringing hid Noughts into existencie,
Or sleeping Somethings into wide day-light,
Then Hyle's plain potentialitie,
Which doth not straight inferre certain mortalitie.

3

For the immortall Angels do consist
Of out-gone act and possibilitie;
Nor any other creature doth exist,
Releast from dreary deaths necessity;
If these composures it so certainly
Ensuen must. If substance actuall
They will avouch this first matter to be,
Fountain of forms, and prop fiduciall
Of all those lives and beings cleeped Naturall;

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4

Then may it prove the sphear spermaticall
Or sensitive (if they would yield it life)
Or that is next, the Orb Imaginall,
Or rather all these Orbs; withouten strife
So mought we all conclude that their relief
And first existence from this sphear they drew
And so our adversaries, loth or lief
Must needs confesse that all the lore was true
Concerning life, that that fair Nymph so clearly shew;

5

And that particular Lives that be yborn
Into this world, when their act doth dispear,
Do cease to be no more then the snails horn,
That she shrinks in because she cannot bear
The wanton boys rude touch, or heavie chear
Of stormy winds. The secundary light
As surely shineth in the heavens clear,
As do the first fair beams of Phœbus bright,
Lasting they are as they, though not of so great might.

6

So be the effluxes of those six orders,
Unfading lives from fount of livelihood:
Onely what next to strifefull Hyle borders,
Particular visibles deaths drearyhood
Can seiz upon. They passe like sliding flood.
For when to this worlds dregs lives downward hie,
They stroy one th'other in full cankred mood,
Beat back their rayes by strong antipathie,
Or some more broad-spread cause doth choke their energie.

7

But to go on to that common conceit
Of the first matter: What can substance do,
Poore, naked substance, megre, dry, dull, slight,
Inert, unactive, that no might can show
Of good or ill to either friend or foe,
All livelesse, all formlesse? She doth sustain.
And hath no strength that task to undergo?
Besides that work is needlesse all in vain:
Each centrall form its rayes with ease can well up-stayen.

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8

What holds the earth in the thin fluid aire?
Can matter void of fix'd solidity?
But she like kindly nurse her forms doth chear.
What can be suck'd from her dark dugges drie?
Nor warmth, nor moistnesse, nor fast density
Belong to her. Therefore i'll nurse I ween
She'll make, that neither hath to satisfie
Young-craving life, nor firmnesse to sustein
The burden that upon her arms should safely lean.

9

Therefore an uselesse super fluity
It is to make Hyle substantiall:
Onely let's term't the possibility
Of all created beings. Lives centrall
Can frame themselves a right compositall,
While as they sitten soft in the sweet rayes
Or vitall vest of the lives generall,
As those that out of the earths covert raise
Themselves, fairly provok'd by warmth of sunny dayes.

10

And thus all accidents will prove the beams
Of inward forms, their flowing energy;
And quantity th'extension of such streams,
That goes along even with each qualitie.
Thus have we div'd to the profundity
Of darkest matter, and have found it nought
But all this worlds bare Possibility.
Nought therefore 'gainst lifes durance can be brought
From Hyles pit, that quenchen may that pleasant thought.