Philosophical poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

But hitherto I have with fluttering wings
But lightly hover'd in the generall,
And taught the lasting durance of all springs
Of hidden life. That life hight seminall
Doth issue forth from its deep root centrall,
One onely form entire, and no'te advert
What steals from it. Beasts life Phantasticall
Lets out more forms, and eke themselves convert
To view the various frie from their dark wombs exert.

2

But mans vast soul, the image of her Maker,
Like God that made her, with her mighty sway
And inward Fiat (if he nould forsake her)
Can turn sad darknesse into lightsome day,
And the whole creature 'fore her self display:
Bid them come forth and stand before her sight,
They straight flush out and her drad voice obey:
Each shape, each life doth leapen out full light.
And at her beck return into their usuall Night.

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3

Oft God himself here listeth to appear,
Though not perforce yet of his own frank will
Sheds his sweet life, dispreads his beauty clear,
And like the Sun this lesser world doth fill,
And like the Sun doth the foul Python kill
With his bright darts, but cheareth each good spright.
This is the soul that I with presser quill
Must now pursue and fall upon down-right,
Not to destroy but prove her of immortall might.

4

Nor let blind Momus dare my Muse backbite,
As wanton or superfluously wise
For what is past. She is but justly quit
With Lucrece, who all souls doth mortalize:
Wherefore she did them all immortalize.
Besides in beasts and men th'affinity
Doth seem so great, that without prejudice
To many proofs for th'immortality
Of humane Souls, the same to beasts we no'te deny:

5

But I herein no longer list contend.
The two first kinds of souls I'll quite omit,
And 'cording as at first I did intend
Bestirre me stifly, force my feeble wit
To rescue humane souls from deaths deep pit;
Which I shall do with reasons as subtile
As I can find; slight proofs cannot well fit
In so great cause, nor phansies florid wile;
I'll win no mans assent by a false specious guile.

6

I onely wish that arguments exile
May not seem nought unto the duller eye;
Nor that the fatter phansie my lean style
Do blame: it's fittest for philosophy.
And give me leave from any energie
That springs from humane soul my cause to prove,
And in that order as they list to flie
Of their own selves, so let them freely rove.
That naturally doth come doth oft the stronger move:

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7

Self-motion and centrall stability
I have already urg'd in generall;
Als' did right presly to our soul apply
Those properties, who list it to recall
Unto their minds; but now we'll let it fall
As needlesse. Onely that vitality,
That doth extend this great Universall,
And move th'inert Materiality
Of great and little worlds, that keep in memory.

8

And how the mixture of their rayes may breed
Th'opinion of uncertain quality,
When they from certain roots of life do spreed;
But their pure beams must needs ychanged be
When that those rayes or not be setten free
Thinly dispers'd, or else be closely meint
With other beams of plain diversity,
That causeth oft a strong impediment:
So doth this bodies life to the souls high intent.

9

The lower man is nought but a fair plant,
Whose grosser matter is from the base ground;
The Plastick might thus finely did him paint,
And fill'd him with the life that doth abound
In all the places of the world around.
This spirit of life is in each shapen'd thing,
Suck'd in and changed and strangely confound,
As we conceive: This is the nourishing
Of all; but spermall form, the certain shapening.

10

This is that strange-form'd statue magicall,
That hovering souls unto it can allure
When it's right fitted; down those spirits fall
Like Eagle to her prey, and so endure
While that low life is in good temperature.
That a dead body without vitall spright
And friendly temper should a guest procure
Of so great worth, without the dear delight
Of joyous sympathy, no man can reckon right.

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11

But here unlucky Souls do waxen sick
Of an ill furfeit from the poison'd bait
Of this sweet tree, yet here perforce they stick
In weak condition, in a languid state.
Many through ignorance do fondly hate
To be releas'd from this imprisonment,
And grieve the walls be so nigh ruinate.
They be bewitch'd so with the blandishment
Of that fresh strumpet, when in love they first were ment.

12

Others disdain this so near unity,
So farre they be from thinking they be born
Of such low parentage, so base degree,
And fleshes foul attraction they do scorn.
They be th'outgoings of the Eastern morn,
Alli'd unto th'eternall Deity,
And pray to their first spring, that thus forlorn
And left in mud, that he would set them free,
And them again possesse of pristine purity.

13

But seemeth not my Muse too hastily
To soar aloft, that better by degrees
Unto the vulgar mans capacity
Mought show the souls so high excellencies,
And softly from all corporeities
It heaven up unto its proper seat,
When we have drove away grosse falsities,
That do assault the weaker mens conceit,
And free the simple mind from phansies foul deceit,

14

The drooping soul so strongly's coloured
With the long commerce of corporeals,
That she from her own self awide is led,
Knows not her self, but by false name she calls
Her own high being, and what ere befalls
Her grosser bodie, she that misery
Doth deem her own: for she her self miscalls
Of some thin body, or spread quality,
Or point of quality, or fixt or setten free.

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29

But whether thin spread body she doth deem
Her self dispersed through this grosser frame;
Or doth her self a quality esteem,
Or quient complexion, streaming through the same;
Or else some lucid point her self doth name
Of such a quality, in chiefest part
Strongly fix'd down; or whether she doth clame
More freedome for that point, in head nor heart
Fast seated; yet, saith she, the bodies brat thou art.

30

Thence thou arose, thence thou canst not depart:
There die thou must, when thy dear nurse decayes:
But these false phansies I with reason smart
Shall eas'ly chace away, and the mind raise
To higher pitch. O listen to my layes,
And when you have seen fast seald eternity
Of humane souls, then your great Maker praise
For his never fading benignity,
And feed your selves with thought of immortality.