The Wisdome of Solomon Paraphrased :: :: University of Virginia Library

Oh call that word againe, they are your friends
Your liues associats, and your loues content,
That which begins in them, your follie ends,
Then how can vice with vice be discontent:
Beholde deformitie sits on your heads,
Not hornes but scornes, not visage but whole beds.

Beholde a heap of sins your bodies pale,
A mountaine-ouerwhelming villany,
Then tell me, are you clad in beauties vale?
Or in destructions pale-dead liuerie:
Their life demonstrates; now aliue now dead,
Tormented with the beasts which they haue fed.

Uer. 2 3

You like to Pelicans haue fed your death,
With follies-vaine let bloud; from follies veyne,
And almost sterude your selues, stopt vp your breath,
Had not Gods mercie helpt, and easde your paine,
Beholde a new-found meat, the Lord did send,
Which taught you to be new, and to amend.

A strange disgested nutriment, euen quailes,
Which taught them to be strange vnto misdeeds,
When you implore his aide, he neuer failes,
To fill their hunger, whom repentance feeds:
You see when life was halfe at deaths arrest,
Hee new created life at hungers feast.

Verse 4

Say, is your God like this, whom you ador'd,
Or is this God like to your handie frame,
If so, his power could not then afford,
Such influence which floweth from his name:
Hee is not painted, made of wood and stone,
But he substantiall is, and rules alone.

He can oppresse, and helpe, helpe, and oppresse,
The sinfull incolants of his made earth,
He can redresse, and paine, paine, and redresse,
The mountaine-miseries of mortall birth:
Now tyrants you are next, this but a show,
And merry index of your after woe.

Uer. 5 6

Your hot-colde misery is now at hand,
Hot because furies heat, and mercies colde,
Cold because limping, knit in frosty band,
And cold and hot in being shamefast-bolde:
They cruell were, take crueltie their part,
For misery is but too meane a smart.

But when the Tygers iawes, the Serpents stings,
Did summon them vnto this lifes decay,
A pardon for their faults thy mercy brings,
Cooling thy wrath with pitties sunnie day:
O tyrants tere your sin-bemired weeds,
Beholde your pardon sealde by mercies deeds.

Uer. 7 8

That sting which pained could not ease the paine,
Those iaws that wounded, could not cure the wounds
To turne to stings for helpe, it were but vaine,
To iawes for mercie, which wants mercies bounds:
The stings, ô Sauiour, were puld out by thee,
Their iawes claspt vp, in midst of crueltie.

O soueraigne salue, stop to a bloody streame,
O heauenly care and cure, for dust and earth,
Celestiall watch to wake terrestriall dreame,
Dreaming in punishment, mourning in mirth,
Now knowes our enimies, that it is thee,
Which helpes and cures, our griefe and misery.

Uer. 9

Our punishment doth end, theirs new begins,
Our day appeares, their night is not oreblowne,
Wee pardon haue, they punishment for sins,
Now we are raisde, now they are ouerthrowne:
Wee with huge beasts opprest, they with a flie,
Wee liue in God, and they against God die.

A flie, poore flie, to follow such a flight,
Yet art thou fed, as thou wast fed before,
With dust and earth, feeding thy wonted bite,
With selfe-like food, from mortall earthly store:
A mischiefe-stinging food, and sting with sting,
Do ready passage to destruction bring.

Verse 10

Man beeing grasse is hopt and graz'd vpon,
With sucking grasse-hoppers of weeping dew,
Man being earth is wormes vermilion,
Which eats the dust, and yet of bloudy hue:
In being grasse he is her grazing food,
In being dust he doth the wormes some good.

These smallest actors were of greatest paine,
Of follies ouerthrow, of mischiefes fall,
But yet the furious dragons coulde not gaine,
The life of those whom verities exhale:
These follie ouercame, they foolish were,
These mercie cur'd, and cures, these godly are.

Uer. 11

When poysoned iawes and veninated stings,
Were both as opposite against content,
(Because content with that which fortune brings,)
They eased were, when thou thy mercies sent:
The iawes of dragons had not hungers fill.
Nor stings of serpents a desire to kill.

Appal'd they were, and struck with timerous feares,
For where is feare, but where destruction raignes,
Agast they were, with wet eye-standing teares,
Outward commencers of their inward paines:
They soone were hurt, but sooner healde and cured,
Lest black obliuion had their minds inured.

Uer. 12

The lion wounded with a fatall blow,
Is as impatient as a king in rage,
Seeing himselfe in his owne bloody show,
Doth rent the harbour of his bodies cage:
Scorning the base housde earth, mounts to the skie,
To see it heauen can yeeld him remedy.

Oh sinfull man, let him example be,
A patterne to thine eye, glasse to thy face,
That Gods diuinest word is cure to thee,
Not earth, but heauen, not man, but heauenly grace:
Nor hearb, nor plaister, could help teeth or sting,
But twas thy word which healeth euery thing.

Verse 13

We fooles lay salues vpon our bodies skin,
But neuer drawe corruption from our minde,
We lay a plaister for to keepe in sin,
We drawe foorth filth, but leaue the cause behinde:
With hearbs and plaisters we do guard misdeedes,
And pare away the tops, but leaue the seedes.

Away with salues, and take our Sauiours word,
In this word Sauiour lies immortall ease,
What can thy cures, plaisters, and hearbs afford?
When God hath power to please and to displease:
God hath the power of life, death, help, and paine,
He leadeth downe, and bringeth vp againe.

Uer. 14 15

Trust to thy downefall, not vnto thy raise,
So shalt thou liue in death, not die in life,
Thou dost presume, if giue thy selfe the praise,
For vertues time is scarce, but mischiefes rife:
Thou mayst offend, mans nature is so vaine,
Thou now in ioy, beware of after paine.

First commeth fury, after fury thirst,
After thirst, blood, and after blood, a death,
Thou mayst in fury kill, whome thou louedst first,
And so in quassing blood, stop thine owne breath:
And murther done, can neuer be vndone,
Nor can that soule once liue, whose life is gone.

Ver. 16

What is the body but an earthen case,
That subiect is to death, because earth dies?
But when the liuing soule doth want Gods grace,
It dies in ioy, and liues in miseries:
This soule is led by God, as others were,
But not brought vp againe as others are.

This stirs no prouocation to amend,
For earth hath many partners in one fall,
Although the Lord doth many tokens send,
As warnings for to heare when he doth call:
The earth was burnt & drownd with fire & raine,
And one could neuer quench the others paine.

Uer. 17

Althogh both foes, God made them then both frends,
And onely foes to them which were their foes,
That hate begun in earth what in them ends,
Sins enimies they which made friends of those:
Both bent both forces vnto single earth,
From whose descent they had their double birth.

Tis strange that water should not quench a fire,
For they were heating-cold, and cooling hot,
Tis strange that wailes could not allay desire,
Wailes waters kinde, and fire desires knot:
In such a cause, though enimies before,
They would ioyne friendship to destroy the more.

Verse 18

The often weeping eies of drie lament,
Doth powre forth burning water of despaire,
Which warms the caues frō whence the tears are sent,
And like hot fumes, do foule their natures faire:
This contrary to icie-waters vale,
Doth scorch the cheekes, & makes them red & pale.

Here fire and water are conioynde in one,
Within a red-white glasse of hote and cold,
Their fire like this, double and yet alone,
Raging, and tame, and tame, and yet was bold:
Tame when the beasts did kill, and felt no fire,
Raging vpon the causers of their ire.

Uer. 19

Two things may well put on two seuerall natures,
Because they differ in each natures kind,
They differing colours haue, and differing features,
If so, how comes it that they haue one minde?
God made them friends, let this the answer be,
They get no other argument of me.

What is impossible to Gods command?
Nay, what is possible to mans vaine eare?
Tis much he thinkes that fire should burne a land,
When mischiefe is the brand which fiers beare:
He thinkes it more, that water should beare fire,
Then know it was Gods will, now leaue t'enquire.

Ver. 20

Yet mightst thou aske, because importunate,
How God preserude the good; why? because good,
Ill fortune made not them infortunate,
They Angells were, and fed with Angells food:
Yet maist thou say (for trueth is alwayes had)
That raine falles on the good aswell as bad.

And say it doth; farre be the letter P.
From R. because of a more reuerent stile,
It cannot doe without suppression be,
These are two barres against destructions wile:
Paine without changing P cannot be raine,
Raine without changing R can not be paine.

Uer. 21

Both sunne and raine are portions to the ground,
And ground is dust, and what is dust but nought?
And what is nought is naught, with Alphaes sound,
Yet euery earth the sunne and raine hath bought:
The sunne doth shine on weeds, as well as flowers,
The raine on both distills her weeping showers.

Yet far be death from breath, annoy from ioy,
Destruction from all happines allines,
God will not suffer famine to destroy,
The hungry appetite of vertues signes:
These were in mid'st of fire, yet not harmed,
In mid'st of water, yet but coolde, and warmed.

Verse 22

And water-wet they were, not water-drowned,
And fire-hot they were, not fire-burned,
Their foes were both, whose hopes destruction crowned:
But yet with such a crowne which ne'er returned,
Heere fire and water brought both ioy and paine,
To one disprofit, to the other gaine.

The sunne doth thaw what colde hath freezde before,
Vndoing what congealed ice had done,
Yet heere the haile and snow did freeze the more,
In hauing heat more piercing then the sunne
A mournfull spectacle vnto their eyes,
That as they die so their fruition dyes.

Uer. 23 24

Fury once kindled with the coles of rage,
Doth houer vnrecall'd, slaughters vntam'd;
This wrath on fire no pitty coulde asswage,
Because they pittilesse which should be blam'd:
As one in rage, which cares not who he haue,
Forgetting who to kil and who to saue.

One deadly foe is fierce against the other,
As vice with vertue, vertue against vice,
Vice hartned by death his hartlesse mother,
Vertue by God, the life of her deuice:
Tis hard to hurt or harme a villany,
Tis easy to do good to verity.

Ver. 25 26

Is grasse mans meat, no it is cattells food,
But man doth eat the cattell which eats grasse,
And feeds his carcasse, with their nurst vp blood,
Lengthning the liues which in a moment passe:
Grasse is good food if it be ioynde with grace,
Else sweeter foode may take a sowrer place,

Is there such life in water and in bread?
In fish, in flesh, in hearbs, in growing flowers,
Wee eat them not aliue, wee eat them dead,
What fruit then hath the word of liuing powers?
How can wee liue with that which is still dead?
Thy grace it is, by which we all are fed.

Uer. 27 28

This is a liuing food, a blessed meat,
Made to digest the burthen at our harts,
That leaden-weighted food, which we first eat,
To fill the functions of our bodies parts:
An indigested heape, without a meane,
Wanting thy grace, o Lord, to make it cleane.

That ice which sulphure vapours could not thaw,
That haile which piercing fier could not bore,
The coole-hot sunne did melt their frosty iaw,
Which neither heat nor fire, could pierce before:
Then let vs take the spring-time of the day,
Before the haruest of our ioyes decay.

Verse 29

A day may be deuided as a yeare,
Into foure climes, though of it selfe but one,
The morne, the spring, the noone, the summers sphere,
The haruest next, euening the winters moone:
Then sowe new seeds in euery new dayes spring,
And reape new fruite, in dayes olds euening.

Else if too late: they will bee blasted seeds,
If planted at the noonetide of their growing,
Commencers of vnthankfull too late deeds,
Set in the haruest of the reapers going:
Melting like winter-ice against the sunne,
Flowing like follies tide, and neuer done.