University of Virginia Library

On contempt of the World.

Aloft O Soule; soare up, doe not turmoyle
Thy selfe by grabbling on a dunghill soyle:
Tosse up thy wings, and make thy soaring plumes
Outreach the loathsome stench and noysome fumes
That spring from sordid earth: come, come, and see
Thy birth, and learne to know thy pedigree:
What? wast thou made of Clay? or dost thou owe
Homage to earth? say, is thy blisse below?
Dost know thy beauty? dost thou not excell?
Can the Creation yeeld a parallel?
The world can't give a glasse to represent
Thy shape, and shall a durty element
Bewitch thee? thinke, is not thy birth most high?
Blowne from the mouth of all the trinity,
The breath of all-creating Iove, the best
Of all his workes, yea thee of all the rest
He chose to be his Picture: where can I
But in thy selfe see Immortality
'Mong all his earthly creatures? Thou art chiefe
Of all his workes: and shall the world turne theefe
And steale away thy love? wert not for thee
The heav'n aspiring mountaine should not bee,
The heavens should have no glistring starre, no light,
No Sunne to rule the day, no Moone the night:
The Globe had bin ('twas not the makers will
To make it for it selfe) a Chaos still:
Thou art Ioves priestly Aaron to present
The creatures service, while they give assent
By serving thee, why then's the world thy rest?
'Tis but thy servants servant at the best:
It gives attendance to refined mire,
That Iove hath wrapt thee in as thy attire;
For whats the body but a lumpe of clay
Carv'd neatly out, in which the soule beares sway?
Tis servant to the soule: what limbe can stirre,
Nay darst to quatch, if once shee make demurre?
See how the captiv'd members trembling stand
Wondrous submissive to her dire command!
O how the legs doe runne with eager flight
To overtake the object of delight!
See how the armes doe graspe as if they'd rent
To hold the thing that gives the soule content.
Why whats the body when the soule's away?
Nought but a stincking carkasse made of clay.
What's heav'n without a God? or what's the skye
If once bright Phœbus close his radiant eye?
The world was for our bodies, they for none
But for our soules, our soules for God alone:
What madnesse then for men of such a birth
To nuzell all their dayes on dunghill earth,
Still hunting after with an eager sent
An object which can never give content;
For what contentment in the world can lye,
That's onely constant in inconstancy?
It ebbes and flowes each minuie: thou maist brag
This day of thousands, and to morrow:
The greatest wealth is subject for to reele,
The globe is plac'd on Fortunes tottering wheele:
As when the gladding sunne begins to show
And scatter all his golden beames below,
A churlish cloud soone meetes him in the way,
And sads the beauty of the smiling day:
Or as a stately ship a while behaves
Herselfe most bravely on the slumbring waves,
And like a Swanne sailes nimbly in her pride
The helpefull windes concording with the tide
To mend her pace: but by and by, the wind
The fretfull Seas, the heav'ns and all combin'd
Against this bragging barke, O how they fling
Her corkey sides to heaven, and then they bring
Her backe: shee that ere while did sayle so brave
Cutting the floods, now's tost with every wave:
Iust so, the waving world gives joy and sorrow,
This day a Crœsus, and a Iob to morrow:
How often have I seene the miser blesse
Himselfe in wealth, and count it for no lesse
Then his adored God: straight comes a frowne
Flying from unhappy fate, and whirleth downe
Him, and his heapes of gold, and all that prize
Is lost, which he but now did Idolize.
But grant the world (as never 'twill) to be
A thing most sure most full of constancy,
What is thy wealth unlesse thy God doth blesse
Thy store, and turne it to a happinesse?
What though thy Table be compleatly spread
With farre-fetcht dainties, and the purest bread
That fruitfull earth can yeeld? all this may bee,
If thou no stomacke hast, what's all to thee?
What though thy habitation should excell
In beauty, and were Edens parallel?
Thou being pesterd with some dire disease,
How can thy stately dwelling give thee ease?
Thy joyes will turne thy griefe, thy freedome thrall,
Vnlesse thy God above doth sweeten all:
When thou (poore soule) liest ready to depart,
And hear'st thy Conscience snarling at thine heart,
Though heapes of gold should in thy coffers lye,
And all thy worthlesse friends stand whining by,
'Tis none, 'tis none of these can give thee health,
But thou must languish in the midst of wealth.
Then cease thou mad man and pursue no more
The world, and know shee's but a painted whore,
Thou catchest shadowes, labourst in thy dreames,
And thirst's amongst th'imaginary streames.