University of Virginia Library

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3. ANTIPSYCHOPANNYCHIA

OR The third Book of the song of the SOUL: Containing a Confutation of the sleep of the Soul after death.

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219

Cant. 1.

1

The souls ever durancy I sung before,
Ystruck with mighty rage. A powerfull fire
Held up my lively Muse and made her soar
So high that mortall wit, I fear, she'll tire
To trace her. Then a while I did respire.
But now my beating veins new force again
Invades, and holy fury doth inspire.
Thus stirred up I'll adde a second strain,
Lest, what afore was said may seem all spoke in vain.

2

For sure in vain do humane souls exist
After this life, if lull'd in listlesse sleep
They senselesse lie wrapt in eternal mist,
Bound up in foggy clouds, that ever weep
Benumming tears, and the souls centre steep
With deading liquour, that she never minds
Or feeleth ought. Thus drench'd in Lethe deep,
Nor misseth she her self, nor seeks nor finds
Her self. This mirksome state all the souls actions binds.

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220

3

Desire, fear, love, joy, sorrow, pleasure, pain,
Sense, phancy, wit, forecasting providence,
Delight in God, and what with sleepy brain
Might sute, slight dreams, all banish'd farre from hence.
Nor pricking nor applauding conscience
Can wake the soul from this dull Lethargie;
That 'twixt this sleepy state small difference
You'll find and that men call Mortality.
Plain death's as good as such a Psychopannychie.

4

What profiteth this bare existency,
If I perceive not that I do exist?
Nought longs to such, nor mirth nor misery
Such stupid beings write into one list
With stocks and stones. But they do not persist,
You'll say, in this dull dead condition.
But must revive, shake off this drowsie mist
At that last shrill loud-sounding clarion
Which cleaves the trembling earth, rives monuments of stone:

5

Has then old Adam snorted all this time
Under some senselesse sod with sleep ydead?
And have those flames, that steep Olympus climbe
Right nimbly wheeled or'e his heedlesse head
So oft, in heaps of years low buried:
And yet can ken himself when he shall rise
Wakend by piercing trump, that farre doth shed
Its searching sound? If we our memories
And wit do lose by sicknesse, falls, sloth, lethargies;

6

If all our childhood quite be waste away
With its impressions, so that we forget
What once we were, so soon as age doth sway
Our bowed backs, sure when base worms have eat
His mouldring brains, and spirits have retreat
From whence they came, spread in the common fire,
And many thousand sloping sunnes have set
Since his last fall into his ancient mire,
How he will ken himself reason may well admire:

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221

7

For he must know himself by some impression
Left in his ancient body unwash'd out,
Which seemeth strange. For can so long succession
Of sliding years that great Colosses mought
Well moulder into dust, spare things ywrought
So slightly as light phantasms in our brain,
Which oft one yeare or moneth have wrenched out
And left no footsteps of that former stain,
No more then's of a cloud quite melted into rain?

8

And shall not such long series of time,
When Nature hath dispread our vitall spright
And turn'd our body to its ancient slime,
Quite wash away what ever was empight
In that our spirit? If flesh and soul unite
Lose such impressions, as were once deep seald
And fairly glistered like to comets bright
In our blew Chaos, if the soul congeald
With her own body lose these forms as I reveald,

9

Then so long time of their disjunction
(The body being into dust contract,
The spright diffus'd, spread by dispersion)
And such Lethean sleep that doth contract
The souls hid rayes that it did nothing act
Must certainly wipe all these forms away
That sense or phansie ever had impact.
So that old Adam will in vain assay
To find who here he was, he'll have no memorie.

10

Nor can he tell that ere he was before:
And if not tell, he's as if then first born.
If as first born, his former life's no store.
Yet when men wake they find themselves at morn.
But if their memory away were worn
With one nights sleep, as much as doth respect
Themselves, these men they never were beforn,
This day's their birth-day: they cannot conject
They ever liv'd till now, much lesse the same detect.

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222

11

So when a man goes hence, thus may he say,
As much as me concerns I die now quite.
Adiew, good self! for now thou goest away,
Nor can I possibly thee ever meet
Again, nor ken thy face, nor kindly greet.
Sleep and dispersion spoyls our memory.
So my dear self henceforth I cannot weet.
Wherefore to me it's perfectly to die,
Though subtiler Wits do call't but Psychopannychie.

12

Go now you Psychopannychites! perswade
To comely virtues and pure piety
From hope of ioy, or fear of penance sad.
Men promptly may make answer, Who shall try
That pain or pleasure? When death my dim eye
Shall close, I sleep not sensible of ought:
And tract of time at least all memory
Will quite debarre, that reacquainten mought
My self with mine own self, if so my self I sought.

13

But I shall neither seek my self, nor find
My self unsought: Therefore not deprehend
My self in joy or wo. Men ought to mind
What longs unto them. But when once an end
Is put unto this life, and fate doth rend
Our retinence; what follows nought at all
Belongs to us: what need I to contend,
And my frail spright with present pain to gall
For what I nere shall judge my self did ere befall;

14

This is the uncouth state of sleeping soul,
Thus weak of her own self without the prop
Of the base body, that she no'te out-roll
Her vitall raies: those raies Death down doth lop,
And all her goodly beauty quite doth crop
With his black claws. Wisdome, love, piety,
Are straight dried up: Death doth their fountain stop,
This is those sleepers dull Philosophy,
Which fairly men invites to foul impiety.

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223

15

But if we grant, which in my former song
I plainly prov'd, that the souls energie
Pends not on this base corse, but that self-strong
She by her self can work, then when we fly
The bodies commerce, no man can deny
But that there is no interruption
Of life; where will puts on, there doth she hie
Or if she's carried by coaction.
That force yet she observes by presse adversion.

16

And with most lively touch doth feel and find
Her self. For either what she most doth love
She then obtains; or else with crosse, unkind
Contrary life since her decease th'hath strove,
That keeps her wake, and with like might doth move
To think upon her self, and in what plight
She's fallen. And nothing able to remove
Deep searching vengeance, groans in this sad Night,
And rores, and raves, and storms, and with her self doth fight.

17

But hearty love of that great vitall spright,
The sacred fount of holy sympathy;
Prepares the soul with its deep quickning might
To leave the bodies vain mortality
Away she flies into Eternity,
Finds full accomplishment of her desire;
Each thing would reach its own centrality:
So Earth with Earth, and Moon with Moon conspire.
Our selves live most, when most we feed our Centrall fire.

18

Thus is the soul continually in life
Withouten interruption, if that she
Can operate after the fatall knife
Hath cut the cords of lower sympathy:
Which she can do, if that some energie
She exercise (immur'd in this base clay)
Which on frail flesh hath no dependency,
For then the like she'll do, that done away.
These independent acts, tis time now to display.

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19

All comprehending Will, proportionate
To whatsoever shall fall by Gods decree
Or prudent sufferance, sweetly spread, dilate,
Stretch'd out t'embrace each act or entity
That creep from hidden cause that none can see
With outward eyes. Next Intellect, whose hight
Of working's then, when as it stands most free
From sense and grosser phansie, deep empight
In this vild corse, which to purg'd minds yields small delight.

20

Both Will and Intellect then worketh best,
When Sense and Appetite be consopite,
And grosser phansie lull'd in silent rest:
Then Will grown full with a mild heavenly light
Shines forth with goodly mentall rayes bedight,
And finds and feels such things as never pen
Can setten down, so that unexpert wight
May reade and understand. Experienc'd men
Do onely know who like impressions sustain:

21

So far's the Soul from a dependency
(In these high actions) on the body base.
And further signe is want of memory
Of these impressions wrought in heavenly place,
I mean the holy Intellect: they passe
Leaving no footsteps of their former light,
When as the soul from thence descended has.
Which is a signe those forms be not empight
In our low proper Chaos or Corporeall spright.

22

For then when we our mind do downward bend
Like things we here should find: but all is gone
Soon as our flagging souls so low descend
As that straight spright. Like torch that droppeth down
From some high tower, held steddy clearly shone,
But in its fall leaves all its light behind,
Lies now in darknesse on the grail, or stone,
Or dirty earth: That erst so fully shin'd,
Within a glowing coal hath now its light confin'd.

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23

So doth the soul when from high Intellect
To groveling sense she takes her stooping flight,
Falling into her body, quite neglect,
Forget, forgo her former glorious sight.
Grosse glowing fire for that wide shining light;
For purest love, foul fury and base passion;
For clearest knowledge, fell contentious fight
Sprong from some scorching false inust impression
Which she'll call truth, she gains. O witlesse Commutation!

24

But still more clear her independent might
In understanding and pure subtile will
To prove: I will assay t'explain aright
The difference ('ccording to my best skill)
'Twixt these and those base faculties that well
From union with the low consistency
Of this Out-world, that when my curious quill,
Hath well describ'd their great disparity,
To th'highest we may give an independency.

25

The faculties we deem corporeall,
And bound unto this earthy instrument
(So bound that they no'te operate at all
Without the body there immerse and meint)
Be hearing, feeling, tasting, sight, and sent.
Adde lower phansie, Mundane memory:
Those powers be all or more or lesse ypent
In this grosse life: We'll first their property
Set down, and then the others contrariety.

26

This might perceives not its own instrument.
The taste discovers not the spungy tongue;
Nor is the Mundane spright (through all extent)
From whence are sense and lower phansie sprong
Perceived by the best of all among
These learned Five, nor yet by phantasie:
Nor doth or this or those so nearly throng
Unto themselves as by propinquity
To apprehend themselves. They no'te themselves descry;

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27

Nor e're learn what their own impressions be.
The mind held somewhere else in open sight,
What ever lies, unknown unto the eye
It lies, though there its image be empight,
Till that our soul look on that image right.
Wherefore themselves the senses do not know,
Nor doth our phansie; for each furious wight
Hath phansie full enough, so full't doth show
As sense; nor he, nor's phansie doth that phansie know.

28

Age, potent objects, too long exercise
Do weaken, hurt, and much debilitate
Those lower faculties. The Sun our eyes
Confounds with dazeling beams of light so that
For a good while we cannot contemplate
Ought visible: thus thunder deafs the eare,
And age hurts both, that doth quite ruinate
Our sense and phansie: so if long we heare
Or see, 't sounds not so sweet, nor can we see so clear.

29

Lastly, the Senses reach but to one kind
Of things. The eye sees colours, so the eare
Hears sounds, the nostrills snuff perfumed wind;
What grosse impressions the out-senses bear
The phansie represents, sometimes it dare
Make unseen shapes, with uncouth transformation,
Such things as never in true Nature are.
But all this while the phansies operation
To laws bodily is bound: such is her figuration.

30

This is the nature of those faculties
That of the lower Mundane spright depend.
But in our Intellect farre otherwise
We'st see it, if we pressely will attend
And trace the parallels unto the end.
There's no self-knowledge. Here the soul doth find
Her self. If so, then without instrument.
For what more fit to show our inward mind
Then our own mind? But if't be otherwise defin'd;

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31

Then tell me, Knows she that fit instrument?
If she kens not that instrument, how can
She judge, whether truely it doth represent
Her self? there may be foul delusion.
But if she kens this Organ; straight upon
This grant, I'll ask how kens she this same tole?
What? by another? by what that? so go on
Till to infinity you forward roll,
An horrid monster count in Philosophick school.

32

The soul then works by 't self, and is self-liv'd,
Sith that it acts without an instrument:
Free motions from her own self deriv'd
Flow round. But to go on. The eyes yblent
Do blink even blind with objects vehement,
So that till they themselves do well recure
Lesse matters they no'te see. But rayes down sent
From higher sourse the mind doth maken pure,
Do clear, do subtilize, do fix, do settle sure.

33

That if so be she list to bend her will
To lesser matters, she would it perform
More excellently with more art and skill:
Nor by long exercise her strength is worn;
Witnesse wise Socrates, from morn to morn
That stood as stiff as any trunck of tree:
What eye could bear in contemplation
So long a fix'dnesse, none so long could see,
Its watery tears would wail its frail infirmity.

34

Nor feeble eld, sure harbinger of death,
Doth hinder the free work of th'Intellect.
When th'eye growes dim and dark that it unneath
Can see through age, the mind then close collect
Into her self, such mysteries doth detect
By her far-piercing beams, that youthfull heat
Doth count them folly and with scorn neglect,
His ignorance concludes them but deceit;
He hears not that still voyce, his pulse so loud doth beat.

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228

35

Lastly sense, phansie, though they be confin'd
To certain objects, which to severall
Belong; yet sure the Intellect or mind
Apprehends all objects, both corporeall,
As colours, sounds; and incorporeall,
As virtue, wisdome, and the higher spright,
Gods love and beauty intellectuall;
So that its plain that she is higher pight
Then in all acts to pend on any earthly might:

36

If will and appetite we list compare,
Like difference we easly their discover,
This pent, contract, yfraught with furious jar
And fierce antipathy. It boyleth over
With fell revenge; or if new chance to cover
The former passion; Suppose lust or fear:
Yet all are tumults, but the will doth hover
No whit enslav'd to what she findeth here,
But in a free suspence her self doth nimbly bear.

37

Mild, gentle, calm, quick, large, subtill, serene,
These be her properties which do increase
The more that vigour in the bodies vein
Doth waste and waxen faint. Desires decrease
When age the Mundane spright doth more release
From this straight mansion. But the will doth flower
And fairly spread, near to our last decease
Embraceth God with much more life and power
Then ever she could do in her fresh vernall hower.

38

Wherefore I think we safely may conclude
That Will and Intellect do not rely
Upon the body, sith they are indew'd
With such apparent contrariety
Of qualities to sense and phantasie,
Which plainly on the body do depend:
So that departed souls may phantasms free
Full well exert, when they have made an end
Of this vain life, nor need to Lethe Lake descend.

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229

Cant. 2.

1

Fountain of beings! the vast deep abysse
Of Life and Love and penetrating Will,
That breaks through narrow Night & so transmiss
At last doth find it self! What mortall skill
Can reach this mystery? my trembling quill
Much lesse may set it forth; yet as I may
I must attempt this task for to fulfill.
He guide my pen while I this work assay
Who All, through all himself doth infinitely display.

2

My end's loose largenesse and full liberty
To finden out; Most precious thing I ween.
When centrall life her outgone energy
Doth spreaden forth, unsneep'd by foe-man keen,
And like unclouded Sunne doth freely shine;
This is right Liberty, whose first Idee
And measure is that holy root divine
Of all free life, hight Ahad, Unitie:
In all things He at once is present totally.

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230

3

Each totall presence must be infinite:
So is He infinite infinity
Those infinites you must not disunite:
So is He one all spreaden Unity.
Nor must you so outspread this Deitie,
But that infinitie so infinite
Must be in every infinite: so we
Must multiply this infinite single sight
Above all apprehension of a mortall wit.

4

What is not infinitely infinite,
It is not simply infinite and free:
For straitnesse (if you do conceive aright)
Is the true daughter of deficiency.
But sith there's no defect in Unity.
Or Ahad, (Ahad this first centre hight
In Poetry as yet to vulgar eye
Unpublish'd) Him first freedome infinite
We may well style. And next is that eternall Light;

5

Sonne unto Ahad, Æon we him name
(In that same Poem) like his father free,
Even infinitely free I him proclaim
Every where all at once. And so is she
Which Psyche hight: for perfect Unity
Makes all those one. So hitherto we have
Unmeasurable freedome. Semele
Is next, whom though fair fluttering forms embrave,
Yet motion and defect her liberty deprave.

6

Imagination's not infinite,
Yet freer farre then sense; and sense more free
Then vegetation or spermatick spright.
Even absent things be seen by phantasie;
By sense things present at a distancie;
But that spermatick spright is close confin'd
Within the compasse of a stupid tree,
Imprison'd quite in the hard rugged rind,
Yet their defective Re'plication we find:

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231

7

Farre more defective then in phantasie
Or sense; yet freer is the plastick spright
Then quantity, or single quality,
Like quantity it self out stretched right
Devoid of all reduplicative might:
If any such like qualities there were
So dull, so dead, so all devoid of light
As no communicative rayes to bear;
If there be such to Hyle they do verge most near.

8

But Hyle's self is perfect penurie,
And infinite straitnesse: Here we sinden nought,
Nor can do ought. If curiously we prie
Into this mirksome corner quite distraught
From our own life and being, we have brought
Our selves to nothing. Or the sooth to sayen
The subtilest soul her self hath never wrought
Into so strait a place, could nere constrain
Herself to enter, or that Hagge to entertain.

9

Lo! here's the figure of that mighty Cone,
From the strait Cuspis to the wide-spread Base,
Which is even all in comprehension.
What's infinitely nothing here hath place;
What's infinitely all things steddy stayes
At the wide Basis of this Cone inverse,
Yet its own essence doth it swiftly chace,
Oretakes at once; so swiftly doth it pierce
That motion here's no motion.

10

Suppose the Sunne so much to mend his pace,
That in a moment he did round the skie,
The nimble Night how swiftly would he chace
About the earth? so swift that scarce thine eye
Could ought but light discern. But let him hie
So fast, that swiftnesse hath grown infinite,
In a pure point of time so must he flie
Around this ball, and the vast shade of Night
Quite swallow up, ever steddy stand in open sight.

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232

11

For that which from its place is not away
One point of time, how can you say it moves?
Wherefore the Sunne doth alwayes steddy stay
In our Meridian, as this reason proves.
And sith that in an instant round he roves,
The same doth hap in each Meridian line;
For in his instantaneous removes
He in them all at once doth fairely shine.
Nor that large stretchen space his freenesse can confine.

12

The Sun himself at once stands in each point
Of his diurnall circle: Thus we see
That rest and motion cannot be disjoynt,
When motion's swift even to infinity.
Here contrarieties do well agree,
Eternall shade and everlasting light
With one another here do well comply;
Instant returns of Night make one long Night.
Wherefore infinity is freedome infinite.

13

No hinderance to ought that doth arrive
To this free camp of fair Elysium,
But nearer that to Hyle things do dive,
They are more pent, and find much lesser room.
Thus sensuall souls do find their righteous doom
Which Nemesis inflicts, when they descend
From heavenly thoughts that from above do come
To lower life, which wrath and grief attend,
And scorching lust, that do the souls high honour blend.

14

Wherefore the soul cut off from lowly sense
By harmlesse fate, farre greater liberty
Must gain: for when it hath departed hence
(As all things else) should it not backward hie
From whence it came? but such divinity
Is in our souls that nothing lesse then God
Could send them forth (as Plato's schools descry)
Wherefore when they retreat a free abode
They'll find, unlesse kept off by Nemesis just rod.

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15

But if kept off from thence, where is she then?
She dwells in her own self, there doth reside,
Is her own world, and more or lesse doth pen
Her self, as more or lesse she erst did side
With sense and vice, while here she did abide.
Steril defect and nere-obtaind desire
Create a Cone, whose Cusp is not more wide
Then this worlds Cone. Here close-contracted fire
Doth vex, doth burn, doth scorch with searching heat and ire.

16

Nor easly can she here fall fast asleep
To slake her anguish and tormenting pain:
What drisling mists may here her senses steep?
What foggie fumes benumb her moistned brain?
The flitten soul no sense doth then retain.
And sleep ariseth from a sympathie
With these low sprights that in this flesh remain.
But when from these the soul is setten free,
What sleep may bind her from continuall energie?

17

Here they'll reply, It is not a grosse sleep
That binds the soul from operation.
But sith that death all phantasms clean doth wipe
Out of the soul, she no occasion
Can have of Will or Intellection.
The corpse doth rot, the spirit wide is spread,
And with the Mundane life fallen into one:
So then the soul from these quite being fled,
Unmov'd of ought must lie, sunk in deep drowsihead

18

Nought then she hath whereon to contemplate,
Her ancient phantasms melt and glide away,
Her spright suck'd back by all-devouring fate
And spread abroad, those forms must needs decay
That were therein imprinted. If they stay,
Yet sith the soul from them is disunite,
Into her knowledge they can never ray.
So wants she objects the mind to excite:
Wherefore asleep she lies wrapt in eternall Night.

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19

To which I answer, though she corporate
With no world yet, by a just Nemesis
Kept off from all; yet she thus separate
May oft be struck with potent rayes transmisse
From divers worlds, that with such mockeries
Kindling an hungry fire and eager will,
They do the wretched soul but Tantalize,
And with fierce choking flames and fury fill,
So vext, that if she could in rage herself she'd kill.

20

If any doubt of this perplexitie,
And think so subtil thing can suffer nought:
What's gnawing conscience from impietie
By highest parts of humane soul ywrought?
For so our very soul with pain is fraught,
The body being in an easie plight.
Through all the senses when you 've pressly sought,
In none of them you'll find this sting empight:
So may we deem this dart the soul it self to hit.

21

Again, when all the senses be ybound
In sluggish sloth, the soul doth oft create
So mighty pain, so cruelly doth wound
Herself with tearing tortures, as that state
No man awake could ever tolerate.
Which must be in herself; for once return'd
Unto her body new resuscitate
From sleep, remembring well how erst she mourn'd,
Marvels how all so soon to peace and ease is turn'd.

22

Wherefore the soul it self receiveth pain
From her own self, withouten sympathie
With something else, whose misery must constrain
To deep compassion. So if struck she be
VVith secret ray, or some strong energie
Of any world, or Lives that there remain,
She's kept awake. Besides fecunditie
Of her own nature surely doth contain
Innate Idees; This truth more fully I'll explain.

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23

Strong forward bearing will or appetite,
A never wearied importunitie,
Is the first life of this deep centrall spright:
Thus thrusts she forth before her some Idee
Whereby herself now actuall she doth see.
Her mighty Fiat doth command each form
T'appear: As did that ancient Majestie
This world of old by his drad VVord efform,
And made the soul of man thus divine Deiform.

24

Thus in a manner th'humane soul creates
The image of her will, when from her centre
Her pregnant mind she fairly explicates
By actuall forms, and so doth safely enter
To knowledge of her self.
Flush light she sendeth forth, and live Idee's:
Those be the glasse whereby the soul doth paint her.
Sweet centrall love sends out such forms as please;
But centrall hate or fear foul shapes with evil ease.

25

The manner of her life on earth may cause
Diversity of those eruptions,
For will, desire, or custome do dispose
The soul to such like figurations:
Propension brings imaginations,
Unto their birth. And oft the soul lets flie
Such unexpected eructations,
That she her self cannot devisen why,
Unlesse she do ascribe it to her pregnancy.

26

It is an argument of her forms innate
Which blazen out, perchance when none descry.
This light is lost, sense doth so radiate
With Mundane life, till this poor carcase die.
As when a lamp, that men do sitten by,
In some wide hall in a clear winter night,
Being blown out or wasted utterly,
Unwares they find a sly still silver light;
The moon the wall or pavement with mild rayes hath dight:

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27

So when the oyl of this low life is spent,
Which like a burning lamp doth waste away;
Or if blown out by fate more violent;
The soul may find an unexpected ray
Of light; not from full faced Cynthia,
But her own fulnesse and quick pregnancy:
Unthought of life her Nature may display
Unto her self; not by forc'd industry,
But naturally it sprouts from her fecundity.

28

Now sith adversion is a property
So deeply essentiall to the rationall soul,
This light or life from her doth not so fly,
But she goes with it as it out doth roll.
All spirits that around their raies extoll
Possesse each point of their circumference
Presentially. Wherefore the soul so full
Of life, when it raies out, with presse presence
Oretakes each outgone beam; apprends it by advertence.

29

Thus plainly we perceive th'activity
Of the departed soul; if we could find
Strong reason to confirm th'innate idee,
Essentiall forms created with the mind.
But things obscure no'te easly be defin'd.
Yet some few reasons I will venture at,
To show that God's so liberall and kind
As, when an humane soul he doth create,
To fill it with hid forms and deep idees innate.

30

Well sang the wise Empedocles of old,
That earth by earth, and sea by sea we see,
And heaven by heaven, and fire more bright than gold
By flaming fire, so gentle love descry
By love, and hate by hate. And all agree
That like is known by like. Hence they confesse
That some externall species strikes the eye
Like to its object, in the self-same dresse.
But my first argument hence I'll begin to presse.

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31

If like be known by like, then must the mind
Innate idolums in it self contain,
To judge the forms she doth imprinted find
Upon occasions. If she doth not ken
These shapes that flow from distant objects, then
How can she know those objects? a dead glasse
(That light and various forms do gaily stain)
Set out in open streets, shapes as they passe
As well may see; Lutes hear each soaming diapase.

32

But if she know those species out sent
From distant objects; tell me how she knows
These species. By some other? You nere ment
To answer so. For straight the question goes
Unto another, and still forward flows
Even to infinity. Doth th'object serve
Its image to the mind for to disclose?
This answer hath as little sense or nerve:
Now reel you in a circle if you well observe.

33

Wherefore no ascititious form alone
Can make us see or hear; but when this spright
That is one with the Mundane's hit upon
(Sith all forms in our soul be counite
And centrally lie there) she doth beget
Like shapes in her own self; that energie
By her own centrall self who forth it let,
Is view'd. Her centrall omniformity
Thus easly keepeth off needlesse infinity.

34

For the quick soul by 't self doth all things know.
And sith withouten apt similitude
Nought's known, upon her we must needs bestow
Essentiall centrall forms, that thus endew'd
With universall likenesse ever transmew'd
Into a representing energie
Of this or that, she may have each thing view'd
By her own centrall self-vitality
Which is her self-essentiall omniformity.

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238

35

If plantall souls in their own selves contain
That vitall formative fecundity,
That they a tree with different colour stain,
And divers shapes, smoothnesse, asperity,
Straightnesse, acutenesse, and rotundity,
A golden yellow, or a crimson red,
A varnish'd green with such like gallantry;
How dull then is the sensitive? how dead,
If forms from its own centre it can never spread?

36

Again, an Universall notion,
What object ever did that form impresse
Upon the soul? What makes us venture on
So rash a matter, as ere to confesse
Ought generally true? when neverthelesse
We cannot e're runne through all singulars.
Wherefore in our own souls we do possesse
Free forms and immateriall characters,
Hence 'tis the soul so boldly generall truth declares.

37

What man that is not dull or mad would doubt
Whether that truth (for which Pythagoras,
When he by subtile study found it out,
Unto the Muses for their helping grace
An Hecatomb did sacrifice) may passe
In all such figures wheresoever they be?
Yet all Rectangle Triangles none has
Viewed, as yet, none all shall ever see.
Wherefore this free assent is from th'innate Idee.

38

Adde unto these incorporeity
Apprehended by the soul, when sense nere saw
Ought incorporeall. Wherefore must she
From her own self such subtile Idols draw.
Again, this truth more clearly still to know,
Let's turn again to our Geometry.
What body ever yet could figure show
Perfectly perfect, as rotundity
Exactly round, or blamelesse angularity?

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239

39

Yet doth the soul of such like forms discourse,
And finden fault at this deficiency,
And rightly term this better and that worse;
Wherefore the measure is our own Idee,
Which th'humane soul in her own self doth see.
And sooth to sayen when ever she doth strive
To find pure truth, her own profundity
She enters, in her self doth deeply dive;
From thence attempts each effence rightly to descrive.

40

Last argument, which yet is not the least.
Wise Socrates dispute with Theætete
Concerning learning fitly doth suggest.
A midwifes sonne ycleeped Phenarete,
He calls himself: Then makes a quaint conceit,
That he his mothers trade did exercise.
All witlesse his own self yet well did weet
By his fit questions to make others wise;
A midwife that no'te bear anothers birth unties.

41

Thus jestingly he flung out what was true,
That humane souls be swoln with pregnancy
Of hidden knowledge, if with usage due
They were well handled, they each verity
Would bringen forth from their fecunditie;
Wise framed questions would facilitate
This precious birth, stirre up th'inward Idee,
And make it streme with light from forms innate.
Thus may a skilfull man hid truth elicitate.

42

What doth the teacher in his action
But put slight hints into his scholars mind?
Which breed a solemn contemplation
Whether such things be so; but he doth find
The truth himself. But if truth be not sign'd
In his own Soul before, and the right measure
Of things propos'd, in vain the youth doth wind
Into himself, and all that anxious leasure
In answering proves uselesse without that hid treasure.

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240

43

Nor is his masters knowledge from him flit
Into his scholars head: for so his brain
In time would be exhaust and void of wit,
So would the sory man but little gain
Though richly paid. Nor is't more safe to sam
As fire breeds fire, art art doth generate,
The soul with Corporeity't would stain:
Such qualities outwardly operate,
The soul within; her acts there closely circulate.

44

Wherefore the soul it self by her Idee,
Which is her self, doth every thing discover;
By her own Centrall Omniformity
Brings forth in her own self when ought doth move her;
Till mov'd a dark indifferency doth hover.
But fierce desire, and a strong piercing will
Makes her those hidden characters uncover.
Wherefore when death this lower life shall spill.
Or fear or love the soul with actuall forms shall fill.

---

241

Cant. 3.

1

My hardest task is gone, which was to prove
That when the soul dy death's cut off from all,
Yet she within her self might live and move,
Be her own world, by life imaginall.
But sooth to sain, 't seems not so naturall.
For though a starre, part of the Mundane spright,
Shine out with rayes circumferentiall
So long as with this world it is unite;
Yet what 't would do cut off, so well we cannot weet.

2

But sith our soul with God himself may meet,
Inacted by His life, I cannot see
What scruple then remains that moven might
Least doubt, but that she wakes with open eye,
When Fate her from this body doth untie.
Wherefore her choisest forms do then arise,
Rowz'd up by union and large sympathy
With Gods own spright; she plainly then descries
Such plenitude of life, as she could nere devise.

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242

3

If God even on this body operate,
And shakes this Temple when he doth descend,
Or with sweet vigour doth irradiate,
And lovely light and heavenly beauty lend.
Such rayes from Moses face did once extend
Themselves on Sinai hill, where he did get
Those laws from Gods own mouth, mans life to mend;
And from Messias on mount Saron set
Farre greater beauty shone in his disciples sight.

4

Als Socrates, when (his large Intellect
Being fill'd with streaming light from God above)
To that fair sight his soul did close collect,
That inward lustre through the body drove
Bright beams of beauty. These examples prove
That our low being the great Deity
Invades, and powerfully doth change and move.
Which if you grant, the souls divinity
More fitly doth receive so high a Majesty.

5

And that God doth illuminate the mind,
Is well approv'd by all antiquity;
With them Philosophers and Priests we find
All one: or else at least Philosophy
Link'd with Gods worship and pure piety:
Witnesse Pythagoras, Aglaophemus,
Zoroaster, thrice-mighty Mercury,
Wise Socrates, nothing injurious,
Religious Plato, and vice-taming Orpheus.

6

All these, addicted to religion,
Acknowledg'd God the fount of verity,
From whence flows out illumination
Upon purg'd souls. But now, O misery!
To seek to God is held a phantasie,
But men hug close their loved lust and vice,
And deem that thraldome a sweet liberty;
Wherefore reproch and shame they do devise
Against the braver souls that better things emprise.

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243

7

But lo! a proof more strong and manifest:
Few men but will confesse that prophesie
Proceeds from God, when as our soul's possest
By his All-seeing spright; als ecstasie
Wherein the soul snatch'd by the Deity.
And for a time into high heaven hent
Doth contemplate that blest Divinity
So Paul and John that into Patmos went,
Heard and saw things inestimably excellent.

8

Such things as these, men joyntly do confesse
To spring from Gods own spirit immediately:
But if that God ought on the soul impresse
Before it be at perfect liberty,
Quite rent from this base body; when that she
Is utterly releast, she'll be more fit
To be inform'd by that divine Idee
Hight Logos, that doth every man enlight
That enters into life, as speaks the sacred Writ.

9

Behold a fit resemblance of this truth,
The Sun begetteth both colours and sight,
Each living thing with life his heat indew'th,
He kindles into act each plastick spright:
Thus he the world with various forms doth dight
And when his vigour hath fram'd out an eye
In any living wight, he fills with light
That Organ, which can plainly then descry
The forms that under his far-shining beams do ly.

10

Even so it is with th'intellectuall sunne,
Fountain of life, and all-discovering light,
He frames our souls by his creation,
Als he indews them with internall sight,
Then shines into them by his lucid spright.
But corporall life doth so obnubilate
Our inward eyes that they be nothing bright;
While in this muddy world incarcerate
They lie, and with blind passions be intoxicate.

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244

11

Fear, anger, hope, fierce vengeance, and swoln hate,
Tumultuous joy, envie and discontent,
Self-love, vain glory, strife and fell debate,
Unsatiate covetise, desire impotent,
Low-sinking grief, pleasure, lust violent,
Fond emulation, all these dim the mind
That with foul filth the inward eye yblent,
That light that is so near it cannot find.
So shines the Sunne unseen on a trees rugged rind.

12

But the clean soul by virtue purifi'd
Collecting her own self from the foul steem
Of earthly life, is often dignifi'd
With that pure pleasure that from God doth streem,
Often's enlightn'd by that radiant beam,
That issues forth from his divinity,
Then feelingly immortall she doth deem
Her self, conjoynd by so near unity
With God, and nothing doubts of her eternitie.

13

Nor death, nor sleep nor any dismall shade?
Of low contracting life she then doth fear,
No troubled thoughts her settled mind invade,
Th'immortall root of life she seeth clear,
Wisheth she were for ever grafted here:
No cloud, no darknesse, no deficiency
In this high heavenly life doth ere appear;
Redundant fulnesse, and free liberty,
Easie flowing knowledge, never weary energy,

14

Broad open sight, eternall wakefulnesse,
Withouten labour or consuming pain:
The soul all these in God must needs possesse
When there deep-rooted life she doth obtain,
As I in a few words shall maken plain.
This bodies life by powerfull sympathy
The soul to sleep and labour doth constrain,
To grief, to wearinesse and anxiety,
In fire, to hideous sense of dread mortality.

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245

15

But sith no such things in the Deity
Are to be found; Shee once incorporate
With that quick essence, she is setten free
From ought that may her life obnubilate,
What then can her contract or maken strait?
For ever mov'd by lively sympathy
With Gods own spright, an ever-waking state
She doth obtain. Doth heavens bright blazing eye
Ever close, ywrapt in sleep and dead obscurity?

16

But now how full and strong a sympathy
Is caused by the souls conjunction
With the high God, I'll to you thus descry.
All men will grant that spread dispersion
Must be some hinderance to close union:
Als must confesse that closer unity
More certainly doth breed compassion;
Not that there's passion in the Deity,
But something like to what all men call Sympathy.

17

Now sith the soul is of such subtlety,
And close collectednesse, in dispersion,
Full by her centrall omniformity,
Pregnant and big without distension;
She once drawn in by strong attraction
Should be more perfectly there counite
In this her high and holy union
Then with the body, where dispersion's pight:
(But such hard things I leave to some more learned wight)

18

The first pure Being's perfect Unity,
And therefore must all things more strongly bind
Then Lives corporeall, which dispersed be.
He also the first Goodnesse is defin'd
Wherefore the soul most powerfully's inclin'd
And strongly drawn to God. But life that's here,
When into it the soul doth closely wind,
Is often sneep'd by anguish and by fear,
With vexing pain and rage that she no'te easly bear.

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246

19

Farre otherwise it fares in that pure life
That doth result in the souls Unity
With God: For there the faster she doth strive
To tie her selfe, the greater liberty
And freer welcome, brighter purity
She finds, and more enlargement, joy and pleasure
O'reflowing, yet without satietie,
Sight without end, and love withouten measure:
This needs must close unite the heart to that hid treasure.

20

This plainly's seen in that mysterious Cone
Which I above did fairly well descrive:
Their freenesse and incarceration
Were plainly setten forth. What down doth dive
Into the straitned Cuspis needs must strive
With stringent bitternesse, vexation,
Anxious unrest; in this ill plight they live:
But they that do ascend to th'top yflown
Be free, yet fast unite to that fair vision.

21

Thus purged souls be close conjoyn'd to God,
And closer union surer sympathy;
Wherefore so long as they make their abode
In Him, incorp'rate by due Unitie
They liven in eternall energie.
For Israels God nor slumbers, nor doth sleep;
Nor Israel lost in dull lethargie
Must listlesse ly, while numbing streams do steep.
His heavy head, overwhelmed in oblivion deep.

22

But here more curious men will straight enquire,
Whither after death the wicked soul doth go,
That long hath wallowed in the sinfull mire.
Before this question I shall answer to,
Again the nature of the soul I'll show.
She all things in her self doth centrally
Contain; what ever she doth feel or know,
She feels or knows it by th'innate Idee:
She's all proportion'd by her omniformity.

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247

23

God, heaven, this middle world; deep glimmering hell
With all the lives and shapes that there remain,
The forms of all in humane souls do dwell:
She likewise all proportions doth contain
That fits her for all sprights. So they constrain
By a strong pulling sympathy to come,
And straight possesse that fitting vitall vein
That 'longs unto her, so her proper room
She takes as mighty Nemesis doth give the doom.

24

Now (which I would you presly should observe)
Though oft I have with tongue balbutient
Prattled to th'weaker ear (lest I should sterve
My stile with too much subtilty) I nere ment
To grant that there's any such thing existent
As a mere body: For all's life, all spright,
Though lives and sprights be very different.
Three generall sprights there be, Eternall Light
Is one, the next our World, the last Infernall Night.

25

This last lies next unto old Nothingnesse
Hight Hyle, whom I term'd point of the Cone:
Her daughter Night is full of bitternesse,
And strait constraint, and pent privation:
Her sturdy ray's scarce conquer'd by the moon.
The earths great shade breaks out from this hid spright,
And active is; so soon the Sun is gone,
Doth repossesse the aire shotten forth right.
From its hid centrall life, ycleep'd Infernall Night.

26

In this drad world is scorching Phlegethon;
Hot without flame, burning the vexed sense;
There hatefull Styx and sad Cocytus run,
And silent Acheron. All drink from hence,
From this damn'd spright receiven influence,
That in our world or poyson do outspue,
Or have an ugly shape and foule presence:
That deadly poison and that direfull hue
From this Nocturnall spright these uggly creatures {drew}

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248

27

This is the seat of Gods eternall ire,
When unmixt vengeance he doth fully powre
Upon foul souls fit for consuming fire:
Fierce storms and tempests strongly doth he show
Upon their heads: His rage doth still devoure
The never dying soul. Here Satanas
Hath his full swing to torture every houre
The grisly ghosts of men; when they have passe
From this mid world to that most direfull dismall place.

28

Did Nature but compile one mighty sphere
Of this dark Stygian spright, and close collect
Its scatter'd being, that it might appear
Aloft in the wide heaven, it would project
Dark powerfull beams, that solar life ycheckt
With these dull choking rayes, all things would die.
Infernall poyson the earth would infect,
Incessant showrs of pitchie shafts let flie
Against the Sun with darknesse would involve the skie.

29

Nor is my Muse wox mad, that thus gives life
To Night or Darknesse, sith all things do live.
But Night is nothing (straight I'll end that strife)
Doth nought impressions to the sense derive?
If without prejudice you'll deigne to dive
Into the matter, as much realty
To darknesse as to coldnesse you will give.
Certes both night and coldnesse active be
Both strike the sense, they both have reall entity.

30

Again. 'tis plain that that nocturnall spright
Sends forth black eben-beams and mirksome rayes,
Because her darknesse as the Sunne his light
More clearly doth reflect on solid place,
As when a wall, a shade empighten has
Upon it, sure that shade farre darker is
Then is the aire that lies in the mid space.
What is the reason? but that rayes emisse
From centrall Night the walls reflexion multiplies.

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249

31

The light's more light that strikes upon the wall,
And much more strongly there affects the eye,
Then what's spread in the space aereall:
So 'tis with shadows that amid do lie
In the slight air; there scarce we them descrie,
But when they fall upon the wall or ground,
They gain a perfect sensibilitie.
Scarce ought in outgone light is to be found
But this Nocturnall ray's with like indowments crown'd.

32

But why doth my half wearied mind pursue
Dim sculking darknesse, a fleet nimble shade?
If Moses and wise Solomon speak true,
What we assert may safely well be said.
Did not a palpable thick Night invade
The Land of Egypt, such as men might feel
And handle with their hands? That darknesse ray'd
From nether Hell, and silently did steal
On th'enemies of God, as Scripture doth reveal.

33

The womb of Night then fully flowred out:
For that all-swaying endlesse Majestie
Which penetrateth those wide worlds throughout,
This thin spread darknesse that dispers'd doth lie
Summon'd by his drad voice, and strong decree.
Much therefore of that spirit close unite
Into one place did strike the troubled eye
With horrid blacknesse, and the hand did smite
With a clam pitchie ray shot from that Centrall Night.

34

This Centrall Night or Universall spright
Of wo, of want, of balefull bitternesse,
Of hatred, envy, wrath, and fell despight,
Of lust, of care, wasting disquietnesse,
Of warre, contention, and bloud-thirstinesse,
Of zeal, of vengeance, of suspicion
Of hovering horrour, and sad pensivenesse,
This Stygian stream through all the world doth run,
And many wicked souls unto it self hath wonne.

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250

35

Lo! here's the portion of the Hypocrite,
That serveth God but in an outward show.
But his drad doom must passe upon his sprite,
Where it propends there surely must he go.
Due vengeance neither sleepeth nor is slow.
Hell will suck in by a strong sympathie
What's like unto it self: So down they flow,
Devouring anguish and anxietie
Do vex their souls, in piteous pains, alas! they lie.

36

Thus with live Hell be they concorporate,
United close with that self-gnawing sprite:
And this I wot will breed no sleeping state.
Who here descends finds one long restlesse Night.
May this the dreaming Psychopannychite
Awake, and make him seriously prepare
And purge his heart, lest this infernall might
Suck in his soul 'fore he be well aware.
Kill but the seeds of sinne then are you past this fear.

37

Thus have I prov'd by the souls union
With heaven and hell, that she will be awake
When she from this mid Nature is ygone.
But still more curious task to undertake;
And spenden time to speak of Lethe lake,
And whether at least some souls fall not asleep.
(Which if they do of Hell they do partake)
Whether who liv'd like plant or grazing sheep,
Who of nought else but sloth and growth doth taken keep;

38

Whose drooping phansie never flowred out,
Who relish'd nought but this grosse bodies food,
Who never entertaind an active thought,
But like down-looking beasts was onely mov'd
To feed themselves, whither this drousie mood
So drench the lowring soul and inly steep
That she lies senselesse drownd in Lethe floud;
Who will let dive into this mysterie deep:
Into such narrow subtilties I list not creep.

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251

39

But well I wote that wicked crueltie,
Hate, envie, malice, and ambition,
Bloud-sucking zeal, and lawlesse tyrannie,
In that Nocturnall sprite shall have their wonne,
Which like this world admits distinction.
But like will like unto it strongly draw:
So every soul shall have a righteous doom.
According to our deeds God will bestow
Rewards: Unto the cruell he'll no mercy show.

40

Where's Nimrod now, and dreadfull Hannibal?
Where's that ambitious pert Pellean lad,
Whose pride sweld bigger then this earthly ball?
Where's cruell Nero, with the rest that had
Command, and vex'd the world with usage bad?
They're all sunk down into this nether hell;
Who erst upon the Nations stoutly strad
Are now the Devils footstool. His drad spell
Those vassals doth command, though they with fury swell.

41

Consuming anguish, styptick bitternesse,
Doth now so strangle their imperious will,
That in perpetuall disquietnesse
They roll and rave, and roar and rage their fill,
Like a mad bull that the slie hunters skill
Hath caught in a strong net. But more they strive
The more they kindle that tormenting ill.
Wo's me! in what great miserie they live!
Yet wote I not what may these wretched thralls relieve.

42

The safest way for us that still survive
Is this, even our own lust to mortifie;
So Gods own Will will certainly revive.
Thus shall we gain a perfect libertie,
And everlasting life. But if so be
We seek our selves with ardent hot desire,
From that Infernall Night we are not free;
But living Hell will kindle a fierce fire.
And with uncessant pains our vexed soul will tire.

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252

43

Then the wild phansie from her horrid wombe
Will senden forth foul shapes. O dreadfull sight.
Overgrown toads fierce serpents thence will come,
Red-scaled Dragons with deep burning light
In their hollow eye-pits: With these she must fight;
Then thinks her self ill wounded, sorely stung.
Old fulsome Hags with scabs and skurf bedight,
Foul tarry spittle tumbling with their tongue
On their raw lether lips, these near will to her clung,

44

And lovingly salute against her will,
Closely embrace, and make her mad with wo:
She'd lever thousand times they did her kill,
Then force her such vile basenesse undergo.
Anon some Giant his huge self will show,
Gaping with mouth as vast as any Cave,
With stony staring eyes, and footing slow:
She surely deems him her live-walking grave,
From that dern hollow pit knows not her self to save.

45

After a while, tost on the Ocean main
A boundlesse sea she finds of misery;
The fiery snorts of the Leviathan
(That makes the boyling waves before him flie)
She hears, she sees his blazing morn-bright eye:
If here she scape, deep gulfs and threatning rocks
Her frighted self do straightway terrifie;
Steel-coloured clouds with rattling thunder knocks,
With these she is amaz'd, and thousand such like mocks.

46

All which afflict her even like perfect sense:
For waxen mad with her sore searching pain
She cannot easly find the difference,
But toils and tears and tugs, but all in vain;
Her self from her own self she cannot strain.
Nocturnall Life hath now let ope th'Idee
Of innate darknesse, from this fulsome vein
The soul is fill'd with all deformity.
But Night doth stirre her up to this dread energie.

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253

47

But here some man more curious then wise
Perhaps will ask, where Night or Hell may be:
For he by his own self cannot devise,
Sith chearfull light doth fill the open sky.
And what's the earth to the souls subtilty?
Such men I'd carry to some standing pool,
Down to the water bid them bend their eye,
They then shall see the earth possest and full
Of heaven, dight with the sunne or starrs that there do roll.

48

Or to an hill where's some deep hollow Cave
Dreadfull for darknesse; let them take a glasse,
When to the pitchy hole they turned have
Their instrument, that darknesse will find place
Even in the open sunne-beams, at a space
Which measures twice the glasses distancy
From the Caves mouth. This well discovered has
How Hell and Heaven may both together lie,
Sith darknesse safely raies even in the sunny skie.

49

But further yet the mind to satisfie
That various apprehensions bearen down
And to hold up with like variety
Of well fram'd phantasms, lest she sink and drown
Laden with heavie thoughts sprong from the ground
And miry clods of this accursed earth
Whose dull suffusions make her often sown,
Orecome with cold, till nimble Reason bear'th
Unto her timely aid and on her feet her rear'th:

50

I will adjoyn to those three former wayes
To weet, of the Souls self-activity
Of Union with Hell, and Gods high rayes
A fourth contrivement, which all souls doth ty
To their wing'd Chariots, wherein swift they fly.
The fiery and airy Vehicles they hight
In Plato's school known universally.
But so large matter can not well be writ
In a few lines for a fresh Canticle more fit.

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225

The Præexistency of the SOUL.

1

Rise then Aristo's son! assist my Muse
Let that hie spright which did inrich thy brains
With choice cōceits, some worthy thoughts infuse
Worthy thy title and the Readers pains.
And thou, O Lycian Sage! whose pen contains
Treasures of heavenly light with gentle fire,
Give leave a while to warm me at thy flames
That I may also kindle sweet desire
In holy minds that unto highest things aspire.

2

For I would sing the Præexistency
Of humane souls, and live once ore again
By recollection and quick memory
All what is past since first we all began.
But all too shallow be my wits to scan
So deep a point and mind too dull to clear
So dark a matter, but Thou, O more then man!
Aread thou sacred Soul of Plotin deare
Tell what we mortalls are, tell what of old we were.

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256

3

A spark or ray of the Divinity
Clouded in earthy fogs, yclad in clay,
A precious drop sunk from Æternitie,
Spilt on the ground, or rather slunk away.
For then we fell when we gan first t'assay
By stealth, of our own selves something to been,
Uncentring our selves from our great stay.
Which fondly we new liberty did ween
And from that prank right jolly wights our selves did deem.

4

For then forthwith some thing beside our God
We did conceive our parted selves to be,
And loosened, first from that simple Good,
Then from great Æon, then from Plyche free,
We after fell into low phantasie,
And after that into corporeall sense,
And after sense embarkd as in a tree,
(First sown in earthly slime, then sprung from thence)
A fading life we lead in deadly influence.

5

Thus groaping after our own Centres near
And proper substance we grew dark, contract,
Swallow'd up of earthly life, ne what we were
Of old, through ignorance can we detect.
Like noble babe by fate or friends neglect
Left to the care of sorry salvage wight,
Grown up to manly years cannot conject
His own true parentage, nor read aright
What Father him begot, what womb him brought to light.

6

So we as stranger Infants elsewhere born
Can not divine from what spring we did flow
Ne dare these base alliances to scorn,
Nor lift our selves a whit from hence below,
Ne strive our Parentage again to know;
Ne dream we once of any other stock,
Since foster'd upon Rheas knees we grow,
In Satyres arms with many a mow and mock
Oft danc'd, and hairy Pan our cradle oft hath rock'd.

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257

7

But Pan nor Rhea be our Parentage
We been the Of-spring of all-seeing Jove
Though now, whether through our own miscariage
Or secret force of fate, that all doth move
We be cast low, for why? the sportfull love
Of our great Maker (like as mothers dear
In pleasance from them do their children shove
That back again they may recoyl more near)
Shoves of our souls a while, the more them to endear.

8

Or whether Justice and due Equity
Expects the truth of our affection,
And therefore sets us 'twixt the Deitie
And the created world, that thereupon
We may with a free resignation
Give up our selves to him deserves us best.
That love is none that's by coaction.
Hence he our souls from his own self releast
And left us free to follow what the most us pleas'd.

9

And for this purpose did enrich our choice
By framing of the outward Universe.
The framing of this world a meet devise
Whereby Gods wisedome thorough all may pierce,
From hight to depth. In depth is vengeance fierce,
Whereby transgressing souls are sorely scourged
And back again are forced to reverse
By Nemesis deep-biting whips well urged,
And in sad sorrows bath well drench'd and soundly purged.

10

Thus nothing's lost of Gods fecundity.
But stretching out himself in all degrees
His wisedome, goodnesse and due equity
Are rightly rank'd, in all the soul them sees.
O holy lamps of God! O sacred eyes
Filled with love and wonder every where!
Ye wandring tapers to whom God descryes
His secret paths, great Psyches darlings dear!
Behold her works, but see your hearts close not too near.

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258

11

But they so soon as vitall Orbs were made
That rolled round about each starry fire
Forth-with pursue, and strive them to invade;
Like evening flies that busily conspire
Following a Jade that travail long doth tire,
To seize his nodding head and suck his sweat.
But they suck'd in into the vitall mire
First died and then again reviv'd by heat
Did people all the Orbs by this audacious feat.

12

But infinite Myriads undipt as yet
Did still attend each vitall moveing sphear
And wait their turnes for generation fit
In airy bodies wafted here and there,
As sight and sympathy away did bear.
These corporate with bloud, but the first flight
Of fallen souls, ymeint with slimy gear
Rose from their earth, breaking their filmes slight:
As Storyes say, Nile living shapes sends forth to sight.

13

Here their third chariot cleep'd terrestiall
Great Psyches brood did enter; for before
They rode more light; first in cœlestiall
Or fiery chariots, wherein with Uranore
The care and thought of all the world they bore.
This is the Orb of pure quick life and sense
Which the thrice mighty Mercury of yore
Ascending, held with Angels conference
And of their comely shapes had perfect cognoscence.

14

In this the famous Tyanean swain
Lifted above the deadly charming might
Of the dull Carkasse could discover plain
From seven-hill'd Rome with speedy piercing sight
What they in Egypt did as Stories write.
This is that nimble quick vivacious Orb
All ear, all eye, with rayes round shining bright;
Sphear of pure sense which noe perpessions curb
Nor uncouth shapen Spectres ever can disturb.

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15

Next this is that light Vehicle of air,
Where likewise all sense is in each part pight.
This is more grosse subject to grief and fear
And most what soil'd with bodily delight;
Sometimes with vengeance, envie, anger, spight.
This Orb is ever passive in sensation.
But the third wagon of the soul that hight
The terrene Vehicle, beside this passion
Hath organized sense, distinct by limitation.

16

These last be but the souls live sepulchres
Where least of all she acts, but afterward
Rose from this tomb, she free and lively fares
And upward goes if she be not debar'd
By Adrastias law nor strength empar'd
By too long bondage, in this Cave below.
The purged souls ascent nought may retard;
But earthly mindednesse may eath foreslow
Their flight, then near the ground in airy weeds they go;

17

Awak'd to life more ample then before,
If they their fortune good could then pursue.
But sith unwillingly they were ytore
From their dear carkasses their fate they rue,
And terrene thoughts their troubled minds embue:
So that in languishment they linger near
Their wonted homes and oft themselves they shew;
Sometimes on purpose, sometimes unaware
That wak'd by hasty call they streightway disappear.

18

For men that wont to wander in their sleep
By the fixt light of inward phantasie,
Though a short fit of death fast bounden keep
Their outward sense and all their Organes tye;
Yet forth they fare steared right steddily
By that internall guide: even so the ghosts
Of men deceas'd bedewed with the sky
And nights cold influence, in sleep yclos'd
Awake within, and walk in their forewonted coast.

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260

19

In shape they walk much like to what they bore
Upon the earth: For that light Orb of air
Which they inact must yielden evermore
To phansies beck, so when the souls appear
To their own selves alive as once they were,
So cloath'd and conversant in such a place,
The inward eyes of phansie thither stear
Their gliding vehicle, that bears the face
Of him that liv'd, that men may reade what wight it was.

20

And often ask'd what would they, they descry
Some secret wealth, or hidden injury.
That first they broach that overmost doth ly
Within their minds: but vanish suddenly
Disturb'd by bold mans importunity.
But those that on set purpose do appear
To holden talk with frail mortality
Make longer stay. So that there is no fear
That when we leave this earthly husk we perish clear.

21

Or what is like to perfect perishing,
That inert deadlinesse our souls shall seize,
That neither sense nor phansies fountains spring,
But ever close in dull unactive ease.
For though that Death our spirits doth release
From this distinguish'd organizate sense,
Yet we may hear and see, what, where we please,
And walk at large when we are gone from hence
And with both men and ghosts hold friendly conference;

22

And all in virtue of that airy Waine
In which we ride when that of earth is gone,
Unlesse no terrene tinctures do us stein,
For then forthwith to heaven we be yflone,
In our swift fiery chariot thither drawn.
But least men deem me airy notions feigne:
All stories this sure truth do seem to own.
Wherefore my Muse! some few do not disdain,
Of many, to relate, more firm assent to gain.

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23

But first lay out the treasures of the Air
That immense womb from whence all bodies spring.
And then the force of Phantasie declare.
Of Witches wonnes a while then maist thou sing
Their Stygian rites, and nightly revelling.
Then to the wished port to draw more near
Als tell of the untimely wandering
Of the sad ghosts of men that oft appear
All which to the hard search of truth, joynt light do bear;

24

Shew fitly how the præexistent soul
Inacts and enters bodies here below,
And then entire, unhurt, can leave this moul
And thence her airy Vehicle can draw,
In which by sense and motion they may know
Better then we what things transacted be
Upon the Earth; and when they list, may show
Themselves to friend or foe, their phantasie
Moulding their airy Orb to grosse consistency.

25

For sooth to sayn, all things of Air consist
And easly back again return to air.
Witnesse the carkases of man and beast
Which wast though teeth of Wolves them never tear,
Nor Crow nor Vulture do their flesh empare,
Yet all is wast and gone, no reliques seen
Of former shape, saving the bones bare,
And the bare bones by Time and Art, I ween,
First into liquour melt to air ychanged been.

26

Besides experience doth maken plain
How clouds be but the crudling of the air.
Take a round glasse let 't nought but air contain,
Close it with Hermes seal, then cover it over
With cinders warm, onely the top discover,
The gentle fire hard at the bottome pight
Thins the low air, which got above doth hover
Like a white fume embodying in the hight
With cooler parts, then turns to drops all crystall bright.

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27

Not much unlike to the experiment
That learned Leech professes to have seen
Amongst the Alps, where the wind violent
Hammered out clouds with his strong blustring keen
'Gainst a steep rock, which streight themselves did teem
Upon the Earth and wet the verdant Plain,
Dissolved by the sight of Phœbus sheen.
But sometimes clouds afford, not onely rain
But bloud, stones, milk, corn, frogs, fire, earth and all contain.

28

Wherefore all bodies be of air compos'd
Great Natures all-complying Mercury,
Unto ten thousand shapes and forms dispos'd:
Like nimble quick-silver that doth agree
With gold with brasse or with what ere it be
Amalgamate, but brought unto the fire
Into an airy fume it all doth flie,
Though you before might turn to earth and mire
What into ancient air so quickly doth retire.

29

Wherefore the soul possest of matter meet
If she hath power to operate thereon
Can eath transform this Vehicle to sight,
Dight with due colour, figuration.
Can speak, can walk, and then dispear anon
Spreading her self in the dispersed air.
Then if she please recall again what's gone.
Those th'uncouth mysteries of phansie are
Then thunder farre more strong: more quick then lightning far

30

Some heavings toward this strange activity
We may observe even in this mortall state.
Here health and sicknesse of the phantasie
Often proceed, which working minds create,
And pox and pestilence do malleate
Their thoughts still beating on those objects ill,
Which doth the mastered bloud contaminate,
And with foul poysonous impressions fill
And last the precious life with deadly dolour kill.

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31

And if't be true that learned Clerks do sayen
His phantasie whom a mad dog hath bit
With shapes of dogs doth all his Urine stain.
Women with child, if in their longing fit
They be differ'd, their eager appetite
So sharply edges the quick phantasie
That it the Signature doth carve and write
Of what she long'd for, on the Infants body,
Imprinting it so plain that all the world may see.

32

Those streaked rods plac'd by that Syrian swain
Before the sheep when they receiv'd the ramme,
(Whence the best part of Labans flock became
All spotted or'e, whereby his shepheard wan
The greater wages,) show what phansie can.
And boyes ore night when they went to their rest
By dreams grown up to th'stature of a man
And bony shapes in mens sad hearts exprest
Dear image of their love, and wrought by loves unrest:

33

Things farre more wonderfull then Cippus horn
Who in the field with so much earnestnesse
Viewing the fight of bulls rose in the Morn
VVith forked front: for though the fight did cease
Amongst th'enraged heards, yet ne're the lesse
His working phansie did the war revive.
Which on the bloud did make so strong impresse
In dewy sleep that humours did arrive
His knobby head and a fair pair of horns contrive:

34

All these declare the force of phantasie
Though working here upon this stubborn clay.
But th'airy Vehicle yields more easily
Unto her beck more nimbly doth obey.
Which truth the joynt confessions bewray
Of damned Hags and Masters of bold skill
Whose hellish mysteries fully to display
With pitchy darknesse would the Heavens fill
The earth would grone, trees sigh, and horrour all ore spill.

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264

35

But he that out of darknesse giveth light
He guide my steps in this so uncouth way
And ill done deeds by children of the Night
Convert to good, while I shall thence assay
The noble souls conditions ope to lay,
And show her empyre on her ayry sphear
By what of sprights and specters Stories say.
For sprights and spectres that by night appear
Be or all one with souls or of a nature near.

36

Up then renowned Wizard, Hermite sage!
That twice ten years didst in the desert wonne,
Convers'dst with sprights in thy hid Hermitage
Since thou of mortals didst the commerce shun,
Well seen in these bad arts that have foredone
Many a bold wit, Up Marcus: tell again
That story to thy Thrax, who has thee wonne,
To Christian faith, the guise and haunts explain
Of all air-trampling ghosts that in the world remain.

37

There be six sorts of sprights. Lelurion
Is the first kind, the next are nam'd from Air
The first a loft, yet farre beneath the Moon
The other in this lower region fare.
The third Terrestriall, the fourth Watery are,
The fift be Subterranean, the last
And worst, Light-hating ghosts more cruel farre
Then Bear or Wolf with hunger hard opprest
But doltish yet and dull like an unweildy beast.

38

If this sort once possesse the arteries
Of forlorn man: Madnesse and stupor seize
His salvag'd heart, and death dwels in his eyes.
Ne is there remedy for this sad disease.
For that unworthy guest so senselesse is
And deaf, no Exorcist can make him hear,
But would in vain with Magick words chastise.
Others the thundring threats of Tartar fear
And the drad names of Angels that this office bear.

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265

39

For they been all subject to passion.
Some been so grosse they hunger after food,
And send out seed of which worms spring anon,
And love to liggen warm in living bloud,
Whence they into the veins do often crowd
Of beasts as well as men, wherein they bathe
Themselves, and sponge-like suck that vitall flood,
As they done also in their aery path
Drink in each unctuous steam, which their dire thirst allayth.

40

Such be the four last kinds, foul, dull, impure
Whose inward life and phansy's more inert
And therefore usually in one shape endure.
But those of aire can easily convert
Into new forms and then again revert,
One while a man, after a comely maid,
And then all suddenly to make the flert,
Like leaping Leopard he'll thee invade
Then made a man again he'll comfort thee afraid.

41

Then straight more quick then thought or cast of eye
A snarling Dog, or brisled Boar he'll be;
Anon a jugge of milk if thou be drie,
So easily's turnd that aire-consistency
Through inward sport and power of phantasie.
For all things virtually are containd in aire.
And like the sunne, that fiery spirit free
Th'internall soul, at once the seed doth rear
Waken and ripe at once as if full ag'd they were.

42

Cameleon like thus they their colour change
And size contract, and then dilate again:
Like the soft earthworm hurt by heedlesse chance
Shrinks in her self to shun or ease her pain.
Nor done they onely thus themselves constrain
Into lesse bulk, but if with courage bold
And flaming brond thou strike these shades in twain,
A sudden smart they feel that cannot hold,
Close quick as cloven aire. So sang that Wizzard old.

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43

And truth he said what ever he was told,
As even this present Age may verifie,
If any lists its stories to unfold
Of Hags of Hobgoblings of Incubi,
Abhorred dugs by devils sucken dry,
Of leaping lamps and of fierce flying stones
Of living wool, and such like witchery
Or prov'd by sight or self confessions
Which things much credence gain to past traditions.

44

Wherefore with boldnesse we will now relate
Some few in breif, as of th'Astorgan lad,
Whose peevish mother in fell ire and hate
Quite drunk with passion, through quick cholar mad
With execrations bold the devil bad,
Take him alive, which mood the boy no'te bear
But quits the room, walks out with spirit sad
Into the court, where, Lo! by night appear
Tall Giants with grim looks, rough limbs, black grizely hair.

45

These in a moment hoist him into th'air,
Away him bear more swift then bird can fly,
Straight to the destin'd place arrived are
Mongst craggy rocks, and bushy Mountains high,
Where up and down they drag the sorry boy;
His tender skin and goary flesh they tear
Till he gan on his Maker call and cry.
Which forc'd the villains home again him bear,
Where he the story told, restor'd by Parents care.

46

The walking Skeleton in Bolonia
Laden with rattling chains, that showd his grave
To th'watchfull Student, who without dismay
Bid tell his wants, and speak what he would have:
Thus cleared he the house by courage brave.
Nor may I passe the fair Cerdinian maid
Whose love a jolly swain did kindly crave,
And oft with mutuall solace with her stay'd;
Yet was no jolly swain but a deceitfull shade.

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47

More harmlesse mirth may that mad spright commend
Who in an honest widows house did won
At Salamanca, who whole showers would send
Of stones that swifter then a whirlwind come
And yet where ere they hit no hurt is done.
But cursed cruell be those wicked Hags
Whom poysonous spight, envy and hate have won
T'abhorred sorcery, whose writhled bags
Fauld feinds oft suck and nestle in their loathsome rags.

48

Such as the Devil woes in homely form
Of swarthy man, or some black shaggy Curre,
Or vermine base, and in sad case forlorn
Them male-content to evil motions stirre,
Proffer their service adding a quick spurre
To meditated vengance, and fell teen,
Whose hellish voice they heare without demur,
Abjure God and his Sonne, who did redeem
The world, give up themselves to Satan and foul sinne.

49

Thus 'bodyed into that Stygian crue
Of damned wights made fast by their own bloud
To their bad Master, do his service due,
Frequent the assemblies, dance as they were wood
Around an huge black Goat, in loansome wood
By shady night, farre from or house or town,
And kisse with driveling lips in frantcik mood
His sacred breech. Catch that catch may anon
Each Feind has got his Hag for copulation.

50

O loathsome law! O filthy fond embrace!
The other root of cursed sorcery.
For if the streams of this bad art we trace
They lead to two foul springs, th'one Venerie
And coarsest Lust, the other near doth lie
And is ycleeped Vengeance, Malice, Hate,
Or restlesse Envy that would all destroy.
But both but from one seed do germinate
Hight uncurb'd Will, or strong Desire inordinate.

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268

51

Wherefore I needs must humbly here adore
Him whose chaste soul enwombd in Virgin chast,
As chast a body amongst mortals wore,
Who never woman knew, ne once did taste
Of Hymens pleasures while this life did last.
Ah! my dear Lord! dread Sovereigne of souls
Who with thy life and lore so warmed hast
My wounded heart, that when thy Storie's told,
Sweet Love, methinks, in's silver wings me all infolds.

52

How do I hang upon thy sacred lips
More sweet then Manna or the hony-dew!
Thy speech, like rosie drops doth cool my wits
And calme my fierce affections untrue,
And winne my heart unto obeisance due.
Blest O thrice blessed be that holy hill
Whereon thou did'st instruct thy faithfull crue
In wayes of peace, of patience and good will
Forbidding base self-love, revenge and speeches ill.

53

Meek Lambe of God! the worlds both scourge and scorn!
How done th'infernall feinds thy face envy!
Thou light, they darknesse, they Night, thou the Morn!
Mild chariot of Gods lovely Majesty!
Exalted Throne of the Divinitie!
As thou with thine mak'st through the yielding aire
How do thy frighted foes before thee fly!
And grin and gnash their teeth for spight and fear
To see such awfull strength quite to themselves contraire.

54

Ho! you vain men that follow filthy lust
And swallow down revenge like pleasant wine.
Base earthly spirits! fly this sinfull dust.
See with what hellish Comrades you combine.
Als see whose lovely friendship you decline.
Even his whose love to you more strong then death
Did death abide, foul shame and evil tine.
But if sweet love your hearts may move uneath
Think how one fatall flame, shall burn all underneath.

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269

55

Pans pipe shall then be mute, and Satyrs heel
Shall cease to dance ybrent in scorching fire;
For pleasure then each earthly spright shall feel
Deep searching pain; Revenge and base desire
Shall bear due vengeance, reap their worthy hire.
From thee, great Prince of souls! shall be their doome.
Then thou and thy dear Saints ascending higher
Shalt fly the fate, and quit this stinking room
With smouldry smoak, fierce fire, and loathsome stench o'rerun.

56

Go now you cursed Hags, salute your Goat
Whether with driveling lips or taper end,
Whereby at last you fire his hispide coat,
And then the deadly dust on mischief spend
As your Liege Lord these ashes doth commend
For wicked use, thundring this precept'drad,
Revenge, revenge, or I shall on you send
Due vengeance: Thus dismist th'Assembly bad
Hoyst up into the Air, fly home through clammy shade.

57

Which stories all to us do plainly prove
That airy sprights both speak, and hear, and see.
Why do not then the souls of mortalls move
In airy Chariots but stupid lie
Lock'd up in sloth and senselesse Lethargie.
Certes our soul's as well proportionate
To this aeriall weed as spirits free:
For neither can our souls incorporate
With naked Earth, the Air must ever mediate.

58

Which that bold Art which Necromaney hight
Doth know too well, and therefore doth prepare
A vap'rous vehicle for th'intended spright,
With reek of oyl, meal, milk, and such like gear,
Wine, water, hony; Thus souls fitted are
A grosser Carkas for to reassume.
And though Thessalian Hags their pains do spare
Sometimes they enter without Magick fume;
Witnesse ye Cretick wives, who felt their fruitlesse spume.

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270

59

And therefore to prevent such hellish lust
They did by laws Municipall provide
That he that dar'd to rise out of his dust
And thus infest his wife, a stake should gride
His stubborn heart and's body burn beside.
Hereto belongs that story of the spright
Of fell Asuitus noted far and wide,
And of his faithfull comrade Asmund hight;
Twixt whom this law was made, as Danish Records write:

60

Which of them two the other did survive
Must be intomb'd with's fellow in one grave.
Dead Asuit therefore with his friend alive
His dog and horse all in one mighty Cave
Be shut together, yet this care they have,
That faithfull Asmund, be not lost for meat:
Wherefore he was well stor'd his life to save
And liv'd sometime in that infernall seat
Till Errick King of Sweads the door did open break.

61

For well he ween'd there was some treasure hid
Which might enrich himself, or'[illeg.] Army pay.
But when he had broke ope the brasen lid
Nought but a sory wight they finden may,
Whom out of darknesse brought to open day
The King beheld, dight with most deadly hue,
His cheek all gore, his ear quite bit away.
Then gan the King command the cause to shew,
To which Asmundus answers, as doth here ensue:

62

Why gaze you thus on my sad squalid face,
Th'alive needs languish must amongst the dead,
But this sore wound that further doth deface
My wasted looks, Asuitus (who first fed
On's horse and dog, and then with courage dred,
At me let fly) Asuit this wound me gave,
But well I quit my self, took off his head
With this same blade, his heart nayl'd to the Cave:
Thus I my self by force did from the monster save.

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271

63

The soul of Naboth lies to Ahab told,
As done the learned Hebrew Doctours write,
His foe in mischief thereby to infold.
Go up to Ramoth Gilead and fight,
Go up and prosper, said the lying spright
The angry ghost of Naboth whom he slew
Unjustly, and possest his ancient right.
Hence his revengefull soul with speech untrue
Sat on his Prophets lips, and did with lies embue.

64

Ne may I passe that story sad of Saul
And Samuels ghost, whom he in great distresse
Consulted, was foretold his finall fall
By that old man, whom Endors sorceresse
Awak'd from pleasant vision and sweet ease,
Straitning a while his wonted liberty
By clammy air more close and thick compresse,
Then gan the mantled Sage Sauls destiny
To reade, and thine with his, dear Jonathan! to tye.

65

That lovely lasse Pausanias did kill
Through ill surmise she ment him treachery
How did her angry spirit haunt him still
That he could no where rest, nor quiet ly.
Her wronged ghost was ever in his eye.
And he that in his anger slew his wife,
And was exempt by Law from penalty,
Poore sorry man he led a weary life
Each night the Shrow him beat with buffes and boxes rife.

66

And love as well as hate the dead doth reach,
As may be seen by what Albumaron
Did once befall, that learnd Arabian Leach.
He of a late deceas'd Physition
Upon his bed by dream or vision
Receiv'd a soveraign salve for his sore eye,
And just Simonides compassion
Unto the dead that did unburied ly
On washed shore, him sav'd from jaws of destinie.

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272

67

For he had perish'd in th'unruly waves,
And sudden storm, but lo! the thankfull spright
Of the interr'd by timely counsell saves,
Warning him of the danger he would meet
In his intended voyage,
Simonides desists by's counsell won:
The rest for want of faith or due foresight,
A prey to the devouring Seas become,
Their dashed bodies welter in the weedy scum.

68

In Artick Climes, an Isle that Thule hight
Famous for snowy monts, whose hoary head's
Sure signe of cold, yet from their fiery feet
They strike out burning stones with thunders dread,
And all the Land with smoak, and ashes spread:
Here wandring Ghosts themselves have often shown,
As if it were the region of the dead,
And men departed met with whom they've known
In seemly sort shake hands, and ancient friendship own.

69

A world of wonders hither might be thrown,
Of Sprights and spectres, as that frequent noise
Oft heard upon the Plane of Marathon,
Of neighing horses and of Martiall boyes.
The Greek, the Persian, nightly here destroyes
In hot assault, embroyl'd in a long war.
Foure hundred years did last these dreadfull toyes,
As doth by Attick Records plain appear,
The seeds of hate, by death so little slaked are.

70

Nor lists me speak of Remus Lemures,
Nor haunted house of slain Caligula,
Nor Julius stern Ghost, who will, with ease
May for himself of old or new purvey.
Thousand such stories in mens mouths do stray.
But sith it much perplexeth slower minds
To think our souls unhurt can passe away
From their dear corps so close thereto confin'd,
From this unweildy thought let's now their wits unbind.

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273

71

For if that spirits can possesse our veins
And arteries (as usuall stories tell)
Use all our Organes act our nerves and brains
And by our tongue can future things foretell,
And safely yet keep close in this warme cell
For many years and not themselves impare
Nor lose ymeint with the bloud where they dwel,
But come out clever when they conjured are
And nimbly passe away soft gliding through the air:

72

Why scape not then the souls of men as clear
Since to this body they 're no better joyn'd
Then thorough it to feel, to see, to hear
And to impart the passions of the mind?
All which done by th'usurping spright we find.
As witnesse may that maid in Saxony,
Who meanly born of rude unlearned kind,
Not taught to reade, yet Greek and Latine she
Could roundly speak and in those tongues did prophesie.

73

Timotheus sister down in childbed laid
Distur'b, all-phrantick thorough deadly pain
Tearing the clothes, which much her friends dismai'd,
Mumbling strange words as confus'd as her brain
At last was prov'd to speak Armenian.
For an old man that was by chance in town
And from his native soyle Armenia came
The woman having heard of his renown
Sent to this aged Sire to this sick wight to come.

74

Lo! now has entred the Armenian Sage
With scalp all bald, and skin all brown and brent,
The number of his wrinkles told his age.
A naked sword in his dry hand he hent.
Thus standing near her bed strong threats he sent
In his own language, and her fiercely chid.
But she well understanding what he meant
Unto his threats did bold defiance bid.
Ne could his vaunts as yet the sturdy spirit rid.

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75

Then gan he sternely speak and heave his hond
And feign'd himself enrag'd with hasty ire
As ready for to strike with flaming brond,
But she for fear shrunk back and did retire
Into her bed and gently did respire,
Muttering few easie words in sleepy wise.
So now whom erst tumultuous thoughts did tire
Compas'd to rest doth sweetly close her eyes,
Then wak'd, what her befell, in sober mood descryes.

76

Now, Thrax! thy Story adde of Alytas
Who got his freind into a Mountain high
Where he with him the loansome night did passe
In Stygian rites and hellish mystery.
First twiches up an herb that grew thereby,
Gives him to taste, then doth his eyes besmear
With uncouth salves, wherewith all suddenly
Legions of spirits flying here and there
Around their cursed heads do visibly appear.

77

Lastly into his mouth with filthy spaul
He spot, which done, a spirit like a Daw
His mouth did enter, and possessed all
His inward parts. From that time he gan know
Many secret things, and could events foreshow.
This was his guerdon this his wicked wage
From the inwoning of that Stygian Crow.
But who can think this bird did so engage
With flesh that he no'te scape the ruin of the cage.

78

No more do souls of men. For stories sayen
Well known 'mongst countrey folk, our spirits fly,
From twixt our lips, and thither back again,
Sometimes like Doves, sometime like to a Bee,
And sometime in their bodyes shape they be;
But all this while their carkase lyes asleep
Drown in dull rest sen of mortality;
At last these shapes return'd do slily creep
Into their mouth, then the dead clouds away they wipe.

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79

Nor been these stories all but Countrey fictions.
For such like things even learned Clerks do write,
Of brasen sleep and bodi's derelictions.
That Proconnesian Sage that Atheus hight
Did oft himself of this dull body quit,
His soul then wandring in the easie aire.
But as to smoking lamp but lately light
The flame catch'd by the reek descends from farre,
So would his soul at last to his warm blood repair.

80

And Hermotime the Clazomenian
Would in like sort his body leave alone,
And view with naked soul both Hill and Plain
And secret Groves and every Region,
That he could tell what far and near was done:
But his curs'd foes the fell Cantharidæ
Assault his house when he was far from home,
Burn down to ashes his forsaken clay.
So may his wandring ghost for ever freely stray:

81

And 'tis an art well known to Wizards old
And wily Hags, who oft for fear and shame
Of the coarse halter, do themselves with-hold
From bodily assisting their night game.
Wherefore their carkasses at home retain.
But with their soules at those bad feasts they are,
And see their friends and call them by their name
And dance around the Goat and sing, har, har,
And kisse the Devils breech and taste his deadly chear.

82

A many stories to this purpose might
Be brought of men that in this Ecstacy
So senselesse ly that coales laid to their feet
Nor nips nor whips can make them ope their eye.
Then of a sudden when this fit's gone by,
They up and with great confidence declare
What things they heard and saw both far and nie,
Professing that their souls unbodied were
And roam'd about the earth in Countries here and there.

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83

And to confirm the truth of this strange flight
They oft bring home a letter or a ring
At their return, from some far distant wight
Well known to friends that have the ordering
Of their forsaken corps that no live thing
Do tread or touch't, so safely may their spright
Spend three whole dayes in airy wandering.
A feat that's often done through Magick might,
By the Norvegian Hags as learned Authors write.

84

But now well wearied with our too long stay
In these Cimmerian fogs and hatefull mists
Of Ghosts of Goblins and drad sorcery,
From nicer allegations we'll desist.
Enough is said to prove that souls dismist
From these grosse bodies may be cloth'd in air
Scape free (although they did not præexist,)
And in these airy orbs feel, see, and hear
And moven as they list as did by proof appear.

85

But that in some sort souls do præexist
Seems to right reason nothing dissonant
Sith all souls both of trees, of men and beast
Been indivisible; And all do grant
Of humane souls though not of beast and plant:
But I elsewhere, I think, do gainly prove
That souls of beasts, by reasons nothing scant,
Be individuous, ne care to move
This question of a new, mens patiences to prove.

86

But if mens souls be individuous
How can they ought from their own substance shed?
In generation there's nought flows from us
Saving grosse sperm yspent in Nuptiall bed
Drain'd from all parts throughout the body spred,
And well concocted where me list not name.
But no conveyances there be that lead
To the souls substance, whereby her they drain
Of loosened parts, a young babe-soul from thence to gain.

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87

Wherefore who thinks from souls new souls to bring
The same let presse the Sunne beams in his fist
And squeez out drops of light, or strongly wring
The Rainbow, till it die his hands, well prest.
Or with uncessant industry persist
Th'intentionall species to mash and bray
In marble morter, till he has exprest
A sovereigne eye-salve to discern a Fay.
As easily as the first all these effect you may.

88

Ne may queint similies this fury damp
Which say that our souls propagation
Is as when lamp we lighten from a lamp.
Which done withouten diminution
Of the first light, shows how the soul of man
Though indivisible may another rear
Imparting life. But if we rightly scan
This argument, it cometh nothing near.
To light the lamp's to kindle the sulphurious gear.

89

No substance new that act doth then produce
Onely the oyly atomes 't doth excite
And wake into a flame, but no such use
There is of humane sperm. For our free sprite
Is not the kindled seed, but substance quite
Distinct therefrom. If not, then bodies may
So changed be by nature and stiff fight
Of hungry stomacks, that what erst was clay
Then herbs, in time it self in sense may well display.

90

For then our soul can nothing be but bloud
Or nerves or brains, or body modifide.
Whence it will follow that cold stopping crud,
Hard moldy cheese, dry nuts, when they have rid
Due circuits through the heart at last shall speed
Of life and sense, look thorough our thin eyes
And view the Close wherein the Cow did feed
Whence they were milk'd, grosse Pie-crust will grow wise,
And pickled Cucumbers sans doubt Philosophize.

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91

This all will follow if the soul be nought
But the live body. For mens bodies feed
Of such grosse meat. and if more fine be brought,
Suppose Snipes heads, Larks heels for Ladies meet
The broth of Barly, or that oily Sweet
Of th'unctious Grape, yet all men must confesse
These be as little capable of wit
And sense, nor can be so transform'd, I wisse.
Therefore no soul of man from seed traducted is.

92

Ne been they by th'high God then first create
When in this earthly mansion they appear.
For why should he so soon contaminate
So unspotted beauties as mens spirits are
Flinging them naked into dunghills here?
Soyl them with guilt and foul contagion?
When as in his own hand they spotlesse were
Till by an uncouth strange infusion
He plung'd them in the deep of Malediction.

93

Besides unworthily he doth surmise
Of Gods pure being and bright Majesty
Who unto such base offices him ties,
That He must wait on lawlesse Venery
Not onely by that large Causality
Of generall influence (for Creation
More speciall concourse all men deem to be)
But on set purpose He must come anon,
And ratifie the act which oft men wish undone.

94

Which is a rash and shamelesse bad conceit,
So might they name the brat Adeodatus,
What ever they in lawlesse love beget.
Again, what's still far more prodigious
When men are stung with fury poysonous
And burn with flames of lust toward brute beasts,
And overcome into conjunction rush,
He then from that foul act is not releast,
Creates a soul misplacing the unhappy guest.

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95

Wherefore mans soul's not by Creation.
Nor is it generate as I prov'd before.
Wherefore let 't be by emanation
(If fully it did not præexist of yore)
By flowing forth from that eternall store
Of Lives and souls ycleep'd the World of life,
Which was, and shall endure for evermore.
Hence done all bodies vitall fire derive
And matter never lost catch life and still revive.

96

And what has once sprout out doth never cease
If it enjoy it self, a spray to be
Distinct and actuall, though if God please
He can command it into th'ancient tree.
This immense Orb of wast vitality
With all its Lives and Souls is every where,
And do's, where matter right prepar'd doth lie,
Impart a soul, as done the sunne beams clear
Insinuate themselves, where filth doth not debarre.

97

Thus may the souls in long succession
Leap out into distinct activity:
But sooth to say though this opinion
May seem right fair and plausible to be
Yet toils it under an hard difficulty.
Each where this Orb of life's with every soul;
Which doth imply the souls ubiquity.
Or if the whole Extent of Natures's full
Of severall souls thick set, what may the furthest pull?

98

What may engage them to descend so low
Remov'd farre from the steam of earthly mire?
My wits been here too scant and faith too slow.
Ne longer lists my wearied thoughts to tire.
Let bolder spirits to such hight aspire.
But well I wote, if there admitted were
A præexistency of souls entire,
And due Returns in courses circular
This course all difficulties with ease away would bear.

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99

For then suppose they wore an airy sphear
Which choise or Nemesis suck'd lower down,
Thus without doubt they'll leave their carcase clear;
Like dispossessed spright when death doth come
And by rude exorcisme bids quit the room.
Ne let these intricacies perplex our mind
That we forget that ere we saw the sunne
Before this life. For who can call to mind
Where first he here saw sunne or felt the gentle wind.

100

Besides what wonder is 't, when fierce disease
Can so empair the strongest memory,
That so full change should make our spirits leese
What 'fore they had impress'd in phantasie.
Nor doth it follow thence that when we die
We nought retain of what pass'd in these dayes.
For Birth is Death, Death Life and Liberty.
The soul's not thence contract but there displayes
Her loosened self, doth higher all her powers raise.

101

Like to a light fast lock'd in lanthorn dark
Whereby, by night our wary steps we guide
In slabby streets, and dirty channels mark,
Some weaker rayes through the black top do glide,
And flusher streams perhaps from horny side.
But when we've past the perill of the way
Arriv'd at home, and laid that case aside,
The naked light how clearly doth it ray
And spread its joyfull beams as bright as Summers day.

102

Even so the soul in this contracted state
Confin'd to these strait instruments of sense
More dull and narrowly doth operate.
At this hole hears, the sight must ray from thence,
Here tasts, there smels; But when she's gone from hence,
Like naked lamp she is one shining sphear.
And round about has perfect cognoscence
What ere in her Horizon doth appear.
She is one Orb of sense, all eye, all airy ear.

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103

Now have I well establish'd the fourth way
The souls of men from stupid sleep to save,
First Light, next Night, the third the soules Self-ray
Fourth the souls Chariot we named have
Whether moist air or fire all sparkling brave
Or temper mixt. Now how these foure agree,
And how the soul her self may dip and lave
In each by turns; how no redundancy
Ther's in them, might we tell, nor scant deficiency.

104

But cease my restlesse Muse be not too free,
Thy chiefest end thou hast accomplished
Long since, shak'd of the Psychopannychie
And rouz'd the soul from her dull drowsiehed.
So nothing now in death is to be dred
Of him that wakes to truth and righteousnesse.
The corps lies here, the soul aloft is fled
Unto the fount of perfect happinesse.
Full freedome joy and peace she lively doth possesse.