Woe is to me! that I remaine in Meshech and dwell in Tents of Kedar.
Is Natures course dissolv'd? Does Times glasse stand?
Or has some frolick heart set back the hand
Of Fates pepetuall Clock? Wil't never strike?
Is crazy Time growne lazy, faint, or sick
With very Age? Or has that great Purroyall
Of Adamantine sisters late made tryall
Of some new Trade? Shall mortall hearts grow old
In sorrow? Shall my weary Armes infold
And underprop may panting sides for ever?
Is there no charitable hand will sever
My well-spun Thred, that my imprison'd soule
May be deliver'd from this dull dark hole
Of dungeon flesh? O shall I, shall I never
Be ransom'd, but remaine a slave for ever?
It is the Lot of man but once to die,
But ere that death, how many deaths have I?
To entertaine heav'ns joy? because conveigh'd
By the hand of death? Will nakednesse refuse
Rich change of robes, because the man's not spruise
That bought them? Or will Poverty send back
Full bags of gold, because the bringer's black?
Life is Bubble, blowne with whining breaths,
Fil'd with the torments of a thousand death's;
Which, being prickt by death (while death deprives
One life) presents the soule a thousand lives:
O frantick mortal; how has earth bewitch'd
Thy bedlam soule, which has so fondly pitch'd
Upon her false delights! Delights, that cease
Before enjoyment finds a time to please;
Her fickle joyes breed doubtfull feares; her feares
Being hopefull Griefes; her griefes weep fearfull teares,
Tears coyne deceitfull hopes; hopes, carefull doubt,
And surly passion justles passion out:
To day, we pamper with a full repast
Of lavish mirth; at night, we weepe as fast:
To night we swim in wealth, and lend; To morrow,
We sink in want, and find no friend to borrow:
In what a Climat does my soule reside!
Where pale-fac'd Murther, the first-borne of pride,
Sets up her kingdome in the very smiles,
And plighted faiths of men-like Crocadiles;
A land, where each embroydred Sattin word
Is lin'd with Fraud; where Mars his lawlesse sword
Exiles Astraeas Balance; where that hand
Now slayes his brother, that new-sow'd his land:
O that my dayes of bondage would expire
In this lewd Soyle! Lord, how my Soule's on fire
To be dissolv'd! that I might once obtaine
These long'd for joyes, long'd for, so oft, in vaine!
If Moses-like, I may not live possest
Of this faire land; LORD, let me see't, at least.
S. AUGUST. Soliloq. Cap. 2.
My life is a fraile life; a corruptible life; A life, which the more increases,
the more decreases: The farther it goes, the nearer it comes to death: A
deceitfull life, and like a shadow; full of the snares of death: Now I rejoyce;
now I languish; now I flourish; now infirme; now I live, and straight I die; now
I seeme happy, alwayes miserab; le, now I laugh, now I weepe: Thus all things are
subject to mutability, that nothing continues an houre in one state: O Joy above
Joy, exceeding all Joy, without which there is no Joy, when shall I enter into
thee, that I may see my God that dwels in thee?
