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 | Poems by Robert Gomersall |  |
Our Levite wakes, but stretching out an arme
He feels no body, no, nor no place warme
To prove she had beene there, he thinkes 'tmay be
No vision, but a birth of Phantasie:
An issue of a troubled braine that fram'd
Formes to it selfe which Nature hath not nam'd:
Have I not slaine enough he sayes, but still
Is it my office and my curse to kill?
Twas but a dreame injoyn'd me to be bad,
A dreame, a vapour, and am I so mad
For nothing to be monstrous, and commit
A crime, that men shall feare to dreame of it!
But can I disobey what it hath pleas'd
Heav'n to command me? O how I am ceaz'd
With strange extremes! nor readily can tell
Whether this Revelation should dwell
Clos'd in my brest; or whether I goe on
As counting it a Revelation:
There may be guilty silence, if we feare
In the affaire of heaven to wound an eare
With threatning Rhetoricke; this will not be
Excus'd by a pretence of modesty:
Rather twill prove the judgement of just heav'n,
We shall receive the doome we should have giv'n,
He feels no body, no, nor no place warme
To prove she had beene there, he thinkes 'tmay be
No vision, but a birth of Phantasie:
An issue of a troubled braine that fram'd
Formes to it selfe which Nature hath not nam'd:
Have I not slaine enough he sayes, but still
Is it my office and my curse to kill?
Twas but a dreame injoyn'd me to be bad,
A dreame, a vapour, and am I so mad
For nothing to be monstrous, and commit
A crime, that men shall feare to dreame of it!
But can I disobey what it hath pleas'd
Heav'n to command me? O how I am ceaz'd
65
Whether this Revelation should dwell
Clos'd in my brest; or whether I goe on
As counting it a Revelation:
There may be guilty silence, if we feare
In the affaire of heaven to wound an eare
With threatning Rhetoricke; this will not be
Excus'd by a pretence of modesty:
Rather twill prove the judgement of just heav'n,
We shall receive the doome we should have giv'n,
| Poems by Robert Gomersall | |