University of Virginia Library

Death, my lifes Mistress, and the soveraign Queen
Of all that ever breath'd, though yet unseen,
My heart doth love you best, yet I confess,
Your picture I beheld, which doth express
No such eye-taking beauty, you seem lean,
Unless you'r mended since. Sure he did mean
No honour to you, that did draw you so;
Therefore I think it false: Besides, I know
The picture, Nature drew, (which sure's the best)
Doth figure you by sleep and sweetest rest:
Sleep, nurse of our life, care's best reposer,
Natures high'st rapture, and the vision giver:
Sleep, which when it doth seize us, souls go play,
And make Man equal as he was first day.
Yet some will say, Can pictures have more life
Then the original? To end this strife,
Sweet Mistress come, and shew your self to me,
In your true form, while then I think to see
Some beauty Angelick, that comes t'unlock
My bodies prison, and from life unyoke
My well divorced soul, and set it free,
To liberty eternal: Thus you see,
I find the Painters error, and protect
Your absent beauties, ill drawn, by th' effect:
For grant it were your work, and not the Graves,
Draw Love by Madness then, Tyrants by Slaves,
Because they make men such. Dear Mistress, then
If you would not be seen by owl-ey'd Men,
Appear at noon i'th' Air, with so much light,
The Sun may be a Moon, the Day a Night.
Clear to my Soul, but dark'ning the weak sense
Of those, the other Worlds Cimmeriens.
And in your fatal Robe, imbroidered
With Starr-characters, teaching me to read
The destiny of Mortals, while your clear brow
Presents a Majesty, to instruct me how
To love or dread nought else: May your bright hair,
Which are the threds of life, fair crown'd appear
With that your Crown of Immortality:
In your right hand the Keys of Heaven be;
In th' other those of the Infernal Pit,
Whence none retires, if once he enter it.
And here let me complain, how few are those
Whose souls you shall from earth's vast dungeon lose
To endless happiness? few that attend
You, the true Guide, unto their journeys end:
And if old Vertue's way narrow were,
'Tis rugged now, having no passenger.
Our life is but a dark and stormy night,
To which sense yields a weak and glimmering light;
While wandring Man thinks he discerneth all,
By that which makes him but mistake and fall:
He sees enough, who doth his darkness see;
These are great lights, by which less dark'ned be.
Shine then Sun-bright, or through my senses vail,
A day-star of the light doth never fail;
Shew me that Goodness which compounds the strife
'Twixt a long sickness and a weary life.
Set forth that Justice which keeps all in aw,
Certain and equal more then any Law.
Figure that happy and eternal Rest,
Which till Man do enjoy, he is not blest.
Come and appear then, dear Soul-ravisher,
Heav'ns lightest Usher, Man's deliverer,
And do not think, when I new beauties see,
They can withdraw my settled love from thee.
Flesh-beauty strikes me not at all, I know,
When thou do'st leave them to the grave, they show
Worse, then they now show thee: they shal not move
In me the least part of delight, or love,
But as they teach your power: Be the nut brown
The loveliest colour which the flesh doth crown:
I'll think it like a Nut, a fair outside,
Within which Worms and rottenness abide:
If fair, then like the Worm it self to be;
If painted, like their slime and sluttery.
If any yet will think their beauties best,
And will, against you, spite of all, contest,
Seize them with Age: so in themselves they'l hate
What they scorn'd in your picture, and too late
See their fault, and the Painters: Yet if this,
Which their great'st plague and wrinkled torture is,
Please not, you may to the more wicked sort,
Or such as of your praises make a sport,
Denounce an open warr, send chosen bands
Of Worms, your souldiers, to their fairest hands,
And make them lep'rous-scabb'd: upon their face
Let those your Pioneers, Ring-worms take their place,
And safely near with strong approaches got
Intrench it round, while their teeths rampire rot
With other Worms, may with a damp inbred
Sink to their senses, which they shall not dead:
And thus may all that e'r they prided in,
Confound them now: As for the parts within,
Send Gut-worms, which may undermine a way
Unto their vital parts, and so display
That your pale Ensign on the walls: then let
Those Worms, your Veteranes, which never yet
Did fail, enter Pel mel, and ransack all,
Just as they see the well-rais'd building fall:
While they do this, your Forragers command,
The Caterpillars, to devour their land;
And with them Wasps, your wing'd-worm-horsmen, bring,
To charge, in troop, those Rebels, with their sting:
All this, unless your beauty they confess.

And now, sweet Mistress, let m' a while digress,
T'admire these noble Worms, whom I invoke,
And not the Muses: You that eat through Oak
And bark, will you spare Paper, and my Verse,
Because your praises they do here reherse?

Brave Legions then, sprung from the mighty race
Of Man corrupted, and which hold the place
Of his undoubted Issue; you that are
Brain-born, Minerva-like, and like her warr,
Well-arm'd compleat-mail'd-jointed Souldiers,
Whose force Herculean links in pieces tears;
To you the vengeance of all spill-bloods falls,
Beast-eating Men, Men-eating Cannibals.
Death priviledg'd, were you in sunder smit
You do not lose your life, but double it:
Best framed types of the immortal Soul,
Which in your selves, and in each part are whole:
Last-living Creatures, heirs of all the earth,
For when all men are dead, it is your birth:
When you dy, your brave self-kill'd Generall
(For nothing else can kill him) doth end all.
What vermine breeding body then thinks scorn,
His flesh should be by your brave fury torn.

Willing, to you, this Carkass I submit,
A gift so free, I do not care for it:
Which yet you shall not take, untill I see
My Mistress first reveal her self to me.

Mean while, Great Mistress, whom my soul admires,
Grant me your true picture, who it desires,
That he your matchless beauty might maintain
'Gainst all men that will quarrels entertain
For a Flesh-Mistress, the worst I can do,
Is but to keep the way that leads to you,
And howsoever the event doth prove,
To have Revenge below, Reward above;
Hear, from my bodies prison, this my Call,
Who from my mouth-grate, and eye-window bawl.