Fovre bookes of Du Bartas I. The Arke, II. Babylon, III. The Colonnyes, IIII. The Columues or Pyllars: In French and English, for the Instrvction and Pleasvre of Svch as Delight in Both Langvages. By William Lisle ... Together with a large Commentary by S. G. S |
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Then thus he gan foretel. / The wauy territorie
Of people skalie-backt, / all this high vaulted story,
Wherein the thundring God / by his e'rlasting might
Hath placed sentinel / Sunne for day, Moone for night.
The highest Aire, the Mean / wherin the clouds do play,
And this below, the field / appointed for the fray
Of sturdie counterwinds / that with a roaring sound
Throw many a wood that stands / betwixt them, to the ground:
The flower-decked Inne / that lodgeth crazie Man,
Were all by th'awfull word / in six daies made, and than
Was hallowed the seuenth. / In like sort Earth, Sea, Aire,
And th'Azure-guilt that foldes / the world in curtaine faire,
Shall last six other daies, / but long and farre vnlike
The daies that Heauens bright eye / meates-out with golden strike.
That first begins at me, / the next at him that first
Inuented Ship, and taught / dry hills to slake his thirst
With cheerefull iuice of grapes: / the morning of the third,
Is he the mightie Groome / that led his flocke and heard
From home to follow God, / and sacrifizd his Sonne
By faith in heau'nly word / more than by reason woonne.
And he begins the fourth / that had the cannon-sling,
And changed hooke to mace, / great Prophet, Poet, King.
The fift a dismall day / beginneth at the night,
Of that disastrous King / whose last most-rufull sight
Was, of his children slaine, / and Iewes all droue in rankes,
To lead a slauish life / by fat Euphrates bankes.
The sixt daies Sunne is Christ, the Sauiour lookt-for long,
Who sinnelesse, yet for sinne of man is mockt, beat, hong,
Of people skalie-backt, / all this high vaulted story,
Wherein the thundring God / by his e'rlasting might
Hath placed sentinel / Sunne for day, Moone for night.
The highest Aire, the Mean / wherin the clouds do play,
And this below, the field / appointed for the fray
Of sturdie counterwinds / that with a roaring sound
Throw many a wood that stands / betwixt them, to the ground:
The flower-decked Inne / that lodgeth crazie Man,
Were all by th'awfull word / in six daies made, and than
Was hallowed the seuenth. / In like sort Earth, Sea, Aire,
And th'Azure-guilt that foldes / the world in curtaine faire,
Shall last six other daies, / but long and farre vnlike
The daies that Heauens bright eye / meates-out with golden strike.
That first begins at me, / the next at him that first
Inuented Ship, and taught / dry hills to slake his thirst
With cheerefull iuice of grapes: / the morning of the third,
Is he the mightie Groome / that led his flocke and heard
From home to follow God, / and sacrifizd his Sonne
By faith in heau'nly word / more than by reason woonne.
And he begins the fourth / that had the cannon-sling,
And changed hooke to mace, / great Prophet, Poet, King.
The fift a dismall day / beginneth at the night,
Of that disastrous King / whose last most-rufull sight
Was, of his children slaine, / and Iewes all droue in rankes,
To lead a slauish life / by fat Euphrates bankes.
2
Who sinnelesse, yet for sinne of man is mockt, beat, hong,
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