University of Virginia Library

CHAP. V. E

ELYSIUM.

You that delight in painted meads,
In silver brooks, in cooling shades,
In dancing, feasts, harmonious layes,
In Chrystall springs, and groves of bayes:
Draw neer, and I will let you see
A Tempe full of majesty,
Where neither white-hair'd Boreas snows,
Nor black-wing'd Auster ever blows;
But sweet-breath'd Zephyr still doth curl
The meads, and purest streams here purl
From silver springs which glide upon
Rich Pearl, and Orientall stone:
Here on the banks of Rivers grows
Each fruitfull tree, here Laurell groves
Ne're fade; here's a perpetuall spring,
With Nightingales the woods still ring:
Meads flourish here continually
In their sweet smelling Tapestry;
The Pink, the gilded Daffadilly,
The shame-fac'd Rose, the white cheek'd Lilly;
The Violet, the Columbine,
The Marigold, the Eglantine,
Rosemary, Time, and Gilli-flowers,
Grow without help of Sun or showers.
Vines still bear purple clusters here,
New wine aboundeth all the yeer.
The ground exhales that pleasant smell
Which doth all earthly sents excell,
And this place of it's own accord
Doth all these benefits afford:
There needs no husbandmen to toil,
And labour in this happy soil;
Rage, tyranny, oppression,
Fraud, malice, and ambition,
And avarice here are not known,
And coals of discord are not blown,
But in this blessed mansion
Dwels perfect love and union.
Here are no cares, nor fears, nor death,
Nor any pestilentiall breath
Which may infect that wholsom air,
But here's continuall dainty fare;
Ambrosia here on trees doth grow,
And cups with Nectar overflow;
Tables with flowry carpets spread,
Are still most richly furnished;
Drums, Trumpets, Canons roaring sounds
Are never heard within these bounds;
But sacred Songs, and Jubilees,
Timbrels, Organs, and Psalteries,
Sackbuts, Violins, and Flutes,
Harps, silver Symbals, solemn Lutes;
All these in one joyn'd harmony,
With Hallelujah's pierce the sky.
Here's neither night nor gloomy cloud
Which can that world in darknesse shroud;
But there's an everlasting day
Which knows no evening, or decay:
There shines a Sun, whose glorious fire
Shall not with length of time expire;
And who shall never set or fall
In Neptunes azure glassie hall.
Here are no birds or beasts of prey,
Here is no sicknesse nor decay,
Nor sorrow, hunger, infamy,
Nor want, nor any misery;
Nor silver-headed age, which bows
The back, and furrows up the brows:
But here's the ever-smiling prime,
Of youth, which shall not fade with time.
Mirth, plenty, glory, beauty, grace
And holinesse dwell in this place.
Such joys as yet hath never been
By mortals either heard or seen.
What tongue is able to rehearse,
What Muse can sing, or paint in verse
This place, to which all earthly joys
Compared, are but fading toys.
Sure, if I had a voice as shrill
As thunder, or had I a quill
Pluck't from an Angels pinion;
And if all tongues were joyn'd in one;
Yet could they not sufficiently
Expresse this places dignity:
Which golden feather'd Cherubims,
And fire-dispersing Seraphims
Have circled with their radiant wings,
To keep away all hurtfull things.
O thou whose glory ne'r decayes,
When these my short and evil dayes
Are vanish'd like a dream or shade,
Or like the grasse, and flowers that fade;
Lord let my soul have then accesse
Unto that endlesse happinesse,
Where thy blest saints with warbling tongues
Are chanting still celestiall songs;
Where winged quiresters thy praise
Still Caroll forth with heavenly layes:
When shall my bondage Lord expire,
That I may to that place retire?
When shall I end this pilgrimage?
When wilt thou ope this fleshly cage,
This prison, and this house of clay,
That hence my soul may fly away?
Untye the chains, with which so fast
I'm bound, and make me free at last;
And draw aside this Canopie
Which keeps me from the sight of thee;
Lord let me first see thee by grace
Here; then, hereafter face to face.

ENDYMEON.

What means the Moon, to dote so much upon
The fair Endymeon?
Or why should man forsake his Soveraign good,
To catch an empty cloud?
From heaven shall any man for riches fall,
And lose his soul and all?
How can we sleep in such security,
As that we cannot see
Our dangers, nor that lamp, whose silver ray
Drives black-fac'd night away?
What madnesse is't for thee to lose thy share
Of heaven, for bubling air
Of honour, or of popular applause,
Which doth but envie cause,
And which is nothing but an empty winde,
That cannot fill the minde;
How changable is man in all his wayes,
Now grows, anon decayes;
Now cleere, then dark, now hates, anon affects,
Still changing his aspects.
Much like the Moon, who runs a wandring race,
And still doth change her face.
But Lord give me strait paths, and grant to me
The gift of constancie:
And quench in me, I pray, the sinfull fire
Of lust, and vain desire.
Be thou the onely object of my soul,
And free me from the hole
Of ignorance and dead security;
O when shall I once see
The never fading lustre of thy light,
To chace away my night;
The golden beauty of thy countenance
To clear my conscience.
O Lord, thou cam'st to rouze Endymeon
Out of his dungeon,
Wrapp'd in the black vail of Chimerian night,
Who could not see the light
Of Moon or Star, untill thou didst display
Thy all-victorious ray;
Brighter then is fair Phœbe's glitt'ring face,
Which is the nights chief grace,
Whose silver light, as sometimes it does wain,
And then it primes again:
So was thy flesh eclipsed from it's light
By Pluto's horrid night,
And muffled for a while from that bright eye
Of thy Divinity.
But when black deaths interposition
Was overcome and gone,
The silver orb of thy humanity
Did shine more gloriously,
Then when the white-fac'd empresse of the night
Shines by her brothers light.
O rouze me from my drousinesse, that I
May see thy radient eye
Which pierceth all hearts with its golden beams,
From which such glory streams
That all the winged Legions admire;
Lord warm me with thy fire,
And stamp the favour of thy lips on mine,
Whose love exceeds new wine;
Then will I sing uncessantly thy praise,
And to thy honour will due Trophees raise.

ERYCHTHONIUS.

EUMENIDES.

See how the grim-fac'd hags from Hells black lake
Ascend, and all their hissing tresses shake:
They look as fearfull as their mother night,
Their black flam'd torches yeeld a dismall light:
Who rais'd these monsters from hot Phlegeton,
These ghastly daughters of sad Acharon
To torture men; hark how their lashes sound,
See how they poyson men, and burn and wound.
Alas, we can accuse none but our selves,
We are the raisers of these dreadfull elves,
And we'r the cause of all the misery
That fals on us and our posterity.
Our sin, alas, procures us all our woe,
Sin makes our dearest friend our greatest foe:
Almighty God, whose high-born progeny
We are, is now become our enemy,
And he gives way to these infernall hounds
To roame abroad, and rage beyond their bounds.
Gold-fingred avarice, with yawning jaws,
And piercing eyes, and ever-scraping claws:
Whose heart like bird-lime clings to every thing
It sees, and still is poor in coveting:
Flyes over all, and which (the more's the pitie)
Hath poyson'd both the Country and the City;
A greedy dog, that's never fill'd with store,
But eating still, and barking still for more.
The cryes and grones of poor men wrong'd, can tell
That this devouring fury came from hell.
Then pale-fac'd, squint-ey'd, black-mouth'd envie flyes,
And with her sable wings beats out mens eyes,
That they cannot on vertues glitt'ring gold
Look cheerfully, nor good mens works behold.
Like Owls they see by night, black spots they spy,
Then run their tongues on wheels of obloquy,
But have not eyes to see the shining day
Of goodnesse; nor good words have they to say.
This fury is the bane of each good action,
And is the spightfull mother of detraction:
She blasts the buds and blossomes of true worth,
And chokes all brave atchievements in their birth.
Her pestilentiall breath, her murth'ring eye,
Her slandring tongue which goodnesse doth belye;
Her whip, and torch, and crawling looks can tell,
That she's one of those hags that came from hell.
Then raging anger with a scarlet face,
And flaming eyes, and feet that run apace
To shed mans blood, who for a harmlesse word
Will make thy heart a scabberd for her sword;
Whose heart is alwayes boyling in her brest,
And whose revengefull thoughts are ne're at rest.
The panting breath, the trembling lip, the eyes
Sparkling with fire, the grones and hideous cryes:
The stammering tongue, the stamping foot of those
That are possess'd with these infernall foes,
May let us see, that when there's so much ire
Without, the heart within is set on fire.
By that sulphurious torch of Tisiphon,
Kindled with flames of fiery Phlegeton;
The cry of so much blood shed in this age,
Doth shew how much these hellish monsters rage.
These are the hellish furies, but from them
Swarm multitudes, which now I cannot name;
As pride, theft, lust, bribes, rapes, ambition,
And sacriledge, drunkennesse, oppression:
And thousands more which I cannot rehearse,
And, if I could, I would not put in verse
This damned crue; these furies causes are
That we are scourg'd, with famine, plague, and war:
Famine with meagre cheeks, and hollow eyes,
Lank belly, feeble knees, and withred thighs,
Doth often by th'Almighties just command,
Rage, roare, and domineer within our land.
The wasting plague with sudden unseen darts
Invades the stourest, and assaults their hearts;
And with a secret fire dryes up the bloud,
And carries all before her like a flood.
How often doth this spotted fury rage,
With pale-fac'd horrour on this mortall stage,
And makes our Towns and Cities desolate,
And doth whole countries too depopulate:
But War the barbarous mistresse of disorders,
How doth she rage within our Christian borders?
Good God, who can without a briny flood
Of tears, behold the losse of so much bloud?
Who can, but such whose hearts are made of stones,
Hear (with dry eyes) the mournfull sighs and grones,
The screechings, yellings, roarings of all ages,
Weltring in blood, where this grim monster rages:
Temples profan'd, maids ravish'd, Cities raz'd,
And glory of Christs kingdom thus defac'd;
Where ought to raign peace and tranquillity,
With love, and goodnesse, truth, and civility.
And then to see the Turk that barbarous Lord,
Inlarge his horned Moon by our discord,
And daily to insult on Christs poor sheep,
These things would make a Niobe to weep.
O turn for shame your fratricidall swords
Into the sides of those proud Scythian Lords,
Who rais'd themselves by our unhappy fall,
And now aim at the ruine of us all.
Recover once again your ancient glories,
And make your valour Themes of future stories.
Alas, I may with tears expresse my grief,
Which hath a tongue to speak, but no relief:
Except, O thou that art the God of wars,
Compose in time our too too civill jars.
We grant, O Lord, thy plagues we have deserved,
Who have so often from thy precepts swerved;
And that of thee we should be quite forlorn,
And be the objects of contempt and scorn:
But Lord, let not thy wrath for ever burn,
Remember those that now in Sion mourn:
And save us though we have deserv'd thy stroke,
And keep us from the proud imperious yoke
Of Ottomans, who like dogs lap our blood,
And take our flesh like Canibals for food.
And Lord preserve in constant union
The little world of this our Albion;
Inlarge his life, who doth inlarge our peace,
And make his glory with his life increase:
That being mounted on the wings of fame,
This age may see his worth, the next admire his name.