The poetical works of William Strode ... Now first collected from manuscript and printed sources: to which is added: The floating island a tragi-comedy: Now first reprinted from the original edition of 1655: Edited by Bertram Dobell with a memoir of the author |
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TO MR. RIVES UPPON HIS RECOVERY |
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 | The poetical works of William Strode |  |
TO MR. RIVES UPPON HIS RECOVERY
Welcome abroad, O welcome from your bedd,I joy to see you thus delivered:
After fower yeares in travell, issues forth,
A birth of lasting wonder, whereat truth
Might well suspect herselfe; a new disease
Borne to advance the Surgeons of our dayes
Above all others: a perfidious bone
Eaten and underminde by humours growne
Lodg'd in the captive thigh, which first of any
Halted, though furnisht with a bone too many.
No Golgotha, nor Charnell house, nor feild,
If all were searcht, could such another yeild;
A bone so lockt and hugg'd in as a barr
That back and forwards may be wrested farr,
96
The cunning workman come to't as hee would:
Crosse veynes did guard the soare, a hollow cave
Must wade into the flesh: the surgeon's grave
Thus being digg'd the file with harshe delay
Must grate the bone, and carve those chippes away.
Blest be the midmen, whose dexteritie
Pull'd out a birth, like Bacchus, from the thigh;
Tutors of nature, whose well guided arte
Can rectifie her wants in every part;
Who by preserving others pay the debt
They owe to nature, and doe re-begett
Her strength growne ruinate. I could be gladd
Such liv'd the dayes which they to others add.
I cannot rightly tell the happier man,
The patient or the surgeon; doe but scan
His praise, thy ease: twas sure an Extasie
That kill'd Van-Otto, not a Lethargie;
Striving to crowne his worke, he mainly tryde
His last and greatest case, then gladly dyde.
Bernard must tarry longer, should hee flye
After his brother all the world must dye,
Or live a Cripple. Griffith's happie fate
Requires the same hands still to itterate
No lesse a miracle: the Joyners skill
Could never mend his carved pate so well
As hee hath heald a naturall; the stout
And boasting Paracelsus who gives out
His rules can give man's life eternitie
Would faintly doubt of this recovery.
97
As well of scrappes make upp a perfect man.
O had you seene his marrowe dropp away,
Or the others brayne start out, then would you say
Nothing could cure this fracture or that bone
Save Bernard or the Ressurection.
Stand, honest Rives, stand up and looke about,
Behold thine enemie, the bone, is out:
Now smile upon thy torment, pretty thing,
How will you use it? Carry't in a ring
Like a death's head, or send it to the grave,
An earnest of the body it must have;
Or if you will you may the same translate
Into a dye because twas fortunate.
The ring were best; tis like a Dyamond borne
Out of a Rock, soe was it hewne and torne
Out of your thigh: the gemme worth nothing is
Untill it be cutt out, no more was this.
Happie are they that knowe what treasure tis
To finde lost health, they onely feele true blisse.
Thou that hast felt these panges maist well mayntaine
Man's greatest pleasure is but want of payne:
Enjoy thyselfe, for nothing worse can come
To one so schoold and versd in martyrdome.
| The poetical works of William Strode | |