Poems, Elegies, Paradoxes, and Sonets :: :: University of Virginia Library

VVell did the Prophet ask, Lord what is man?
Implying by the question none can
But God resolve the doubt, much less define
What Elements this child of dust combine.

Man is a stranger to himself, and knowes
Nothing so naturally as his woes.
He loves to travel countreys, and confer
The sides of Heavens vast Diameter:
Delights to sit in Nile or Bœtis lap,
Before he hath sayl'd over his own Map;
By which means he returnes, his travel spent,
Less knowing of himself then when he went.
Who knowledge hunt kept under forrein locks,
May bring home wit to hold a Paradox,
Yet be fools still. Therefore might I advise,
I would inform the soul before the eyes:
Make man into his proper Opticks look,
And so become the student and the book

142

With his conception, his first leaf, begin;
What is he there but complicated sin?
When riper time, and the approaching birth
Ranks him among the creatures of the earth,
His wailing mother sends him forth to greet
The light, wrapt in a bloudy winding sheet;
As if he came into the world to crave
No place to dwell in, but bespeak a grave.

Thus like a red and tempest-boading morn
His dawning is: for being newly born
He hayles th' ensuing storm with shrieks and cryes,
And fines for his admission with wet eyes:

How should that Plant whose leaf is bath'd in tears
Bear but a bitter fruit in elder years?
Just such is this, and his maturer age
Teems with event more sad then the presage.
For view him higher, when his childhoods span
Is raised up to Youths Meridian;
When he goes proudly laden with the fruit
Which health, or strength, or beauty contribute;
Yet as the mounted Canon batters down
The Towres and goodly structures of a town:

143

So one short sickness will his force defeat,
And his frail Cittadell to rubbish beat.
How does a dropsie melt him to a floud,
Making each vein run water more then bloud?
A Chollick wracks him like a Northern gust,
And raging feavers crumble him to dust.
In which unhappy state he is made worse
By his diseases then his makers curse.
God said in toyl and sweat he should earn bread,
And without labour not be nourished:
Here, though like ropes of falling dew, his sweat
Hangs on his lab'ring brow, he cannot eat.

Thus are his sins scourg'd in opposed themes,
And luxuries reveng'd by their extremes.
He who in health could never be content
With Rarities fetcht from each Element,
Is now much more afflicted to delight
His tasteless Palate, and lost appetite.

Besides though God ordain'd, that with the light
Man should begin his work, yet he made night
For his repose, in which the weary sense
Repaires it self by rests soft recompence.

144

But now his watchful nights, and troubled dayes
Confused heaps of fear and fancy raise.
His chamber seems a loose and trembling mine;
His Pillow quilted with a Porcupine:
Pain makes his downy Couch sharp thornes appear,
And ev'ry feather prick him like a spear.
Thus when all forms of death about him keep,
He copies death in any form but sleep.

Poor walking-clay! hast thou a mind to know
To what unblest beginnings thou dost ow
Thy wretched self? fall sick a while, and than
Thou wilt conceive the pedigree of Man.
Learn shalt thou from thine own Anatomie,
That earth his mother, wormes his sisters be.
That he's a short-liv'd vapour upward wrought,
And by corruption unto nothing brought.
A stagg'ring Meteor by cross Planets beat,
Which often reeles and falles before his set:
A tree which withers faster then it growes;
A torch puff't out by ev'ry wind that blowes;
A web of fourty weekes spun forth in pain,
And in a moment ravell'd out again.

145

This is the Model of frail man: Then say
That his duration's onely for a day:
And in that day more fits of changes pass,
Then Atomes run in the turn'd Hower-glass.

So that th' incessant cares which life invade
Might for strong truth their heresie perswade,
Who did maintain that humane soules are sent
Into the body for their punishment:
At least with that Greek Sage still make us cry,

Non nasci, aut quàm citissimè mori.

Not to be born, or being born to dy.

But Faith steers up to a more glorious scope,
Which sweetens our sharp passage; and firm hope
Anchors our torne Barks on a blessed shore,
Beyond the Dead sea we here ferry o're.
To this, Death is our Pilot, and disease
The Agent which solicites our release.

Though crosses then poure on my restless head,
Or lingring sickness nail me to my bed:
Let this my Thoughts eternall comfort bee,
That my clos'd eyes a better light shall see.

146

And when by fortunes or by natures stroke
My bodies earthen Pitcher must be broke,
My Soul, like Gideons lamp, from her crackt urn
Shall Deaths black night to endlesse lustre turn: