 | Poesis Rediviva |  |
4
On the Soul.
Enigma to the Philosopher and divine;All the souls effects, none can the soul define.
All say the soul immortall, none do prove:
Nor life, nor arguments a belief can move.
How can the soul an act of the body be,
Which to the body gives existencie?
If out of matter souls result? can we
In natural souls prove immortalitie?
Or him who saies mankind hath one controul,
Since every species can have but one soul?
If the soul's infus'd, how shares it Adams sin?
How with divinities the sin of flesh serv'd in?
Or who in all ith shapes of men here move
Can souls that rational, or immortal prove?
Each species may give souls of grouth, and sense:
Vital and animal functions may dispence
Without infusion: wise as Banks his horse;
Then whom few better, we find many worse.
Who knows himself, knows all; hee's wise indeed,
Who can retire within, and himself read.
Unhinging wiser brains shall nere stretch mine:
What's the soul I care not Lord, so it be thine.
Whether the soul's traduced or infus'd,
It not concerns, but how by passions us'd.
Whom flesh doth rule can't what is soul is know,
Who'd know't with God must in acquaintance grow.
What is it Lord? 'tis thine; sure part of thee
Treating in humane flesh a Deitie.
Th' soul's all in all, and all in every part:
So all in all, and in all Lord thou art:
By whom we live, move, be, and all things know,
Life, motion, essence, knowledge from thee flow.
Is't not a glimps of th' spirit first made light
VVhich here is mufled in a Cloud of night?
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To him the light of lights, returns this ray.
The soul that works by principles of light,
Doth while 'tis here it self to God unite.
VVho here laies the vesture of his flesh aside,
From him Heav'n glory, Earth can't secrets hide,
Let contemplation give but wings toth' soul,
It in a moment travels to each pole;
Descends to th' center, mounts to th' top of th' world,
In thousand places can at once be hurl'd;
Can fathom the universe, without touching it;
A Judge of states, Arts, nay, of worlds may sit.
But oh a soul immers'd in flesh and blood,
Is lost 'midst wild beasts in a pathlesse wood,
Ambition wracks the soul; 'tis fool'd by love;
Pleasure doth melt, hope by a tickling move;
Anger now burns, then's reinflam'd by lust;
Despair depresses, avarice doth rust;
Now cruelty doth obdurate to a stone;
And then revenge makes me more hard then one;
Envy now gnaws, and hatred strait her sours;
The fire of jealousie smothers all her pow'rs;
Sorrow doth lend me floods which fear turns ice,
I'me cold to virtue, hardned by vice;
Lord, see this bird of Paradise in a Cage,
Assayled by a mutinous tumuls rage!
See th' daughter of thy bounty heav'ns own Child;
By passions rable shall she be defil'd?
Shall they the Scepter of her government take?
She is a Queen which thou her Kings didst make,
Th' Kings daughter Lord was glorious within,
Let not her beauty be ecclips'd by sin.
She with her fellows should be brought to thee,
Virtues and Graces should companions be;
A wedding garment Lord on her bestow:
Let her embroidred with thy graces go,
If with th' white robe of innocence I can't come;
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Since the soul's a ray that's borrow'd of thy light,
Shall sin extinguish't in eternall night?
Lord let my soul return from whence it came,
Let not a spark of Heav'n turn to hells flame.
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