The Works in Verse and Prose :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Works in Verse and Prose

(including hitherto unpublished Mss.) of Sir John Davies: for the first time collected and edited: With memorial-introductions and notes: By the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart. In three volumes

Davies, John (1569-1626)

VOL. I: VERSE.

Nosce Teipsum.

Dedication

Introduction.

OF THE SOULE OF MAN AND THE IMMORTALITIE THEREOF.

Orchestra.

[Dedications.]

I. TO HIS VERY FRIEND, MA. RICH. MARTIN.

II.

II.

III.

HYMNE III. To the Spring.

IV.

HYMNE IV. To the Moneth of May.

HYMNE V. To the Larke.

VI.

HYMNE VI. To the Nightingale.

VII.

HYMN VII. To the Rose.

VIII.

HYMNE VIII. To all the Princes of Europe.

IX.

HYMNE IX. To Flora.

HYMNE X. To the Moneth of September.

XI.

HYMNE XI. To the Sunne.

XII.

HYMNE XII. To her Picture.

XIII.

HYMNE XIII. Of her Minde.

XIV.

HYMNE XIV. Of the Sun-beames of her Mind.

XV.

HYMNE XV. Of her Wit.

XVI.

HYMNE XVI. Of her Will.

XVII.

HYMNE XVII. Of her Memorie.

XVIII.

HYMNE XVIII. Of Her Phantasie.

XIX.

HYMNE XIX. Of the Organs of her Minde.

XX.

HYMNE XX. Of the Passions of her Heart.

XXI.

HYMNE XXI. Of the innumerable vertues of her minde.

XXII.

HYMNE XXII. Of her Wisdome.

XXIII.

HYMNE XXIII. Of her Justice.

XXIV.

HYMNE XXIV. Of her Magnanimitie.

XXV.

HYMNE XXV. Of her Moderation.

XXVI.

HYMNE XXVI. To Enuy.

Minor Poems.

I. Yet other Twelve Wonders of the World.

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VI. On the Death of Lord Chancellor Ellesemere's Second Wife in 1599.

VII.

VII Tityrus to his Faire Phillis.

VIII.

VIII. A Riddle vpon a Coffin.

Epigrams, with Additions.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

Meditations of a Gull. 47.

48.

Ad Musam. 48.

Appendix to Epigrams:

1. In Superbiam. Epi. 4.

2. Epi. 5.

NIX IX CORNIX

3. Epi. 6.

4. In Amorosum. Epi. 7.

5. Epi. 9.

6. Epi. 10.

Hitherto Unpublished Poems.

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVIII.

XXIX.

XXX.

XXXI.

XXXII.

XXXIII.

XXXIV.

XXXV.

XXXVI.

XXXVII.

XXXVIII.

XXXIX.

XL.

XLI.

XLII.

XLIII.

XLIV.

XLV.

XLVI.

XLVII.

XLVIII.

XLIX.

LXVII.

XCV.

CIII.

XCI.

CL.

OF FAITH THE FIRST THEOLOGICALL VERTUE.

A SONGE OF CONTENTION

A MAID'S HYMNE IN PRAISE OF VIRGINITY.

PART OF AN ELEGIE IN PRAISE OF MARRIAGE.

[A FRAGMENT OF A LOVE ELEGIE.]

TO THE Q:[UEENE.]

[TO FAIRE LADYES.]

UPON A PAIRE OF GARTERS.

TO THE QUEENE AT THE SAME TIME.

MIRA LOQUOR SOL OCCUBUIT NOX NULLA SECUTA EST.

CHARLES HIS WAINE.

OF THE NAME OF CHAROLUS, BEING THE DIMINATIVE OF CHARUS.

VERSES SENT TO THE KINGE WITH FIGGES: BY Sr. JOHN DAVIS.

[LOVE-LINES.]

[LOVE-FLIGHT.]

AN ELEGIECALL EPISTLE ON SIR JOHN DAVIS DEATH.

Collapse All | Expand All expand section

Nosce Teipsum.

Dedication

TO MY MOST GRACIOVS DREAD SOVERAIGNE.

To that cleere maiestie which in the North
Doth, like another sunne in glory rise,
Which standeth fixt, yet spreads her heauenly worth;
Loadstone to hearts, and loadstarre to all eyes:

Like Heau'n in all; like th'Earth in this alone,
That though great States by her support doe stand,

Yet she herselfe supported is of none,
But by the finger of the Almightie's hand:

To the diuinest and the richest minde,
Both by Art's purchase and by Nature's dowre,
That euer was from Heau'n to Earth confin'd,
To shew the utmost of a creature's power:

To that great Spirit, which doth great kingdomes mooue,
The sacred spring whence right and honour streames,
Distilling vertue, shedding peace and loue,
In euery place, as Cynthia sheds her beames:

I offer up some sparkles of that fire,
Whereby wee reason, liue, and moue and be;
These sparkes by nature euermore aspire,
Which makes them to so high an highnesse flee.

Faire soule, since to the fairest body knit,
You giue such liuely life, such quick'ning power,
Such sweet celestiall influences to it,
As keepes it still in youth's immortall flower:

(As where the sunne is present all the yeere,
And neuer doth retire his golden ray,
Needs must the Spring bee euerlasting there,
And euery season like the month of May.)

O! many, many yeeres may you remaine
A happy angell to this happie Land:
Long, long may you on Earth our empresse raigne,
Ere you in Heauen a glorious angell stand.

Stay long (sweet spirit) ere thou to Heauen depart,
Which mak'st each place a heauen wherein thou art.
Her Maiestie's least and vnworthiest subiect

JOHN DAVIES.

Introduction.

OF HUMANE KNOWLEDGE.

Why did my parents send me to the Schooles,
That I with knowledge might enrich my mind?
Since the desire to know first made men fools,
And did corrupt the root of all mankind:

For when God's hand had written in the hearts
Of the first parents, all the rules of good,
So that their skill infusde did passe all arts
That euer were, before, or since the Flood;

And when their reason's eye was sharpe and cleere,
And (as an eagle can behold the sunne)

Could haue approcht th'Eternall Light as neere,
As the intellectuall angels could haue done:

Euen then to them the spirit of lyes suggests
That they were blind, because they saw not ill,
And breathes into their incorrupted brests
A curious wish, which did corrupt their will.

For that same ill they straight desir'd to know:
Which ill, being nought but a defect of good,
In all God's works the Diuell could not show
While man their lord in his perfection stood.

So that themselues were first to doe the ill,
Ere they thereof the knowledge could attaine;
Like him that knew not poison's power to kill,
Vntill (by tasting it) himselfe was slaine.

Euen so by tasting of that fruite forbid,
Where they sought knowledge, they did error find;

Ill they desir'd to know, and ill they did;
And to giue Passion eyes, made Reason blind.

For then their minds did first in Passion see
Those wretched shapes of miserie and woe,
Of nakednesse, of shame, of pouertie,
Which then their owne experience made them know.

But then grew Reason darke, that she no more,
Could the faire formes of Good and Truth discern;
Battes they became, that eagles were before:
And this they got by their desire to learne.

But we their wretched of-spring, what doe we?
Doe not we still taste of the fruit forbid
Whiles with fond fruitlesse curiositie,
In bookes prophane we seeke for knowledge hid?

What is this knowledge but the sky-stolne fire,
For which the thiefe still chain'd in ice doth sit?

And which the poore rude satyre did admire,
And needs would kisse but burnt his lips with it.

What is it? but the cloud of emptie raine,
Which when Ioue's guest imbrac't, hee monsters got?
Or the false payles which oft being fild with paine,
Receiv'd the water, but retain'd it not!

Shortly, what is it but the firie coach
Which the youth sought, and sought his death withal?
Or the boyes wings, which when he did approch
The sunne's hot beames, did melt and let him fall?

And yet alas, when all our lampes are burnd,
Our bodyes wasted, and our spirits spent;
When we haue all the learnèd volumes turn'd,
Which yeeld mens wits both help and ornament:

What can we know? or what can we discerne?
When Error chokes the windowes of the minde,
The diuers formes of things, how can we learne,
That haue been euer from our birth-day blind?

When Reason's lampe, which (like the sunne in skie)
Throughout man's little world her beames did spread;
Is now become a sparkle, which doth lie
Vnder the ashes, halfe extinct, and dead:

How can we hope, that through the eye and eare,
This dying sparkle, in this cloudy place,
Can recollect these beames of knowledge cleere,
Which were infus'd in the first minds by grace?

So might the heire whose father hath in play
Wasted a thousand pound of ancient rent,
By painefull earning of a groate a day,
Hope to restore the patrimony spent.

The wits that diu'd most deepe and soar'd most hie
Seeking man's pow'rs, haue found his weaknesse such:
“Skill comes so slow, and life so fast doth flie,
“We learne so little and forget so much.

For this the wisest of all morall men
Said, ‘He knew nought, but that he nought did know’;
And the great mocking-Master mockt not then,
When he said, ‘Truth was buried deepe below.’

For how may we to others' things attaine,
When none of vs his owne soule vnderstands?
For which the Diuell mockes our curious braine,
When, ‘Know thy selfe’ his oracle commands.

For why should we the busie soule beleeue,
When boldly she concludes of that and this,
When of her selfe she can no iudgement giue,
Nor how, nor whence, nor where, nor what she is?

All things without, which round about we see,
We seeke to knowe, and how therewith to doe:
But that whereby we reason, liue and be,
Within our selues, we strangers are thereto.

We seeke to know the mouing of each spheare,
And the strange cause of th'ebs and flouds of Nile;
But of that clocke within our breasts we beare,
The subtill motions we forget the while.

We that acquaint our selues with euery Zoane
And passe both Tropikes and behold the Poles
When we come home, are to our selues vnknown,
And vnacquainted still with our owne soules.

We study Speech but others we perswade;
We leech-craft learne, but others cure with it;
We interpret lawes, which other men haue made,
But reade not those which in our hearts are writ.

Is it because the minde is like the eye,
Through which it gathers knowledge by degrees—
Whose rayes reflect not, but spread outwardly:
Not seeing itselfe when other things it sees?

No, doubtlesse; for the mind can backward cast
Vpon her selfe her vnderstanding light;
But she is so corrupt, and so defac't,
As her owne image doth her selfe affright.

As in the fable of the Lady faire,
Which for her lust was turnd into a cow,
When thirstie to a streame she did repaire,
And saw her selfe transform'd she wist not how:

At first she startles, then she stands amaz'd,
At last with terror she from thence doth flye,
And loathes the watry glasse wherein she gaz'd,
And shunnes it still, though she for thirst doe die:

Euen so Man's soule which did God's image beare,
And was at first faire, good, and spotlesse pure,
Since with her sinnes her beauties blotted were,
Doth of all sights her owne sight least endure:

For euen at first reflection she espies,
Such strange chimeraes, and such monsters there,
Such toyes, such antikes, and such vanities,
As she retires, and shrinkes for shame and feare.

And as the man loues least at home to bee,
That hath a sluttish house haunted with spirits;
So she impatient her owne faults to see,
Turnes from her selfe and in strange things delites.

For this few know themselues: for merchants broke
View their estate with discontent and paine;
And seas are troubled, when they doe reuoke
Their flowing waues into themselues againe.

And while the face of outward things we find,
Pleasing and faire, agreeable and sweet;
These things transport, and carry out the mind,
That with her selfe her selfe can neuer meet.

Yet if Affliction once her warres begin,
And threat the feebler Sense with sword and fire,
The Minde contracts her selfe and shrinketh in,
And to her selfe she gladly doth retire:

As spiders toucht, seeke their webs inmost part;
As bees in stormes vnto their hiues returne;
As bloud in danger gathers to the heart;
As men seek towns, when foes the country burn.

If ought can teach vs ought, Affliction's lookes,
(Making vs looke vnto ourselues so neere,)
Teach vs to know ourselues beyond all bookes,
Or all the learned S[c]hooles that euer were.

This mistresse lately pluckt me by the eare,
And many a golden lesson hath me taught;
Hath made my Sense quicke and Reason cleare,
Reform'd my Will and rectifide my Thought.

So doe the winds and thunders cleanse the ayre:
So working lees settle and purge the wine:
So lop't and prunèd trees doe flourish faire:
So doth the fire the drossie gold refine.

Neither Minerua nor the learnèd Muse,
Nor rules of Art, nor precepts of the wise,
Could in my braine those beames of skill infuse,
As but the glance of this Dame's angry eyes.

She within lists my ranging minde hath brought,
That now beyond my selfe I list not goe;
My selfe am center of my circling thought,
Onely my selfe I studie, learne, and know.

I know my bodie's of so fraile a kind,
As force without, feauers within can kill:
I know the heauenly nature of my minde,
But 'tis corrupted both in wit and will:

I know my soule hath power to know all things,
Yet is she blinde and ignorant in all;
I know I am one of nature's little kings,
Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall.

I know my life's a paine and but a span,
I know my Sense is mockt with euery thing:
And to conclude, I know my selfe a man,
Which is a proud, and yet a wretched thing.

OF THE SOULE OF MAN AND THE IMMORTALITIE THEREOF.

The lights of heau'n (which are the World's fair eies)
Looke downe into the World, the World to see:
And as they turne or wander in the skies,
Suruey all things that on this center bee.

And yet the lights which in my towre dos shine,
Mine eyes which view all obiects, nigh and farre,
Looke not into this little world of mine,
Nor see my face, wherein they fixed are.

Since Nature failes vs in no needfull thing,
Why want I meanes my inward selfe to see?
Which sight the knowledg of my self might bring,
Which to true wisdome is the first degree.

That Power which gaue me eyes the World to view,
To see my selfe infus'd an inward light,
Whereby my soule, as by a mirror true,
Of her owne forme may take a perfect sight,

But as the sharpest eye discerneth nought,
Except the sunne-beames in the ayre doe shine:
So the best soule with her reflecting thought,
Sees not her selfe without some light diuine.

O Light which mak'st the light, which makes the day!
Which set'st the eye without, and mind within;
'Lighten my spirit with one cleare heauenly ray,
Which now to view it selfe doth first begin.

For her true forme how can my sparke discerne?
Which dimme by nature, Art did neuer cleare;
When the great wits, of whom all skill we learne,
Are ignorant both what shee is, and where.

One thinks the soule is aire; another, fire;
Another blood, diffus'd about the heart;
Another saith, the elements conspire,
And to her essence each doth giue a part.

Musicians thinke our soules are harmonies,
Phisicians hold that they complexions bee;
Epicures make them swarmes of atomies,
Which doe by chance into our bodies flee.

Some thinke one generall Soule fils euery braine,
As the bright sunne sheds light in euery starre;
And others thinke the name of soule is vaine,
And that we onely well-mixt bodies are.

In judgement of her substance thus they vary;
And thus they vary in iudgement of her seat;
For some her chaire vp to the braine doe carrie,
Some thrust it downe into the stomackes heat.

Some place it in the root of life, the heart;
Some in the liuer fountaine of the veines,
Some say, she is all in all, and all in part:
Some say, she is not contain'd but all containes.

Thus these great clerks their little wisdome show,
While with their doctrines they at hazard play,
Tossing their light opinions to and fro,
To mocke the lewd, as learn'd in this as they.

For no craz'd braine could euer yet propound,
Touching the soule, so vaine and fond a thought,
But some among these masters haue been found,
Which in their Schooles the self-same thing haue taught.

God onely wise, to punish pride of wit,
Among mens' wits hath this confusion wrought,
As the proud towre whose points the clouds did hit,
By tongues' confusion was to ruine brought.

But Thou which didst man's soule of nothing make,
And when to nothing it was fallen agen,

To make it new the forme of man didst take,
And God with God, becam'st a Man with men.

Thou, that hast fashioned twice this soule of ours,
So that she is by double title Thine,
Thou onely knowest her nature and her pow'rs,
Her subtill forme Thou onely canst define.

To iudge her selfe she must her selfe transcend,
As greater circles comprehend the lesse;
But she wants power, her owne powers to extend,
As fettered men can not their strength expresse.

But Thou bright Morning Starre, Thou rising Sunne,
Which in these later times hast brought to light
Those mysteries, that since the world begun,
Lay hid in darknesse and eternall night;

Thou (like the sunne) dost with indifferent ray,
Into the palace and the cottage shine,
And shew'st the soule both to the clerke and lay,
By the cleare lampe of Thy Oracle diuine.

This Lampe through all the regions of my braine,
Where my soule sits, doth spread such beames of grace,
As now, me thinks, I do distinguish plain,
Each subtill line of her immortall face.

The soule a substance, and a spirit is,
Which God Himselfe doth in the body make,
Which makes the Man: for euery man from this,
The nature of a man, and name doth take.

And though this spirit be to the body knit,
As an apt meane her powers to exercise,
Which are life, motion, sense, and will, and wit,
Yet she suruiues, although the body dies.

That the soule is a thing subsisting by it selfe without the body.

She is a substance, and a reall thing,
Which hath it selfe an actuall working might,
Which neither from the senses' power doth spring,
Nor from the bodie's humors, tempred right.

She is a vine, which doth no propping need
To make her spread her selfe or spring vpright;
She is a starre, whose beames doe not proceed
From any sunne, but from a natiue light.

For when she sorts things present with things past,
And thereby things to come doth oft foresee;
When she doth doubt at first, and chuse at last,
These acts her owne, without her body bee.

When of the deaw, which the eye and eare doe take
From flowers abroad, and bring into the braine,
She doth within both waxe and hony make:
This worke is her's, this is her proper paine.

When she from sundry acts, one skill doth draw,
Gathering from diuers fights one art of warre,
From many cases like, one rule of law;
These her collections, not the sense's are.

When in th'effects she doth the causes know,
And seeing the stream, thinks wher the spring doth rise;

And seeing the branch, conceiues the root below;
These things she viewes without the bodie's eyes.

When she, without a Pegasus, doth flie
Swifter then lightning's fire from East to West,
About the center and aboue the skie,
She trauels then, although the body rest.

When all her works she formeth first within,
Proportions them, and sees their perfect end,
Ere she in act does anie part begin;
What instruments doth then the body lend?

When without hands she doth thus castles build,
Sees without eyes, and without feet doth runne
When she digests the world, yet is not fil'd:
By her owne power these miracles are done.

When she defines, argues, diuides, compounds,
Considers vertue, vice, and generall things,
And marrying diuers principles and grounds,
Out of their match a true conclusion brings.

These actions in her closet all alone,
(Retir'd within her selfe) she doth fulfill;
Vse of her bodie's organs she hath none,
When she doth vse the powers of wit and will.

Yet in the bodie's prison so she lies,
As through the bodie's windowes she must looke,
Her diuers powers of sense to exercise,
By gath'ring notes out of the World's great book.

Nor can her selfe discourse or iudge of ought,
But what the Sense collects and home doth bring;
And yet the power of her discoursing thought,
From these collections is a diuers thing.

For though our eyes can nought but colours see,
Yet colours giue them not their powre of sight:
So, though these fruits of Sense her obiects bee,
Yet she discernes them by her proper light.

The workman on his stuffe his skill doth show,
And yet the stuffe gives not the man his skill;
Kings their affaires do by their seruants know,
But order them by their owne royall will.

So, though this cunning mistresse and this queene
Doth, as her instrument the senses vse,
To know all things that are felt, heard, or seene,
Yet she her selfe doth onely iudge and chuse:

Euen as our great wise Empresse that raigns
By soueraigne title ouer sundry Lands,
Borrowes in meane affaires her subiects paines,
Sees by their eyes, and writeth by their hands;

But things of waight and consequence indeed,
Her selfe doth in her chamber them debate,
Where all her counsellers she doth exceed
As farre in iudgement, as she doth in State.

Or as the man whom she doth now aduance,
Vpon her gracious mercy-seat to sit,
Doth common things, of course and circumstance,
To the reports of common men commit:

But when the cause it selfe must be decreed,
Himselfe in person, in his proper Court,
To graue and solemne hearing doth proceed,
Of euery proofe and euery by-report.

Then, like God's angell he pronounceth right,
And milke and hony from his tongue doth flow:
Happie are they that still are in his sight,
To reape the wisedome which his lips doe sow.

Right so the Soule, which is a lady free,
And doth the iustice of her State maintaine,
Because the senses ready seruants be,
Attending nigh about her Court, the braine:

By them the formes of outward things she learnes,
For they returne into the fantasie:
What euer each of them abroad discernes,
And there inrole it for the Minde to see.

But when she sits to iudge the good and ill,
And to discerne betwixt the false and true,

She is not guided by the Senses' skill,
But doth each thing in her owne mirrour view.

Then she the Senses checks, which oft do erre,
And euen against their false reports decrees;
And oft she doth condemne what they preferre,
For with a power aboue the sense, she sees.

Therefore no sense the precious ioyes conceiues,
Which in her priuate contemplations bee;
For then the rauish't spirit the senses leaues,
Hath her owne powers, and proper actions free.

Her harmonies are sweet, and full of skill,
When on the Bodie's instruments she playes:
But the proportions of the wit and will,
Those sweete accords, are euen the angels' layes.

These tunes of Reason are Amphion's lyre,
Wherewith he did the Thebane citie found:

These are the notes wherewith the heauenly quire,
The praise of Him which made the heauen doth sound.

Then her selfe-being nature shines in this,
That she performes her noblest works alone;
The worke, the touch-stone of the nature is,
And by their operations, things are knowne.

That the soule is more then a perfection or reflection of the sence.

Are they not sencelesse then, that thinke the Soule
Nought but a fine perfection of the Sense,
Or of the formes which fancie doth enroule,
A quicke resulting, and a consequence?

What is it then that doth the Sense accuse,
Both of false judgements, and fond appetites?
What makes vs do what Sense doth most refuse?
Which oft in torment of the Sense delights?

Sense thinkes the planets, spheares not much asunder:
What tels vs then their distance is so farre?
Sense thinks the lightning borne before the thunder:
What tells vs then they both together are?

When men seem crows farre off vpon a towre,
Sense saith, th'are crows: what makes vs think them men?
When we in agues, thinke all sweete things sowre,
What makes vs know our tongue's false iudgement then?

What power was that, whereby Medea saw,
And well approu'd, and prais'd the better course,
When her rebellious Sense did so withdraw
Her feeble powers, as she pursu'd the worse?

Did Sense persawde Vlisses not to heare
The mermaids' songs which so his men did please,

As they were all perswaded, through the eare
To quit the ship and leape into the seas?

Could any power of Sense the Romane moue,
To burn his own right hand with courage stout?
Could Sense make Marius sit vnbound, and proue
The cruell lancing of the knotty gout?

Doubtlesse in Man there is a nature found,
Beside the Senses, and aboue them farre;
“Though most men being in sensuall pleasures drown'd,
“It seemes their Soules but in their Senses are.

If we had nought but Sense, then onely they
Should haue sound minds, which haue their Senses sound:
But Wisdome growes, when Senses doe decay,
And Folly most in quickest Sense is found.

If we had nought but Sense, each liuing wight,
Which we call brute, would be more sharp then we;
As hauing Sense's apprehensiue might,
In a more cleere and excellent degree.

But they doe want that quicke discoursing power,
Which doth in vs the erring Sense correct;
Therefore the bee did sucke the painted flower,
And birds, of grapes, the cunning shadow peckt.

Sense outsides knows; the Soule thro' al things sees:
Sense, circumstance; she, doth the substance view:
Sense sees the barke, but she, the life of trees:
Sense heares the sounds, but she, the concords true.

But why doe I the Soule and Sense diuide?
When Sense is but a power, which she extends,
Which being in diuers parts diuersifide,
The diuers formes of obiects apprehends?

This power spreds outward, but the root doth grow
In th'inward Soule, which onely doth perceiue;
For th'eyes and eares no more their obiects know,
Then glasses know what faces they receiue.

For if we chance to fixe our thoughts elsewhere,
Although our eyes be ope, we cannot see:
And if one power did not both see and heare,
Our sights and sounds would alwayes double be.

Then is the Soule a nature, which containes
The powre of Sense, within a greater power
Which doth imploy and vse the Senses paines,
But sits and rules within her priuate bower.

That the Soule is more then the Temperature of the Humors of the Body.

If shee doth then the subtill Sense excell,
How gross are they that drown her in the blood!
Or in the bodie's humors tempred well,
As if in them such high perfection stood?

As if most skill in that Musician were,
Which had the best, and best tun'd instrument:

As if the pensill neate and colours cleare,
Had power to make the Painter excellent.

Why doth not beautie then refine the wit?
And good complexion rectifie the will?
Why doth not health bring wisdom still with it?
Why doth not sicknesse make men bruitish still?

Who can in memory, or wit, or will,
Or ayre, or fire, or earth, or water finde?
What alchymist can draw, with all his skil,
The quintessence of these, out of the mind?

If th'elements which haue nor life, nor sense,
Can breed in vs so great a powre as this,
Why giue they not themselues like excellence,
Or other things wherein their mixture is?

If she were but the Bodie's qualitie
Then would she be with it sicke, maim'd and blind;
But we perceiue where these priuations be
A healthy, perfect, and sharpe-sighted mind.

If she the bodie's nature did pertake,
Her strength would with the bodie's strength decay:
But when the bodie's strongest sinewes slake,
Then is the Soule most actiue, quicke and gay.

If she were but the bodie's accident,
And her sole being did in it subsist,
As white in snow, she might her selfe absent,
And in the bodie's substance not be mist.

But it on her, not shee on it depends;
For shee the body doth sustaine and cherish:
Such secret powers of life to it she lends,
That when they faile, then doth the body perish.

Since then the Soule works by her selfe alone,
Springs not from Sense, nor humors, well agreeing:
Her nature is peculiar, and her owne:
She is a substance, and a perfect being.

That the Soule is a Spirit.

But though this substance be the root of Sense,
Sense knowes her not, which doth but bodies know:
She is a spirit, and heauenly influence,
Which from the fountaine of God's Spirit doth flow.

She is a spirit, yet not like ayre or winde,
Nor like the spirits about the heart or braine;
Nor like those spirits which alchymists do find,
When they in euery thing seeke gold in vaine.

For shee all natures vnder heauen doth passe;
Being like those spirits, which God's bright face do see;
Or like Himselfe, Whose image once she was,
Though now (alas!) she scarce His shadow bee,

Yet of the formes, she holds the first degree,
That are to grosse materiall bodies knit;

Yet shee her selfe is bodilesse and free;
And though confin'd, is almost infinite.

Were she a body how could she remaine
Within this body, which is lesse then she?
Or how could she the world's great shape contain,
And in our narrow brests containèd bee?

All bodies are confin'd within some place,
But she all place within her selfe confines;
All bodies haue their measure, and their space,
But who can draw the Soule's dimensiue lines?

No body can at once two formes admit,
Except the one the other doe deface;
But in the soule ten thousand formes doe sit,
And none intrudes into her neighbour's place.

All bodies are with other bodies fild,
But she receiues both heauen and earth together;
Nor are their formes by rash incounter spild,
For there they stand, and neither toucheth either.

Nor can her wide imbracements fillèd bee;
For they that most, and greatest things embrace,
Inlarge thereby their minds' capacitie,
As streames inlarg'd, inlarge the channel's space.

All things receiu'd doe such proportion take,
As those things haue, wherein they are receiu'd:
So little glasses little faces make,
And narrow webs on narrow frames be weau'd;

Then what vast body must we make the mind
Wherin are men, beasts, trees, towns, seas, and lands:
And yet each thing a proper place doth find,
And each thing in the true proportion stands?

Doubtlesse this could not bee, but that she turnes
Bodies to spirits, by sublimation strange,
As fire conuerts to fire the things it burnes,
As we our meats into our nature change.

From their grosse matter she abstracts the formes,
And drawes a kind of quintessence from things;
Which to her proper nature she transformes,
To beare them light on her celestiall wings:

This doth she, when, from things particular,
She doth abstract the universall kinds,
Which bodilesse and immateriall are,
And can be lodg'd but onely in our minds:

And thus from diuers accidents and acts,
Which doe within her obseruation fall,
She goddesses, and powres diuine, abstracts:
As Nature, Fortune, and the Vertues all.

Againe, how can she seuerall bodies know,
If in her selfe a bodie's forme she beare?
How can a mirror sundry faces show,
If from all shapes and formes it be not cleare?

Nor could we by our eyes all colours learne,
Except our eyes were of all colours voide;
Nor sundry tastes can any tongue discerne,
Which is with grosse and bitter humors cloide.

Nor may a man of passions iudge aright,
Except his minde bee from all passions free;
Nor can a Iudge his office well acquite,
If he possest of either partie bee.

If lastly, this quicke power a body were,
Were it as swift as is the winde or fire,
(Whose atomies doe th'one down side-waies beare,
And make the other in pyramids aspire:)

Her nimble body yet in time must moue,
And not in instants through all places slide;
But she is nigh, and farre, beneath, aboue,
In point of time, which thought cannot deuide;

She is sent as soone to China as to Spaine,
And thence returnes, as soone as shee is sent;
She measures with one time, and with one paine,
An ell of silke, and heauen's wide spreading tent.

As then the Soule a substance hath alone,
Besides the Body in which she is confin'd;
So hath she not a body of her owne,
But is a spirit, and immateriall minde.

Since body and soule haue such diuersities,
Well, might we muse, how first their match began;
But that we learne, that He that spread the skies,
And fixt the Earth, first form'd the soule in man.

This true Prometheus first made Man of earth,
And shed in him a beame of heauenly fire;
Now in their mother's wombs before their birth,
Doth in all sonnes of men their soules inspire.

And as Minerua is in fables said,
From Ioue, without a mother to proceed;
So our true Ioue, without a mother's ay'd,
Doth daily millions of Mineruas breed.

Erroneous opinions of the Creation of Soules.

Then neither from eternitie before,
Nor from the time when Time's first point begun,
Made He all soules: which now He keepes in store,
Some in the moone and others in the sunne:

Nor in a secret cloyster doth Hee keepe
These virgin-spirits, vntil their marriage-day;
Nor locks them vp in chambers, where they sleep,
Till they awake, within these beds of clay.

Nor did He first a certaine number make,
Infusing part in beasts, and part in men,
And, as vnwilling further paines to take,
Would make no more then those He framèd then.

So that the widow Soule her body dying,
Vnto the next-borne body married was;

And so by often changing and supplying,
Mens' soules to beasts, and beasts to men did passe.

(These thoughts are fond: for since the bodies borne
Be more in number farre then those that dye,
Thousands must be abortiue, and forlorne,
Ere others' deaths to them their soules supply.)

But as God's handmaid Nature, doth create
Bodies in time distinct, and order due;
So God giues soules the like successiue date,
Which Himselfe makes, in bodies formèd new:

Which Him selfe makes, of no materiall thing:
For vnto angels He no power hath giuen,
Either to forme the shape, or stuffe to bring
From ayre or fire, or substance of the heauen.

Nor He in this doth Nature's seruice use;
For though from bodies, she can bodies bring,
Yet could she neuer soules from Soules traduce,
As fire from fire, or light from light doth spring.

Objection:—That the Soule is not traduced [from the Parents.]

Alas! that some, that were great lights of old,
And in their hands the lampe of God did beare,
Some reuerend Fathers did this error hold,
Hauing their eyes dim'd with religious feare!

For when (say they) by Rule of faith we find,
That euery soule vnto her body knit,
Brings from the mother's wombe, the sinne of kind,
The roote of all the ill she doth commit

How can we say that God the Soule doth make,
But we must make Him author of her sinne?

Then from man's soule she doth beginning take,
Since in man's soule corruption did begin.

For if God make her, first He makes her ill,
(Which God forbid our thoughts should yeeld vnto!)
Or makes the body her faire forme to spill,
Which, of it selfe it had not power to doe.

Not Adam's body, but his soule did sinne
And so her selfe vnto corruption brought;
But our poore soule corrupted is within,
Ere shee had sinn'd, either in act, or thought:

And yet we see in her such powres diuine,
As we could gladly thinke, from God she came:
Faine would we make Him Author of the wine,
If for the dregs we could some other blame.

The Answere to the Objection.

Thus these good men with holy zeale were blind,
When on the other part the truth did shine;
Whereof we doe cleare demonstrations find,
By light of Nature, and by light Diuine.

None are so grosse as to contend for this,
That soules from bodies may traducèd bee;
Betweene whose natures no proportion is,
When roote and branch in nature still agree.

But many subtill wits haue iustifi'd,
That soules from soules spiritually may spring;
Which (if the nature of the soule be tri'd)
Will euen in Nature proue as grosse a thing.

Reasons drawne from Nature.

For all things made, are either made of nought,
Or made of stuffe that ready made doth stand;
Of nought no creature euer formèd ought,
For that is proper to th'Almightie's hand.

If then the soule another soule doe make,
Because her power is kept within a bound,
Shee must some former stuffe or matter take:
But in the soule there is no matter found.

Then if her heauenly Forme doe not agree
With any matter which the world containes,
Then she of nothing must created bee,
And to create, to God alone pertaines.

Againe, if soules doe other soules beget,
'Tis by themselues, or by the bodie's power:
If by themselues, what doth their working let,
But they might soules engender euery houre?

If by the body, how can wit and will
Ioyn with the body onely in this act?
Sith when they doe their other works fulfill,
They from the body doe themselues abstract?

Againe, if soules of soules begotten were,
Into each other they should change and moue,
And change and motion still corruption beare;
How shall we then the soule immortall proue?

If lastly, soules doe generation vse,
Then should they spread incorruptible seed:
What then becomes of that which they doe lose,
When th'acts of generation doe not speed?

And though the soule could cast spirituall seed,
Yet would she not, because she neuer dies;
For mortall things desire their like to breed,
That so they may their kind immortalize.

Therefore the angels, sonnes of God are nam'd,
And marry not, nor are in marriage giuen:
Their spirits and ours are of one substance fram'd,
And haue one Father, euen the Lord of heauen:

Who would at first, that in each other thing,
The earth and water liuing soules should breed;
But that man's soule whom He would make their king,
Should from Himselfe immediatly proceed.

And when He took the woman from man's side,
Doubtlesse Himselfe inspir'd her soule alone:
For 'tis not said, He did man's soule diuide,
But tooke flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone.

Lastly, God being made Man for man's owne sake,
And being like Man in all, except in sin,
His body from the virgin's wombe did take;
But all agree, God form'd His soule within.

Then is the soule from God; so Pagans say,
Which saw by Nature's light her heauenly kind:
Naming her kin to God, and God's bright ray,
A citizen of Heauen to Earth confined.

But nowe, I feele, they plucke me by the eare
Whom my young Muse so boldly termèd blind,
And craue more heauenly light, that cloud to clear,
Which makes them think God doth not make the mind.

Reasons drawne from Diuinity.

God doubtlesse makes her, and doth make her good,
And graffes her in the body, there to spring;
Which, though it be corrupted, flesh and blood
Can no way to the Soule corruption bring:

And yet this soule (made good by God at first,
And not corrupted by the bodie's ill)
Euen in the wombe is sinfull, and accurst,
Ere shee can iudge by wit or chuse by will.

Yet is not God the Author of her sinne
Though Author of her being, and being there;
And if we dare to iudge our Iudge herein,
He can condemne vs, and Himselfe can cleare.

First, God from infinite eternitie
Decreed, that what hath beene, is, or shall bee done;
And was resolu'd, that euery man should bee,
And in his turne, his race of life should run:

And so did purpose all the soules to make,
That euer haue beene made, or euer shall;
And that their being they should onely take
In humane bodies, or not bee at all.

Was it then fit that such a weake euent
(W[e]aknesse it selfe,—the sinne and fall of Man)
His counsel's execution should preuent,
Decreed and fixt before the World began?

Or that one penall law by Adam broke,
Should make God breake His owne eternall Law,
The setled order of the World reuoke,
And change all forms of things which He foresaw?

Could Eue's weake hand, extended to the tree,
In sunder rend that adamantine chaine,

Whose golden links, effects and causes be,
And which to God's owne chair doth fixt remaine.

O could we see, how cause from cause doth spring!
How mutually they linkt and folded are!
And heare how oft one disagreeing string
The harmony doth rather make then marre?

And view at once, how death by sinne is brought,
And how from death, a better life doth rise,
How this God's iustice, and His mercy tought:
We this decree would praise, as right and wise.

But we that measure times by first and last,
The sight of things successiuely, doe take,
When God on all at once His view doth cast,
And of all times doth but one instant make.

All in Himselfe as in a glasse Hee sees,
For from Him, by Him, through Him, all things bee:
His sight is not discoursiue, by degrees,
But seeing the whole, each single part doth see.

He lookes on Adam, as a root, or well,
And on his heires, as branches, and as streames:
He sees all men as one Man, though they dwell
In sundry cities, and in sundry realmes:

And as the roote and branch are but one tree,
And well and streame doe but one riuer make:
So, if the root and well corrupted bee,
The streame and branch the same corruption take:

So, when the root and fountaine of Mankind
Did draw corruption, and God's curse, by sin:
This was a charge that all his heires did bind,
And all his off-spring grew corrupt therein.

And as when the hand doth strike, the Man offends,
(For part from whole, Law seuers not in this)
So Adam's sinne to the whole kind extends;
For all their natures are but part of his.

Therefore this sinne of kind, not personall,
But reall and hereditary was;
The guilt whereof, and punishment to all,
By course of Nature, and of Law doth passe.

For as that easie Law was giuen to all,
To ancestor and heire, to first and last,
So was the first transgression generall,
And all did plucke the fruit and all did tast.

Of this we find some foot-steps in our Law,
Which doth her root from God and Nature take:
Ten thousand men she doth together draw,
And of them all, one Corporation make:

Yet these, and their successors, are but one,
And if they gaine or lose their liberties,
They harme or profit not themselues alone,
But such as in succeeding times shall rise.

And so the ancestor, and all his heires,
Though they in number passe the stars of heauen
Are still but one; his forfeitures are theirs,
And vnto them are his aduancements giuen:

His ciuill acts doe binde and bar them all;
And as from Adam, all corruption take,
So, if the father's crime be capitall
In all the bloud, Law doth corruption make.

Is it then iust with vs, to dis-inherit
The vnborn nephewes for the father's fault?
And to aduance againe for one man's merit,
A thousand heires, that have deservèd nought?

And is not God's decree as iust as ours,
If He, for Adam's sinne, his sonnes depriue,
Of all those natiue vertues, and those powers,
Which He to him, and to his race did giue?

For what is this contagious sinne of kinde
But a priuation of that grace within?
And of that great rich dowry of the minde
Which all had had, but for the first man's sin?

If then a man, on light conditions gaine
A great estate, to him and his, for euer;
If wilfully he forfeit it againe
Who doth bemone his heire or blame the giuer?

So, though God make the Soule good, rich and faire,
Yet when her forme is to the body knit,
Which makes the Man, which man is Adam's heire
Iustly forth-with He takes His grace from it:

And then the soule being first from nothing brought,
When God's grace failes her, doth to nothing fall;
And this declining pronenesse unto nought,
Is euen that sinne that we are borne withall.

Yet not alone the first good qualities,
Which in the first soule were, depriuèd are;
But in their place the contrary doe rise,
And reall spots of sinne her beauty marre.

Nor is it strange, that Adam's ill desart
Should be transferd vnto his guilty Race,
When Christ His grace and iustice doth impart
To men vniust, and such as haue no grace.

Lastly, the Soule were better so to bee
Borne slaue to sinne then not to be at all:
Since (if she do belieue) One sets her free,
That makes her mount the higher for her fall.

Yet this the curious wits will not content;
They yet will know (sith God foresaw this ill)
Why His high Prouidence did not preuent
The declination of the first man's will.

If by His Word He had the current staid
Of Adam's will, which was by nature free,
It had bene one, as if His Word had said,
I will henceforth that Man no man shall bee.

For what is Man without a moouing mind,
Which hath a iudging wit, and chusing will?
Now, if God's power should her election bind,
Her motions then would cease and stand all still.

And why did God in man this soule infuse,
But that he should his Maker know and loue?
Now, if loue be compeld and cannot chuse,
How can it gratefull or thankeworthy proue?

Loue must free-hearted be, and voluntary,
And not enchanted, or by Fate constraind;
Nor like that loue, which did Ulisses carry,
To Circe's ile, with mighty charmes enchaind.

Besides, were we vnchangeable in will,
And of a wit that nothing could mis-deeme;
Equall to God, Whose wisedome shineth still,
And neuer erres, we might our selues esteeme.

So that if Man would be vnuariable,
He must be God, or like a rock or tree;

For euen the perfect Angels were not stable,
But had a fall more desperate then wee.

Then let vs praise that Power, which makes vs be
Men as we are, and rest contented so;
And knowing Man's fall was curiositie,
Admire God's counsels, which we cannot know.

And let vs know that God the Maker is
Of all the Soules, in all the men that be:
Yet their corruption is no fault of His,
But the first man's that broke God's first decree.

Why the Soule is United to the Body.

This substance, and this spirit of God's owne making,
Is in the body plact, and planted heere,
“That both of God, and of the world partaking,
“Of all that is, Man might the image beare.

God first made angels bodilesse, pure minds,
Then other things, which mindlesse bodies be;

Last, He made Man, th'horizon 'twixt both kinds,
In whom we doe the World's abridgement see.

Besides, this World below did need one wight,
Which might thereof distinguish euery part,
Make vse thereof, and take therein delight,
And order things with industry and art:

Which also God might in His works admire,
And here beneath, yeeld Him both praier and praise;
As there, aboue, the holy angels quire
Doth spread His glory with spirituall layes.

Lastly, the bruite, unreasonable wights,
Did want a visible king on them to raigne:
And God, Himselfe thus to the World vnites,
That so the World might endlesse blisse obtaine.

In what manner the Soule is united to the Body.

But how shall we this union well expresse?
Nought ties the soule; her subtiltie is such
She moues the bodie, which she doth possesse,
Yet no part toucheth, but by vertue's touch.

Then dwels shee not therein as in a tent,
Nor as a pilot in his ship doth sit;
Nor as the spider in his web is pent;
Nor as the waxe retaines the print in it;

Nor as a vessell water doth containe;
Nor as one liquor in another shed;
Nor as the heat doth in the fire remaine;
Nor as a voice throughout the ayre is spread:

But as the faire and cheerfull Morning light,
Doth here and there her siluer beames impart,
And in an instant doth her selfe vnite
To the transparent ayre, in all, and part:

Still resting whole, when blowes the ayre diuide;
Abiding pure, when th'ayre is most corrupted;
Throughout the ayre, her beams dispersing wide,
And when the ayre is tost, not interrupted:

100

So doth the piercing Soule the body fill,
Being all in all, and all in part diffus'd,
Indiuisible, incorruptible still,
Not forc't, encountred, troubled or confus'd.

And as the sunne aboue, the light doth bring,
Though we behold it in the ayre below;
So from th'Eternall Light the Soule doth spring,
Though in the body she her powers doe show.

How the Soul doth exercise her Powers in the Body.

But as the world's sunne doth effects beget,
Diuers in diuers places euery day;
Here Autumnes temperature, there Summer's heat,
Here flowry Spring-tide, and there Winter gray:

Here Euen, there Morne, here Noone, there Day, there Night;
Melts wax, dries clay, mak[e]s flowrs, som quick, som dead;
Makes the More black, and th'Europœan white,
Th'American tawny, and th'East-Indian red:

101

So in our little World: this soule of ours,
Being onely one, and to one body tyed,
Doth vse, on diuers obiects diuers powers,
And so are her effects diuersified.

The Vegetatiue or quickening Power.

Her quick'ning power in euery liuing part,
Doth as a nurse, or as a mother serue,
And doth employ her oeconomicke art,
And busie care, her houshold to preserue.

Here she attracts, and there she doth retaine,
There she decocts, and doth the food prepare;
There she distributes it to euery vaine,
There she expels what she may fitly spare.

This power to Martha may comparèd be,
Which busie was, the houshold-things to doe;
Or to a Dryas, liuing in a tree:
For euen to trees this power is proper too.

102

And though the Soule may not this power extend
Out of the body, but still vse it there,
She hath a power which she abroad doth send,
Which views and searcheth all things euery where.

The power of Sense.

This power is Sense, which from abroad doth bring
The colour, taste, and touch, and sent, and sound,
The quantitie and shape of euery thing
Within th'Earth's center, or Heauen's circle found.

This power, in parts made fit, fit obiects takes,
Yet not the things, but forms of things receiues;
As when a seale in waxe impression makes,
The print therein, but not it selfe it leaues.

103

And though things sensible be numberlesse,
But onely fiue the Sense's organs be;
And in those fiue, all things their formes expresse,
Which we can touch, taste, feele, or heare, or see.

These are the windows throgh the which she views
The light of knowledge, which is life's load-star:
“And yet while she these spectacles doth vse,
“Oft worldly things seeme greater then they are.

Sight.

First, the two eyes that haue the seeing power,
Stand as one watchman, spy, or sentinell,
Being plac'd aloft, within the head's high tower;
And though both see, yet both but one thing tell.

104

These mirrors take into their little space
The formes of moone and sun, and euery starre,
Of euery body and of euery place,
Which with the World's wide armes embracèd are:

Yet their best obiect, and their noblest vse,
Hereafter in another World will be,
When God in them shall heauenly light infuse,
That face to face they may their Maker see.

Here are they guides, which doe the body lead,
Which else would stumble in eternal night;
Here in this world they do much knowledge read,
And are the casements which admit most light:

They are her farthest reaching instrument,
Yet they no beames vnto their obiects send,
But all the rayes are from their obiects sent,
And in the eyes with pointed angles end:

If th'obiects be farre off, the rayes doe meet
In a sharpe point, and so things seeme but small:

105

If they be neere, their rayes doe spread and fleet,
And make broad points, that things seeme great withall.

Lastly, nine things to Sight requirèd are;
The power to see, the light, the visible thing,
Being not too small, too thin, too nigh, too farre,
Cleare space, and time, the forme distinct to bring.

Thus we see how the Soule doth vse the eyes,
As instruments of her quicke power of sight;
Hence do th'Arts opticke and faire painting rise;
Painting, which doth all gentle minds delight.

Hearing.

Now let vs heare how she the Eares imployes:
Their office is the troubled ayre to take,
Which in their mazes formes a sound or noyse,
Whereof her selfe doth true distinction make.

106

These wickets of the Soule are plac't on hie
Because all sounds doe lightly mount aloft;
And that they may not pierce too violently,
They are delaied with turnes and windings oft.

For should the voice directly strike the braine,
It would astonish and confuse it much;
Therfore these plaits and folds the sound restraine,
That it the organ may more gently touch.

As streames, which with their winding banks doe play,
Stopt by their creeks, run softly through the plaine:
So in th'Eares' labyrinth the voice doth stray,
And doth with easie motion touch the braine.

It is the slowest, yet the daintiest sense;
For euen the Eares of such as haue no skill,
Perceiue a discord, and conceiue offence;
And knowing not what is good, yet find the ill.

107

And though this sense first gentle Musicke found,
Her proper obiect is the speech of men;
But that speech chiefely which God's heraulds sound,
When their tongs vtter what His Spirit did pen.

Our Eyes haue lids, our Eares still ope we see,
Quickly to heare how euery tale is proouèd;
Our Eyes still moue, our Eares vnmouèd bee,
That though we hear quick we be not quickly mouèd.

Thus by the organs of the Eye and Eare,
The Soule with knowledge doth her selfe endue:
“Thus she her prison may with pleasure beare,
“Hauing such prospects, all the world to view.

These conduit-pipes of knowledge feed the Mind,
But th'other three attend the Body still;
For by their seruices the Soule doth find,
What things are to the body good or ill.

108

Taste.

The bodie's life with meats and ayre is fed,
Therefore the soule doth vse the tasting power,
In veines, which through the tongue and palate spred,
Distinguish euery relish, sweet and sower.

This is the bodie's nurse; but since man's wit
Found th'art of cookery to delight his sense,
More bodies are consum'd and kild with it,
Then with the sword, famine, or pestilence.

Smelling.

Next, in the nosthrils she doth vse the smell:
As God the breath of life in them did giue,
So makes He now this power in them to dwell,
To iudge all ayres, whereby we breath and liue.

109

This sense is also mistresse of an Art,
Which to soft people sweete perfumes doth sell;
Though this deare Art doth little good impart,
Sith they smell best, that doe of nothing smell.

And yet good sents doe purifie the braine,
Awake the fancie, and the wits refine;
Hence old Deuotion, incense did ordaine
To make mens' spirits apt for thoughts diuine.

Feeling.

Lastly, the feeling power, which is Life's root,
Through euery liuing part it selfe doth shed,
By sinewes, which extend from head to foot,
And like a net, all ore the body spred.

Much like a subtill spider, which doth sit
In middle of her web, which spreadeth wide:
If ought doe touch the vtmost thred of it,
Shee feeles it instantly on euery side.

110

By Touch, the first pure qualities we learne,
Which quicken all things, hote, cold, moist and dry;
By Touch, hard, soft, rough, smooth, we doe discerne:
By Touch, sweet pleasure, and sharpe paine, we try.

The Imagination, or Common Sense.

These are the outward instruments of Sense,
These are the guards which euery thing must passe
Ere it approch the mind's intelligence,
Or touch the Fantasie, Wit's looking-glasse.

The Imagination or Common Sense.

And yet these porters, which all things admit,
Themselues perceiue not, nor discerne the things;
One common power doth in the forehead sit,
Which all their proper formes together brings.

111

For all those nerues, which spirits of Sence doe beare,
And to those outward organs spreading goe,
Vnited are, as in a center there,
And there this power those sundry formes doth know.

Those outward organs present things receiue,
This inward Sense doth absent things retaine;
Yet straight transmits all formes shee doth perceiue,
Vnto a higher region of the braine.

The Fantasie.

Where Fantasie, neere hand-maid to the mind,
Sits and beholds, and doth discerne them all;
Compounds in one, things diuers in their kind;
Compares the black and white, the great and small.

112

Besides, those single formes she doth esteeme,
And in her ballance doth their values trie;
Where some things good, and some things ill doe seem,
And neutrall some, in her fantasticke eye.

This busie power is working day and night;
For when the outward senses rest doe take,
A thousand dreames, fantasticall and light,
With fluttring wings doe keepe her still awake.

The Sensitiue Memorie.

Yet alwayes all may not afore her bee;
Successiuely, she this and that intends;
Therefore such formes as she doth cease to see,
To Memorie's large volume shee commends.

The lidger-booke lies in the braine behinde,
Like Ianus' eye, which in his poll was set:
The lay-man's tables, the store-house of the mind,
Which doth remember much, and much forget.

113

Heere Sense's apprehension, end doth take;
As when a stone is into water cast,
One circle doth another circle make,
Till the last circle touch the banke at last.

The Passions of Sense.

But though the apprehensiue power doe pause,
The motiue vertue then begins to moue,
Which in the heart below doth Passions cause,
Ioy, griefe, and feare, and hope, and hate, and loue.

These passions haue a free commanding might,
And diuers actions in our life doe breed;
For, all acts done without true Reason's light,
Doe from the passion of the Sense proceed.

But sith the braine doth lodge the powers of Sense,
How makes it in the heart those passions spring?

114

The mutuall loue, the kind intelligence
'Twixt heart and braine, this sympathy doth bring.

From the kind heat, which in the heart doth raigne,
The spirits of life doe their begining take;
These spirits of life ascending to the braine,
When they come there, the spirits of Sense do make.

These spirits of Sense, in Fantasie's High Court,
Iudge of the formes of obiects, ill or well;
And so they send a good or ill report
Downe to the heart, where all affections dwell.

If the report bee good, it causeth loue,
And longing hope, and well-assurèd ioy:
If it bee ill, then doth it hatred moue,
And trembling feare, and vexing griefe's annoy.

Yet were these naturall affections good:
(For they which want them, blockes or deuils be)
If Reason in her first perfection stood,
That she might Nature's passions rectifie.

115

The Motion of Life.

Besides, another motiue-power doth rise
Out of the heart: from whose pure blood do spring
The vitall spirits; which, borne in arteries,
Continuall motion to all parts doe bring.

The Locall Motion.

This makes the pulses beat, and lungs respire,
This holds the sinewes like a bridle's reines,
And makes the Body to aduance, retire,
To turne or stop, as she them slacks, or straines.

Thus the soule tunes the bodie's instrument;
These harmonies she makes with life and sense;
The organs fit are by the body lent,
But th'actions flow from the Soule's influence.

116

The intellectuall Powers of the Soule

But now I haue a will, yet want a wit,
To expresse the working of the wit and will;
Which, though their root be to the body knit,
Vse not the body, when they vse their skill.

These powers the nature of the Soule declare,
For to man's soule these onely proper bee;
For on the Earth no other wights there are
That haue these heauenly powers, but only we.

The Wit or Understanding.

The Wit, the pupill of the Soule's cleare eye,
And in man's world, the onely shining starre;
Lookes in the mirror of the Fantasie,
Where all the gatherings of the Senses are.

From thence this power the shapes of things abstracts,
And them within her passiue part receiues;

117

Which are enlightned by that part which acts,
And so the formes of single things perceiues.

But after, by discoursing to and fro,
Anticipating, and comparing things;
She doth all vniversall natures know,
And all effects into their causes brings.

Reason, Understanding.

When she rates things and moues from ground to ground,
The name of Reason she obtaines by this:
But when by Reason she the truth hath found,
And standeth fixt, she Vnderstanding is.

Opinion, Iudgement.

When her assent she lightly doth encline
To either part, she is Opinion light:
But when she doth by principles define
A certaine truth, she hath true Judgement's sight.

118

And as from Senses, Reason's worke doth spring,
So many reasons, understanding gaine;
And many understandings, knowledge bring;
And by much knowledge, wisdome we obtaine.

So, many stayres we must ascend vpright
Ere we attaine to Wisdome's high degree:
So doth this Earth eclipse our Reason's light,
Which else (in instants) would like angels see.

Yet hath the Soule a dowrie naturall,
And sparkes of light, some common things to see;
Not being a blancke where nought is writ at all,
But what the writer will, may written be

119

For Nature in man's heart her lawes doth pen;
Prescribing truth to wit, and good to will;
Which doe accuse, or else excuse all men,
For euery thought or practise, good or ill:

And yet these sparkes grow almost infinite,
Making the World, and all therein their food;
As fire so spreads, as no place holdeth it,
Being nourisht still, with new supplies of wood.

And though these sparkes were almost quencht with sin,
Yet they whom that Iust One hath iustifide,
Haue them encreasd with heauenly light within,
And like the widowe's oyle still multiplide.

The Power of Will.

And as this wit should goodnesse truely know,
We haue a Will, which that true good should chuse:
Though Wil do oft (when wit false formes doth show)
Take ill for good, and good for ill refuse.

120

The Relations betwixt Wit and Will.

Will puts in practice what the Wit deuiseth:
Will euer acts, and Wit contemplates still:
And as from Wit, the power of wisedome riseth,
All other vertues daughters are of Will.

Will is the prince, and Wit the counseller,
Which doth for common good in Counsell sit;
And when Wit is resolu'd, Will lends her power
To execute what is aduis'd by Wit.

Wit is the mind's chief iudge, which doth controule
Of Fancie's Court the iudgements, false and vaine:
Will holds the royall septer in the soule
And on the passions of the heart doth raigne.

Will is as free as any emperour,
Naught can restraine her gentle libertie:
No tyrant, nor no torment, hath the power,
To make vs will, when we vnwilling bee.

121

The Intellectuall Memorie.

To these high powers, a store-house doth pertaine,
Where they all arts and generall reasons lay,
Which in the Soule, euen after death, remaine
And no Lethæan flood can wash away.

This is the Soule, and these her vertues bee;
Which, though they haue their sundry proper ends
And one exceeds another in degree,
Yet each on other mutually depends.

Our Wit is giuen, Almighty God to know;
Our Will is giuen to loue Him, being knowne:
But God could not be known to vs below,
But by His workes which through the sense are shown.

And as the Wit doth reape the fruits of Sense,
So doth the quickning power the senses feed:
Thus while they doe their sundry gifts dispence,
“The best, the seruice of the least doth need.

122

Euen so the King his Magistrates do serue,
Yet Commons feed both magistrate and king:
The Commons' peace the magistrates preserue
By borrowed power, which from the Prince doth spring.

The quickning power would be, and so would rest;
The sense would not be onely, but be well:
But Wit's ambition longeth to the best,
For it desires in endlesse blisse to dwell.

And these three powers, three sorts of men doe make;
For some, like plants, their veines doe onely fill;
And some, like beasts, their senses' pleasure take;
And some, like angels, doe contemplate still.

Therefore the fables turnd some men to flowres,
And others, did with bruitish formes inuest;
And did of others, make celestiall powers,
Like angels, which still trauell, yet still rest.

123

Yet these three powers are not three soules, but one;
As one and two are both containd in three,
Three being one number by it selfe alone:
A shadow of the blessed Trinitie.

An Acclamation.

Oh! what is man (great Maker of mankind!)
That Thou to him so great respect dost beare!
That Thou adornst him with so bright a mind,
Mak'st him a king, and euen an angel's peere!

O! what a liuely life, what heauenly power,
What spreading vertue, what a sparkling fire,
How great, how plentifull, how rich a dower
Dost Thou within this dying flesh inspire!

Thou leau'st Thy print in other works of Thine,
But Thy whole image Thou in Man hast writ:
There cannot be a creature more diuine,
Except (like Thee) it should be infinit.

124

But it exceeds man's thought, to thinke how hie
God hath raisd man, since God a man became:
The angels doe admire this Misterie,
And are astonisht when they view the same.

That the Soule is Immortal, and cannot Die.

Nor hath He giuen these blessings for a day,
Nor made them on the bodie's life depend:
The Soule though made in time, suruiues for aye,
And though it hath beginning, sees no end.

Her onely end, is neuer-ending blisse;
Which is, th'eternall face of God to see;
Who Last of Ends, and First of Causes, is:
And to doe this, she must eternall bee,

How senselesse then, and dead a soule hath hee,
Which thinks his soule doth with his body die!

125

Or thinkes not so, but so would haue it bee,
That he might sinne with more securitie.

For though these light and vicious persons say,
Our soule is but a smoake or ayrie blast;
Which, during life, doth in our nostrils play,
And when we die, doth turne to wind at last:

Although they say, ‘Come let us eat and drinke’;
Our life is but a sparke, which quickly dies:
Though thus they say, they know not what to think,
But in their minds ten thousand doubts arise.

Therefore no heretikes desire to spread
Their light opinions, like these Epicures:
For so the staggering thoughts are comfortèd,
And other mens' assent their doubt assures.

Yet though these men against their conscience striue,
There are some sparkles in their flintie breasts
Which cannot be extinct, but still reuiue;
That though they would, they cannot quite bee beasts;

126

But who so makes a mirror of his mind,
And doth with patience view himselfe therein,
His Soule's eternitie shall clearely find,
Though th'other beauties be defac't with sin.

Reason I. Drawne from the desire of Knowledge.

First in Man's mind we find an appetite
To learne and know the truth of euery thing;
Which is co-naturall and borne with it,
And from the essence of the soule doth spring.

With this desire, shee hath a natiue might
To find out euery truth, if she had time;
Th'innumerable effects to sort aright,
And by degrees, from cause to cause to clime.

But sith our life so fast away doth slide,
As doth a hungry eagle through the wind,
Or as a ship transported with the tide;
Which in their passage leaue no print behind;

127

Of which swift little time so much we spend,
While some few things we through the sense doe straine;
That our short race of life is at an end,
Ere we the principles of skill attaine.

Or God (which to vaine ends hath nothing done)
In vaine this appetite and power hath giuen;
Or else our knowledge, which is here begun,
Hereafter must bee perfected in heauen.

God neuer gaue a power to one whole kind,
But most part of that kind did vse the same;
Most eies haue perfect sight, though some be blind;
Most legs can nimbly run, though some be lame:

But in this life no soule the truth can know
So perfectly, as it hath power to doe:
If then perfection be not found below,
An higher place must make her mount thereto.

128

Reason II. Drawn from the Motion of the Soule.

Againe how can shee but immortall bee?
When with the motions of both Will and Wit,
She still aspireth to eternitie,
And neuer rests, till she attaine to it?

Water in conduit pipes, can rise no higher
Then the wel-head, from whence it first doth spring:
Then sith to eternall God shee doth aspire,
Shee cannot be but an eternall thing.

“All mouing things to other things doe moue,
“Of the same kind, which shews their nature such:
So earth falls downe and fire doth mount aboue,
Till both their proper elements doe touch.

And as the moysture, which the thirstie earth
Suckes from the sea, to fill her emptie veines,

129

From out her wombe at last doth take a birth,
And runs a Nymph along the grassie plaines.

Long doth shee stay, as loth to leaue the land,
From whose soft side she first did issue make:
Shee tastes all places, turnes to euery hand,
Her flowry bankes vnwilling to forsake:

Yet Nature so her streames doth lead and carry,
As that her course doth make no finall stay,
Till she her selfe vnto the Ocean marry,
Within whose watry bosome first she lay:

Euen so the Soule which in this earthly mold
The Spirit of God doth secretly infuse;
Because at first she doth the earth behold,
And onely this materiall world she viewes:

At first her mother-earth she holdeth deare,
And doth embrace the world and worldy things:
She flies close by the ground, and houers here,
And mounts not vp with her celestiall wings.

130

Yet vnder heauen she cannot light on ought
That with her heauenly nature doth agree;
She cannot rest, she cannot fix her thought,
She cannot in this world contented bee:

For who did euer yet, in honour, wealth,
Or pleasure of the sense, contentment find?
Who euer ceasd to wish, when he had health?
Or hauing wisedome was not vext in mind?

Then as a bee which among weeds doth fall,
Which seeme sweet flowers, with lustre fresh and gay:
She lights on that, and this, and tasteth all,
But pleasd with none, doth rise, and soare away;

So, when the Soule finds here no true content,
And, like Noah's doue, can no sure footing take,
She doth returne from whence she first was sent,
And flies to Him that first her wings did make.

Wit, seeking Truth, from cause to cause ascends,
And neuer rests, till it the first attaine:
Will, seeking Good, finds many middle ends,
But neuer stayes, till it the last doe gaine.

Now God, the Truth, and First of Causes is:
God is the Last Good End, which lasteth still,
Being Alpha and Omega nam'd for this;
Alpha to Wit, Omega to the Will.

131

Sith then her heauenly kind shee doth bewray,
In that to God she doth directly moue;
And on no mortall thing can make her stay,
She cannot be from hence, but from aboue.

And yet this First True Cause, and Last Good End,
Shee cannot heere so well, and truely see;
For this perfection shee must yet attend,
Till to her Maker shee espousèd bee.

As a king's daughter, being in person sought
Of diuers princes, who doe neighbour neere,
On none of them can fixe a constant thought,
Though shee to all doe lend a gentle eare:

Yet she can loue a forraine emperour,
Whom of great worth and power she heares to be,
If she be woo'd but by embassadour,
Or but his letters, or his pictures see:

For well she knowes, that when she shall be brought
Into the kingdome where her spouse doth raigne.
Her eyes shall see what she conceiu'd in thought,
Himselfe, his state, his glory, and his traine.

132

So while the virgin soule on Earth doth stay,
She woo'd and tempted is ten thousand wayes,
By these great powers, which on the Earth beare sway;
The wisdom of the world, wealth, pleasure, praise:

With these sometime she doth her time beguile,
These doe by fits her Fantasie possesse;
But she distastes them all within a while,
And in the sweetest finds a tediousnesse.

But if upon the World's Almighty King
She once doe fixe her hnmble louing thought,
Who by His picture, drawne in euery thing,
And sacred messages, her loue hath sought;

Of Him she thinks, she cannot thinke too much;
This hony tasted still, is euer sweet;
The pleasure of her rauisht thought is such,
As almost here, she with her blisse doth meet:

But when in Heauen she shall His Essence see,
This is her soueraigne good, and perfect blisse:
Her longings, wishings, hopes all finisht be,
Her ioyes are full, her motions rest in this:

133

There is she crownd with garlands of content,
There doth she manna eat, and nectar drinke:
That Presence doth such high delights present,
As neuer tongue could speake, nor heart could thinke.

Reason III. From Contempt of Death in the better Sort of Spirits.

For this the better Soules doe oft despise
The bodie's death, and doe it oft desire;
For when on ground, the burdened ballance lies
The emptie part is lifted vp the higher:

But if the bodie's death the soule should kill,
Then death must needs against her nature bee;
And were it so, all soules would flie it still,
For Nature hates and shunnes her contrary.

For all things else, which Nature makes to bee,
Their being to preserue, are chiefly taught;
And though some things desire a change to see,
Yet neuer thing did long to turne to naught.

134

If then by death the soule were quenchèd quite,
She could not thus against her nature runne;
Since euery senselesse thing, by Nature's light,
Doth preseruation seeke, destruction shunne.

Nor could the World's best spirits so much erre,
If death tooke all—that they should all agree,
Before this life, their honour to preferre;
For what is praise to things that nothing bee?

Againe, if by the bodie's prop shee stand;
If on the bodie's life, her life depend,
As Meleager's on the fatall brand,—
The bodie's good shee onely would intend:

We should not find her halfe so braue and bold,
To leade it to the Warres and to the seas;
To make it suffer watchings, hunger, cold,
When it might feed with plentie, rest with ease.

Doubtlesse all soules have a suruiuing thought;
Therefore of death we thinke with quiet mind;
But if we thinke of being turn'd to nought,
A trembling horror in our soules we find.

135

Reason IV. From the Feare of Death in the Wicked Soules.

And as the better spirit, when shee doth beare
A scorne of death doth shew she cannot die;
So when the wicked soule death's face doth feare,
Euen then she proues her owne eternitie.

For when Death's forme appeares, she feareth not
An vtter quenching or extinguishment;
She would be glad to meet wilh such a lot,
That so she might all future ill preuent:

But shee doth doubt what after may befall;
For Nature's law accuseth her within,
And saith, 'tis true that is affirm'd by all,
That after death there is a paine for sin.

Then she which hath bin hud-winkt from her birth,
Doth first her selfe within Death's mirror see;
And when her body doth returne to earth,
She first takes care, how she alone shall bee.

136

Who euer sees these irreligious men,
With burthen of a sicknesse weake and faint,
But heares them talking of Religion then,
And vowing of their soules to euery saint?

When was there euer cursed atheist brought
Vnto the gibbet, but he did adore
That blessed Power, which he had set at nought,
Scorn'd and blasphemèd all his life before?

These light vaine persons still are drunke and mad,
With surfettings and pleasures of their youth;
But at their deaths they are fresh, sober, sad;
Then they discerne, and then they speake the truth.

If then all soules, both good and bad, doe teach,
With generall voice, that soules can neuer die;
'Tis not man's flattering glosse, but Nature's speech,
Which, like God's Oracle, can neuer lie.

137

Reason V. From the generall Desire of Immortalitie.

Hence springs that vniuersall strong desire,
Which all men haue of Immortalitie:
Not some few spirits vnto this thought aspire,
But all mens' minds in this vnited be.

Then this desire of Nature is not vaine,
“She couets not impossibilities;
“Fond thoughts may fall into some idle braine,
“But one assent of all, is euer wise.

From hence that generall care and study springs,
That launching and progression of the mind,
Which all men haue so much, of future things,
That they no ioy doe in the present find.

From this desire, that maine desire proceeds,
Which all men haue suruiuing Fame to gaine,
By tombes, by bookes, by memorable deeds;
For she that this desires, doth still remaine.

Hence lastly, springs care of posterities,
For things their kind would euerlasting make:
Hence is it that old men do plant young trees,
The fruit whereof another age shall take.

138

If we these rules unto our selues apply,
And view them by reflection of the mind;
All these true notes of immortalitie
In our heart's tables we shall written find.

Reason VI. From the very Doubt and Disputation of Immortalitie.

And though some impious wits do questions moue,
And doubt if soules immortall be, or no;
That doubt their immortalitie doth proue,
Because they seeme immortall things to know.

For he which reasons on both parts doth bring,
Doth some things mortall, some immortall call;
Now, if himselfe were but a mortall thing,
He could not iudge immortall things at all.

For when we iudge, our minds we mirrors make:
And as those glasses which materiall bee,
Formes of materiall things doe onely take,
For thoughts or minds in them we cannot see:

139

So, when we God and angels do conceiue,
And thinke of truth, which is eternall too;
Then doe our minds immortall formes receiue,
Which if they mortall were, they could not doo:

And as, if beasts conceiu'd what Reason were,
And that conception should distinctly show,
They should the name of reasonable beare;
For without Reason, none could Reason know:

So, when the Soule mounts with so high a wing,
As of eternall things she doubts can moue;
Shee proofes of her eternitie doth bring,
Euen when she striues the contrary to proue.

For euen the thought of immortalitie,
Being an act done without the bodie's ayde
Shewes, that her selfe alone could moue and bee,
Although the body in the graue were layde.

That the Soule cannot be destroyed.

And if her selfe she can so liuely moue,
And neuer need a forraine helpe to take,
Then must her motion euerlasting proue,
Because her selfe she neuer can forsake.

140

But though corruption cannot touch the minde
By any cause that from it selfe may spring,
Some outward cause Fate hath perhaps designd,
Which to the Soule may vtter quenching bring.

Perhaps her cause may cease, and she may die;
God is her cause, His Word her Maker was;
Which shall stand fixt for all eternitie
When Heauen and Earth shall like a shadow passe.

Perhaps some thing repugnant to her kind,
By strong antipathy, the soule may kill:
But what can be contrary to the minde,
Which holds all contraries in concord still?

She lodgeth heat, and cold, and moist, and dry,
And life, and death, and peace, and war together;
Ten thousand fighting things in her doe lye,
Yet neither troubleth, or disturbeth either

Perhaps for want of food the soule may pine;
But that were strange, sith all things bad and good,
Sith all God's creature's mortall and divine,
Sith God Himselfe, is her eternall food.

141

Bodies are fed with things of mortall kind,
And so are subiect to mortalitie:
But Truth which is eternall, feeds the mind;
The tree of life, which will not let her die.

Yet violence, perhaps the soule destroyes:
As lightning, or the sun-beames dim the sight;
Or as a thunder-clap, or cannon's noyse,
The power of hearing doth astonish quite.

But high perfection to the soule it brings,
T'encounter things most excellent and high;
For, when she viewes the best and greatest things
They do not hurt, but rather cleare her eye,

Besides,—as Homer's gods 'gainst armies stand,—
Her subtill forme can through all dangers slide:
Bodies are captive, minds endure no band,
And Will is free, and can no force abide.

But lastly, Time perhaps at last hath power
To spend her liuely powers, and quench her light;

142

But old god Saturne which doth all deuoure,
Doth cheerish her, and still augment her might.

Hauen waxeth old, and all the spheres aboue
Shall one day faint, and their swift motion stay;
And Time it selfe in time shall cease to moue;
Onely the Soule suruives, and liues for aye.

“Our Bodies, euery footstep that they make,
“March towards death, vntill at last they die;
“Whether we worke, or play, or sleepe, or wake,
“Our life doth passe, and with Time's wings doth flie:

But to the soule Time doth perfection giue,
And ads fresh lustre to her beauty still;
And makes her in eternall youth to liue,
Like her which nectar to the gods doth fill.

The more she liues, the more she feeds on Truth;
The more she feeds, her strength doth more increase:
And what is strength, but an effect of youth?
Which if Time nurse, how can it euer cease?

143

Objections against the Immortalitie of the Soule.

But now these Epicures begin to smile,
And say, my doctrine is more false then true;
And that I fondly doe my selfe beguile,
While these receiu'd opinions I ensue.

Objection I.

For what, say they, doth not the Soule waxe old?
How comes it then that agèd men doe dote;
And that their braines grow sottish, dull and cold,
Which were in youth the onely spirits of note?

What? are not soules within themselues corrupted?
How can there idiots then by nature bee?
How is it that some wits are interrupted,
That now they dazeled are, now clearely see?

144

Answere.

These questions make a subtill argument,
To such as thinke both sense and reason one:
To whom nor agent, from the instrument,
Nor power of working, from the work is known.

But they that know that wit can shew no skill,
But when she things in Sense's glasse doth view,
Doe know, if accident this glasse doe spill,
It nothing sees, or sees the false for true.

For, if that region of the tender braine,
Where th'inward sense of fantasie should sit,
And the outward senses gatherings should retain,
By Nature, or by chance, become vnfit:

Either at first vncapable it is,
And so few things, or none at all receiues;
Or mard by accident, which haps amisse
And so amisse it euery thing perceiues.

Then, as a cunning prince that vseth spyes,
If they returne no newes doth nothing know;

145

But if they make aduertisement of lies,
The Prince's counsel all awry doe goe.

Euen so the soule to such a body knit,
Whose inward senses vndisposèd be,
And to receiue the formes of things vnfit;
Where nothing is brought in, can nothing see.

This makes the idiot, which hath yet a mind,
Able to know the truth, and chuse the good,
If she such figures in the braine did find,
As might be found, if it in temper stood.

But if a phrensie doe possesse the braine,
It so disturbs and blots the formes of things,
As Fantasie prooues altogether vaine,
And to the Wit no true relation brings.

Then doth the Wit, admitting all for true,
Build fond conclusions on those idle grounds:
Then doth it flie the good, and ill pursue,
Beleeuing all that this false spie propounds.

But purge the humors, and the rage appease,
Which this distemper in the fansie wrought,
Then shall the Wit, which never had disease,
Discourse, and iudge discreetly, as it ought.

146

So, though the clouds eclipse the sunne's faire light,
Yet from his face they doe not take one beame;
So haue our eyes their perfect power of sight,
Euen when they looke into a troubled streame.

Then these defects in Senses' organs bee,
Not in the soule or in her working might:
She cannot lose her perfect power to see,
Thogh mists and clouds do choke her window light.

These imperfections then we must impute,
Not to the agent but the instrument:
We must not blame Apollo, but his lute,
If false accords from her false strings be sent.

The Soule in all hath one intelligence;
Though too much moisture in an infant's braine,
And too much drinesse in an old man's sense,
Cannot the prints of outward things retaine:

Then doth the soule want worke, and idle sit,
And this we childishnesse and dotage call;
Yet hath she then a quicke and actiue Wit,
If she had stuffe and tooles to worke withall:

For, giue her organs fit, and obiects faire;
Giue but the aged man, the young man's sense;

147

Let but Medea, Æson's youth repaire,
And straight she shewes her wonted excellence.

As a good harper stricken farre in yeares,
Into whose cunning hand the gowt is fall:
All his old crotchets in his braine he beares,
But on his harpe playes ill, or not at all.

But if Apollo takes his gowt away,
Thut hee his nimble fingers may apply,
Apollo's selfe will enuy at his play,
And all the world applaud his minstralsie.

Then dotage is no weaknesse of the mind,
But of the sense; for if the mind did waste,
In all old men we should this wasting find,
When they some certain terme of yeres had past:

But most of them, euen to their dying howre,
Retaine a mind more liuely, quicke, and strong,
And better vse their vnderstanding power,
Then when their braines were warm, and lims were yong.

148

For, though the body wasted be and weake,
And though the leaden forme of earth it beares,
Yet when we heare that halfe-dead body speake,
We oft are rauisht to the heauenly spheares.

Objection II.

Yet say these men, If all her organs die,
Then hath the soule no power her powers to vse:
So, in a sort, her powers extinct doe lie,
When vnto act shee cannot them reduce.

And if her powers be dead, then what is shee?
For sith from euery thing some powers do spring,
And from those powers, some acts proceeding bee,
Then kill both power and act, and kill the thing.

Answere.

Doubtless, the bodie's death when once it dies,
The instruments of sense and life doth kill;
So that she cannot vse those faculties,
Although their root rest in her substance still.

149

But (as the body liuing) Wit and Will
Can iudge and chuse, without the bodie's ayde;
Though on such obiects they are working still,
As through the bodie's organs are conuayde:

So, when the body serues her turne no more,
And all her senses are extinct and gone,
She can discourse of what she learn'd before,
In heauenly contemplations, all alone.

So, if one man well on a lute doth play,
And haue good horsemanship, and learning's skill:
Though both his lute and horse we take away,
Doth he not keep his former learning still?

He keepes it doubtlesse, and can vse it to[o];
And doth both th'other skils in power retaine;
And can of both the proper actions doe,
If with his lute or horse he meet againe.

So (though the instruments by which we liue,
And view the world, the bodie's death doe kill;)
Yet with the body they shall all reuiue,
And all their wonted offices fulfill.

150

Objection III.

But how, till then, shall she herselfe imploy?
Her spies are dead which brought home newes before:
What she hath got and keepes, she may enioy,
But she hath meanes to vnderstand no more.

Then what do those poore soules, which nothing get?
Or what doe those which get, and cannot keepe?
Like buckets bottomlesse, which all out-let
Those soules, for want of exercise, must sleepe.

Answere.

See how man's soule against it selfe doth striue:
Why should we not haue other meanes to know?
As children while within the wombe they liue,
Feed by the nauill: here they feed not so.

151

These children, if they had some vse of sense,
And should by chance their mothers' talking heare,
That in short time they shall come forth from thence,
Would feare their birth more then our death we feare.

They would cry out, ‘If we this place shall leaue,
Then shall we breake our tender nauill strings:
How shall we then our nourishment receiue,
Sith our sweet food no other conduit brings?’

And if a man should to these babes reply,
That into this faire world they shall be brought,
Where they shall see the Earth, the Sea, the Skie,
The glorious Sun, and all that God hath wrought:

That there ten thousand dainties they shall meet,
Which by their mouthes they shall with pleature take;
Which shall be cordiall too, as wel as sweet,
And of their little limbes, tall bodies make:

152

This would they thinke a fable, euen as we
Doe thinke the story of the Golden Age;
Or as some sensuall spirits amongst vs bee,
Which hold the world to come a fainèd stage:

Yet shall these infants after find all true,
Though then thereof they nothing could conceiue:
As soone as they are borne, the world they view,
And with their mouthes, the nurses' milke receiue.

So, when the soule is borne (for Death is nought
But the soule's birth, and so we should it call)
Ten thousand things she sees beyond her thought,
And in an vnknowne manner knowes them all.

Then doth she see by spectacles no more,
She heares not by report of double spies;
Her selfe in instants doth all things explore,
For each thing present, and before her, lies.

153

Objection IV.

But still this crue with questions me pursues:
If soules deceas'd (say they) still liuing bee,
Why do they not return, to bring vs newes
Of that strange world, where they such wonders see?

Answere.

Fond men! If we beleeue that men doe liue
Vnder the Zenith of both frozen Poles,
Though none come thence aduertisement to giue,
Why beare we not the like faith of our soules?

The soule hath here on Earth no more to doe,
Then we haue businesse in our mother's wombe:
What child doth couet to returne thereto?
Although all children first from thence do come?

154

But as Noah's pidgeon, which return'd no more,
Did shew, she footing found, for all the Flood;
So when good soules, departed through Death's dore,
Come not againe, it shewes their dwelling good.

And doubtlesse, such a soule as vp doth mount,
And doth appeare before her Maker's Face,
Holds this vile world in such a base account,
As she looks down, and scorns this wretched place.

But such as are detruded downe to Hell,
Either for shame, they still themselues retire;
Or tyed in chaines, they in close prison dwell.
And cannot come, although they much desire.

Objection. V.

Well, well, say these vaine spirits, though vaine is is
To thinke our soules to Heauen or Hell to go;
Politike men haue thought it not amisse,
To spread this lye, to make men vertuous so.

155

Answere.

Doe you then thinke this morall vertue good?
I thinke you doe, euen for your priuate gaine,
For Common-wealths by vertue euer stood,
And common good the priuate doth containe.

If then this vertue you doe loue so well,
Haue you no meanes, her practise to maintaine,
But you this lye must to the people tell,
That good soules liue in ioy, and ill in paine?

Must vertue be preseruèd by a lye?
Vertue and Truth do euer best agree;
By this it seemes to be a veritie,
Sith the effects so good and vertuous bee.

For, as the deuill father is of lies,
So vice and mischiefe doe his lyes ensue:
Then this good doctrine did not he deuise,
But made this lye, which saith it is not true.

156

The Generall Consent of All.

For, how can that be false, which euery tongue
Of euery mortall man affirmes for true?
Which truth hath in all ages been so strong,
As lodestone-like, all hearts it euer drew.

For, not the Christian, or the Iew alone,
The Persian, or the Turke, acknowledge this:
This mysterie to the wild Indian knowne,
And to the Canniball and Tartar is.

This rich Assyrian drugge growes euery where;
As common in the North, as in the East:
This doctrine does not enter by the eare,
But of it selfe is natiue in the breast.

None that acknowledge God, or prouidence,
Their soule's eternitie did euer doubt;
For all Religion takes her root from hence,
Which no poore naked nation liues without.

For sith the World for Man created was,
(For onely Man the vse thereof doth know)

157

If man doe perish like a withered grasse,
How doth God's Wisedom order things below?

And if that Wisedom still wise ends propound,
Why made He man, of other creatures King;
When (if he perish here) there is not found
In all the world so poor and vile a thing?

If death do quench vs quite, we haue great wrong,
Sith for our seruice all things else were wrought,
That dawes, and trees, and rocks, should last so long,
When we must in an instant passe to nought.

But blest be that Great Power, that hath vs blest
With longer life then Heauen or Earth can haue;
Which hath infus'd into our mortall breast
Immortall powers, not subiect to the graue.

For though the Soule doe seeme her graue to beare,
And in this world is almost buried quick,
We haue no cause the bodie's death to feare,
For when the shell is broke, out comes a chick.

158

Three Kinds of Life answerable to the three Powers of the Soule.

For as the soule's essentiall powers are three,
The quickning power, the power of sense and reason:
Three kinds of life to her designèd bee,
Which perfect these three powers in their due season.

The first life, in the mother's wombe is spent,
Where she her nursing power doth onely vse;
Where, when she finds defect of nourishment,
Sh' expels her body, and this world she viewes.

This we call Birth; but if the child could speake,
He Death would call it; and of Nature plaine,
That she would thrust him out naked and weake,
And in his passage pinch him with such paine.

Yet, out he comes, and in this world is plac't
Where all his Senses in perfection bee:
Where he finds flowers to smell, and fruits to taste;
And sounds to heare, and sundry formes to see.

159

When he hath past some time vpon this stage,
His Reason then a litle seemes to wake;
Which, thogh the spring, when sense doth fade with age,
Yet can she here no perfect practise make.

Then doth th'aspiring Soule the body leaue,
Which we call Death; but were it knowne to all,
What life our soules do by this death receiue,
Men would it birth or gaole deliuery call.

In this third life, Reason will be so bright,
As that her sparke will like the sun-beames shine,
And shall of God enioy the reall sight.
Being still increast by influence diuine.

An Acclamation.

O ignorant poor man! what dost thou beare
Lockt vp within the casket of thy brest?
What iewels, and what riches hast thou there!
What heauenly treasure in so weake a chest!

160

Looke in thy soule, and thou shalt beauties find,
Like those which drownd Narcissus in the flood:
Honour and Pleasure both are in thy mind,
And all that in the world is couuted Good.

Thinke of her worth, and think that God did meane,
This worthy mind should worthy things imbrace;
Blot not her beauties with thy thoughts vnclean,
Nor her dishonour with thy passions base:

Kill not her quickning power with surfettings,
Mar not her sense with sensualitie;
Cast not her serious wit on idle things:
Make not her free-will, slaue to vanitie.

And when thou think'st of her eternitie,
Thinke not that Death against her nature is;
Thinke it a birth: and when thou goest to die,
Sing like a swan, as if thou went'st to blisse.

161

And if thou, like a child, didst feare before,
Being in the darke, where thou didst nothing see;
Now I haue broght thee torch-light, feare no more;
Now when thou diest, thou canst not hud-winkt be.

And thou my Soule, which turn'st thy curious eye,
To view the beames of thine owne forme diuine,
Know, that thou canst know nothing perfectly,
While thou art clouded with this flesh of mine.

Take heed of ouer-weening, and compare
Thy peacock's feet with thy gay peacock's traine:
Study the best and highest things that are,
But of thy selfe an humble thought retaine.

Cast downe thy selfe, and onely striue to raise
The glory of thy Maker's sacred Name:
Vse all thy powers, that Blessed Power to praise,
Which giues thee power to bee, and vse the same.

Finis.