Divine poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Even as a member, whose corrupted sore
Infests, and rankles, eating more and more,
Threatning the bodies losse (if not prevented)
The wise chirurgion (all faire meanes attented)
Cuts off, and with advised skil doth choose,
To lose a part, then all the body lose;
Even so the feeble Sailors (that addresse
Their idle armes, where heaven denyes successe)
Forbeare their thrivelesse labours, and devise
To roote that Evill, from whence their harms arise:
Treason is in their thoughts, and in their eares
Danger revives the old, and addes new feares;
Their hearts grow fierce, and every soule applies
T'abandon mercy from his tender eyes:
They cease t'attempt what heaven so long withstood,
And bent to kill, their thoughts are all on blood:
They whisper oft, each word is Deaths Alarme;
They hoyst him up; Each lends a busie arme,

And with united powers they entombe
His out-cast body in Thetis angry wombe:
Whereat grim Neptune wip't his somy mouth,
Held his tridented Mace upon the South;
The windes were whist, the billows danc't no more,
The storme allay'd, the heavens left off to rore,
The waves (obedient to their pilgrimage)
Gave ready passage, and surceast their rage,
The skie grew cleare, and now the welcome light
Begins to put the gloomy clouds to flight:
Thus all on sudden was the Sea tranquill,
The Heav'ns were quiet, and the Waves were still,
As when a friendly Creditor (to get
A long forborne, and much concerning debt)
Still plies his willing debter with entreats,
Importunes daily, daily thumps, and beates
The batter'd Portals of his tyred eares,
Bedeasing him with what he knowes, and heares;
The weary debter, to avoid the sight
He loathes, shifts here, and there, and ev'ry night
Seekes out Protection of another bed,
Yet ne'rethelesse (pursu'd and followed)
His eares are still laid at with lowder volley
Of harder Dialect; He melancholy,
Sits downe, and sighs, and after long foreslowing,
(T'avoid his presence) payes him what is owing;
The thankfull Creditor is now appeas'd,
Takes leave, and goes away content, and pleas'd.
Even so these angry waves, with restlesse rage,
Accosted Ionas in his pilgrimage,
And thundred Iudgement in his fearefull eare,
Presenting Hubbubs to his guilty feare:
The waves rose discontent, the Surges beat,
And every moments death, the billowes threat,

The weather-beaten Ship did every minuit
Await destruction, while hee was in it:
But when his (long expected) corps they threw
Into the deepe, (a debt, through trespasse, due)
The Sea grew kinde, and all her frownes abated,
Her face was smooth to all that navigated.
'Twas sinfull Ionah made her storme and rage,
'Twas sinfull Ionah did her storme asswage.

With that the Mariners astonisht were,
And fear'd Iehovah with a mighty feare,
Offring up Sacrifice with one accord,
And vowing solemne vowes unto the Lord.
But he whose word can make the earth's foundatiō
Tremble, and with his Word can make cessation,
Whose wrath doth moūt the waves, & toss the Seas,
And make thē calme & smooth, whē e're he please:
This God, (whose mercy runs on endlesse wheele,
And puls (like Iacob) Iustice by the heele)
Prepar'd a Fish, prepar'd a mighty Whale,
Whose belly was both prison-house, and baile,
For retchlesse Ionah. As the two leaf'd doore
Opens, to welcome home the fruitfull store,
Wherewith the harvest quits the Plowmans hope,
Even so the great Leviathan set ope
His beame-like Iawes, (prepar'd for such a boone)
And at a morsell, swallow'd Jonah downe,
'Till dewy-check't Aurora's purple dye
Thrice dappell'd had the ruddy morning skie,
And thrice had spred the Curtaines of the morne,
To let in Titan, when the day was borne,
Ionah was Tenant to this living Grave,
Embowel'd deepe in this stupendious Cave.

Meditat. 6.

Lo, Death is now, as alwaies it hath bin,
The just procured stipend of our sinne:
Sinne is a golden Causie, and a Road
Garnisht with joyes, whose pathes are even & broad
But leads at length to death, and endlesse griefe,
To torments, and to paines without reliefe.
Iustice feares none, but maketh all afraid,
And then fals hardest, when tis most delaid,
But thou reply'st, thy sinnes are daily great,
Yet thou sittst uncontrold upon thy seat;
Thy wheat doth flourish, and thy barnes do thrive,
Thy sheepe encrease, thy sonnes are all alive,
And thou art buxom, and hast nothing scant,
Finding no want of any thing, but want,
Whil'st others, whom the squint-ey'd world counts holy,
Sit sadly drooping in a melancholy,
With brow dejected, and downe-hanging head,
Or take of almes, or poorely begge their bread:
But young man, know there is a Day of doome,
The Feast is good, untill the reck'ning come.
The time runnes fastest, where is least regard,
The stone thats long in falling, falleth hard;
There is a dying day, (thou prosp'rous foole)
When all thy laughter shall be turn'd to Doole,
Thy roabes to tort'ring plagues, & fel tormenting
Thy whoops of Ioy, to howles of sad lamenting:
Thy tongue shall yell, and yawle, and never stop,
And wish a world, to give for one poore drop,
To flatter thine intolerable paine;
The wealth of Pluto could not then obtaine

A minutes freedome from that hellish rout,
Whose fire burnes, and never goeth out:
Nor house, nor land, not measur'd heaps of wealth,
Can render to a dying man, his health:
Our life on earth is like a thred of flax,
That all may touch, and being toucht, it craks.

As when an Archer shooteth for his sport,
Sometimes his shaft is gone, sometimes 'tis short,
Somtimes o'th'left hād, wide, sometimes o'th right
At last, (through often tryall) hits the White;
So death sometimes with her uncertaine Rover,
Hits our Superiours (and so shoots over)
Sometimes for change, shee strikes the meaner sort,
Strikes our Inferiours (and then comes short)
Sometimes upon the left hand wide shee goes,
And so (still wounding some) shee strikes our foes;
And sometimes wide upon the right hand bends,
There with Imperiall shafts, she strikes our friends;
At length (through often triall) hits the White,
And so strikes us into Eternall night.

Death is a Kalender compos'd by Fate,
Concerning all men, never out of Date:
Her dayes Dominicall, are writ in blood;
She shewes more bad daies, than she sheweth good:
She tels when dayes, & monthes, & termes expire,
Meas'ring the lives of mortals by her squire.

Death is a Pursivant, with Eagles wings,
That knocks at poore mens door, & gates of Kings.
Worldling, beware betime; death sculks behind thee
And as she leaves thee, so will Iudgement find thee.