University of Virginia Library

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1018

A HYMN OF ALMS: OR THE BEGGERS BELL; heard, from beyond THE CHARTER-HOVSE,

To ring All-in, To The Temple of CHARITIE;

In an Eccho Iterated, & Consecrated To The right-right Reuerend and Double-Honorable Father, George Abbot, L. Arch-Bishop of Canterbury. &c.

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1019

TO MY LORD OF CANTERBURY His Grace.

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1020

AD EVNDEM PRÆSVLEM PÆOPTIMVM EPIGRAMMA Ex lat. I. O. 1611.

AD Reuerendissimum Dominum Episcopum Londinensem. EPIGRAMMA

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1021

A HYMN OF ALMS.

Even as the Opal, in his orient lustre,
Where various colours of all Stones doo muster,
Shewes the rare Riches of the Pearly East;
Alms is The Glass of wel-bred soules and blest,

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1022

Shewing each other Vertue's sacred Quality,
In the Heav'n-allied Man of Liberality.

Abram, Lot, Ioseph, Iob, were Almners all
(To Strangers kinde, to Neighbours liberall)

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1023

By sacred record, which renowns them more
For this rare, Vertue, then All else of yore;
As if, with God (the Author of all Good)
Their chief perfection in this Function stood,
Sole Soule of Vertues, second Life of all
This various vast Orb, which the World wee call.

O! Thrice, thrice Happy Hee, whose free Desires
To Charity a holy fervour fires:
Who onely mindes GOD's Glory, by his Gift,
And Neighbour's Good, without sinister Drift:
Famine (familiar vnto Rogues that range)
Shall not com neer his Garner, nor his Grange:
His Fields, with Corn, abundant Crop shall cover,
His Vines with Grapes, his Hedge with Roses over;
His Downs with Sheep, his Daery-grounds with Neat;
His Mounts with Kids, his Moors with Oxen great;

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1024

His Groves with Droves (increasing Night and Day);
His Hils with Heards, his smiling Meads with Hay;
His Fens with Fowl, his Pils and Pools with Fish;
His Trees with Fruits, with Plenty every Dish:
Content and Health (the Best of Earthly Bliss)
Shall evermore remain with Him and His:
Him, Pride or Envy never shall molest;
Or Corsive Care, Foe to Repast and Rest.
For, th'All-see Ey still carefully respects
The Almner's House, and ever it protects;
Till finally, when Iustice endeth All,
Sweet Mercie's Voice Him to Heav'ns Kingdom call.

Rich Anatolia, and her happy Coast
(Th'abbridged Glass of all the World, almost)
In her huge Cities (rather Shires wall'd-in)
These hundred yeers hath not a Begger seen;
(God's strict Edict they there observe so well,
Forbidding Beggers in His Israel )

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1025

Sith 't is misprision of the Law of Nature,
Nay, impious Pride against our All Creator,
To suffer Man (God's Image, and our Owne)
Whom wee may succour, to bee overthrowne
To stark for Cold, to starve for Food, to perish
In Penury, when wee have power to cherish:
For, in such Cases, where (wee knowe) wee can,
There not to Comfort, is to Kill a Man.

But, pardon, London; I have over-slipt:
I must recant, lest I bee stript and whipt.

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1026

Christ-Church, S. Thomas, Bartholmew (My Friend)
Bride-well and Bedlam, better Thee commend:
Besides a many of peculiar Charges
Of Companies; and more of Private Largess:
And, above All, that black Swan (Svtton)'s Nest ,
(From One, alone almost worth All the rest)
That new Zaccheus, who restored free
Th'old Charter-house to better Charity.
Are not These, Alms? Are not These, Monuments
Of pious Zeal; of kinde Beneficence?
I grant they are (Give God and Men their due):
But, reverend Green-Staves, what's All This to You
(Vnless, as Romists by implicit Creed,
You hope for Heav'n, by Right of others Deed;
Or swell with glory of your Elders Good:
As self-Ignobles boast their Fathers Blood)
That These few, dead, heer a few Hundreds cherish;
If living, You let many Thousands perish;
For want, perhaps, not of your Gift, but Gain;
Which som, perhaps, from others Gifts restrain;
Which (if time serve) when they can hould no more,
They will (perhaps, the tenth-tenth-part) restore
When they are dead; to build a Front for Five,
Of those five Hundred they have starv'd, alive.
O Times! O Manners! O mad, murderous Vanity,
In Every Sort, of equall Inhumanity!

Alms was the Word th'All-perfect Artist said,
When, out of Almes, Hee bade, A Heav'n bee made:
A fruitfull Earth: A Lightfull, Heatfull Fire:
A Sighfull Air (though Soule-less) to respire:

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1027

A moistfull Water, waving Changefully:
A World (in briefe) full of all Quality.
So that (in fine) of All This All-Theater,
Alms is the Form, Almes is the primer Matter,
So necessary for Our Lively-hood,
That, after God, it is Man's Soverain-Good.

So may they speed, or worse then so, that spoil
God's living Temples (by or Gripe, or Guile):
That from their Pastor, or their Prince, detain
The Tithe, or Tribute, sacred Lawes ordain:

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1028

That from the Poor their ancient Rights conceal;
Or, in their new, with Them vnjustly deal:
That have, by secret sacrilegious Theft,
Robd Church, or State, or holy Almes bereft:
O! may they once, as high as Haman, mount;
And from Mount Faulcon give a sad Account
Of all the Wrongs (as Conscience them convinces)
Don to their God, their Country, Peers and Princes
While Great-ones, blinded, or as loth to spy,
Had oft their Fingers in the Golden Py;
For private Profit or peculiar Pleasure,
Neglecting Poor, Publick's and Princes Threasure.
O Times! O Manners, Most to bee deplor'd!
O! sudden mend them, or soon end them, Lord.

But, now return wee to our Theam, from whence
Our Charity (through Zeal's too-Vehemence)

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1029

Seems to have straid. Yet 'twas meer Alms did move
My grieved Verse These Guilty to reprove;
To turn their hearts to God, and to their King;
Their private Heaps for publike Helps to bring,
Against th'Ambition of som Foxy Foe,
That by our Selves, our Selves would overthrowe;
Not by his Arms, but by his Alms, to Som:
For, golden Lances oft have overcom.

Pactolus, Ganges, and the golden Tay,
Not onely steep their Stronds, ennammeld gay
With various Tinge of thousand Flowrs and more,
Sowne on the surface of their winding Shore:

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1030

But, for a richer Alms, they Gold bestowe,
As needfull now, as Reason (well wee knowe)
In This Gold-Iron Age; where, whoso wants
All-mighty Gold, but Scorn and Scandal hants.

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1031

Cynthia, ador'd with hundred Fumes and Flames;
Honour'd (abroad) by more then hundred Names;
Shee gives vs Humors, more or less abounding,
As in her Course her Fall or Full is rounding:
Shee fashions Time; which Shee again defaces
With constant Turns of her inconstant Faces:
Shee swaies the Floods, and shewes (by Evidence)
Her Self sole Law of liquid Elements:

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1032

Shee forms, by Night, the fresh and fruitfull Deaw,
Which every morning Flora's Buds doth streaw;
Whose Purled Pearls are ever bigger found
And more, the more Lucina waxeth round.