XIII. PROVERBS XXVI. XI.
As a Dog returneth to his vomit, so a foole returneth to his follie.
O I am wounded! And my wounds do smart
Beyond my patience, or great Chirons Art;
I yeeld, I yeeld; The day, the Palme is thine;
Thy Bow's more true; thy shafts more fierce than mine;
Hold, hold, O hold thy conqu'ring hand. What need
To send more darts; The first has done the deed:
Oft have we struggled, when our equall Armes
Shot equall shafts; inflicted equall harmes;
But this exceeds, and with her flaming head,
Twyfork'd with death, has struck my Conscience dead;
But must I die? Ah me! If that were all,
Then, then I'd stroke my bleeding wounds and call
This dart a Cordiall; and with joy, endure
These harsh Ingredients, where my Griefe's my Cure.
But something whispers in my dying eare,
There is an After-day; which day I feare:
The slender debt to Nature's quickly payd,
Discharg'd, perchance, with greater ease than made;
But if that pale-fac'd Sergeant make Arrest,
Ten thousand Actions would (whereof the least
Is more than all this lower world can bayle)
Be entred, and condemne me to the Jayle
Of Stygian darknesse, bound in red-hot Chaines,
And grip'd with Tortures worse than Tytian paines:
Farewell my vaine, farewell my loose delights;
Farewell my rambling dayes; my rev'ling nights;
'Twas you betraid me first, and when ye found
My soule at vantage, gave my soule the wound:
Farewell my Bullion Gods, whose sov'raigne lookes
So often catch'd me with their golden hookes,
Go, seek another slave; ye must all go;
I cannot serve my God, and Bullion too:
Farewell false Honour; you, whose ayry wings
Did mount my soule above the Thrones of kings;
Then flattr'd me; tooke pet; and, in disdaine,
Nipt my greene Buds; then kickt me down againe:
Farewell my Bow: Farewell my Cyprian Quiver;
Farwell, deare world; farewell, deare world, for ever.
O, but this most delicious world, how sweet
Her pleasures relish! Ah! How jump they meet
The grasping soule! And, with their sprightly fire,
Revive, and raise, and rowze the rapt desire!
For ever? O, to part so long? What never
Meet more? Another yeare; and then, for ever:
Too quick resolves do resolution wrong;
What part so soone, to be divorc'd so long?
Things to be done are long to be debated;
Heav'n is not day'd: Repentance is not dated.
S. AUGUST. lib. de util. agen. paen.
Go up my soule into the Tribunall of thy Conscience; There set thy guilty
selfe before thy selfe: Hide not thy selfe behind thy selfe, least God bring
thee forth before thy selfe.
S. AUGUST. in Soliloq.
In vaine is that washing, where the next sin defiles: He hath ill repented
whose sinnes are repeated: That stomack is the worse for vomiting, that licks up his vomit.
ANSELM.
God hath promised pardon to him that repenteth, but he hath not promised
repentance to him that sinneth.
EPIGRAM 13.
[Braine-wounded Cupid, had this hasty dart]
Braine-wounded Cupid, had this hasty dart
As it hath prickt thy Fancy, pierc'd thy heart,
'T had been thy Friend: O how has it deceiv'd thee?
For had this dart but kill'd, this dart had sav'd thee.
