VII. I PETER V. VIII.
Be sober; Be vigilant, because your adversary the Divell, as a roaring Lion
walketh about seeking whom he may devour.
1
Why dost thou suffer lustfull sloth to creepe
(Dull Cyprian lad) into thy wanton browes?
Is this a time to pay thine idle vowes
At Morpheus Shrine? Is this a time to sleepe
Thy braines in wastfull slumbers? up and rouze
Thy leaden spirits; Is this a time to sleepe?
Adjourne thy sanguine dreames; Awake, arise;
Call in thy Thoughts, and let them all advise,
Hadst thou as many Heads, as thou hast wounded Eyes.
2
Looke, looke, what horrid Furies doe await
Thy flattring slumbers; If thy drowzie head
But chance to nod, thou falst into a Bed
Of sulphrous flames, whose Torments want a date:
Fond Boy, be wise; let not thy thoughts be fed
With Phrygian wisdome; Fooles are wise too late:
Beware betimes, and let thy Reason sever
Those Gates which passion clos'd; wake now, or never:
For if thou nod'st, thou fal'st; and, falling, fal'st for ever.
3
Mark, how the ready hands of death prepare;
His Bow is bent, and he has notch'd his dart;
He aimes, he levels at thy slumbring heart
The wound is posting; O be wise; Beware;
What? has the voice of danger lost the art
To raise the spirit of neglected Care?
Well; sleep thy fill; and take thy soft reposes;
But know withall, sweet tasts have sower closes;
And he repents in Thornes, that sleeps in Beds of Roses.
4
Yet, sluggard, wake, and gull thy soule no more,
With earths false pleasure, and the world's delight,
Whose fruit is faire, and pleasing to the sight,
But sowre in tast; false, at the putrid Core:
Thy flaring Glasse is Gemms at her halfe light;
She makes thee seeming rich, but truly poore:
She boasts a kernell, and bestowes a Shell;
Performes an Inch of her faire promis'd Ell;
Her words protest a Heav'n; Her works produce a Hell.
5
O thou, the fountaine of whose better part
Is earth'd, and gravil'd up with vaine desire,
That daily wallow'st in the fleshly mire
And base pollution of a lustfull heart,
That feel'st no passion but in wanton fire,
And own'st no torment but from Cupids dart;
Behold thy Type; Thou fitst upon this Ball
Of earth, secure, while death, that stings at all,
Stands arm'd to strike thee down, where flames attend thy fall.
S. BERN.
Security is no where; It is neither in heaven; nor in Paradise; much lesse in
the world: In heaven, the Angels fell from the divine presence; In Paradise,
Adam fell from his place of pleasure: In the world, Judas fell from the Schoole of our Saviour.
HUGO.
I eat secure; I drinke secure: I sleepe secure, even as though I had past the
day of death, avoided the day of judgement, and escaped the torments of hell
fire: I play and laugh, as though I were already triumphing in the kingdome of heaven.
EPIGRAM 7.
[Get up, my soule; Redeeme thy slavish eyes]
Get up, my soule; Redeeme thy slavish eyes,
From drowzy bondage: O beware; Be wise;
Thy Foe's before thee; thou must fight, or flie:
Life lies most open in a closed Eye.
