Yee walked according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the Aire.
1
O whither will this mad-braine world, at last,
Be driv'n? where will her restlesse wheeles arive?
Why hurries on her ill-match'd Payre so fast?
O whether meanes her furious Groome to drive?
What? will her rambling Fits be never past?
For ever ranging? never once retrive?
Will earths perpetuall Progresse nere expire?
Her Teame continuing in their fresh Careire,
And yet they never rest, And yet they never tyre.
2
Sols hot-mouth'd Steeds, whose nostrils vomit flame,
And brazen lungs belch forth quotidian fire,
Their twelve houres taske perform'd, grow stiffe and lame,
And their immortall Spirits faint and tyre:
At th'Azure mountaines foote, their labours claime
The priviledge of Rest, where they retyre
To quench their burning Fetlocks, and to steepe
Their flaming nostrils in the Westerne deepe,
And fresh their tyred soules with strength-restoring sleepe.
3
But these prodigious Hackneyes, basely got
Twixt Men and Devils, made for Race, nor Flight,
Can dragge the idle world, expecting not
The bed of Rest, but travill with delight;
Who neither weighing way, nor weather, trott
Through dust and dirt, and droyle both night and day;
Thus droyle these feinds incarate, whose free paynes;
Are fed with dropsies, and veneriall Blaines.
No need to use the whip; but strength, to rule the raynes.
4
Poore Captive world! How has thy lightness given
A just occasion to thy Foes illusion;
O, how art thou betrayd, thus fayrely driven
In seeming Triumph to thy owne confusion?
How is thy empty universe bereiven
Of all true Joyes, by one false Joyes delusion?
So have T seene an unblowne virgin fed
With sugard words so full, that shee is led
A faire attended Bride, to a false Bankrupts Bed.
5
Pull gratious LORD; Let not thine Arme forsake
The world, impounded in her owne devises;
Thinke of that pleasure that thou once did take
Amongst thy Lillies, and sweete Beds of spices:
Hale strongly, thou whose hand has pow'r to slake
The swift foot Fury of ten thousand Vices:
Let not that dust-devouring Dragon boast,
His craft has wonne, what Judahs Lyon lost;
Remember what it crav'd; Recount the price it cost.
ISIODOR. lib.1. De summo bono.
By how much more the nearer Sathan perceives the world to an end, by so
much more fiercely Hee troubles it with persecution; that knowing himselfe is to
be damned, hee may get company in his damnation.
CYPRIAN. in ep.
Broad and spatious is the road to infernall life: There are enticements and
death-bringing pleasures; There the Devill flatters, that hee may deceive;
Smiles, that hee may endamage; allures, that he may destroy.
