Philosophical poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

In silent night, when mortalls be at rest,
And bathe their molten limbs in slothfull sleep,
My troubled ghost strange cares did straight molest
And plung'd my heavie soul in sorrow deep:
Large floods of tears my moistned cheeks did steep,
My heart was wounded with compassionate love
Of all the creatures: sadly out I creep
From mens close mansions, the more to improve
My mournfull plight, so softly on I forward move.

2

Aye me! said I, within my wearied breast,
And sighed sad, wherefore did God erect
This stage of misery? thrice, foure times blest
Whom churlish Nature never did eject
From her dark womb, and cruelly object
By sense and life unto such balefull smart;
Every slight entrance into joy is checkt
By that soure step dames threats, and visage tart:
Our pleasure of our pain is not the thousandth part.

3

Thus vex'd I was 'cause of mortality:
Her curst remembrance cast me in this plight,
That I grew sick of the worlds vanity
Ne ought recomfort could my sunken spright,
What so I hate may do me no delight,
Few things (alas) I hate, the more my wo,
The things I love by mine own sad foresight
Make me the greater torments undergo,
Because I know at last they're gone like idle show.

4

Each goodly sight my sense doth captivate
When vernall flowers their silken leaves display,
And ope their fragrant bosomes, I that state
Would not have changed but indure for aye;
Nor care to mind that that fatall decay
Is still recured by faithfull succession.
But why should ought that's good thus fade away?
Should steddy Spring exclude Summers accession?
Or Summer spoil the Spring with furious hot oppression!

5

You chearfull chaunters of the flowring woods,
That feed your carelesse souls with pleasant layes,
O silly birds! cease from your merry moods:
Ill suits such mirth when dreary deaths assayes
So closely presse your sory carkases:
To mournfull note turn your light verilayes,
Death be your song, and winters hoary sprayes,
Spend your vain sprighes in sighing Elegies:
I'll help you to lament your wofull miseries.

6

When we lay cover'd in the shady Night
Of senselesse matter, we were well content
With that estate, nought pierc'd our anxious spright,
No harm we suffered, no harm we ment;
Our rest not with light dream of ill was blent:
But when rough Nature, with her iron hond,
Pull'd us from our soft ease, and hither hent,
Disturbing fear and pinching pain we found,
Full many a bitter blast, full many a dreadfull stound.

7

Yet lifes strong love doth so intoxicate
Our misty minds, that we do fear to dy.
What did dame Nature brood all things of hate
And onely give them life for misery?
Sense for an undeserved penalty?
And show that if she list, that she could make
Them happy? but with spightfull cruelty
Doth force their groaning ghosts this house forsake?
And to their ancient Nought their empty selves betake!

8

Thus in deep sorrow and restlesse disdain
Against the cankered doom of envious fate,
I clove my very heart with riving pain,
While I in sullen rage did ruminate
The Creatures vanity and wofull state;
And night that ought to yield us timely rest,
My swelling griefs did much more aggravate:
The sighs and groans of weary sleeping beast
Seem'd as if sleep it self their spirits did molest:

9

Or as constrain'd perforce that boon to wrest
From envious Nature. All things did augment
My heavie plight, that fouly I blam'd the hest
Of stubborn destiny cause of this wayment.
Even sleep that's for our restauration ment,
As execrable thing I did abhorre,
Cause ugly death to th'life it did depeint:
What good came to my mind I did deplore,
Because it perish must and not live evermore.

10

Thus wrapt in rufull thought through the waste field
I staggerd on, and scattered my woe,
Bedew'd the grasse with tears mine eyes did yield,
At last I am arriv'd with footing slow
Near a black pitchy wood, that strongest throw
Of starry beam no'te easily penetrate:
On the North side I walked to and fro
In solitary shade. The Moons sly gate
Had cross'd the middle line: It was at least so late.

11

When th'other part of night in painfull grief
Was almost spent, out of that solemn grove
There issued forth for my timely relief,
The fairest wight that ever sight did prove,
So fair a wight as might command the love
Of best of mortall race; her count'nance sheen
The pensive shade gently defore her drove,
A mild sweet light shone from her lovely eyne:
She seem'd no earthly branch but sprung of stock divine.

12

A silken mantle, colour'd like the skie
With silver starres in a due distance set,
Was cast about her somewhat carelesly,
And her bright flowing hair was not ylet
By Arts device; onely a chappelet
Of chiefest flowers, which from far and near
The Nymphs in their pure Lilly hands had fet,
Upon her temples she did seemly weare;
Her own fair beams made all her ornaments appear.

13

What wilfull wight doth thus his kindly rest
Forsake? said she, approching me unto.
What rage, what sorrow boils thus in thy chest
That thou thus spend'st the night in wasting wo?
Oft help he gets that his hid ill doth show.
Ay me! said I, my grief's not all mine own;
For all mens griefs into my heart do flow,
Nor mens alone, but every mornfull grone
Of dying beast, or what so else that grief hath shown.

14

From fading plants my sorrows freshly spring;
And thou thy self that com'st to comfort me,
Wouldst strongst occasion of deep sorrow bring,
If thou wert subject to mortality:
But I no mortall wight thee deem to be,
Thy face thy voice immortall thee proclaim.
Do I not well to wail the vanity
Of fading life, and churlish fates to blame
That with cold frozen death lifes chearfull motions tame?

15

Thou dost not well, said she to me again,
Thou hurt'st thy self, and dost to them no good.
The sighs thou sendest out cannot regain
Life to the dead, thou canst not change the mood
Of stedfast destiny. That man is wood
That weetingly hastes on the thing he hates:
Dull sorrow chokes the sprights, congeals the blood,
The bodies fabrick quickly ruinates.
Yet foolish men do fondly blame the hasty fates.

16

Come, hasty fates, said I, come take away
My weary life, the fountain of my wo:
When that's extinct or shrunk into cold clay,
Then well I wote that I shall undergo
No longer pain. O! why are you so slow;
Fond speech, said she, nor chang'd her countenance,
No signe of grief or anger she did show;
Full well she knew passions misgovernance,
Through her clear brest fond passion never yet did lance.

17

But thus spake on, Sith friendly sympathy
With all the creatures thus invades thy brest,
And strikes thine heart with so deep agony
For their decay, 'cording to that behest
Which the pure sourse of sympathy hath prest
On all that of those lovely streams have drunk,
I'll tell thee that that needs must please thee best,
All life's immortall; though the outward trunk
May changed be, yet life to nothing never shrunk.

18

With that she bad me rear my heavie eye
Up toward heaven, I rear'd them toward th'East,
Where in a roscid cloud I did espy
A Lunar rainbow in her painted vest;
The heavenly maid in the mean while surceast
From further speech, while I the bow did view:
But mine old malady was more increas'd,
The bow gan break, and all the gawdy hiew
Dispeared, that my heart the sight did inly rue.

19

Thus life doth vanish as this bow is gone,
Said I. That sacred Nymph forthwith reply'd,
Vain showes may vanish that have gaily shone
To feeble sense; but if the truth be tri'd,
Life cannot perish or to nothing slide:
It is not life that falleth under sight,
None but vain flitting qualities are ey'd
By wondring ignorance. The vitall spright
As surely doth remain as the Suns lasting light.

100

20

This bow, whose breaking struck thy troubled heart,
Of causelesse grief, I hope, shall thee recure,
When I have well explain'd with skilfull Art
By its resemblance what things must indure,
What things decay and cannot standen sure.
The higher causes of that coloured Ark,
What e're becomes of it, do sit secure.
That so (the body falling) lifes fair spark
Is safe, I'll clearly show if you but list to mark.

21

There be six Orders 'fore you do descend
To this gay painted bow: Sols centrall spright
To the first place, to th'next we must commend
His hid spread form, then his inherent light,
The fourth his rayes wherewith he is bedight,
The fifth that glistring circle of the Moon,
That goodly round full face all silver bright,
The sixth be beams that from her visage shone;
The seventh that gawdy bow that was so quickly gone.

22

The fluid matter was that dewy cloud,
That faild as faithlesse Hyle wont to fall:
New guest being come, the old she out doth croud;
But see how little Hyle did prevail,
Or sad destruction in this deemed bale!
Sols spright, hid form, fair light and out-gone rayes,
The Moons round silver face withouten veil
Do still remain, her beams she still displayes
The cloud but melt, not lost, the bow onely decayes.

32

This number suits well with the Universe:
The number's eight of the Orbs generall,
From whence things flow or wherein they converse,
The first we name Nature Monadicall,
The second hight Life Intellectuall,
Third Psychicall; the fourth Imaginative,
Fifth Sensitive, the sixth Spermaticall,
The seventh be fading forms Quantitative,
The eighth Hyle or Ananke perverse, coactive.

101

24

That last is nought but potentiality,
Which in the lower creature causeth strife,
Destruction by incompossibility
In some, as in the forms Quantitative.
All here depend on the Orb Unitive,
Which a so hight Nature Monadicall;
As all those lights and colours did derive
Themselves from lively Phœbus life centrall.
Nought therefore but vain sensibles we see caducall.

25

And that the first Every where Unitie
Is the true root of all the living creatures,
As they descend in each distinct degree,
That God's the sustentacle of all Natures;
And though those outward forms & gawdy features
May quail like rainbowes in the roscid sky,
Or glistring Parelies or other meteors;
Yet the clear light doth not to nothing flie:
Those six degrees of life stand sure, and never die.

26

So now we plainly see that the dark matter
Is not that needfull prop to hold up life;
And though deaths engins this grosse bulk do shatter
We have not lost our Orb conservative,
Of which we are a ray derivative.
The body sensible so garnished
With outward forms these inward do relieve,
Keep up in fashion and fresh lively-hed;
But this grosse bulk those inward lives stands in no sted.

27

Nor can one inward form another slay,
Though they may quell their present energy,
And make them close contract their yielding ray
And hide themselves in their centreity
Till some friendly appulse doth set them free,
And call them out again into broad day.
Hence lives gush not in superfluity
Into this world, but their due time do stay,
Though their strong centrall essence never can decay.

102

28

In Earth, in Aire, in the vast flowing Plain,
In that high Region hight Æthereall,
In every place these Atom-lives remain,
Even those that cleeped are forms seminall.
But souls of men by force imaginall
Easly supply their place, when so they list
Appear in thickned Aire with shape externall
Display their light and form in cloudy mist,
That much it doth amaze the musing Naturalist.

29

Wherefore sith life so strongly sealed is,
Purge out fond thoughts out of thy weary mind,
And rather strive that thou do nought amisse,
Then God to blame, and Nature as unkind
When nought in them we blamable can find.
When groaning ghosts of beasts or men depart,
Their tender mother doth but them unbind
From grosser fetters, and more toilsome smart.
Bless'd is the man that hath true knowledge of her Art.

30

And more for to confirm this mysterie,
She vanish'd in my presence into Aire,
She spread her self with the thin liquid sky;
But I thereat fell not into despair
Of her return, nor wail'd her visage fair,
That so was gone. For I was woxen strong
In this belief. That nothing can empair
The inward life, or its hid essence wrong.
O the prevailing might of a sweet learned tongue!

31

By this the Suns bright waggon gan ascend
The Eastern hill, and draw on chearfull day;
So I full fraught with joy do homeward wend
And fed my self with that that Nymph did say,
And did so cunningly to me convey,
Resolving for to teach all willing men
Lifes mysterie, and quite to chase away
Mind-mudding mist sprung from low fulsome fen:
Praise my good will, but pardon my weak faltring pen.