In this you've made the court th' antipodes,
And will'd your delegate, the vulgar Sun,
To do prophane autumnal offices,

Whilst here to you we sacrificers run;

And whether priests or organs you we' obey,

We sound your influence, and your dictates say. 30

Yet to that deity which dwells in you,
Your virtuous soul, I now not sacrifice;
These are petitions, and not hymns; they sue
But that I may survey the edifice.

In all religions as much care hath been

Of temples' frames and beauty' as rites within.

As all which go to Rome do not thereby
Esteem religions, and hold fast the best,
But serve discourse and curiosity

With that which doth religion but invest,
And shun th' entangling labyrinths of schools,
And make it wit to think the wiser fools:

40

So in this pilgrimage I would behold
You as you 're Virtue's temple, not as she;
What walls of tender crystal her enfold,
What eyes, hands, bosom, her pure altars be;
And after this survey oppose to all
Builders of chapels you, th' Escurial;

Donne.]

Mij

Yet not a consecrate, but merely as fair:
On these I cast a lay and country eye:"
Of past and future stories, which are rare,
I find you all record and prophecy.
Purge but the book of Fate, that it admit
No sad or guilty legends, you are it.

If good and lovely were not one, of both
You were the transcript and original;
The elements, the parent, and the growth,
And every piece of you is worth their all.
So' intire are all your deeds and you,
Must do the same things still; you cannot two.

But these (as nicest school divinity

Serves heresy to further or repress) ·

Taste of poetic rage or flattery,

that you

And need not, where all hearts one truth profess
Oft' from new proofs and new phrase new doubts

As strange attire aliens the men we know.

бо

(grow,

Leaving then busy praise and all appeal
To higher courts, sense's decree is true.
The mine, the magazine, the commonweal,

The story of beauty', in Twicknam is and you. + 70
Who hath seen one would both; as who hath been
In Paradise would seek the cherubin.

1 73

TO THE COUNTESS OF BEDFORD.

To have written then, when you writ, seem'd to me
Worst of spiritual vices, Simony;

And not to have written then seems little less
Than worst of civil vices, thanklessness.
In this my debt I seem'd loth to confess,
In that I seem'd to shun beholdingness;
But 't is not so. Nothings, as I am, may
Pay all they have, and yet have all to pay.
Such borrow in their payments, and owe more,
By having leave to write so, than before.

Yet, since rich mines in barren grounds are shown,
May not I yield not gold, but coal or stone?
Temples were not demolish'd, tho' prophane;
Here Peter Jove's, there Paul hath Dina's fane.
So whether my hymns you admit or chuse,
In me you 'ave hallowed a Pagan Muse,
And denizon'd a stranger, who, mis-taught
By blamers of the times they marr'd, hath sought-
Virtues in corners, which now bravely do
Shine in the world's best part, or all it, you.
I have been told that virtue in courtiers' hearts

Suffers an ostracism, and departs:

Profit, ease, fitness, plenty, bid it go,
But whither, only knowing you, I know:

20

Your, or you virtue, two vast uses serves,

It ransoms one sex, and one court preserves; 1 There's nothing but your worth, which, being true, Is known to any other, not to you;

And you can never know it: to admit

No knowledge of your worth is some of it:
But since to you your praises discords be,
Stoop others' ills to meditate with me.
Oh! to confess we know not what we should,
Is half excuse we know not what we would.
Lightness depresseth us, emptiness fills;
We sweat and faint, yet still go down the hills.
As new philosophy arrests the sun,

And bids the passive earth about it run,

So we have dull'd our mind, it hath no ends,
Only the body's busy, and pretends.
As dead low earth eclipses and controls

The quick high moon, so doth the body souls.
In none but us are such mixt engines found,
As hands of double office; for the ground

40

We till with them, and them to heaven we raise;
Who pray'rless labours, or without these prays,
Doth but one half, that's none. He which said, Plough,
And look not back, to look up doth allow.

h

Good seed degenerates, and oft' obeys i

The soil's disease, and into cockle strays.

'50

Let the mind's thoughts be but transplanted so -** Into the body, and bastardly they grow. vad du b

What hate could hurt our bodies like our love?
We, but no foreign tyrants, could remove
These, not engrav'd, but inborn dignities,
Caskets of souls, temples, and palaces:
For bodies shall from death redeemed be,
Souls but preserv'd, born naturally free.
As men t' our prisons now, souls t' us are sent,
Which learn vice there, and come in innocent.
First seeds of every creature are in us:
Whate'er the world hath bad or precious
Man's body can produce; hence hath it been
That stones, worms, frogs, and stakes, in man are seen:
But whoe'er saw, tho' Nature can work so

That pearl, or gold, or corn, in man did grow?
We 'ave added to the world Virginia, and sent
Two new stars lately to the firmament.

60

Why grudge we us (not heaven) the dignity,
To' increase, with ours those fair souls' company? 70
But I must end this letter; tho' it do

Stand on two truths, neither is true to you.
Virtue hath some perverseness; for she will
Neither believe her good nor others' ill.
Even in you, Virtue's best paradise,
Virtue hath some, but wise, degrees of vice..
Too many virtues, or too much of one
Begets in you unjust suspicion;

And ignorance of vice makes virtue less,

Quenching compassion of our wretchedness.