But as our souls of growth and souls of sense
Have birthright of our reason's soul, yet hence
They fly not from that, nor seek precedence.
Nature's first lesson, so Discretion
Must not grudge Zeal a place, nor yet keep none,
Not banish itself, nor Religion.
Nor may we hope to solder still and knit
These two, and dare to break them; nor must Wit Be colleague to Religion, but be it.
In those poor types of God, (round circles) so
Religion's types the pieceless centres flow,
And are in all the lines which all ways go.
If either ever wrought in you alone,
Or principally, then Religion
Wrought your ends, and your ways Discretion,
Go thither still, ge the same way you went;
Who so would change doth covet or repent;
Neither can reach you, great and innocent.
Begun in France, but never perfected.
THO' I be dead and buried, yet I have
(Living in you) court enough in my grave;"
As oft' as there I think myself to be,
So many resurrections waken me:
That thankfulness your favours have begot
In me, embalms me, that I do not rot.
This season, as 't is Easter, as 't is spring,
Must both to growth and to confession bring
My thoughts dispos'd into your influence, so
These verses bud, so these confessions grow.
First I confess I have to others lent
Your stock, and over prodigally spent
Your treasure; for since I had never known
Virtue and beauty, but as they are grown
In you, I should not think or say they shine
(So as I have) in any other mine.
Next I confess this my confession,
For 't is some fault thus much to touch upon
Your praise to you, where half rights seem too much,
And make your mind's sincere complexion blush. 30
Next I confess my' impenitence, for I
Can scarce repent my first fault, since thereby
Remote low spirits, which shall ne'er read you,
May in less lessons find enough to do
By studying copies, not originals.
You, that are she and you, that's double she,
In her dead face half of yourself shall see;
She was the other part; for so they do
Which build them friendships, become one of two;
So two, that but themselves no third can fit,
Which were to be so, when they were not yet
Twins, tho' their birth Cusco and Musco take,
As divers stars one constellation make;
Pair'd like two eyes, have equal motion, so
Both but one means to see, one way to go.
Had you died first, a carcass she had been,
And we your rich tomb in her face had seen.
She, like the soul, is gone, and you here stay,
Not a live friend, but th' other half of clay :
And since you act that part, as men say, Here
Lies such a prince, when but one part is there,
And do all honour and devotion due
Unto the whole, so we all rev'rence you;
For such a friendship who would not adore,
In you, who are all what both were before?
Not all, as if some perishsd by this,
But so as all in you contracted is:
As of this all, tho' many parts decay,
The pure, which elemented them, shall stay;
And tho' diffus'd and spread in infinițe,
Shall recollect, and in one all unite.
So, Madam, as her soul to heav'n is fled,
Her flesh rests in the earth, as in the bed;
Her virtues do, as to their proper sphere,
Return to dwell with you, of whom they were: 36
As perfect motions are all circular,
Sp they to you, their sea, whence less streams are
She was all spices, you all metals; so
In you two we did both rich Indias know;
And as no fire nor rust can spend or waste
One dram of gold, but what was first shall last,
Tho' it be forc'd in water, earth, salt, air,
Expans'd in infinite, none will impair;
So to yourself you may additions take,
But nothing can you less or changed make.
Seek not in seeking new, 10 seem to doubt
That you can match her, or not be without,
But let some faithful book in her room be,
Yet but of Judith no such book as she.
TO SIR EDWARD HERBERT,
SINCE LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY,
Being at the siege of Juliers.
MAN is a lump, where all beasts kneaded be;
Wisdom makes him an ark where ali agree;
The fool, in whom these beasts do live at jar,
Is sport to others, and a theatre;
Nor 'scapes he so, but is himself their prey;
All which was man in him is ate away :
And now his beasts on one another feed, A
Yet couple in anger, and new monsters breed.
How happy 's he which hath due place assign'd
To' his beasts, and disaforested his mind!!
Empal'd himself to keep them out, not in;
Can sow, and dares trust corn, where they have been;
Can use his horse, goat, wolf, and ev'ry beast,
And is not ass himself to all the rest!
Else man not only is the herd of swine,
But he's those devils too which did incline
Them to an headlong rage, and made them worse;
For man can add weight to Heaven's heaviest curse.
As souls (they say) by our first touch take in
The poisonous tincture of original sin,
So to the punishments which God doth fling
Our apprehension contributes the sting.
To us, as to his chickens, he doth cast
Hemlock, and we, as men, his hemlock taste:
We do infuse to what he meant for meat
Corrosiveness, or intense cold or heat:
For God no such specific poison hath
As kills, men know not how; his fiercest wrath
Hath no antipathy; but may be good
At least for physic, if not for our food.
Thus man, that might be' his pleasure is his rod,
And is his devil that might be his God.
Since then our business is to rectify
Nature to what she was, we're led awry
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