The explanation of the Frontispiece.  
A Levite in his journey goes  
To wicked Gibeah for repose,  
Which is denied, but having found  
Another lodging then the ground,  
(Such is th'unkindnes of their sin)  
They make a prison of his Inn.  
From whence he shall not issue free,  
But by his wife's Adultery;  
So when from thence to hast he minds,  
Her dead before the door he finds,  
When to express their crime, and make  
The villains at their own guilt quake,  
Into twelve pieces he divides  
The body that was once his Brides,  
Now Gibeah is besieged, and though  
They twice have given the overthrow  
Unto their betters, yet at length  
They find Vice hath no lasting strength:  
For now their town's as hot as their Desire  
And as they burned in Lust, so that in fire.   


THE LEVITES REVENGE. by Robert Gomersall.  
LONDON. Printed for john Marriott 1628.    

THE LEVITES REVENGE: Containing POETICAL MEDITATIONS UPON The 19 and 20. Chapters of JUDGES.  
BY R. GOMERSALL.  
Imprinted at London in the year M. DC. XXVIII.   

TO HIS WORTHILY RESPECTED FRIEND, MASTER BARTEN HOLIDAY archdeacon OF OXFORD.  
WOrthy Sir; Whilst others are ambitious of an honourable Dedication, I am thankful for a friendly one, this in the mean time being mine happy advantage over them, that they expect, but I enjoy a Patron. And yet I have not such a scarcity of great names, to whom I might pretend with as good a confidence as the greatest part of Writers, but that some of the higher ●●nke (to whom for their frequent courtesies I must confess myself an unequal debtor) might have expected, others almost challenged my Dedication: to whom I know no other answer of more respect and satisfaction than this, that I concluded the work to be below their notice, how much more their protection; and that I would have others to take notice more of my Friendship, then of my Ambition: But it may be that some will conceive an Ambition in this Friendship, when I of such an infancy in study shall boast the favours of so grown a virtue, and intrude upon his fame. If this be an offence, I must profess I glory in it, this accusation I confess and am proud of: such is the ambition of him that is enamoured on virtue, of the man who would be endeared to heaven; whose desires would not be so good, were they not so high, and the Angels might still have stood, had they never known another Pride. But not to insist on that (which nevertheless I can never too much insist on, the remembrance of our friendship) to whom could I more fitly dedicate a Poem, then to him that hath showed such excellency? or a Divine Poem, then to him that hath showed such Religion in his composures? Of this truth Persius is a witness, whom you have taught to speak English with such a grace, that we can understand when we hear him, and find no one syllable in his Dialect offensive either to the Elegant, or to the chaste Eare. Of this truth juvenal may be a witness, whom though we do not yet hear in public bettering his expressions by your exact rendering him, yet they that have enjoyed the happiness of your nearer friendship, confidently and upon the hazard of their understanding affirm, that he is far unworthy of such an imprisonment, that he should be obscured by that hand which cleared him. But it is Divinity that is the subject of these verses, and it is Divinity which is the exercise, and glory of your studies, which makes you an inhabitant of the Pulpit, nay which makes every place where you will vouchsafe to discourse, to be a pulpit, for such is the bounty of your religious conversation, that howsoever the place may be changed, the Sermon is perpetual. Sermons that at the same time make us devout and witty, which by first winning the Preacher, have the easier Conquest of the Auditory: who are never with less difficulty entreated to their happiness, then when they see they do not go alone. So that now when I consider what I present, and to whom, I begin to suspect the lightness of my work, and think I have some reason to fear the censure of such a Friend, to whom if I shall be excused, I expect some glory from others, not because the Levite, but because He was mine; to whom, having thus far tried his patience, I have nothing more to add but this, that I am his,  
In all the duties of Affection, ROBERT GOMERSALL.   

To the Reader.  
REader, I must first entreat thy Patience, afterward thy Ingenuity; thy Patience, that thou wilt read somewhat before my verses: thy Ingenuity, that thou wilt not censure the worse of them, because thou shalt find them censured to thy hand. The purpose of this Poem is Religious Delight, which if thou shalt find in any place wanting, or disjoynd, understand, that it was either not my intent, or mine Error. And yet I dare affirm no man shall be the worse by it, and that if there be any want, it is more of the Delight then of the Religion: If I intended excuses I could tell you, and that truly too, that these Verses were not now first made, although they are now first published, and the Composure was a younger mans, though the Edition be a Divines. This I could say, if I thought Poetry incompatible with Divinity, if it were a serious truth, that God could be only magnified in Prose: But when I consider that Nazianzen could be both a Poet, and a Saint, and that it was heresy that cast Tertullian out of the Church, and not his Verses. I dare acknowledge these for mine own and fear not to suffer in that cause, wherein those Worthies were so magnified: Especially, since these Essays (which I fear their weakness will too strongly testify) were not my study, but my Recreation when in the vacations having for a time intermitted my more serious affairs I chose Poetry before Idleness; yet I have not chose Poetry with the hazard of my Conscience, and so in stead of a Divine have writ a superstitious work; howsoever Malice or Ignorance may wrest a passage unto Popery; I mean that, where Abraham prays for the victory of the Israelites: But besides that the Intercession is general for the Church, which no judicious Divine but will allow for Orthodox, it is made by him, whom a Popish Divine will deny at that time to be able to intercede: there was no soliciting of him they saw not, and God they did not see (as they would tell you) till after the Ascension: I have the more fully expressed myself in this, because I would not be esteemed as one of them (whereof there is now too great an harvest) who play the wantoness with Religion, that will halt between two parties, and in spite of the Prophet, at the same time screw God and Baal▪ who like not Orthodox truth, unless delivered in heretical terms, and so by a notable new trick of juggling, call that Pacification, which is Conspiracy; of whose proficiency in Religion I can speak little; but this I may most confidently affirm, that (perhaps not after the Apostles mind, yet certainly in his words) they go on from Faith, to Faith. Of this crime, and of the suspicion of it, I trust I am sufficiently acquitted: for other errors which Malice and Curiosity will abundantly multiply, I only refer myself to the truly judicious, who know that a good Poem is as a good Life, not wherein there are none, but wherein there are the fewest faults.   

To my learned and highly esteemed Friend, Mr. ROBERT GOMERSALL.  
HAd such a Labour in this juggling age  
Sought after Greatness for its patronage,  
Not after Goodness, I had then been free  
To love they work, though not to fancy thee;  
But thou hast won me: since I see thy book  
Aims at a judging eye, no smiling look.  
Greatness doth well to shelter errors, thou  
Not having any, fearest no frowning brow,  
But wisely crav'st a view of his, that can  
Not only praise, but censure of a man.  
Thou needst not doubt severer eyes, if he  
Add but applause unto thy Poetry.  
His works such monuments of fame do raise,  
That none will Censure, if he once but Praise.  
Commend I would, but what? here's nothing known  
Can be called thine, when each hath claimed his own.  
jove-bred- Minerva challengeth the wit,  
Mercury flies, and swears he languaged it.  
Thy Arts the Muse's claim; the History  
Savours of nothing but Divinity,  
Transcribed from God's records; Then nothing's thine  
(But grief for the Levites sin) since th'ice is mine.  
But now dear Friend, though this sufficient be  
To raise up Trophies, and eternize thee:  
Give leave to him that loves thee, to desire  
To serve thee friendlike, though in mean attire.  
The glittering star that darts a glorious light  
Were lost if not commended by the night:  
So stands it with thy verse; I writing set  
Their beauty off, as Crystal is by let.  
Nor doth it trouble me; since that my end  
Is not to be a Poet, but a friend.  
And yet perhaps these loser lines of mine  
May prove eternal; cause they usher thine.  
Midd. Temp. C. L. ay C.   


Epitaphium Concubinae.  
Quae tristis ignes, Gibeah, passa est tuos,  
Cultrumquè sponsi, cuius amplexum peti●  
Non unus ardor, ecce in amplexu perit,  
Non una facta victima & multus rogus.  
Discant puellae formasit quantum Nihil,  
Virtus venusta est, pulchramens solus decor.   

Englished thus.  
Who suffered Gibeahs' Lust, and her Lord's knife,  
Whom not one Suitor would have had to wise;  
By many Suitors perishing, here lies,  
A not-one Course, and many sacrifice.  
O who would trust in forms, that hours impair  
virtue's true shape, and only Goodness fair:    
PSAL. 9 2. I will be glad and rejoice in thee, yea my Songs will I make of thy name, O thou most High. 
FAther of Lights, whose praises to rehearse  
Would pose the boldness of the ablest verse;  
Who art so far above what we can say,  
That what we leave is greatest: show the way  
To my weak Muse, that being full of thee  
She judge Devotion the best Poesy,  
Teach her to shun those ordinary ways  
Wherein the greater sort seek shameful praise  
By witty sin, which ill affections stirs,  
Whose pens at leastwise are Adulterers.  
O teach me Modesty: let it not be  
My care to keep my verse from harshness free  
And not from lightness; let me censure thus,  
That what is Bad, that too is Barbarous.  
Then shall my soul warmed with thy sacred fire,  
Advance her thoughts, and without Pride aspire;  
Then shall I show the glory of my King,  
Then shall I hate the faults which now I Sing.   

THE LEVITES REVENGE.  

Canto I.  
The Argument.  
The Levites love, her flight, and then,  
His fetching of her home again:  
Gibeahs' harsh usage, with the free,  
Unlooked for old man's courtesy,  
Their base attempt, her wretched fate  
This song to Time doth consecrate.  
Whilst Israel's government was yet but rude,  
And Multitudes did sway the Multitude,  
Whilst all the Nation were so many Kings,  
Or else but one great Anarchy. Fame sings  
That there a Levite was (Levites may err)  
Who had a Concubine, and doubted her.  
Durst Lust, and jealousy so high aspire  
To one that only knew the Altar's fire?  
Must he feel other Flames? to wanton eyes  
Must e'en the Priest be made a sacrifice?  
Or hath he offered incense so long time  
For Iudah's fault, that he hath gained their crime?  
Appeased for sins to learn them? in times past  
Whilst yet the ancient innocence did last,  
Levy could kill a Ravisher, but now  
Levies base offspring does not disavow  
To be a Ravisher. Perhaps to show  
His Grandsire's rashness, who would headlong go  
To punish that crime, which ere long might be  
His own, at least in his Posterity.  
For so 'twas now: the Levite loves, and more,  
Suspects at last, whom he did first adore:  
For Fame speaks hardly of her: but poor man  
What other hope couldst thou imagine? can  
One that hath broke with honesty, be true  
To him that made her break? or else are you  
The only Tempter? does there no blood boil  
Besides the Levites? can they only toil  
In sins, that preach against them? if they can,  
Yet such as she are made for every man.  
What none can challenge his, is due to all,  
Lust should not imitate a Nuptial.  
She now suspects her Levites jealousy,  
And hasts home to her father's house: o why  
Left's thou that house? or why returnest thou ever?  
Where thou shouldst always stay, or return never.  
Was then a Father to be visited  
When thou wert made a Mother? what hope bred  
That madness in thee, that unto a mild  
Father, thou shouldst be welcome for a child?  
Or unto whom wouldst thou have welcome been?  
A Father? 'tis the nature of thy sin  
To make them doubtful: they that live like thee,  
Ashamed of nothing but of Modesty,  
Banish themselves from all, but their dear sin;  
And lose at once their virtue, and their kin.  
But when the Levite saw that she was gone,  
That she was lost, whom he so dored on,  
Reason almost forsook him too, to prove  
Anger can blind a man as well as love:  
It may be Israel was holy then  
And sacrifices for the guilty men  
Came slowly in, this might increase his grief,  
And be an accessary, if not chief:  
This might confirm him in his angry sin,  
Robbed of his profit and his concubine.  
But he'll not lose her: wilt thou seek her then  
That does fly thee? that to an host of men  
Hath given thy due? as if she meant to try  
Which were the most unvanquished luxury  
Of Priest or people: whom if thou should find,  
Thou hast not yet recovered her lost mind,  
That wanders still, and wilt thou fetch her thence  
To try, or else to teach thee Patience?  
Can she teach any virtue? can there be  
Aught learned from her besides immodesty?  
All that this journey can effect, that thou  
Canst promise to thyself, if thou speedest now,  
Is, that she'll lose the bashfulness she had,  
And only prove more confidently bad.  
You now may think him near his journey's end;  
Where long before his thoughts had met his friend,  
Scorning his bodies sluggish company,  
And now both are arrived, where to his eye  
●he first appeared, for whom alone, I find,  
Be thanked the heaven that did not make him blind,  
For which he should have thanked them: he had been  
Then nor a Lover, nor a Priest: no sin  
Had crept in with the light, nor ever made  
In that good Darkness, an unhallowed shade.  
But who had seen him when he first descried  
Who 'twas that met them, how he slipped beside  
The wearied beast, and with full speed did run  
As if he meant to tempt temptation;  
He would have judged that women strongest were,  
And men object the weakness which they are.  
Thus when he should wisely have understood,  
And thanked the kinder heavens, who made him good  
Against his will almost, having removed  
That which did hinder him from being beloved  
Of God, and goodness, not unlike the Fish  
Which seems to be desirous of the dish,  
(As if for his delivery he did wait,  
And therefore were ambitious of the bait:)  
Into a known snare, he does gladly run,  
And foolishly pursues, what he should shun.  
And is not this, I'd know, the readiest way  
To make God think, we mock him when we pray  
When we pretend desire, that we may be,  
As from the Fault, so the Temptation free:  
Whilst (as we had not known what we had said  
Or hoped that God observed not how we prayed)  
Lest that we should receive our hurt from far,  
We both the Tempted, and the Tempter's are,  
And thus the holiest name we take in vain,  
Praying as never meaning to obtain.  
And now her father comes, who after words  
As kind and Elegant as that place affords,  
Entreats her pardon: but alas, good Age,  
Who shall entreat thy pardon, or assuage  
The Levites passion now? who does aver,  
That he alone does sin, who taxes her:  
With this he smiles on her, and yet does fear  
Lest she should think that this a Pardon were,  
Or reconcilement: without much ado,  
You might persuade him now he came to woo,  
And not to fetch her back; but by the haste  
Of carrying her from thence, fearing the waist  
Of the least minute, she might well descry,  
What ere his words, his deeds spoke jealousy.  
Hardly he condescends to one nights stay  
Though 'twere with her, but how he spent the day,  
How his desires were speedier than the Sun,  
(Whom then he thought to creep, and not to run)  
'twere tedious to relate, though the old man  
With all the Art, and all the Cheer he can,  
Detains him three days longer, which appear  
As long as fancy can extend a year.  
Minutes are Ages with him, and he deems  
He hath out-lingred grave Methusalems'  
Nine hundred year by such a stay, and fears  
That she may once more shun him for his years.  
Sure such accounts the wise Egyptians made  
Who added wings to Time, as if he had  
Moved on too slowly, or as if they meant  
To take his foretop from him, with intent  
To make him bald before too, whose records  
Had very near as many years as words.  
Making full forty thousand ere the fall,  
And pu'ny Adam of no age at all.  
The fifth day dawns, but ere the rising Sun  
Had showed the victory which he had won  
Of cloudy night, before the sleepy Cock  
Had proved himself to be the Country Clock  
Showing the morning's hour, when now we might  
Have spoke no falsehood had we called it Night.  
Our Levite for his journey does prepare,  
And his are dressed, ere Phoebus' horses are:  
To whom the Father comes, and gently chides  
●is early son-in-law, who, forced, abides  
Till afternoon with him, and then he goes  
Not from the house so fast, as to his woes.  
Sure the old man did prophesy the harm,  
Which would ensue, when he did seek to charm  
Our Levite to a longer stay: but O  
'tis double misery before hand to know  
We shall be miserable! then why hath man  
That cursed ability, that well he can  
Prognosticate mishaps, when they are near?  
And all his knowledge teaches but to fear.  
Which yet our Levite hath not learned, who rides  
Doubting no danger: now the world's eye glides  
To his west Inn, when jebus he espies,  
Whom he counts his, because God's enemies.  
Harken ye Gallants that will cross the seas,  
And are industrious for a new disease,  
If you will needs be gadding, and despise  
For foreign toys, our homebred rarities,  
Take this example with you, if you go  
Travel not from Religion: why, although  
You never touch at Rome, or else perchance  
You scarce see Spain, and glean but part of France▪  
You may be weary, think your travel great,  
And spare at once your conscience, and your sweat▪  
You see our Levite though the night draw near,  
His love be weary, and no town appear  
Where she may rest herself, although the way  
Were troublesome enough even in the day,  
Yet she resolves gladly to undergo  
More miseries than Night and danger know,  
Ere he will venture there to make his stay  
From whence the Idols had driven God away.  
O far unworthy of thy future Fate  
By this best Action! miserable state  
Of too great virtue ill-imployed! to be  
Punished, when he did shun Iniquity  
As he did jebus. How he spurs, how rates  
His tardy beast! how his own slackness hates  
Which forced him by his travelling so late  
If not to stay, yet to deliberate.  
Within the Centre of the Earth there stands  
near to the fiery streams, and ashy sands,  
A dreadful palace, of such uncouth frame  
Each part so shaped as if 'twere built to shame  
All Architecture, that if one did see  
The vastness of it, and deformity,  
He would not make the least demur to tell  
That 'twas a lodging for the Prince of Hell.  
What ere does beautify a house, here wants,  
The walls are black as the Inhabitants,  
Made out of jet, into such figures framed  
That Nature dare not own them, nor be blamed  
With so much Monster: we in doubt may call  
Whether the trimming, or material,  
Had the more horror. No birds here are heard,  
But such whose harsher accents would have seared  
The most resolved: they punish in their rhymes,  
And all their ditty does consist of crimes.  
The fly Praecisian that could gull the eye  
Of the most sharp, by close hypocrisy,  
Whose mischiefs only he that did, could tell,  
Who, we may think might e'en have cheated Hell  
With such dissembling, sees his vices bare,  
Naked, and foul, as when they acted were:  
One lays oppression to his charge, another  
His sister's incest, murder of his brother.  
They show his zeal was only to contend,  
And all his reformation not to mend  
But to confound the State, that his knit brow  
(Which looked so stern as it would disallow  
The most indifferent act, and like of none  
But such as did pretend perfection)  
Was but an easy Vizor, such as Rage  
Can give itself, and must receive from Age.  
That he did only know external Grace,  
And all his holiness was in his face.  
Is goodness in a wrinkle? can we find  
That what does cloud the face, does cleanse the mind?  
To me it is a trick of rarest art  
That hollow brows should have the soundest heart.  
These are the sounds, but then the smells are worse,  
Enough to make that Harmony no Curse.  
Under the walls there runs a brimstone flood  
The top of flames, the bottom was of mud:  
Of such gross vapour, that to smell was Death,  
Prisons are sweet, compared unto that breath.  
And to maintain the fire and stench at once,  
The fuel is prepared of usurer's bones.  
Loose Madams locks, the feathers of their Fan,  
With the foul inside of a Puritan.  
In this sweet place as sweet a Prince doth dwell,  
The chief of fiends, the Emperor of Hell  
Grand Lucifer, whom if I should relate  
In the worst figure that the eye doth hate:  
I should but faintly his foul self express,  
Nor reach to his vnpatterned ugliness.  
Death keeps the entrance, a tall sturdy groom,  
Who emptying all places fills no room.  
But like the fond Idolater of pelf  
Denies men, what he cannot have himself:  
Here does this shade send challenges to all,  
Who would h●ue entrance first to try a fall,  
They try, and they are thrown there's none so great  
But yields to him, who knew but one defeat  
And that long after, but his prime was now,  
His bones some marrow had, some grace his brow.  
No plagues as yet, no famines had been known  
The sword was thrifty, making few to groan  
Under his edges. Death yet had lusty thighs,  
Nor spent himself with too much exercise.  
Here there stand numbers, which exceed all sums  
(For they refuse none here, who ever comes)  
The murderer first, and without much ado,  
Sometime he will admit the murdered too.  
Then the incontinent, but if that he  
Be known by Incest or Adultery,  
His seat is chief: nor have they a low place,  
Who with an open and alluring face,  
Delude their trusting friends, till they have won  
Their deeper projects, which they built upon.  
The rest of lower crimes, whom we may call,  
Downright offenders, such as after all  
Their time of trespass, have not gained the skill,  
And only know the taint, not art of Ill:  
Have no distinguished rooms, but venture in,  
As headlong to their pains, as to their sin.  
But now some other enter; for a charge  
Past from the Prince of shadows, to enlarge  
Th'imprisoned Crimes, that all might now confer  
(Such is his will) with their Lord Lucifer.  
What noise there was? what striving at the door?  
This would be first, and that would go before:  
Pride claims precedency, and cries who ere  
Ventures to make a step before her there  
Is impudently foolish, that the place  
Is hers by due, and only theirs by grace,  
When she would yield it: unless first they would  
Bring more convincing reasons than she could:  
For who should to the Prince of Hell first go  
To visit him, but she that made him so?  
And who had made him so, she'd know, but she,  
When with his God he claimed Equality?  
Peace, Wrath exclaims, and with so deep an oath  
As all those fiends, with Hell to boot, were loath  
To hear another such, he vows no more  
To bear the brave of that scarlet whore,  
he'll first a Rebel, first a Virtue be,  
And no more Wrath, but Magnanimity.  
She smiled, and bid him be so but whilst they  
Were hot in this contention, Envy lay  
Gnawing her breasts: fain would she have been higher  
Had but her spirit equalled her desire.  
But since she cannot be revenged of them,  
She useth an unheard of stratagem,  
Tears her own hairs, and her grim face beslimes  
Thus punishing herself for others crimes.  
By this time Idleness comes in the rear,  
As proud, though not as active, as they were;  
He scarce would take the pains to speak, but loath  
To lose his dignity by too much Sloth,  
He gives them these few words, Why strive you so  
About the place which all to me do owe?  
Do not ye know, I am the reigning Crime,  
Most general, and most lofty of the time?  
I make the Lawyer silent, though he see  
His client full; I am beyond a Fee:  
When Laws do not, I make the Preacher dumb  
e'en when the Tiger, or the Wolf do come:  
But above all, I in the Court do grow,  
Beggars are proud, but Emperors are slow.  
Drunkenness could not answer, but does think  
'twas fit that Idleness should yield to drink:  
And reeling to encounter him, does fall  
Just in the entrance, and excludes them all.  
Now is the skirmish hotter than before,  
Now Pride begins to scratch, and Wrath to roar;  
Drunkenness lies unmoved, and Sloths intent  
Is to sit still, and to expect th'event.  
But in this civil broil, at last comes Craft  
Of whom no Painter ere could take a draft,  
He had such change of shapes, who when he saw  
These tumbling warriors, and that no awe,  
No fear of Lucifer could teach them peace,  
he'll try his skill to make these broils to cease.  
Fie Pride, says he, What? give yourself the fall?  
And Wrath, are you no more discreet withal  
Then quarrel with a woman? Come agree,  
If not for fear of Hell, for love of me.  
But out alas, you do too well agree,  
When Wrath is Proud, and Pride will Wrathful be.  
Go hand in hand (thus friendly Craft decides)  
Only the upper hand let that be Prides.  
They enter the great hall, where they do see  
The Hellish Monarch in his Majesty,  
Where having made obeisance, he begins,  
Thus to break silence, and upbraid the Sins.  
The reason why I called you (not to dwell  
On an unnecessary preamble)  
Is to inform you, that we find of late  
You have not been officious to the State:  
'tis true, you bring me daily what's mine own,  
And plentifully reap what I have sown.  
In the gross Heathen you do hourly cause  
Vices, which never were forbid by Laws,  
Because ne'er thought of: but what's this to me,  
Whether that Lust or Infidelity  
Fill Hell with those, nay and oppress it too,  
Which must come thither, whatsoe'er they do?  
You do like those, who in the other life  
Buy their own lands, and woo again their wife.  
A goodly act, and wherein's danger store,  
You give me that, which was mine own before.  
Whilst judah all this while hath me withstood,  
And dares, when I forbid them, to be good.  
They honour Parents with a zealous strife,  
And with their goodness do prolong their life.  
In them no malice nor no rancour lies,  
Nor shed they blood, but for a sacrifice:  
Adulteries scarce heard of in a life,  
And they are men only unto their own wife.  
In such a loved community they live,  
None need to steal, all are so apt to give.  
While you suppose that highly you deserve,  
If you can say that you have made them swerve  
From goodness that ne'er had it: well y'ave done  
If that Semiramis once dote upon  
Her wondering issue, and begin to swell  
With such a birth, that would pose us to tell  
How she should call it; and what she did bear  
If it her daughter, or her grandchild were.  
You have discharged your office, if you make  
Some bloody Nations their own issue take  
And offer unto me; or if you draw  
Some to the practice of that wicked Law  
That after fifty they their parents kill,  
And not that only, but suppose that ill  
To be their duty. O fond thought! and thence  
Do estimate their child's obedience?  
Hence truant Crimes, avaunt, no more appear  
In my dread presence, no more let me hear  
Those petty actions, if you do not strait  
Revenge my wrongs, and ease me of this weight,  
Which thus oppresseth me, if Israel still  
Shall dare to cross what I shall call my will;  
By Hell I'll do— but what? I say no more,  
If you are wise, prevent, if not, deplore.  
This said he stared so fiercely that they feared  
He would perform much more than they had heard,  
Nor know they well how they their tongues should use,  
Whether 'twere best to promise or excuse.  
At last Lust rises, and becalms him thus,  
Why do you lose your wrath, great Prince, on us?  
Us your sworn vassals? who nor think nor do  
But what your will is their command unto.  
What though w'ave spent our pains not the right way?  
Yet they were pains nor can an enemy say  
But we were active Furies, and have done  
What lesser fiends durst not have thought upon.  
And yet (if that I may have leave to tell  
From your dread grace) preciser Israel  
Hath not escaped us wholly, nor hath been  
More noted for their Law, then for their Sin▪  
Was that a Virtue too, when being led  
By Gods own hand, and filled with Angel's bread,  
They did, (I joy to caused, but blush to tell,)  
They did repine e'en at that miracle.  
Fasting and full they murmur, nor are less  
Angry with Manna then with Emptiness.  
I could speak more, and truly: but in sum,  
To prove my past acts by my acts to come;  
If by your gracious leave, I have the fate  
To have a joint commission with Debate,  
I'll make a fire within their blood to burn,  
Shall their proud Cities into ashes turn:  
And they shall know how foolishly they err,  
Who are not willing slaves to Lucifer.  
Lucifer nods, and Lust does swiftly run  
With his unlimited Commission:  
Which with what Art, what mischief he did use,  
Is now the grief and business of my Muse.  
But now she must to our sad Levite hast  
Whom we left trau'lling, when the day was passed.  
The sun sets over Gibeah; when that he  
Draws nearer thither ward, but then to see  
The blush of Heaven, with what a red it shined,  
(As if the Sun his office had resigned  
Unto those clouds) to all that understood,  
It would have showed that it did figure blood.  
And now our Levite is arrived, but finds  
The walls more courteous than the people's minds:  
For these had gates which let him in, but they  
Were merciless, and rougher than the way:  
Men that had only studied to oppress,  
Whose minds were shut against the harbourless:  
And yet he sees large houses, some so high  
As if they learned acquaintance with the sky,  
What ever pleased their fathers now grows stale,  
Their buildings to the hills exalt the vale:  
And such thick palaces the mountains fill,  
As if the quarry grew without the hill.  
Some are of that circumference, you'd guess,  
They had been built for him, who had no less  
Than the whole world his Family. But when  
Our Levite was inquisitive, what men  
Filled up that Princely dwelling? and if there  
Might be found hope of rest for them that were  
But two more than the Family? they tell  
That two are the whole Family, 'twas well,  
And stately too (as state is at this day)  
So might they live at home, and yet away.  
O the great folly of Magnificence!  
Houses are little Cities, and from thence  
Cities are lesser worlds, that man may have  
Room enough here that cannot fill a grave.  
He must have Halls, and Parlours, and beside  
Chambers invented, but not named by pride:  
And all this for one man, as if he sought  
To have a several lodging for each thought,  
But none for any stranger: this truth seems  
Too certain to our Levite, who esteems  
That prisoners are in better state than he;  
Nay, e'en the prisoners of mortality,  
Such as are fast immured within the grave  
Who though they want a life, a lodging have:  
Inhuman wretches! have you then forgot  
That you were sometime strangers? Were you not  
In Egypt once? where the Prophetic land  
Did justly scourge your baseness before hand,  
Knowing you would be barbarous, and so  
Made you to reel the harshness which you show?  
O●●uelly forgetful 〈◊〉 that endure  
To act, or else outdo the Epicure,  
Whilst he feeds on the Air; that think it meet  
To lie in Down, while he lies in the street!  
An old man thought not thus, but to his house  
Entreats the strangers: 'tis malicious  
To lay the imputation upon Age  
That it is covetous (as if the sage  
Hairs of the Ancient were therefore white  
To signify their silver Appetite.)  
Peace you blasphemers, see an aged man  
Covetous only of a Guest, who can  
Repay him nothing, but his Prayer, and be  
Indebted once more for his Piety;  
But if my Muse have any power o'er time  
And sin have more mortality than rhyme,  
Old man thou shalt be ever old, and have  
No entertainment in the silent grave  
For this thy entertainment: here a while  
Let me admire how that a town so vile,  
Which we would think with strangers had decreed  
To shut out Virtue too, should rarely breed  
Such a strange Virtue? quietly we hear  
Of courtesies in Rome; of kindness there  
Where Greece is named, who counted it a sin  
Not to have made each noble house an Inn  
For worthy strangers: but when one shall fall  
In commendation of the Cannibal,  
Shall say that they, who on their guests do gnaw  
And entertain their strangers in their maw,  
Are hospitably minded, that e'en there  
May be a mouth which is no Sepulchre.  
We stand aghast, as if we did conspire  
Not to believe the good we did desire.  
Whence sprung this Singularity? whence came  
This worth which so deserves and conquers Fame?  
Our Virtues are not borne with us, and they  
Which will ennoble man till times last day  
Live after them they make to live, what we  
Call goodness is the gift of Company.  
Our study not our Nature, and could these  
Teach any other thing besides disease  
In manners? it is fit than we confess  
Mercy is learned amongst the merciless,  
And rather than a Levite shall want rest  
Avarice self shall entertain a Guest.  
But now the Levite hath forgot that he  
Had felt the hard streets hospitality;  
He finds such kindness, that he does suppose  
Courtesy wore no other hairs than those  
To grieve the honest world, who now might fear,  
That she was hasting to her sepulchre.  
Into an antic room he leads him first.  
Where one would guess that Abraham had been nurs:  
Or a more ancient Patriarch, the walls  
Composed of that which from a wet shoe falls  
In weeping winter, which a man would think  
Their age had now dried up into one Chink.  
Yet such a room one comfort does afford,  
It was not built to ruin its sad Lord.  
For who will beg a Cottage? who would make  
A guilty wretch, that he his rags might take?  
To that whence nothing comes is no regard:  
None would be vicious too but for reward.  
No, let them fear who dwell in arched vaults,  
Who in much room do seek to hide their faults.  
Where hundred columns rise to mate the sky,  
And mock their Lords with false Divinity.  
Envy is proud, nor strikes at what is low,  
And they shall only feel who scorn her blow:  
She on no base advantage will insist,  
Nor strive with any but that can resist.  
Now is the table spread, and now the meat  
Being set, each takes him his appointed seat:  
No courtship here is showed, no carving grace,  
The entertainment (homely as the place)  
Spoke only hearty, and that plain intent  
Which greater entertainers compliment.  
So Abraham feasted heavenly guests, as when  
He made the Angels eat the bread of men:  
Soon the like guests hospitable Lot,  
Bestowed the diet which they wanted not;  
In this ours differs, nay in this exceeds,  
That he bestows his kindness where it needs.  
One would have thought so, when he heard the noise,  
Of confused multitudes, men mixed with boys,  
All ages in the cry, as if they meant  
That now the Babes should not be innocent:  
Bees do not murmur so, and angry hounds  
In their full rage send forth but easy sounds,  
Compared to this: their inland Sea stood still,  
Wondering to hear himself out-scared, and till  
This time, that noise hath such a silence bred,  
That even since it hath been styled the Dead.  
Now they besiege the house, and one would fear  
That their loud tongues so many engines were  
To batter it: down with the Gate, cries one,  
Another laughs at that, and with a stone  
Threatens to force a Gate, and deeply swore  
To give them entrance, all the House was Door.  
But then another that would needs be wise,  
And counted chief in this great enterprise,  
Exhorts them to a Parley: Why, my friends,  
Make you such haste, says he, to lose your ends?  
Have you indented with the stones you throw  
To miss the Levite? Do you think no blow  
Can fasten on him, or d'ye mean to prove  
If that the stones are rivals in your Love?  
Stones and not men! with that the hands were still,  
But all the noise, the Hubbub, with an ill  
Consent, cries for the Levite, whom they fain  
Would only know, and so return again.  
And could you see him in the street so long,  
As far from being laid, as this your wrong  
Shall be from after-Ages, when he had  
No cover, but the kinder heavens, (whose sad  
Compassion hindered them from shedding tears,  
Lest such a grief should make th'unkindnes theirs)  
Had you so full a view of him, and yet  
Do you desire to know him? No, forget  
That ever there was such an one, and then  
Posterity may think that you were men:  
How will they wonder else, when they shall hear  
You loved him in the house, whom you did fear  
To bring into your house; that you were mad,  
In the pursuit of that you might have had?  
You aimed another, a worse way, and just  
His answer is, that calls your Knowledge, Lust.  
But how were they so long time innocent?  
How was this Prodigy of Desire e'en spent  
Before it was expressed? here we may see  
In impudence there was some Modesty:  
They would not sin at home, the worst abhorred  
To be a Beast, where he should be a Lord.  
And it seemed better to the vilest breast  
Not to receive, then to abuse a Guest.  
Now the Old-man not fearing any harm  
That might ensue, whether he hoped the warm  
Lust of their Youth, would by his Age bequelld,  
And that those flames would to such winter yield:  
Or whether he was then rather addressed  
To offer up himself before his Guest  
Unto their Fury, forth he goes: they thought  
That now they should obtain what they had sought,  
Whom thus he does bespeak, Have patience  
My friends, I come, not to entreat you hence,  
But to fulfil your pleasure, only change  
The Se●● I have a daughter and what's strange  
In this not town a Virgin● at your sure  
I am content to make her prostitute.  
So that my stranger may nor injured ●e  
Nature shall yield to Hospitality.  
O constant goodness! O best act, which can  
Conclude the Virtue, older than the Man▪  
How I could 〈◊〉 myself in praising thee,  
Man not of Age, but of Eternity!  
Who didst respect thy guest beyond thy blood,  
And knewest the difference betwixt Fond, and Good.  
Henceforth scorn all comparisons below,  
Only thy Maker, thy Superior know:  
Such was his Mercy that he did bestow  
His only Son a ransom for his Foe;  
(This was a pattern fit for the most High)  
Yet next this Mercy, was thy Charity:  
Thy Act at least is second to the best,  
Who wouldst not spare thy Daughter for thy Guest  
But they'll not be prescribed in their desire,  
Who think to alter, were to quench their fire:  
They must the Levite or his Sister know,  
(For Sister they interpret her) to show  
Our saucy Laymen how they should expound  
Their Preachers actions, not to be profound  
To search their faults, but well and wisely too,  
Do what they speak, and not speak what they do.  
This they exclaim, and this our Levite hears,  
Who now hath spent his Reason, and his Fares,  
Such a Confusion he is fall'n into,  
He knows not what to shun, nor what to do,  
So in raised Seas, when that the angry wind  
Threatens destruction to that daring kind,  
Who to a flying house themselves commit,  
(Seeming at once to fly too from their wit.)  
The well-stored passenger, (when he does find  
That all this fury of the wave and wind  
Is for this Treasure) now resolves to dye:  
(Death is not so much feared as Poverty)  
And now resolves that he will venture on  
More loss before that Resolution:  
He does from this unto that purpose skip,  
And now his mind more totters then his ship.  
Till after all this tedious, foolish strife,  
Which he shall save, his treasure, or his Life,  
He shall save neither; and thus being loath  
To hazard either, he does forfeit both.  
And now she shall be Passive. O Fates sport!  
he'll now betray, that should defend the Fort.  
Such Revolution did you ever see?  
Who erst was jealous, will a Pander be.  
O Life, thou most desired, and wretched thing!  
Thy love betrayed his love, from thee did spring  
This Contradiction of cross Faults. O why  
Chose he not rather to do well, and Dye?  
Why did he so desire to shun his Friend,  
And call that Misery, which was an End?  
The Dead do fear no Ravisher, no Lust  
Was ere so hot, to dote upon cold dust,  
Were he once dead he should fear no crimes then,  
Neither his own, nor those of other men:  
And could he wish a longer life? let those  
Who do not know (but by inflicting) wees  
Hugg that desire, but he who wisely ways  
What many miseries are in many days,  
Let not him be so mad to wish his fears,  
And only prove his Dotage by his Years.  
Never did Morning blush so much as that  
Which next appeared; when up our Levite got,  
And running nimbly to the door, he sees  
His love before the door with her fair knees  
Grown to the Earth, so close, that one would sear,  
She took a measure of her Sepulchre,  
With hands outstretched, as if, fearing to fail,  
She meant to make a Sexton of her nail  
To dig her grave: or else (for who can tell?)  
Suspecting by her injuries an Hell  
Not to be far, where such sins had a birth,  
She lay so close, to feel if it were Earth.  
He wonders at the posture, nor knows why  
She had not chose to rest more easily.  
And now he will be satisfied, but she  
Had lost her tongue too, with her Chastity.  
He thinks she sleeps, and therefore louder cries,  
Why do we dally here? Wake, and Arise.  
But let him cry on, she hath heard her last,  
Deaf to all sounds now, but the latest blast.  
And art thou dead, he cries? what dead? with that  
You'd wonder which had been alive, as flat  
He lay, and speechless, glad of the same death,  
But that thick sighs betray that he had breath:  
Which only serves his Anger: now he hies  
Home to mount Ephraim, all his jealousies  
Are dead with her, and now he means to make  
Her common after death: each Tribe shall take  
A piece of her; O the obdurate mind  
That so could part, what God had so combined!  
I faint in the relating it, nor well  
What he durst act, dare undertake to tell.  
Twelve made of one? O who would not be mad,  
To think upon that madness? if she had  
But such another grief, with both oppressed,  
My Muse would then be dumb, which now doth rest.   

Canto II.  
The Argument.  
The twelve pieces of his wife  
Cut out by the Levites knife,  
To the field to do him right,  
Draw the neiled Israelite.  
Abraham's Prayer, Heaven's decree,  
Benjamins glad victory  
Twice repeated, make the sum  
Of the book which is to come.  
Such crimes amongst the Israelites? I fear  
Incredulous posterity will swear  
Mine was the fault, and when they muse hereon  
They'll judge the Crime was in my Fiction.  
When Vice exceeds a Probability  
It gains excuse, so that to sin on high  
Is politic offence, for he that shall  
Sin so, is thought not to have sinned at all.  
'Tis the corruption of the minds of men  
To judge the worst of actions, but 'tis when  
The fault is frequent, when the daily use  
Gives it at once, the guilt, and the excuse:  
But if a crime swell to the height of this,  
Murder, or Incest, or if any is  
Of fouler name; when man will man abuse,  
We do absolve more gladly then accuse,  
Can it be possibly presumed that they  
To whom the God of jacob showed the way,  
Both of their feet and manners, who had seen  
His frequent Miracles, nay who had been  
Part of the wonder too, so to have fell  
As to commit a greater Miracle?  
Sodom in judah? now the Fable wins  
Credit, and is out-acted by true sins:  
Report hath made Pygmalion to have loved  
That which he made, who by his Art was moved  
To palpable Idolatry, yet so  
At least he loved a woman in the show:  
he's fixed on his fair Image, so that one  
Would wonder which had been the truer stone.  
Yet 'twas a Woman's Image, so that I  
Wonder at's luck, more them his vanity,  
A Painted Woman will cause love: i'm moved  
More, how he did obtain, then why he loved.  
These do affect what to obtain is worst,  
What in the very thinking is accursed:  
In other loves the wife may barren prove,  
In this the barrenness is in the Love,  
In other faults there have excuses been,  
This hath no other Motive than the Sinne.  
And can this sin be theirs? Yes know it can,  
Man forsakes God, and then he dotes on man.  
But who did tutor them to this offence?  
For, though we find it in each conscience  
That we are naturally vicious,  
That there's no true good in the best of us,  
That we pursue our ill, as drawn by Fate,  
Yet 'tis example does specificate,  
That teacheth us This sin: 'tis mine own Vice,  
But that I am more lost in Avarice,  
That I do choose Adultery, or prefer  
The lustful man before the Murderer,  
I have from President: and thus our ill  
Comes from the Pattern too, as from the Will.  
Egypt denies to have an hand herein,  
(Egypt the house of bondage, not of sin.)  
Their cruelty I hear, and which is odd,  
I read that their chief sin, is their chief god.  
They make their gardens heavens, and in each plant  
They find a Deity: If that any want  
Be in their fields, if thence they do not gain,  
It is their gods they want, and not their grain.  
Their superstition yet might issue hence,  
The Calf, on which they placed their confidence,  
Which act this glory to them doth afford,  
They make themselves the beast which they adored.  
Or did the Desert make them thus to stray,  
And cause them lose their Manners with the Way?  
Did those vast places, which wise Nature framed,  
Wherein wild man should by his fear be tamed,  
His fear of wilder beasts, instruct these men,  
That there are beasts which are not in the Den:  
And that when ever we neglect, or scan  
The Lords commands, the Monster is the Man?  
No, these suspicions may suspected be,  
As far from Truth, as they from Honesty:  
Egypt was free from this fault, and much less  
Can we impose it on the Wilderness.  
They had no King: as well the fools as wise  
Did all what did seem right in their own Eyes.  
And Sodomes' crime seemed right to some to see  
When every man will his own Monarch be,  
When all subjection is ●one quite away,  
And the same man does govern and obey,  
How there is no obedience nor rule,  
How every man like to the Horse and Mule,  
Which want the understanding of their bit,  
And neither have their own, nor Rider's wit,  
Make a swift pace to Ruin. Give me then  
Leave to admire, and pity those poor men,  
Who think that Man should his own Ruler be,  
And exercise Home-principality:  
Who in one speedy minute strangely do  
What Alexander but aspired unto,  
Conquer all Kingdoms, which they'affirme to be,  
No better than a well-named Tyranny.  
Let me inquire of these, if they have read  
Any such crimes where people had an head?  
Let me inquire of men, as yet not wild,  
Whether they think themselves Lords of their child?  
Whether their servant's Masters? whether they  
Suppose that God did not make some t'obey.  
In Innocence there was Dominion,  
And the first man was the first Lord: that one  
King of the Creatures, whom for this none blames,  
He proved his Sovereignty by their Names.  
That he was his wife's Sovereign, in the Fall  
He fell not from his Monarchy, when all  
His Righteousness was vanished, that remained  
And so a knowledge of this truth he gained,  
(A truth he could not know had he still stood)  
We can be longer Powerful then Good.  
Nay let us look on Hell, and we shall see  
That there's a Prince of that obscurity.  
It is a torment such as Hell hath none,  
To want that order in confusion:  
That is the best, we may conclude from hence,  
That is in Hell, and was in Innocence.  
But I do wonder at the fault so long  
That I defer the punishment: my song  
Must to the Levite turn, or rather be  
No more a Song, but a sad Elegy.  
He having carved his Love, as you have heard,  
And done that act, which Hell and Furies feared;  
Sends a choice piece to every Tribe, to plead  
Their injuries, and tell why she is dead:  
Benjamin shall have one of them, lest he  
Might dare commit a crime, he durst not see.  
A several messenger to each Tribe is sent:  
But he that unto Princely judah went,  
Carrying the head of the dismembered coarse,  
With such a voice which sorrow had made hoarse,  
(Lest he should rave too highly) thus begins,  
Is there an Heaven? and can there be such sins!  
Stands the Earth still? me thinks I hardly stand,  
Feeling the Sea's inconstancy on Land.  
After this Act, why flows the water more?  
Why does't not stain, which always cleared before?  
It is not Air we draw now, 'tis a breath  
Sent to infect us from the Land of Death:  
The Fire, whose office 'tis to warm and shine,  
Grows black and downwards, as it did repine  
To see the fact, and sheds a kind of tears,  
Quenching his heat, because he cannot theirs.  
Can you behold these eyes without a tear?  
Can you with patience longer think they were,  
And are not the world's wonder? yet I err,  
It is Revenge, and not a Tear fits her:  
Let women weep for women, than you shall  
Show you have sorrowed heartily, if all  
Do sorrow which have injured her, and be  
Examples, as of Crimes so Misery.  
Gibeah 'twas (O 'twas not Gibeah)  
Credit me not, believe not what I say,  
I scarce dare trust myself, and yet again,  
Gibeah 'twas, that did this Fact: and then  
He tells them all, what I before have wept;  
Now judah storms, and as a River kept  
From its own course by Wears, and Milles, if once  
It force a passage, hurries o'er the stones,  
Sweeps all along with it, and so alone  
Without storms makes an Inundation:  
Such was the people's fury, they're so hot  
That they will punish what we credit not,  
And be as speedy as severe: but some  
Who loathed the bloody accents of the Drum,  
Who thought no mischiefs of that foulness are,  
But that they gain excuse, compared with war,  
And war with brethren; these, I say, of age  
The chief amongst them, do oppose their rage,  
Exhort them to a temper: Stay, says one,  
And be advised before you be undone.  
Whence is this fury? why d'ye make such haste  
To do that act which you'll repent as fast?  
Are any glad to fight? or can aught be  
Mother of war, beside Necessity?  
Be not mistaken, brethren, take good heed,  
It is not Physic frequently to bleed.  
He that for petty griefs incision makes  
Cannot be cured so often as he aches.  
Are then your sisters, daughters, wives too chaste?  
Or are you sorry that as yet no waist  
Deforms your richer grounds? or does it stir  
An anger in you, that the soldier  
Mows not your Fields? Poor men, do you lament  
That still you are as safe as innocent?  
We yet have Cities proudly situate,  
We yet have people: be it not in fate  
That your esteem of both should be so cheap  
To wish those carcases and these an Heap.  
Me thinks our jordan hath an happier pace,  
And flows with greater majesty and grace  
In his own natural wave, then if the sword  
Should higher colour to his streams afford;  
Should paint and so deform it: to mine eye  
A River's better than a Prodigy.  
But I desire, dear Countrymen, to know,  
Whose is the blood that we must lavish so?  
Perhaps the Philistines ambition  
Would to our Shilob bring their Ascalon,  
And these you would encounter: or 'tmay be  
Egypt still envying that you are free  
Intends a second bondage: or perchance  
Your daily conquered Enemies advance  
Their often flying ensigns, those at hand  
Possessors and destroyers of the Land;  
Whom God reserving for our future Pride,  
Left to our eyes as thorns, pricks to our side.  
No none of these, but all your swords intent  
I grieve to speak't, the ruin of a friend:  
And all the sons of Israel do press  
That Israel may have a son the less.  
joseph I've read suffered his brother's hate,  
(Joseph of near acquaintance unto fate  
The mouth of Destiny,) they would kill him first,  
But after sell him, to try which was worst:  
And yet no reason for this spleen appears,  
But that his glory was beyond his years:  
To hate the younger still is too much sin,  
And after joseph to spoil Benjamin.  
Hath twelve no mystery? do ye ascribe  
Merely to Chance, that there is no odd Tribe.  
Trust me my brethren, they do injure God,  
Who say that he delights in what is odd:  
I think 'tis parity best pleaseth heaven;  
And what is most just, loves what is most e'en.  
Do I excuse them then to please the time,  
And only make an error of a Crime?  
Am I sin's Advocate? far be't from me  
To think so ill of War as Sodomy:  
For Sodomy I term it, justice calls  
That, fact; which never into action falls,  
If it hath passed the licence of the will:  
And their intent reached to that height of ill;  
But whose intent? O pardon me, there be  
Beniamites spotless of that Infamy.  
Shall these be joined in punishment? a sin  
You'd war against, O do not then begin  
To act a greater, as if you would see  
Whether Injustice aequalled Luxury?  
This madness was from Gibeah, 'tis true,  
Yet some do more distaste the crime, than you,  
Even in that City: hear then my advice,  
And God shall prosper what you enterprise.  
Exhort them to do justice, if that then  
They still be partial to these guilty men,  
Their guilt is greatest, let them perish all  
And equal their offences with their fall.  
Thick acclamations break off his discourse,  
They'll hear no more because they likeed: Remorse  
Ceizeth each conscience, they already hate  
The civil war, which they so wished of late.  
Ambassadors by general voice are sent:  
But Benjamin conceits that to repent  
Were the worse sin, and that who ere will do  
A wicked act, he ought defend it too.  
But are not we true Beniamites in this,  
And aggravate what ere we do amiss  
By a new act? as if the second deed  
Excused the former, if it did exceed.  
Did we not thus, an end were come to war;  
Did we not thus, no more should private jar  
Molest our peace; Kings might put up their swords,  
And every quarrel might conclude in words:  
One conference would root out all debate,  
And they might then most love, who now most hate,  
The most sworn foes: for show me, where is he  
Would seek Revenge, without an Injury?  
A wrong received, or thought one? then no need  
But to deny, to excuse the deed,  
Why is Defence? O what do they intend  
Who justify those acts, which they should mend!  
O Pride! O folly! O extreme disease!  
O Fact, which he condemns who practices!  
Who in his soul confesseth he offends  
And yet doubles his guilt when he not ends.  
Great crimes find greater patrons: impudence  
Follows each fault, to make us think that sense  
Hath fled us with our Virtue, and that men  
By such an hardness are turned stones again.  
So wives of Entertainment (who do know  
More than one Husband) in the public, show  
As virtuous as the best whilst undescried,  
Whilst they have this good left, that they will hide  
And veil o'er their offences: but if once  
Either their husbands just suspicions,  
Or their security betray their fact,  
No more do blush to answer, then to act,  
As if 'twere meritorious, and so, did  
Appear no sin no longer than 'twas hid.  
Why should the bad be bold? why should there be  
Audaciousness joined to impiety?  
Whence is this daring? Sin was child to Night,  
How dares he then approach and blast the light?  
How dares he stand th'examining, and try  
If men can find out his deformity.  
I have the reason, we are flatterers all,  
And to ourselves the most; if any fall  
Into gross errors, still he thinks he's free,  
And Pride supplies the place of honesty.  
He thinks 'tis good to have a virtuous name  
And cares not for the goodness, but the fame.  
Which makes the Beniamites reply: we'admire  
(To say no more) at your so strange desire.  
And at the craft on't most, that you pretend  
Love and advice, when you subjection send:  
Are we so stupid, and so senseless grown  
As to be thought not fit to rule our own?  
Benjamin was the youngest we confess  
Of Jacob's sons, and yet a son, no less  
Than Levy, or proud judah: he that gave  
Life to each Tribe, intended none a slave,  
Nor shall you make us. But you'll say, that you  
Out of a general love to goodness sue  
For justice 'gainst her Enemies. 'tis poor  
If what we would we cannot cover o'er  
With specious pretences: 'tis an ill  
Physicians part so to betray his pill,  
That children may perceive it want of dress,  
And choose disease before seen bitterness;  
But let me tell you who so ere does deal,  
In the affairs of a strange commonweal,  
Is tyrannous or mad: he would be known  
Either another's Lord, or's not his own.  
Yet what is't your grave Masters do advice  
Our sleepy Council of? whose duller Eyes  
See only open vices: we have heard  
The Levite and his Concubine, we feared  
You'd have us punish him: than you relate  
That coming unto Gibeah something late,  
And willing to depart the earlier thence,  
He found his chaste one dead: O dire offence!  
She had the punishment she deserved, and just  
It was, that who had lived should dye by Lust.  
And yet for fear Levites in time to come  
Might want such easy favourites, and some  
Would leave their courteous trade, if there be found  
No cure, no remedy for such a wound:  
We are content to be severe: but then  
We do expect, you name those guilty men.  
Out's the more hard and thankless task I trow,  
For we will punish those whom you but show.  
These mocks do whet the Isra'elites so far,  
Nothing remains now but a civil war:  
Now all the Tribes have unto Mispah ran,  
With such consent you'd think they were one man.  
If war had ever reason, or if men  
Had ere authority to kill others, then  
Certainly these, in so divine a cause,  
'twas not the people's quarrel, but the Laws.  
Here no ambition, no untamed desire  
Of Principality, of growing higher,  
Put on these Arms, nor was it fault enough  
That Benjamin was rich, to raise these rough  
Spirits of Mars, nor is't a true surmise  
That private wrongs did cause these Enemies:  
These fight the battle of the Lord, herein  
justice on one side fights, on th'other Sin:  
So that in height of blood, heat of the wars,  
They rather judges are, than Soldiers.  
The Israelites if they now spare, are shent,  
The more they kill, the more they're innocent.  
Our Age makes us again these actions see  
An Age of war, though not of victory.  
For 'tis not victory to win the Field,  
Unless we make our Enemies to yield  
More to our justice, than our Force, and so  
As well instruct as overcome our Foe.  
Call you that Conquest, or a Theft of State,  
When in a Stranger region of late,  
The Eagle built his nest, having expelled  
(Upon a mere pretence that he rebelled)  
The former Airy, for no other cause,  
But that his bill was strong, and sharp his claws:  
To see the malice, and the power of hate,  
That made e'en the Elector Reprobate.  
When Caesar did not stick, nor blush to do  
What they detested, who advised him too,  
When that all laws their ancient force might lose,  
He made a Choice of him that was to Choose.  
Now all occasions can persuade to sight,  
When Power is misinterpreted for Right.  
There is a Lust of kill men▪ so great,  
Rivers of blood can scarce assuage the heat:  
Our lives are cheaper than the lives of beasts,  
Then those whose very being is for feasts;  
Who have no use but for the throat: hard plight!  
Anger not kills them, but our appetite,  
If we have eaten once, we spare: and then  
If we are full are kind: but to kill men  
We have a lasting appetite, shedding blood,  
Our famine is increased e'en by our food:  
Such Erisichthons' are we, they that have  
Unlimited desires, Death and the Grave  
But shadow this affection, and to it  
Compared, the Horseleech wants an Appetite:  
It may be weighing man's high faculties  
(Which make him claim a kindred with the skies)  
They seem to doubt of his mortality  
And only strive to know if he can dye.  
Nor do they care on what pretence (lest aught  
Should make their crime the less) no reason's sought  
To mitigate their fault, and they are thus  
So far from good, they scarce are cautelous.  
But 'tis a sore will fester, if you touch,  
Away my Muse, sometime a truth's too much  
For Honour, or for safety: he alone  
Prospers who flatters. But if any one  
Shall ask a Probability for this  
How such a multitude, such a swarm is  
Assembled of the Israelites (for then  
There met at once four hundred thousand men  
Against their brother Benjamin,) whilst yet  
They had not dispossessed the Canaanite,  
(There was a mixture not a Conquest made)  
How durst they then so foolishly invade  
Their brethren's Country, when they left their own  
Subject to imminent destruction?  
Or when was this invasion made? To me  
The Number hath a more Facility  
For credit, than the Time; do we not find,  
That Israel wanting judges was assigned  
To bondage, as to Anarchy? they groan  
Under a foreign yoke, wanting their own.  
Carries it any likelihood; or can  
It sink into the fancy of a man,  
That when they were oppressed, they should oppress?  
As full of folly as of savageness:  
This were to perfect Eglons' victory,  
And act what jabin but desired should be.  
And yet it might be, joshua being dead,  
Then was the time, the people lacked an head:  
Who taking no care for posterity,  
'twas the worst act of joshua to dye.  
Moses deputed him, and if that he  
Had left another Governor, it might be  
Our Levite had been chaste: and Benjamin  
Been noted for his virtue, not his sin.  
Then were these multitudes no miracle,  
And Canaan so oft beat by Israel,  
In likelihood would rest quiet, and expect  
If these would do what they could not effect.  
Besides, their dwellings in the Valleys be  
So that their seat teaches humility:  
And then to climb the mountains was such pain  
As that the labour did exceed the gain.  
And thus you see, that they may fight: but ere  
Their enemy's Countries by them wasted were,  
They to the Oracle repair, to know  
If victory shall grace them, or their Foe?  
Yet pardon me, I err, they are so strong  
As that they would imagine it a wrong  
Done to their valour, it we should suppose,  
That they entreated conquest of their foes;  
No, being sure of Victory, they ask  
Which of the Tribes shall undertake the task  
Of the first onset, and the Tribes refused,  
Envy at judah's choice, as if abused,  
And injured they esteemed themselves, that they  
Should lose the dangerous honour of the day.  
Such was their pride, such thoughts their Numbers broad  
Numbers, whose fear, might strike the Enemy dead:  
Whose hands deserved a fiercer Enemy,  
And matter of an harder victory.  
With these they think, they might to Memphis pass,  
And make the Egyptians know, what bondage was.  
With these they thought with ease to force a Way  
(Though nature did oppose) to India.  
And in a saucy victory outrun,  
The primitive vprising of the Sun.  
How large are our desires? and yet how few  
Events are answerable? So the dew  
Which early on the top of mountains stood  
(Meaning at least to imitate a flood)  
When once the Sun appears, appears no more,  
And leaves that parched, which was too moist before.  
That we are never wholly good! that still  
Mixed with our Virtue, is some spice of ill!  
The Israelites are Just, but they are Proud,  
As if a lesser fault might be allowed  
For punishing the greater: yet I'd know  
Whilst yet they might suffer an overthrow,  
Why they rejoice as if they'd won! or why  
They have a Pride ere they have Certainty?  
Their numbers are incredible, 'tis true,  
Yet multitudes have been o'ercome by few:  
Their army is complete, 'tis right, but then  
We know it is an army but of men,  
Of future carcases, so quickly some  
They have no time to think of death to come:  
To whom no star a certainty does give,  
That they at least to the next Field should live.  
Four hundred thousand carcases; enough  
To give the beasts a surfeit, and allow  
Fertility which Nature had denied  
Unto those Lands: So that their height of pride,  
Of hope, of glory, and of all their toil  
Is to enrich the Land which they would spoil.  
So thought the Beniamites, who though they saw  
That Power too was against them with the Law,  
Yet resolutely they intent to die,  
And such despair gives them the victory.  
They are not Cowards, yet, though they are bad,  
They slay more numbers than we'd think they had.  
Whence comes this Courage to the Desperate?  
The bad me thinks should be effeminate,  
And as the Bees (the subject or the King)  
Having abused it once, do lose their sting:  
And to enforce a Stoic unto laughter,  
Being once too fierce, they are always sluggish after  
Converted unto Drones, so it seems fit  
(And not so much heaven's justice, as its wit)  
That who hath lost his Virtue once, should strait  
Lose courage too, oppressed with his own weight.  
The Israelites though amazed at this defeat,  
Yet gather head, and to their camp retreat;  
There might you see Sorrow and Anger joined,  
Nor do they grieve so much as they repined.  
Here fathers weep their only sons, and there  
Brothers for as dear losses drop a tear,  
Accompanied with threatenings, they are mad  
Till they bestow the sorrow which they had.  
Once more to Shiloh they repair, to hear  
If God at last will aid them, and for fear  
That it was pride did frustrate their first suit,  
They're now as humble, as then resolute:  
In stead of fight they now weep a day,  
Sighs they do think and tears can make a way  
Where swords are useless, they'll gain victory  
No longer by their hand, but by their Eye.  
Great and just God, says one, we do confess  
That all this heavy anger is far less  
Than our deservings: shouldst thou fully weigh  
Our sin's enormity, 'tis not a day  
Lost to the Foe, can expiate: did we feel  
What ere we saw in Egypt, did the steel  
Peirce deeper in our bowels, should the skies  
Shed those hot showers in which Gomorrah fries,  
We could not tax the justice of our King,  
But after all, owe still a suffering.  
Yet thou hast ancient mercies, we'aue been told  
Of all thy courtesies, which were of old  
Showed to our Fathers; O vouchsafe them still,  
And make us heirs of those: we have done ill,  
Prodigiously ill, there's no offence  
Which we are guiltless of, each conscience  
Accuseth, and amazeth us: yet now  
Our flinty hearts to a repentance bow:  
Yet now at last vouchsafe thy favour to us,  
And as thy rod hath scourged, let mercy woo us;  
We dare not look for victory: O no,  
Give us at leastwise a more virtuous Foe.  
Thy wrath is just great God, and 'tis our suit  
Only just men thy wrath may execute.  
We beg not for our lives, they are thy loan,  
Which when thou wilt, receive, yet as thine own,  
Let not their swords bereave us of our breath,  
And we shall find a benefit in death.  
Yet what a glory can it be to thee  
That we are dead? and that the Heathen see  
Thy anger on thy Children? that thy wrath  
In stead of being felt, is told in Gath,  
And published in fierce Ascalon; spare us then  
If not for us, yet for thyself; and when  
Thou think'st of plaguing us, thyself exempt,  
Since that our Ruin will breed thy contempt:  
Let then thy mercy above justice shine;  
If we are bad, consider we are thine.  
Thus grumbled they a prayer: and he that sees  
Counsels unhatchd, and what he will, decrees,  
(Yet ever justly) does perceive that they  
What ere they fain, do murmur, and not pray.  
Which he decrees to punish: they would know  
Whether that once more they shall fight▪ or no?  
Once more he grants that they shall fight and thus  
They're not so craving, as he Courteous,  
If they but ask him, he will not deny,  
Fight's their desire, and then his answere's I.  
Had they but asked the victory as well  
He would have heard his troubled Israel:  
He that delivered them from foreign arms,  
And taught their weak hands to repair their harms  
With admirable victory. He I say  
Would have bestowed the honour of the day  
On them, had they desired it; they have known  
How he hath warred for them from heaven, & shown  
Such miracles in their defence, they fright  
Those whom they save, as when the wondering night  
Thought herself banished from the world (the Sun  
Standing unmoved, forgetting how to run.)  
If they now lose the day the fault is theirs,  
God does no mercy want, they want right prayers.  
But they suppose it too too fond to stand  
Begging of that which is in their own hand.  
This they conceive were to mock God, to crave  
That to be given which they already have,  
A power to use their arms: No, if once more  
They may have field-roome, may but fight it o'er  
Though Heaven do not fight for them; they suppose  
They cannot lose, if Heaven do not oppose.  
They think no chance can possibly bestow,  
The foil on them, the Laurel on the foe.  
What though they lost the praise of the first day,  
And fought as though they came to runaway:  
'twas not for want of courage sure, but either  
The foe had got advantage of the weather,  
Or else the wind had raised the dust so high  
That they supposed fresh enemies to be nigh,  
And feared to be environed round: what ere  
Occasioned their first overthrow, no fear,  
No chance, shall cause another; and the slaves  
That now triumph, shall find their trenches, graves.  
Is this their Crime alone, or do not all  
Partake as of their fault, so of their fall?  
Israel is not only mad, there be  
Some vices which we give posterity,  
And this is one of them: O how vain is man!  
O how his Reason too is but a span,  
And not his stature or his Age! we have long  
Injured the beasts, and done them too much wrong,  
By calling them Irrational; could they speak  
Thus in rough language, they would fiercely break  
Their mind unto us: O you only wise  
To whom kind Nature hath imparted Eyes,  
Leaving all other blind; pardon if we  
Do tell you where you have forgot to see,  
Where we are clearer sighted: can you show  
Where ever beasts did to that madness grow,  
As to pronounce of that, which is to come,  
Of that which only seems in Chances doom?  
Yet thus you do; and doing thus have shown,  
Reason's your title, our Possession.  
The Israelites had to their cost of late  
Found confidence to be unfortunate;  
(Their confidence in Numbers) and yet still  
(Though now contained in smaller room) they will  
Forespeak their victory: why, because they see  
That they are many yet; poor vanity!  
When they were more, they were o'ercome, yet dare  
Conceive a Conquest when they fewer are;  
Because still some are to be killed: as though  
Success to Multitudes did homage owe,  
And multitudes impaired: as if the way  
To win another were to lose one day.  
But had we seen the City now! what joy  
Reigned in those streets, sufficient to destroy  
Those whom it comforted (for pleasure too  
Can find a way to death, and strangely do  
The work of heaviness and grief) I say  
Had we but seen the glory of that day:  
The whooping, dancing, and the general noise  
To which the sea and thunder are but toys;  
We should have thought it (so the sounds agree.)  
No noise of Triumph, but Captivity.  
At last they do repose themselves, and one  
Of highest judgement and discretion,  
Instructs them thus: My dearest Countrymen,  
Who ere intends his private ends, does pen  
A speech unto the Ear, his study is  
Which words sound well, and which are thought amiss:  
He tries all ways, he lays all colours on  
To cheat the judgement, soothe the Passion,  
So that he hopes at last that it must hit  
Either the subject, or the clothing it:  
But I whose end is Public good, intent  
Nothing but that which caries to that end:  
Pardon me then if I am harsh and round,  
If that I am not Plausible, but sound.  
We won a victory last day, so great  
We hardly dare believe we were not beat:  
Our conquest easier was then our belief;  
And with great reason too: for tell, what chief,  
What petty captain is so vain, so mad  
As to ascribe to his conduct the glad  
Event of last day's hazard? to my sense  
The Conqueror was only Providence,  
And we but instruments: then I'd advice  
That as you have been happy, you'd be wise:  
That man does still in greatest glory stand,  
Whose brain is better thought of then his hand▪  
And so I wish that yours should be: we know  
That what is gained by Fortune is lost so,  
She hath no constant Favourite, than now  
Whilst yet our victory does means allow  
To purchase peace at our own rate, and thrive  
By Covenant more than Battle: let us drive  
All thought of war far from us, 'tis in vain  
To get that hardly, which we may obtain  
By easier means, and he does more than rave  
Who hazards that which he may certain have.  
More was he speaking, when a thousand tongues  
Made his be silent, one would think their lungs  
To be unequal to that noise, so fierce  
Their clamour is, such sounds the heavens do pierce.  
So have I oft heard in our Theatre  
(When that a daintier passage won the Ear)  
A thousand tongues, a thousand hands rebound,  
(As if the Plaudite were in the sound,  
And most noise were most pleasing:) they express  
Their liking so, as these their frowardness.  
Who rave from noise to action, one stoops down,  
To reach a stone, another fiercer clown  
Shakes a steeled Tavelin at him, all the hands,  
Against which Israel but weakly stands,  
Aim now at one; who dreadless, unimpaired  
In courage, neither wished life, nor despaired.  
At last a serious Counsellor stood up;  
Much had he tasted of the liberal Cup,  
And thankfully expressed it in his face,  
To which a larger wound would be a grace  
By hiding his rich pimples: This brave man  
Raises himself, and with what speed he can  
Stutters thus to them; Cease my noble boys,  
Quiet your threatenings now, and stint your noise.  
'tis a just anger you have shown, but yet  
The time in which you show it is unfit.  
Now should we dance, my bloods, now should we sing,  
And make the wondering firmament to ring  
With joyful acclamations; now brave spirits  
To show the most joy, is to show most merits.  
Sadness is only Capital: in fine,  
Now should we shed no blood but of the vine.  
For you Sir whom we doubly guilty see,  
Of Treason first, and then Philosophy  
If these do please, thus we pronounce: to show  
How little we do fear you, or the Foe,  
we'll send you first unto their camp, and then  
we'll fetch you by our conquest home again.  
This is a mercy if well understood,  
You shall enjoy the fortune you think good.  
Here his breath fails: when all the people cry  
He hath spoke nobly, none this day shall dye.  
And yet the Traitor shall not scape at last  
Whose execution is deferred, not past.  
'twas neither peace, nor war now, either side  
Having sufficiently their forces tried,  
Take breath a while: O happy men, if still  
This mind continue in them! If they kill  
Their appetite of killing! if this rest  
Can at the last inform them what is best!  
To bury their slain friends▪ both sides agree  
Unto a two days truce: Stupidity  
Nor to be borne with! had they known the use  
At first of that which they now call a truce,  
This truce had been unnecessary, than  
They might have spared, whilst now they bury men.  
And that they now may bury, they entreat  
Respite a while from war: thus all their heat  
Is buried for the time: good heaven to see  
Th' Omnipotency of Necessity,  
Whom all the nearest ties of Neighbourhood,  
Religion, Language, nay of the same Blood  
Could not contain from fight, but that they would  
(To see if it were theirs) shed their own blood,  
These are entreated to a form of peace,  
Their fury for a day or two can cease,  
Commanded by Necessity: they fear  
Lest th' Air by so much carcase poisoned were:  
Lest to revenge the blood which they had shed,  
They now might feel the valour of the dead,  
Of strong corruption: these thoughts hold their mind  
These thoughts a while enforce them to be kind  
On both sides (for they do not jar in all)  
Nature prevails not, but a Funeral.  
Nor doth this long prevail, for when they had  
Interred some carcases, they yet are mad  
Till they have made some more, till they have done  
A second fault, as not content with one.  
They see their Error, and commit it, thus  
Who are not eminently virtuous,  
Are easily entrapped in vices snares,  
And want the poor excuse, that unawares  
They were engaged, we greedily run on  
Offending with Deliberation.  
And can you call this but Infirmity?  
Nickname a Vice? O call it Prodigy.  
Call it— O what? What name can well express  
The miracle of humane guiltiness?  
Could he pretend an ignorance at least  
And be in Nature as in Fact a beast,  
He were not worse than they, than he might be  
Both from the Use and Fault of Reason free.  
But what new horror ceizeth me? what fire  
Reigns in my thoughts, and prompts me to rise higher?  
Hence you low souls who grovelling on the Earth  
Basely deject yourselves below your birth,  
Sold to your senses: I intent to tell  
What none can know but in whose breasts do dwell  
Celestial fires, and unto whom 'tis given  
To have a nearer intercourse with Heaven.  
Yet pardon you pure souls, whom no one dares  
Eased of our flesh, to trouble with our cares:  
Pardon I once more ask, if my weak pen  
Fitting itself to ordinary men,  
Attain not to your height (to us unknown)  
And give you those words which you shame to own.  
The Lawgiver, who saw as in a glass  
All in the Word, what ever 'twas did pass  
In these near enmities, as far as Man  
Perfectly happy knows a grief, began  
To feel Compassion: Have I then said he  
Delivered Israel for this misery?  
And did I free them from th' Egyptian  
Only to find them graves in Canaan?  
I did foretell their Land should overflow,  
But never thought to be expounded so;  
Never with blood: I meant that they should have  
More blessings than the covetous can crave.  
The flowing Vdder, and the untired Bee,  
An happy Deluge of Fertility.  
O how would now proud Pharaoh rejoice!  
How would he have a joy beyond a voice,  
Beyond his tyranny, could he but know  
What Israel does endure without a Foe!  
Was it for this I did so oft repeat  
Wonders before him, wonders of so great  
Exuberance of power, so highly done,  
That they contemn all admiration?  
How wert thou Nilus' bloodied into Red,  
Thy waters as unknown as is thy Head?  
When all thy finny progeny did find  
That to destroy now, which did breed their kind,  
When by a nimble death they understand,  
The River as discourteous as the Land?  
Can I forget that when I did bestow  
A liberty as heretofore to flow  
Unto thy now pale waters, there did pass  
An issue stranger than his Colour was  
From the too fertile river? Frogs are found  
With such a multitude to hide the ground  
That there's no grass appears, no corn is seen.  
The spring does blush because he looks not green.  
Their numbers and their noise equally harsh  
Make Egypt not a Region but a Marsh.  
What a small portion of my acts were these?  
How scarcely to be counted passages  
In my large story? Dust is changed to Lice  
And now begins to creep, which the most nice  
And curious eye before could never find  
To move at all, unless 'twere by the wind:  
Which could not scatter those thick clouds of Flies,  
That would not let them, no, not see the skies.  
When I but threaten all the cattle dye,  
And Egypt's Gods find a Mortality.  
But lest the men should think that they were free  
From the fault too, if the Calamity●:  
I taught their bodies with black gore to run,  
And imitate their soul's corruption.  
What was a Face is now a Pimple grown,  
And in each part is plentifully sown  
A store of blains, so ugly, that to me  
It was a kind of judgement but to see.  
And if this were but little, was't not I  
That called those candied pellets from the sky,  
Which in a moment overwhelming all  
Did badly change their colour in their fall:  
And by the murdering every one they found  
Within their reach came red unto the ground?  
When to repair the numbers they had slain  
(Beasts of all sorts) the land is filled again,  
But 'tis with Locusts, such a swarm they see  
Made for the shame of all their Husbandry,  
That they could wish, so they were rid of these  
The former Murrain, ere this new increase.  
But who can tell the following Prodigy?  
Last day the Earth was hid, but now the sky  
Chaos returns, the Sun hath lost his rays  
And Night's obscurity is turned to Days.  
Who could a greater miracle afford?  
God made the Light, I Darkness by a Word.  
Which had it lasted, had it ne'er been spent,  
They would have called it a kind punishment,  
They had not seen then their first borne to die,  
To challenge death by their Nativity:  
All 〈…〉, but why? was it to see  
〈…〉 suffer fuller misery?  
To gain the Country which they could not hold,  
From which their own arms ignorantly bold  
Expel their own selves: O let no man tell  
That Israel did banish Israel.  
My prayers forbid, nor let it ere be said  
That Moses was unkind since he was dead,  
That in the grave I left my goodness too;  
And could not pity when not feel a woe.  
Having said this, with all the speed he may  
He seeks out holy Abraham, who that day,  
By his dear Isaac seconded, did sing  
The ancient mercies of their heavenly King.  
One tells how having now worn out a life  
And so being fitter for his Grave then Wife,  
Nay then when she had lived unto those years,  
To be accounted with the Grandmothers,  
When Sara now was so unwieldy grown,  
Her legs could scarcely bear herself alone,  
She bears another burden, and does swell  
Not with a child, but with a Miracle.  
This said, he stops; and then again goes on  
No more with story, but Devotion.  
O praise the Lord my soul, let me not find  
My body was more fruitful than my mind.  
O let that teeme with thankfulness, and be  
Made sweetly pregnant by my memory.  
Father, says Isaac, I have often heard  
That we do tell with joy what we have Feared,  
And what in suffering terrifies our sense,  
Does in relating please: what violence  
Of bliss possesseth me, when I compare  
My dangers passed with joys that present are!  
Methinks I yet carry that fatal wood  
(A burden which I hardly understood  
Should carry me) methinks I still inquire  
Where is the sacrifice, and where the fire?  
How little did I think, or fear till then  
That God commanded sacrifice of men!  
How little could I guess in any part  
That God in such sort did desire the Heart?  
Yet pardon Father, if you now must know,  
Your silence seemed more cruel than your blow:  
Could I oppose my mind against your will,  
Or wish him spared, whom you decreed to kill?  
Wherefore was all this circumstance? what need  
But first to tell, and then to act the deed?  
I never knew what disobedience meant,  
And your distrust was my worst punishment.  
I must confess I was amazed, my blood  
Congealed within me, and my faint hairs stood  
Yet not for fear of death (Death was my profit)  
But for the manner and the Author of it.  
Was this the heavenly promise? and must I  
So strangely borne, somewhat more strangely dye?  
What should I say now? or what shall I do?  
That frustrate by my death Gods promise too.  
Should I invoke Heaven's aid? alas, from thence  
Came the injunction for this violence:  
Should I implore my father's help? why, he  
Would sooner hearken unto heaven then me.  
And so he did: for when the trembling sword  
As if he knew the temper of his Lord  
Threatened a death, most fortunately than  
He that did arm you did disarm again;  
Showing your will was all he did require,  
Commanding you to that you most desire,  
To be again a Father: O the power  
And mercy of our God who in an hour,  
Who in a minute, can make all things well,  
Can bring and then deliver out of Hell.  
These were their Accents, when that Moses says,  
It is an holy business to praise,  
To magnify our Lord, so to go on  
In the intent of our Creation.  
To this all times, all reasons do obey,  
And we may praise as often as we pray.  
But now let's change these tones, let us be mute  
In all discourses now, but in a suit;  
Let us at once conjoin our prayers, and see  
If our one God will hearken unto three.  
Your issue, and my charge, whom I have led  
Thorough those paths that never man did tread,  
(As if they feared a scarcity of foes)  
Do their own selves against themselves oppose;  
And their destruction (unless we repair  
Sooner to aid them) will prevent our prayer.  
It was a place above the Air, the Sky,  
Whither Man cannot reach, not with his Eye,  
Nay if th' exactness of the height be sought,  
Whither Man cannot reach, not with his thought.  
Beyond the place where hail, and rain do grow,  
Above the chill-white treasures of the snow;  
To which compared the starry heaven is fell  
Unto a nearer neighbourhood with Hell.  
And when I shall of God's abode entreat  
It does become his prospect, not his seat.  
To which compared, the Crystal heaven does meet  
With Earth, to be a stool unto his feet.  
This was the Place (yet pardon 'twas not so,  
Places are things which only bodies know,  
Our bounds of Air, from which the heavens are free  
As from Corruption and Mortality)  
But here it was His sacred throne did stand,  
Who with a word created Sea and Land:  
Who with a word was Maker of his Throne,  
Who till he made it never wanted one.  
Bring me the richest goldsmiths treasuries  
(Those baits that do allure our hearts and eyes)  
The dusky Sapphire, the Pearl richly white,  
The sparkling Diamond, yellow Chrysolite,  
Or if there be a gem Nature hath framed,  
Of so high price that Art hath never named.  
Ransack the Ingas tombs, where there doth lie  
With their corrupted dust their treasury:  
(Who to that pretty bounty do attain  
That they bestow their gold on earth again.)  
Search me their graves, or if you fearful be  
Of treasure guarded by Mortality,  
Rob all the mines fenced with so many bars,  
(Where Nature in the Earth hath fancied stars,  
Whose lustre lest our weakness cannot bear  
Her kinder wisdom made her store up there)  
Bring these unto the view, to an exact  
Figure, which Phidias durst call his Act:  
Yet to this throne compared, it will appear  
So far from shining, it will scarce look clear.  
Here does the Ancient of days disclose  
The glory of his Majesty to those  
To whom he daynes his presence, who enjoy  
At full, what would a weaker eye destroy:  
Whose bliss shall never have a period,  
Who therefore live because they see their God.  
How could I ever linger, ever dwell  
In this so blessed Relation! O how well  
Should I esteem myself entranced, if I  
By staying here should lose my History!  
Here thousand thousands wait upon his call  
Of humane servants, and Angelical,  
And such a multitude invest his throne  
(Millions of Spirits waiting upon One,)  
That it may be we should not say amiss,  
Their Number stranger than their Nature is:  
Here sound the Halleluiah's, here the Choir  
Of Heaven is high, and full as their desire:  
No voice is here untuned, they do not find  
Aiarre, more in the sound, then in the mind.  
Their power of singing grows on with their song,  
And they can longer sing, because thus long;  
Thus here themselves they fully strengthened fee,  
To a melodious eternity.  
Here Abraham presents himself, and says  
O thou above the injury of Days;  
Who making Times art subject unto none,  
Who giv'st all knowledge, and art never known;  
Who in my days of flesh didst gladly lend  
An ear unto my suit, and wouldst not bend  
Thy plagues against thine enemies, until  
I knew th'intent, and thou hadst asked my will,  
The will of me poor mortal, nay far worse  
Of me a sinner then, the ancient curse  
Stuck deeply in me, that I might have feared  
My faults, and not my prayer should have been heard:  
Could I speak then, and am I silent now?  
Did Sodom move, and cannot Israel bow?  
O pardon me if I bewail their state,  
If I their Father prove their Advocate.  
Didst not thou promise when I had given o'er  
All hope of Father, when I wished no more  
Than a contented Grave, that then from me,  
Should come so numerous a progeny:  
That all the clearer army of the sky,  
And the thick sands which still unnumbered lie  
Should come within account before my seed,  
Which not my Sara, but thy truth should breed?  
How oft I thought that promise did include  
Their lasting too as well as multitude;  
That their continuance should be as sure,  
As long as either sands or stars endure.  
If they have sinned, thou knowst they may repent  
And be the better by a punishment,  
Never by Ruin: O then use thy rod  
Think that they are thy People, thou their God.  
And if they are so, O then let not be  
Any more strife, but who shall most serve thee,  
If they are so, let Abraham once more  
Receive those children which thou gav'st before.  
Now they have left their heavenly echoing,  
Now all the Choir does wonder and not sing,  
When from th'eternal Majesty are heard  
Speeches, which all but the dread Speaker feared.  
Am I as Man that I should change? or like  
The son of man to threaten and not strike?  
If I pronounce my wrath against a Land  
Shall that continue, and my word not stand?  
If I do whet a sword, shall it be blunt,  
And have no direr sharpness than 'twas wont?  
Benjamins crime he's such an horror in't,  
(Who have confirmed their faces like a flint  
Against all dye of modesty) that till  
Their blood (which now their too hot veins do fill)  
Flow in their fields, till that their Numbers be  
Of as small note as is their Chastity,  
It shall not be remitted: yet to show  
That I can pay that which I do not owe,  
A remnant shall escape: but for the rest,  
(Those other Tribes which boast they are the best,)  
And yet to verify their goodness, less  
Speak, as if they were injured by success,  
So making the fault mine, who therefore have  
Been liberal benefactors to the grave  
By their thick deaths) until that I do see  
A confirmed truth of their humility,  
They shall not see a victory: I'll make  
Benjamin punish these, and after take  
Vengeance on the Revengers, till they see  
My mercy hath not spent mine Equity.  
This I pronounce, this is my constant will.  
Now all the holy company do fill  
The heavens with shouts of praise, and loudly cry  
All Honour, Glory, Power to the most High.  
But now the Israelites once more have brought  
Their troops into the field, once more have fought,  
And whether 'twas the fault of them that led,  
Or of the soldier, once more they have fled:  
And now because their battle was not long  
I will not be more tedious in my Song.   

Canto III.  
The Argument.  
The Levites vision, Phineah's Prayer,  
The Israelites late caused despair  
Now turned to courage, when by them  
A new invenned stratagem  
Draws the enemy from the walls,  
Until within their net he falls,  
With the full righting of the wrong  
Does both conclude, and crown my Song.  
When will Vice fail? when shall we see th' event  
Of wicked acts as bad as the Intent?  
As yet the worst are prosperous, and worse,  
The good as yet have never missed their curse:  
Review the Levites wife, and you shall see  
When she had forfeited her honesty,  
Her father entertained her; but once more  
When she was come to what she left before,  
Her Lord and Virtue, when that all her strife  
Shall be to gain the name of a good wife,  
Gibeah will not harbour her; O poor!  
Gibeah were guiltless had it done no more:  
But Gibeah will murder her; and now  
Return we to the Camp, and there see how  
They prove this fatal truth, twice had they tried  
The valour of their enemies, and twice died  
The fields with their best blood, so hardly crossed  
That they have fought no oftener then th'ave lost:  
And yet their cause was best: neither were they  
The only people which have lost the day  
Which they deserved to win: search the records  
Of every Age, and every Age affords  
Examples of like strangeness: who can tell  
What the Assyrian did to Israel?  
How in despite of all their lofty towers,  
(Which hoped a standing to the last of hours)  
He made one hour their last: unlucky hour,  
Where vice showed what 't could do when it had power.  
The sword did sport with lives, nor were they such  
Whose loss or preservation did not much  
Pertain unto the state: but the King's sons  
In the same time, the same Pavilions,  
By the same tyrant are enforced to dye,  
And which exceeds all, in their father's eye.  
Poor Zedekiahs' kingdom first is gone  
And then his heirs, O harsh inversion!  
If he had lost them first, it might be thought  
His kingdom's loss would not have moved him aught,  
He would have made the best of th'other cross  
Esteeming it an easing, not a loss.  
As he might now to be deprived of sight  
When he should covet the kind screen of Night  
Between his woes and him: if in his mind  
He saw, it was a blessing to be blind:  
That then he should be forced to see no more  
When he could not see what he saw before.  
This Israel suffered, and his Ashur did,  
And yet I dare affirm it was not hid  
Not from th' Assyrian even in his own doom  
That they were better who were overcome.  
Or if the goodness to his side he draws,  
'tis that his sword was better, not his cause.  
I could go on in precedents as true,  
Actions between the Heathen and the jew,  
Between the Turk and Christian: but what need  
To show there is no birth without a seed?  
No speech without a tongue? or if there be  
More truths of such known perspicuity.  
How do they dote then, who would tie the Lord  
To be so aiding to his children's sword,  
As that he ne'er should use his own, nor do  
Any one act, but what they wish him too?  
Are they so good? or is his love so fond,  
As of a courtesy to make a bond?  
Shall they indent with him? and say thus far  
Thou mayst correct, but if thy judgements are  
Of longer date, they are unjust? for shame  
(All ye that glory in a purer Name,)  
Hence those blaspehemous thoughts, far hence remove,  
Lest they deserve the plagues they would reprove.  
Is it injustice to suppress our pride,  
To bring unto our eyes what we would hide,  
e'en from ourselves, our close deformities?  
Or, may not God, to show how he does prise  
His servant's labours, make them thus appear,  
As does the Sun after a cloud, more clear?  
His judgement certainly we'll says too quick,  
Who'l prove one bad because he sees him sick;  
These judgements are discases, and bestowed  
At pleasure, and not where they most are owed:  
Yet due they are where ever they are found,  
Since there are none so catholicly sound,  
But in a word, but in a thought have strayed,  
Perhaps in those Afflictions, when th'ave weighed  
Their deeds and sufferings which they think to be  
Of far more rigour than Equality.  
Then courage noble Countrymen, nor fear  
Though you should want success a while to ●eare  
Your names up to your ancestors, (who did  
Those acts which now were better to be hid:  
Lest that they should upbraid us) do not fear  
That Spain is nearer the Almighty's Ear  
Then our devotions: he that could bestow  
A victory after a second blow  
Upon the doubting Israelites, can still  
Create our better hopes e'en out of ill.  
Or if he do not, if he have decreed  
That our just plague shall be their unjust deed:  
That Israel shall be once more overcome,  
And David fly away from Absalon:  
Yet let this glad us in our chiefest woe,  
Man may be good and yet unhappy too.  
Now are they truly humbled, now although  
No curious eye could guess their overthrow  
When he had seen their numbers, yet at length  
They will rely upon another strength,  
Or if to numbers they will trust again,  
'Tis to God's numerous mercies, not their men.  
He can deliver (they have seen) by few,  
And they do think it possible and true  
That he can help by many too, they find  
Without him all their actions full of wind,  
Of emptiness, and with him they not doubt  
To be as well victorious as devout.  
Now Pride hath left them, now they goodness yield,  
Now have they lost their vices with the field.  
Such holy lessons do misfortunes teach,  
Which make our once bad thoughts bravely to reach  
At Heaven and glory: if you mark it well  
Whilst yet it was a numerous Israel  
It was a proud one too, but when that now  
God looks upon them with an angry brow,  
When all their troops half weary and half sick,  
Are grown to easier Arithmetic,  
theyare truly penitent▪ hence we may see  
The power, the good power of Adversity,  
weare bad if we are happy, if it please  
Heaven to endow us with a little ease,  
If riches do increase, until our store  
Meet our desires, till we can wish no more,  
If that our garners swell (until they fear  
Ruin from that with which they furnished were)  
We but abuse these benefits: our Peace  
Brings forth but factions, if that strangers cease  
To give us the affront; ourselves will be  
Both the defendant, and the Enemy.  
Our riches are our snares, which being given  
To man, to make a purchase of the heaven,  
We buy our ruin with them, the abuse  
Is double, in the getting, and the use,  
So that our sums unto such heaps are grown  
When Avarice succeeds Oppression.  
In brief, our garners so well stuffed, so crammed,  
Detain our Corn, as if that it were damned  
To everlasting prison, none appears,  
And thus we give dearth to the fruitful years:  
Being to such a proud rebellion grown,  
Famine is not heaven's judgement but our own.  
So wretched are we, so we skilful grow  
In crimes, the which the heathen do not know.  
We wrong God for his blessings, as if thus  
We then were thankful, if injurious.  
Why should not mercy win us? why should we  
Be worse by that, whence we should bettered be?  
Blessings were ne'er intended for our harm,  
Why do we hearken then to the fond charm  
Of such temptations? O how base is man!  
How foolish Irreligion has won  
Upon his reason too! Do we not call  
Whom only stripes can master, bestial?  
O what is man then! who ne'er hears his Lord,  
Till that the famine call him, or the sword.  
Who (as he meant to tire his patient God)  
Yields not unto his favours, but his rod.  
And can we yet entreat him to be kind,  
To alter his, when we'll not change our mind?  
If we are heard, we will offend again,  
And all our prayer does but entreat a Sinne.  
Thus prayed the Israelites, but if theyare heard  
If he that made them scorned, will make them feared:  
It is in chance, no, 'tis as sure as fate,  
Having forgot their misery of late  
They will rebel again: like those good hearts  
Who though they know the pains, the many smarts  
Which fruitfulness is fruitful with, still give  
Death to themselves, to make their issue live:  
And if they scape this death, they try again,  
And boldly venture for a second pain,  
As if 'twere pleasure, or as if they meant  
Rather to dye, then to be continent.  
Thus have we seen a barren, sandy soil  
(Made only for the husbandman's sad toil  
And not his profit) when the full heaven pours  
His moisture down, easing himself by showers:  
Drowned with the drops, to make us understand  
A figure of the Sea upon the Land,  
When once those drops are spent, when that the sky  
Smiles with his new restored ferenitie,  
Swifter than thought, before that we can say  
This was the place; the water's gone away,  
There's a low Ebb, again we see the Land  
Changing its moisture for its ancient sand.  
Yet he that knows this their infirmity,  
At last will pity it, and from on high,  
(When now their thoughts of war they will adjourn  
When there's no talk now, but of their return)  
he'll hinder it by victory: with that  
(About the time that pitchy night had got  
The conquest of the day, of which being proud  
He wrapped himself within his thickest cloud,  
Thinking perhaps his conquest to be void,  
If any saw the triumphs he enjoyed)  
Unto our Levite he a vision sends  
Clad in her dearest shape, in whom he ends  
All thoughts of Fancy: Whom when he had seen  
(And quickly he had spied her) Fairest Queen  
Of heaven, he says, what is there here on earth  
That could persuade thee to a second birth,  
Thus to appear again? needs must thou know  
(For ignorance belongs to us below  
Excluded out of heaven) that our sad stare  
Is for its goodness proved unfortunate;  
That Benjamin is conqueror, and that we  
Could not revenge, but only follow thee:  
Nor was't one loss, one petty overthrow  
Hath daunted us, but (as if fate would show  
All her choice malice on us) we have tried  
How many ways 'twas possible t'ave died.  
Believe it, heavenly one, no cowardice  
(Which heretofore being base, is now termed wise)  
Lost us the day, no providence, no zeal  
Nor that (which can the maims of actions heal)  
Council, and grave advice was wanting to us:  
Only the heavens, which we had thought would woo us  
To prosecute thy vengeance, and from whence  
We looked for days, like a good conscience  
Shining and clear, with cruelty unheard  
Give us an overthrow for a reward;  
That we can only (such our wretched fate)  
Deplore the loss, which we should vindicate.  
Is this your justice heavens? nay I would know  
If it at least be wisdom, thus to show.  
Your wrath upon you followers? if there be  
Such a desire in you to make us see  
What power you have, wherefore d'ye not use  
That power on those, who impiously abuse  
Us and yourselves? O there are heathen still,  
People that neither fear, nor know your will,  
If you will ruin these, or any wise  
But lessen, y'ave the fewer Enemies:  
On these be powerful; but if you doubt  
Whether such nations may be singled out,  
That sin hath fled the world, than here begin,  
For all the Heathen are in Benjamin.  
Are we the only faulty? or am I  
Picked out for eminent Iniquity?  
All lights on me, 'twas I that raised these wars,  
'twas I that this thick people like to stars  
Have lessened into Number; I alone  
Merit both people's curses joined in one.  
Benjamin does detest me, and I guess  
Israel's hatred is more close, not less.  
What shall I do, what course is to be tried  
When safe I cannot go, nor safe abide?  
No more says she, nor foolishly conclude  
To give complaints in stead of gratitude.  
Wee'are heard my dear, and he at whose command  
The earth will learn to move, the heaven to stand  
Fast as the Centre, who brings down to hell,  
And out of deeper mercies (which to tell  
Would pose them that they bless) brings back again,  
Making the pleasure greater by the pain,)  
Hath crowned our wishes. O joyfully good!  
Not to be had on earth, nor understood:  
Heavens high superlative, for unto me  
Revenge is better than Eternity.  
Revenge upon God's enemies: know my dear  
(And know that thou must do what thou shalt hear)  
It is the will of heaven, when once the sky  
Is proud of the next morning's livery,  
All Israel should meet, where what shall fall  
Just with wishes, or exceed them all,  
I must not now discover, yet thus much  
I care deliver (my affection's such)  
A truth, that is confessed as soon as heard,  
That he who knew to plague, knows to reward.  
Our Levite wakes, but stretching out an arm  
He feels no body, no, nor no place warm  
To prove she had been there, he thinks 'tmay be  
No vision, but a birth of Fantasy:  
An issue of a troubled brain that framed  
Forms to itself which Nature hath not named.  
Have I not slain enough he says, but still  
Is it my office and my curse to kill?  
'twas but a dream enjoined me to be bad,  
A dream, a vapour, and am I so mad  
For nothing to be monstrous, and commit  
A crime, that men shall fear to dream of it!  
But can I disobey what it hath pleased  
Heaven to command me? O how I am ceased  
With strange extremes! nor readily can tell  
Whether this Revelation should dwell  
Closed in my breast? or whether I go on  
As counting it a Revelation?  
There may be guilty silence, if we fear  
In the affair of heaven to wound an ear  
With threatening Rheroricke; this will not be  
Excused by a pretence of modesty:  
Rather 'twill prove the judgement of just heaven,  
We shall receive the doom we should have given.  
Now all the people know what he hath heard,  
Now they have all their forwardness declared  
In sacrifice, when Phineas appears,  
One that had lived unto so many years;  
He knew not how to count them, and that knew  
The Desert wonders, and could prove them true  
By his own sight, that could the more engage  
Men to believe, not by his tongue, but age.  
Nay I have heard some having duly weighed  
How long in that high office he had stayed,  
Conceive they may affirm without a check,  
Him of the order of Melchisedec;  
And prove (as only judging what they see)  
Their Priesthoods, by their Priest's eternity.  
Who having entered, all the people bowed:  
(For 'twas not yet as perfect zeal allowed  
To be irreverent to their Priest, that name  
Which now is proved a title but of shame,  
Then was the badge of glory) he indeares  
Himself, more by his office, than his years  
To those, who think these two can ne'er agree,  
To scorn the Priest, and serve the Deity.  
Before the Altar his weak knees he bends,  
Which age before, but now devotion sends  
Unto the ground, where with a voice so low,  
That he could only hear it, who could know  
What it would have before it spoke, he thus  
Whispered a prayer;  
King of Heaven, of Earth, of Seas,  
And of men exceeding these:  
Thou, that when thy people ran  
From the proud Egyptian,  
Ledst them through a liquid path  
Safe, and scarce wet, when thy wrath  
Wonderfully made them know,  
'twas a Sea unto the foe.  
Thou that when the heat, the sand  
Of a barren thirsty land,  
Made our tongues be so confined  
To our roofs, they scarce repined,  
But in secret, so that we  
Only feared a blasphemy.  
Thou then by a powerful knock  
Mad'st a Sea within a Rock,  
And gav'st Israel to know  
For them drought should overflow:  
Thou art still the same, and we  
Stand in the same need of thee.  
Pardon then if we presume  
To an hope, and so assume  
Courage to us, when we join  
Our wants to that power of thine.  
Yes our wants, for we can find  
None of merit, w'ave declined  
Every good way, and have still  
Been ambitious of ill,  
So that when we are exact,  
And have all our good deeds racked  
To the highest rate, there's none  
Dares appear before thy throne:  
Only this desert we see,  
Continuance of adversity.  
Nay such monsters have we been,  
Such proficients in each sin,  
That we durst not look on heaven,  
Nor entreat to be forgiven.  
Hadst not thou vouchsafed to do  
What our wishes reached not too:  
Hadst not thou vouchsafed to be  
Tutor to our Infancy:  
And bestowed when we were mute  
Both our prayer and our suit.  
O the Courteous  

Respect heavens bears us! Scarcely had he done,  
Scarce finished his imposed devotion,  
When on the sudden, ere you could have said  
The Priest had sacrificed, or he had prayed,  
Through all the Camp a light was spread, to this  
Compared, the Sun but a dark body is:  
And in respect of so divine a light  
Our day is honoured, if he be termed night,  
Nor this alone, but that they there might see  
And fear their God in his full Majesty,  
Such voices and such thunders fright the Air,  
That they suppose they want another prayer  
To be assured from them; so they declared  
They were afraid to hear, that they were heard.  
Down on the pavement every knee is fixed,  
Some grovelling on their faces, when betwixt  
Astonishment and hope, whilst yet they doubt  
What all this preface means, and whilst the rout  
Feared judgements which they merited, they hear  
A voice, for which they wish a larger care,  
It was so sweetly merciful: Once more  
Go up (it says) and though that heretofore  
Y'ave had the worst. yet thus my sentence stands  
Isle now deliver them into your hands.  
Have you beheld how some condemned to die,  
When they were fitted for Eternity,  
When life they did despise, and all below,  
Received a pardon, when they feared the blow  
That should unman them, have you seen them then  
Almost forgetting that they were but men;  
How to express their mind they want a word,  
joy having done the office of the sword,  
And made them speechless? then you may in part  
Conceive the wonder of their joy; which Art  
Confesseth it exceeds her power to show  
At full, which only they that have can know.  
Thus brave Corvinus, than whom fame ne'er knew  
Any that to an higher virtue grew,  
When once it pleased Fortune to leave her frown,  
Made an exchange of Fetters for a Crown.  
Thus, not to seek a foreign precedent,  
Our Henry, whom the Heavens courteously sent  
To set a period to our Civil broils,  
To join both Roses: after many foils  
Received and conquered, after he had seen  
Himself an Exile, who a Prince had been,  
When banishment was envied him, when nought  
Would please his Enemy, unless he bought  
His death of him that harboured him; e'en then,  
To fool the projects of the cunningest men,  
This withered root begins afresh to spring,  
And from a banished coarse revives a King.  
Thus (not to seek out a stale precedent,  
Mentioning mercies after they are spent  
And lost in story) England's present joy  
(Whom Fate can only threaten, not annoy,)  
How hath he tried variety of grief!  
How been in dangers, as in Rule our Chief;  
That when there is a speech of suffering,  
He is no less our Pattern, than our King.  
The Seas spoke loud, yet if we rightly poise,  
There was more danger, where there was less noise:  
Yet was he freed from both, when in man's eye,  
Success had seemed to smile on Treachery.  
These are your wonders, Heaven, and not so much  
Favours (although the Favour too be such,  
That it does pose our gratitude, and so  
Only proclaims that we are made to owe,  
Our poverty of merit) to be short,  
theyare not so much your Favours, as your Sport.  
You in an instant raise, whom we would swear  
Nailed to the Earth, him that had left to fear  
More than he suffered, that had been so long  
Acquainted with ill luck, with such a throng  
Of misadventures, that he does not know  
What it is to be free from them, and so  
This courteous intermission he expounds  
Rather a Change then Cure of his near wounds:  
You in an vnthought Minute can depress,  
Whom we believe in league with Happiness.  
And as upon the Stage we oft have seen  
Him act a Beggar, who a King hath been:  
For no default, but that the Poet's art  
Thought at that time he best would fit that part?  
So in our serious theatres, when you please  
Kings are as varying persons as are these,  
Only in this their disadvantage lies;  
That they may fall, but cannot hope to rise.  
They, whom the bands that make a kingdom strong,  
Succession to the Crown both right and long  
From worthy Ancestors, obedience  
At home, and lastly sure intelligence  
Abroad hath fortified, those that supposed  
True joy to be wholly in them enclosed:  
If you but please to frown, in one short day  
(When they not think their Enemies on their way)  
Are conquered by them, and at last retain  
This comfort only to allay their pain,  
That their misfortunes (if the heaven's decree)  
May be the portion of their Enemy.  
Why then do trifling miseries so grate  
Our minds, and make us more unfortunate  
Than heaven intended? if out of a sum  
Of money (not so rich as troublesome  
By the large room it occupies,) some one  
Willing to teach us moderation,  
Nibble a little, how we fret! we rave!  
How for our treasure we distraction have!  
As if we did believe (to say no more)  
Heaven only had the power to make us poor,  
But Israel thought not thus, but does prepare  
All things that for the Action needful are:  
He thinks now double diligence is due,  
That he may be victorious, and God true.  
On the Eastside of Gibeah there stood  
An overgrown and unfrequented wood;  
The trees so thickly placed, that you would guess,  
(Had you beheld that horrid wilderness:  
How darkness all the Mastery had won,)  
'twas made for the discredit of the Sun;  
Never did any ray pierce through those leaves,  
And if at any time it light receives  
'tis only when the heavens do miss their stroke,  
And passing wicked men, murder an Oak.  
So that the brightness that adorns the same  
Serves not so much to enlighten, as inflame.  
Here never did the nimble Fairy tread,  
Nor ever any of the Wood-nymphes bred  
Within this grove, but it was singled out  
For Pluto's regiment, for that bad rout  
Of Hellborn furies, there you might have seen  
Allecto stretched at her full length between  
Two fatal Yughs, where while her rest she takes,  
She gives an intermission to her Snakes,  
Who in a thousand curls there hissing lie,  
And she sleeps sweeter by their harmony.  
Here had the Canaanite in former times  
(Whilst that Religion did consist in crimes,)  
Offered his sons in sacrifice, as though  
He meant to pay back heaven all he did owe  
Or did conceive, (that which he should despair)  
To be without sin, when without an heir.  
This horrid place till now had empty stood,  
But now the Israelites conclude it good  
To plant an ambush there: for thus they plot  
That when the skirmish shall be growing hot,  
They will draw back, to make the Beniamite  
Conceive that stratagem to be a flight,  
And leave the town for the pursuit; when strait  
Upon a sign given, they that lie in wait  
Shall seize upon the City, and so force  
Their Enemy to such a desperate course,  
That being pursued by those he put to flight,  
He shall not know, whether to fly or fight.  
Harken ye silly ones that do suppose  
You ought not to bear Arms against your foes:  
Who having cast off ordinary sense,  
Affirm that they do war with Providence,  
Who providently war, that they distrust  
The power, or care of heaven, who will be just  
To their own cause, which you will noise to be  
A spice of wiser Infidelity.  
To these I need no other answer find:  
Shall we be foolish because heaven is kind?  
And when your industry might do as well,  
Will ye enforce God to a Miracle?  
It is a truth I grant, which you pretend  
That God hath destined all things to their end,  
Which stands immoveable: nor is't in Fate  
To alter what he will praeordinate:  
Yet never any did so far proceed  
In folly, to affirm that he decreed  
Only the end, that 'twas in God's intents,  
Whilst we did sleep, to bless us with events  
We dream not of: Such fondness cannot find  
Any excuse (unless they were designed  
Inevitably to't:) for I would know  
(If they suppose it possible to show  
Their mind in these affairs, or if they be  
Not hindered from an answer by Decree)  
Why they do eat? and why they do not hence  
Conclude rebellion against Providence?  
Why they do clothe themselves? and why desire  
When cold oppresseth them to choose a fire?  
Have you forgot that for his holy ones,  
God can at ●ase produce e'en out of stones  
As solid sustenance? or is it lost  
In your frail memory, that when Israel crossed  
The Desert out of Egypt, forty years  
Nor Tailors they employed, nor Shoemakers?  
Trust me if you yourselves think yourselves true,  
Your care does vilify God's care of you;  
And every dish that to your board is brought  
Upbraids him to his face, as if you sought  
To mend his purpose; and by this odd feat,  
You do blaspheme as often as you eat.  
The Israelites are wiser far, although  
They have that unknown happiness, to know  
Their victory aforehand, though they hear  
This truth from him, from whom they cannot fear  
Any deceit, (whose powerful word alone  
Makes that a truth which he resolves upon,)  
Although they will allow his Act for chief,  
Yet they will do their part too: to be brief,  
Every soldier to himself says thus;  
God will bestow the victory, but by us.  
The night they spend in prayer, but when the morn  
Had dimmed the pride of Cynthiah's clearest horn  
By higher lustre, being called away  
Not by the Cock, the Trumpeter of Day;  
But by an earlier trumpet, than you might  
By her unwilling and yet hasting light,  
Discern, and seeing, almost rightly poise  
Whether were more, their number, or their noise,  
And unto which more fear was to be given,  
Who fill the Earth with Numbers, with Noise Heaven.  
Benjamin takes th'alarm, and having chose  
One in whose faithfulness they might repose  
A wary confidence; they quit the wall  
And to the wider field issue out all,  
Lest if they stayed within, and did oppose  
Rampires and ditches only to their foes,  
They might have bragged, (as if that they had won)  
Making a prison of their garrison.  
Now both the Hosts themselves so near do find,  
That it would ask more labour t'have declined  
The field, then to have won it, yet they stay  
Hoping that innocence is in delay,  
If they are slowly guilty: now spears fly  
Shivered in thousand fitters to the sky;  
And whether it revenge or fortune were,  
Every piece becomes a Murderer,  
And from their bodies frees a many soul,  
Doing that broken, which they could not whole.  
Could Xerxes here have sat upon an hill,  
To see these warriors, he would not still  
Fond lament, nor lavish out a tear  
Because they could not live an hundred year,  
But melt into just passion away,  
Because they could not live out all that day.  
Now might you have beheld the fiery horse  
Proud of his own, and of his Master's force,  
Robbed of his Master, whom you now might see  
Running, as if 'twere after Liberty.  
Or you'd conceive, had you but seen the race  
That 'twas no more a battle, but a chase.  
No stroke falls idle, nay they are so near;  
They need not strike at all: death is caused here  
By their bad neighbourhood, the whole and sound  
You might have seen here dead without a wound.  
To save the guilt and labour of the sword,  
Bodies to bodies their own ends afford.  
Now nothing but the dust is to be seen  
Which like so many Emblems flies between  
The mingled armies, which in silence says,  
They are no better than the motes they raise,  
Then those poor Atoms: but they think to shroud  
Their acts from sight of heaven under that cloud,  
And therefore did their utmost: yet as though  
These hands were slugglish, or this fury slow,  
The trumpets chid them to a lustier guilt  
And the loud drums proclaimed, you have not spilt  
Blood enough yet: O what were they that found  
Out first the use and malice of that sound?  
Which makes us kill with greediness, and when  
'tis the Corrupted Nature of most men  
Hardly to yield unto the destitute,  
These will not suffer us to hear their suit.  
This drowns the groans: but now both armies reel,  
Now this gives back some ground, now that doth feel  
That it is pressed too hardly. Thus the seas  
When ever it the angry winds does please  
To exercise their fury, do not know  
What course to take, nor whither they should flow:  
This wave breaks that, and then another blast  
Makes that the conqueror, which was conquered last.  
At length the Israelites give back indeed,  
And though in order, yet with such a speed,  
Benjamin calls it Flight, all's ours they cry,  
If we can run we have the victory:  
With that what ever men the town affords,  
Skilful to use their fingers or their swords,  
For spoil or for pursuit, issue out thence  
With such a noise, they give intelligence  
That they have left it empty: O the vain  
Attempts of foolish man! O deserved pain!  
theyare made the spoil, that they intent to make,  
So wisely can just heavens their vengeance take  
On bad attempts, so all heat assuage,  
And make our Ruin greater than our Rage.  
It never entered into their proud thought,  
They should receive the damage which they sought  
To give unto their brethren: who having left  
Their woody covert, and the friendly cleft,  
Which entertained them, by a quick surprise,  
Take the unguarded town: O who can prise  
Those losses to the full? or who rehearse  
Those misadventures in an equal verse?  
They spare no age, but (cruel) take away  
From the old men, the solitary day  
They could expect to live: now Infants die,  
e'en those, who yet within their mother's lie,  
Finding a Night before they see the Morn,  
Being buried thus, before that they were borne,  
For whom their murderers no crime could choose,  
But that they were, and had a life to lose.  
Nor does the weaker sex escape the rage  
Of these intruders, and as every Age,  
So every Person suffers, only here  
May be the difference, (if that any were)  
Either they're killed outright, or which is worse,  
They think their life to be the greater curse.  
Here mothers see their daughters whom they bred  
As Votaries unto their Maidenhead,  
Vn-virgined in their sight, where having lost  
That peerless jewel, which they valued most,  
They do receive to vindicate their name  
A death from them, from whom they had their shame.  
Avarice follows Lust, now they have leisure  
To ransack all those Minerals of treasure  
Long peace and thrift had hoarded up, at last  
As children when their Appetite is past  
Spoil what they cannot eat, and badly kind  
Pamper their dogs with that they leave behind:  
So these, as surfeiting with such a store,  
(Which made them lose all fear of being poor)  
What is not ready spoil, give to the fire,  
Whose conquering flames unto the heavens aspire,  
As boasting of their service: through the town,  
Swifter than any thing that has renown  
For speediness, they run, one hour does spoil  
(Unlucky hour) what was an Ages toil  
Now crack the houses, now the Temples fry,  
Now the poor Citizens resolved to dye,  
Doubt of what death: and know not which to try,  
The fire, the downfalls, or the Enemy.  
Had this misfortune happened in the Night  
(Though Nature had opposed) such a full light  
Had made a day, and so again had won  
A Conquest of the town, and of the Sun.  
Never did Sailor with such joy behold  
Castor and Pollux when his ship was rolled  
Upon the angry Ocean, (whose proud waves  
Made the most haughty minds frieze into slaves  
With a base fear,) as Israel does view  
Those flames, which he does fear not to be true,  
They are so great, and yet he hopes to see  
These flames to light him to a victory.  
Now all the face of things is changed anew,  
Now those which erst seemed vanquished do pursue:  
The Israelites confirming by their Fight  
That they could cause as well as act a Flight.  
Benjamin grows amazed, and does not know  
What he should do, nor on what grounds to go,  
Which probably seem safe: if he should fly  
He runs away unto the Enemy:  
And shall he fight? alas! but he will find  
It is impossible to fight behind,  
Where he shall be assay'ld: yet he shifts ground,  
And figures out his battle in a round.  
And since he hath no hope to scape away,  
he'll nobly sell, not give away the day.  
They never fought till now, all the whole day  
Before, was only somewhat fiercer Play,  
Murder in jest, but now they are so fierce  
As if they would enforce their swords to pierce  
Beyond the body; this a while, at length  
Despair does yield the victory to strength;  
And Fortune (that the world henceforth might find  
That they had injured her who called her blind)  
Crowns the best side, and providently tries  
At once to prove their Conquest, and her Eyes.  
The Parellell is easy; was't not thus,  
When Heaven was pleased to be as kind to us?  
We felt the prickles first, but then our Nose  
Sucked in the sweeter virtue of the Rose.  
We had success, as it were chose, and picked,  
And what we feared to suffer did inflict.  
When Brett and Burrowes (that I speak their due)  
Revived to France, Talbot and Montague.  
(O too like Montague, that lost thy breath,  
By the same fatal Engine of quick death.)  
When the choice valour of each rank, and file  
Made up a double Sea within the Isle  
Of blood and tears, O give us thanks, kind heaven,  
And add a virtue to our Fortune given,  
That we may all acknowledge his desert,  
Who nobly gained a conquest of the heart  
Of them, whose bodies he had conquered first,  
To whom he then discovered, what he durst,  
And after what his Nature was, when he  
In the sad field had spent his Cruelty,  
For when they offered to redeem their dead,  
Sums which another would have vanquished,  
He freely yields unto the suitor's breath,  
And gives the Grave, as easily as the Death.  
Whilst they do give— O how I blush to tell,  
A poisoned knife, a poison that will dwell  
And eat into their fame till earth be gone,  
Till poison have no more to work upon.  
Teach us our right to him, but then to you  
What shall we give? and yet what not leave due?  
Then, O kind Heaven, for this let me be pleader,  
May we still sing your praise, who led our Leader.  
And now I hast unto my songs conclusion,  
Israel's conquest, Bentamins' confusion  
On all that valiant number which but now  
Made treble numbers to their valour bow:  
Only six hundred escape away, so few,  
They were scarce able to commit a new  
The Crime for which they suffered; had not Night  
Became their umpire and forbade the Fight,  
Those few had perished too; then at the last  
Let future Ages learn of Ages past  
How vice rewards her servants! Let them be  
Afraid at leastwise of the misery,  
Who slight the sin: why should a beauteous face  
Make my soul foul? and an external grace  
Bereave me of my inward? O despair!  
Shall I be bad because another's fair?  
Hence that poor folly, rather let us win  
A conquest by the loss of Benjamin.  
To know that those belied, and stolen delights  
Are not of so long lasting as the Nights,  
In which we did enjoy them, how the Day  
Takes both their darkness, and our sweets away:  
To understand that tardy heaven is just,  
That Ruin is the consequent of Lust.   

And now O Father, once more I repair,  
To thy great presence, O thou only fair!  
(Who dwelling in the light that none comes near  
Canst not be seen of us, because too clear;  
To whom created beauties if compared,  
Ruin such as have the wisest eyes ensnared,  
Are nothing but Deformity at best,  
Dirt somewhat better coloured then the rest)  
Instruct my youth, O teach that I may know,  
What mischiefs lurk under a seemly show;  
What a sweet danger woman is: O thou  
To whom the knees that do not love, do bow,  
Whom all obey, e'en such as have no sense,  
Who do not know their own obedience;  
Whom all obey, e'en such as do go on  
In a perpetual Rebellion,  
The Spirits accursed: Grant me, that chastely wife  
I enter into Covenant with mine eyes,  
Never to look on Woman, not to see  
What would persuade my soul to forsake thee,  
To make a God of flesh: But if that I  
Forced by Temptation, or Necessity,  
Must see my Ruin, yet thus much, O thou  
Whom my soul loves, and would more, knew she how,  
(For his dear sake and worth, in whom was found  
Only a place, no reason for a wound)  
If I must have the sight, yet I require  
I may at leastwise not have the desire.  
If I must see, let it be to despise  
So shall my heart be chaste, if not mine eyes.    
FINIS.   

A Thanksgiving for a recovery from a burning Fever.  
I Burn again, methinks an holy fire  
Kindles my dull devotion, and far higher  
Raiseth my spirit, than my hot disease  
Inflamed my blood: how with a sacred case  
Feel I these flames through my glad soul to rush!  
Life those, which made a Chapel of the bush  
When God did tutor Moses; would 'twere found  
That this place too were such an holy ground:  
Then should I boldly vent my Gratitude,  
And being Godly, not be counted Rude.  
The Night approached, when by my pains I might  
Suspect it would have been my lasting Night:  
I had a grief beyond a Coward's fears,  
And such a grief, it robbed me of my tears.  
I was all Fire, the greedy element  
Left no one part vnsinged, as if it meant  
To cross the vulgar notions of our birth,  
And prove that man was not composed of Earth,  
That he was made of Flames, that past all doubt  
To dye was nothing, but to be put out.  
And yet the truth of this, this truth denies,  
Man is not made of that by which he dies.  
And had I died thus, they had been unjust  
Who had pronounced, we give dust unto dust.  
Ashes they well might term me, and so turn  
My Christian burial to a Pagan vine.  
Without a tedious pilgrimage to Rome,  
(If that the torment make the Martyrdom)  
I might be Canonised, and sooner far  
Then some whose names in the gulled Calendar  
Burn in red letters, of whom none can tell  
Whether they only felt a Fire in Hell.  
O heat! O drought! O am I quenched as yet,  
Or is not this Remembrance a new fit!  
Yet in my fiercest fit how oft I thought  
(Whilst yet there was some moisture left, which fought  
With my hot Enemy) how durst liberal men  
Give us a freedom of our wills, that when  
Ever we list we may be good, and so  
Owe to ourselves as well the Cure as Blow?  
Who gave us this strange power, can any tell,  
Not to be Bad, and yet not to be Well?  
Can we command our sins so easily,  
And faint at a poor Fever? tell me why  
You will consent to dye? and wherefore still  
You plead not then a liberty of will?  
My God cried I, though I must needs confess  
Unto my shame, that all my pains are less  
Than my demerits, yet I grant as free  
That they exceed all possibility  
Of mine own cure, and yet I sooner can  
(Spite of Disease) turn my Physician  
Then my Redeemer, thou alone canst do  
A powerful cure on soul and body too.  
With that I felt recovery: my flame  
Was kindly lessened to a lower name,  
To moderate heat. Sleep did my senses charm,  
And I that burned before, was now but warm,  
Health and Devotion seize on me, my fire  
Had lest my bones to live in my Desire,  
And I was sick of thankfulness: then now  
Teach me O Lord not why to praise, but how:  
Bow my stiff knees, that they may beg a powr'e  
Of full thanksgiving to my Saviour.  
Some praise for less: I've read of Ionab's ark  
(Which was of surer carriage than his Bark)  
Th'inhabitable Fish, and yet we see  
That he gives thanks for his Delivery,)  
From his Preserver; and shall reckless I  
Delivered from a nearer death, now die  
In the Remembrance? first, O Lord return  
My tutor-torment, let me again burn.  
And now great God, I do entreat, and change  
My praise into a prayer, (for 'tis not strange  
That benefits should make a suppliant,  
Since courtesies cause prayer as well as want)  
'twas thy great mercy made my body whole,  
O let me find that mercy to my soul,  
Then shall I boldly hasten to the grave,  
And wanting Life, not want what I would have.  

Upon our vain flattery of ourselves, that the succeeding times will be better than the former.  
HOw we daily out our days!  
How we seek a thousand ways  
To find Death! the which if none  
We sought out, would show us one.  
Why then do we injure Fate,  
When we will impute the date  
And expiring of our time,  
To be hers, which is our Crime?  
Wish we not our End? and worse,  
Make't a Prayer which is a Curse?  
Does there not in each breast lie  
Both our soul and Enemy?  
Never was there Morning yet  
(Sweet as is the Violet)  
Which man's folly did not soon  
Wish to be expired in Noon;  
As though such an haste did tend  
To our bliss, and not our End.  
Nay the young ones in the nest  
Suck this folly from the breast,  
And no stammering ape but can  
Spoil a prayer to be a Man.  
But suppose that he is heard,  
By the sprouting of his beard,  
And he hath what he doth seek  
The soft clothing of the Cheek:  
Yet would he stay here? or be  
Fixed in this Maturity?  
Sooner shall the wand'ring star  
Learn what rest and quiet are:  
Sooner shall the slippery Rill,  
Leave his motion and stand still.  
Be it joy, or be it Sorrow,  
We refer all to the Morrow:  
That we think will ease our pain,  
That we do suppose again  
Will increase or joy, and so  
Events, the which we cannot know  
We magnify, and are (in sum)  
Enamoured of the time to come.  
Well, the next day comes, and then,  
Another next, and so to ten,  
To twenty we arrive, and find  
No more before us then behind  
Of solid joy, and yet hast on  
To our Consummation:  
Till the baldness of the Crown,  
Till that all the face do frown,  
Till the Forehead often have  
The remembrance of a Grave;  
Till the eyes look in, to find  
If that they can see the mind.  
Till the sharpness of the Nose,  
Till that we have lived to pose  
Sharper eyes who cannot know  
Whether we are men or no.  
Till the tallow of the Cheek  
Till we know not what we seek;  
And at last of life bereaved,  
Dye unhappy, and deceived.   
FINIS.