THE WISDOM of Solomon Paraphrased. Written by Thomas Middleton.  A Jove surgit opus. 
Printed at London by Valentine Sem's, dwelling on Adling hill at the sign of the white Swan. 1597.   

❧ To the right Honourable and my very good Lord, Robert Devoreux, earl of Essex and Ewe, Viscount of Hereford, Lord Ferrer of Chartley, Boutcher, and Lovayne, Master of her majesties Horse and Ordnance, Knight of the honourable order of the Gartor, and one of her majesties most honourable privy Counsel.  
THe Summer's Harvest, (right Honourable) is long since reaped, & now it is sowing time again: behold, I have scattered a few seeds upon the young ground of unskilfulness, if it bear fruit, my labour is well bestowed, but if it be barren, I shall have less joy to set more. The husbandman observes the courses of the Moon, I, the forces of your favour: he desireth sunshine, I, cheerful countenance: which once obtained, my harvest of joy will soon be ripened. My seeds, as yet, lodge in the bosom of the earth, like Infants upon the lap of a Favourite, wanting the budding spring-time of their growth, not knowing the Est of their glory, the west of their quietness, the South of their summer, the North of their winter: but if the beams of your aspects lighten the small moiety of a smaller implanting, I shall have an every-day-haruest, a fruition of content, a branch of felicity.  
Your Honours addicted in all observance, Thomas Midleton.   

To the Gentlemen Readers.  
GEntlemen, I give you the surueyaunce of my new-bought ground, and will only stand unto your verdicts, I fear me, that the acres of my field pass the anchers of my seed, if wanting seed, than I hope it will not be to much seeded: this is my bare excuse: but trust me, had my wit been sufficient to maintain the freedom of my will, than both should have been answerable to your wishes, yet nevertheless think of it as a willing, though not a fulfilling moiety. But what mean I? while I thus argue, Momus and Zoilus, those two Ravens devour my seed, because I lack a Scarecrow: indeed so I may have less than I have, when such fowle-gutted Ravens swallow up my portion: if you gape for stuffing, hie you to dead carrion carcases, and make them your Ordinaries; I beseech you Gentlemen, let me have your aid, and as you have seen the first practice of my husbandry in sowing, so let me have your helping hands unto my reaping.  
Yours devoted in friendship. Thomas Middleton   

The Wisdom of Solomon paraphrased.  

CHAP. 1.  

verse 1 Wisdom Elixir of the purest life,  
Hath taught her lesson to judicial views,  
To those that judge a cause & end a strife,  
Which sits in judgements seat & justice use:  
A lesson worthy of divinest ear,  
Quintessence of a true divinest scare.   

Unwilling that exordium should retain,  
Her life-infusing speech, doth thus begin,  
You (quoth she) that give remedy or pain:  
Love justice, for injustice is a sin.  
Give unto God his due, his reverent style;  
And rather use simplicity then guile.   

For him, that guides the radiant eye of day,  
verse 2 Sitting in his star-chamber of the Sky,  
The Orisons and hemespheres obey,  
And winds the fillers of vacultie:  
Much less should man tempt God, when all obey,  
But rather be a guide, and lead the way.   

For temting argues but a sins attempt,  
Temptation is to sin associate;  
So doing, thou from God art clean exempt,  
Whose love is never placed, in his loves hate,  
He will be found, not of a tempting mind,  
But found of those which he doth faithful find.   

verse 3 Temptation rather separates from God,  
Converting goodness from the thing it was,  
Heaping the indignation of his rod,  
To bruise our bodies like a brittle glass:  
For wicked thoughts have still a wicked end,  
In making God our foe, which was our friend.   

They muster uprevenge, encamp our hate,  
Undoing what before they meant to do,  
Stirring up anger, and unlucky fate,  
Making the earth their friend, the heaven their foe:  
But when heavens guide makes manifest his power,  
The earth, their friends, doth them like foes devour.   

verse 4 O foolish men to war against your bliss,  
O hateful hearts where wisdom never reigned,  
O wicked thoughts which ever thought amiss,  
What have you reaped? what pleasure have you gained?  
A fruit in show, a pleasure to decay,  
This have you got by keeping follies way.   

For wisdoms harvest is with folly nipped,  
And with the winter of your vices frost,  
Her fruit all scattered her implanting ripped,  
Her name decayed, her fruition lost:  
Nor can she prosper in a plot of vice,  
Gaining no summers warmth, but winter's ice.   

verse 5 Thou barren earth, where virtues never bud,  
Thou fruitless womb, where never fruits abide,  
And thou drie-withered sap which bears no good,  
But the dishonour of thy proud heart's pride:  
A seat of all deceit, deceit, deceived,  
Thy bliss, a woe, thy woe of bliss bereaude.   

This place of night hath left no place for day,  
Here never shines the sun of discipline,  
But mischief clad in sable night's array,  
Thoughts apparition, evil Angel●s sign,  
These reign enhoused with their mother Night,  
To cloud the day of clearest wisdoms light.   

Oh you that practise to be chief in sin,  
verse 6 Loves hate, hates friend, friend's foe, foes follower,  
What do you gain? what merit do you win,  
To be blaspheming vices practiser?  
Your gain is wisdoms everlasting hate,  
Your merit, grief, your grief, your lives debate.   

Thou canst not hide thy thought, god made thy thought,  
Let this thy caucat be for thinking ill,  
Thou know'st that Christ thy living freedom bought,  
To live on earth according to his will:  
God being thy creator, Christ thy bliss,  
Why dost thou err? why dost thou do amiss?   

verse 7 He is both judge and witness of thy deeds,  
He knows the volume which thy heart contains,  
Christ skips thy faults, only thy virtue reads,  
Redeeming thee from all thy vices pains:  
O happy crown of mortal man's content,  
Sent for our joy, our joy in being sent.   

Then sham'st thou not to err, to sin, to stray,  
To come to composition with thy vice,  
With new-purged feet to tread the ouldest way,  
Lending new sense unto thy old device?  
Thy shame might flow in thy sin-flowing face,  
Rather than ebb to make an ebb of grace.   

verse 8 For he which rules the Orb of heaven and earth,  
And the ineqall course of every star,  
Did know man's thoughts and secrets at his birth,  
Wither inclined to peace or discords jar:  
He knows what man will be ere he be man,  
And all his deeds in his life's living span.   

Then 'tis unpossible that earth can hide,  
Unrighteous actions from a righteous God,  
For he can see their feet in sin that slide,  
And those that lodge in righteousness abode:  
He will extend his mercy on the good,  
His wrath on those in whom no virtues bud.   

verse 9 Many there be, that after trespass done,  
Will seek a covert for to hide their shame,  
And range about the earth, thinking to shun,  
God's heavy wrath, and meritorious blame:  
They thinking to fly sin, run into sin,  
And think to end, when they do new begin.   

God made the earth, the earth denies their suit,  
Nor can they harbour in the centres womb,  
God knows their thoughts, although their tongues be mute,  
And hears the sounds from forth their body's tomb:  
Sounds? ah no sounds, but man himself he hears,  
Too true a voice of man's most falsest fears.   

verse 10 Oh see destruction hovering o'er thy head,  
Mantling herself in wickedness array,  
Hoping to make thy body as her bed,  
Thy vice her nutriment, thy soul her prey:  
Thou hast forsaken him that was thy guide,  
And see what follows to assuage thy pride.   

Thy roaring vices noise, hath cloyed his ears,  
Like foaming waves they have orewhelmde thy joy,  
Thy murmurings which thy whole body bears  
Hath bred thy wail, thy wail, thy life's annoy,  
Unhappy thoughts to make a soul's decay,  
Unhappy soul in suffering thoughts to sway.   

verse 11 Then sith the height of man's felicity,  
Is plunged within the puddle of misdeeds:  
And wades amongst discredits infamy,  
Blasting the merit of his virtues seeds,  
Beware of murmuring, the chiefest ill,  
From whence all sin, all vice, all pains distill.   

O heavy doom proceeding from a tongue,  
Heavy light tongue; tongue to thy own decay,  
In virtue weak, in wickedness too strong,  
To mischief prone, from goodness gone astray;  
Hammer to forge misdeeds, to temper lies,  
Selling thy life to death, thy soul to cries.   

verse 12 Must death needs pay the ransom of thy sin,  
With the dead carcase of descending spirit?  
Wilt thou of force be snared in his gin,  
And place thy error in destruction's merit:  
Life seek not for thy death, death comes unsought,  
Buying the life which not long since was bought.   

Death and destruction never needs a call,  
They are attendants on lives pilgrimage,  
And life to them is as their playing ball.  
Grounded upon destruction's anchorage,  
Seek not for that which unsought will betide,  
Near wants destruction a provoking guide.   

verse 13 Will you needs act your own destruction?  
Will you needs harbour your own overthrow?  
Or will you cause your own eversion?  
Beginning with despair, ending with woe:  
Then die your hearts in tyrannies array,  
To make acquittance of destructions pay.   

What do you meditate but on your death?  
What do you practise but your living fall?  
Who of you all have any virtues breath,  
But ready armed at a mischiefs call?  
God is not pleased at your vices savour,  
But you best pleased when you lose his favour.   

verse 14 He made not death to be your conqueror,  
But you to conquer over death and hell.  
Nor you to be destruction's servitor,  
Enhoused there where Majesty should dwell:  
God made man to obey at his behest,  
And man to be obeyed of every beast,   

He made not death to be our labours hire,  
But we ourselves made death through our desert,  
Here never was the kingdom of hell fire,  
Before the brand was kindled in man's heart:  
Now man defieth God, all creatures, man,  
Vice flourisheth, and virtue lieth wan.   

verse 15 O fruitful tree, whose root is always green,  
Whose blossoms ever bud, whose fruits increase,  
Whose top celestial virtues seat hath been,  
Defended by the sovereignty of peace:  
This tree is righteousness, o happy tree,  
Immortalised by thine own decree.   

O hateful plant whose root is always dry,  
Whose blossoms never bud, whose fruits decrease:  
On whom sits the infernal deity,  
To take possession of so foul a lease;  
This plant is vice, O too unhappy plant,  
Ever to die, and never fill death's want.   

verse 16 Accursed in thy growth, dead in thy root,  
Cankered with sin, shaken with every wind,  
Whose top doth nothing differ from the foot,  
Mischief the sap, and wickedness the rind:  
So the ungodly like this withered tree,  
Is slack in doing good, in ill too free.   

Like this their wicked growth, too fast, too slow,  
Too fast in sloth, too slow in virtues haste,  
They think their vice a friend, when 'tis a foe,  
In good, in wickedness, too slow, too fast:  
And as this tree decays, so do they all,  
Each one copartner of the others fall.    

Chapter II.  

verse 1 Indeed they do presage what will betide,  
With the misgiving verdict of misdeeds,  
They know a fall will follow after pride,  
And in so foul a heart grows many weeds:  
Our life is short, quoth they, no 'tis too long,  
Lengthened with evil thoughts, and evil tongue.   

A life must needs be short to them that dies,  
For life once dead in sin, doth weakly live:  
These die in sin, and mask in death's disguise,  
And never think, that death new life can give;  
They say, life dead, can never live again,  
O thoughts, o words, o deeds, fond, foolish, vain.   

verse 2 wild life, to harbour where such death abodes,  
Abodes worse than are thoughts, thoughts worse than words,  
Words half as ill as deeds, deeds sorrows odes,  
Odes ill enchanters of too ill records;  
Thoughts, words, and deeds conoyined in one song,  
May cause an Echo from destruction's tongue.   

Quoth they, 'tis chance whether we live or die,  
Borne, or abortive, be, or never be,  
We worship fortune, she's our deity,  
If she denies, no vital breath have we.  
Here are we placed in this orb of death,  
This breath once gone, we never look for breath.   

verse 3 Between both life and death, both hope and fear,  
Between our joy and grief, bliss and despair,  
We here possess the fruit of what is here,  
Borne ever for to die, and die death's heir:  
Our heritage is death annexde to life,  
Our portion death, our death an endless strife,   

What is our life but our lives tragedy,  
Extinguishde in a momentary time?  
And life to murder life, is cruelty  
Vnripely withering in a flowery prime;  
And urn of ashes pleasing but the shows,  
Once dry, the toiling spirit wandering goes.   

verse 4 Like as the traces of appearing clouds,  
Gives way when Titan resalutes the sea,  
With new-changd flames guilding the Ocean's floods,  
Kissing the cabinet where I hetis lay:  
So fares our life, when death doth give the wound,  
Our life is led by death, a captive bound.   

When Sol bestrides his golden mountains top,  
Lightning heavens tapors with his living fire,  
All gloomy powers have their diurnal stop,  
And never gains the darkness they desire;  
So perisheth our name when we are dead,  
Ourselves near called to mind, our deeds near read.   

verse 5 What is the time we have? what be our days?  
No time, but shadow of what time should be,  
Days in the place of hours which never stays,  
Beguiling sight of that which sight should see;  
As soon as the begin they have their fine,  
Near wax, still wain, near stay, but still decline,   

Life may be called the shadow of effect,  
Because the cloud of death doth shadow it,  
Nor can our life approaching death reject,  
They both in one for our election sit;  
Death follows life in every degree,  
But life to follow death you never see.   

verse 6 Come we, whose old decrepit age doth halt,  
Like limping winter, in our winter, sin,  
Faulty we know we are, tush, what's a fault?  
A shadowed vision of destruction's gin;  
Our life begun with vice, so let it end,  
It is a servile labour to amend.   

We joyed in sin, and let our joys renew,  
We joyed in vice, and let our joys remain,  
To present pleasures future hopes ensue,  
And joy once lost, let us fetch back again;  
Although our age can lend no youthful pace,  
Yet let our minds follow our youthful race.   

verse 7 What though old age lies heavy on our back,  
Anatomy of an age crooked clime,  
Let mind perform that which our bodies lack,  
And change old age into a youthful time;  
Two heavy things are more than one can bear,  
Black may the garments be, the body clear.   

Decaying things be needful of repair,  
Trees eaten out with years must needs decline,  
Nature in time with foul doth cloud her fair,  
Begitting youthful days with ages twine;  
We live, and while we live, come let us joy,  
To think of after life, 'tis but a toy.   

verse 8 We know God made us in a living form,  
But we'll unmake, and make ourselves again;  
Unmake that which is made, like winter's storm▪  
Make unmade things to aggravate our pain,  
God was our maker, and he made us good,  
But our descent springs from another blood.   

He made us for to live, ●ee mean to die,  
He made the heaven our seat, we make the earth,  
Each fashion makes a contrariety,  
God truest God, man falsest from his birth;  
Quoth they, this earth shall be our chiefest heaven,  
Our sin the anchor, and our vice the haven.   

verse 9 Let heaven in earth, and earth in heaven consist,  
This earth is heaven, this heaven is earthly heaven:  
Repugnant earth, repugnant heaven resist,  
We joy in earth, of other joys bereaven;  
This is the Paradise of our delight;  
Here let us live, and die in heavens spght.   

Here let the monuments of wanton sports  
Be seated in a wantonness disguise;  
Closed in the circuit of venerial forts,  
To feed the long starved sight of Amours eyes;  
Be this the Chronicle of our content,  
How we did sport on earth, till sport was spen●…▪   

verse 10 But in the glory of the brightest day,  
heavens smoothest brow sometime is furrowed,  
And clouds usurp the clime in dim array,  
Darkening the light which heaven had borrowed,  
So in this earthly heaven we daily see,  
That grief is placed where delight should be.   

Here lives the righteous, bane unto their lives,  
O sound from forth the hollow cave of woe,  
Here lives age-crooked fathers, widowed wives;  
Poor, and yet rich in fortune's overthrow;  
Let them not live, let us increase their want,  
Make barren their desire, augment their scant▪   

verse 11 Our law is correspondent to our doom,  
Our law to doom, is dooming laws offence,  
Each one agreeth in the others room,  
To punish that which strives and wants defence;  
This Cedar-like doth make the shrub to bend,  
When shrubs doth waste their force but to contend.   

The weakest power is subject to obey,  
The mushrooms humbly kiss the cedars foot,  
The cedar flourishes when they decay,  
Because her strength is grounded on a root  
We are the cedars, they the muhrooms be,  
Vnabled shrubs, unto an abled tree.   

verse 12 Then sith the weaker gives the stronger place,  
The young the elder, and the foot the top,  
The low, the high, the hidden powers, the face,  
All beasts, the Lion, every spring, his stop;  
Let those which practise contrariety,  
Be joined to us with inequality:   

They say that we offend, we say they do,  
Their blame is laid on us, our blame on them:  
They strick, and we retort the strucken blow,  
So in each garment there's a differing hem;  
We end with contraries as they begun,  
Unequal sharing of what either won.   

verse 13 14 In this long conflict between tongue and tongue,  
Tongue new beginning what one tonque did end,  
Made this cold battle hot in either's wrong,  
And kept no pausing limits to contend;  
One tongue was echo to the others sound,  
Which breathed accents between mouth & ground   

He which hath virtues arms upon his shield,  
Draws his descent from an eternal King:  
He knows discretion can make folly yield,  
Life conquer death, and vice a captive bring:  
The other tutred by his mother sin,  
Respects nor deeds, nor words, but hopes to win.   

verse 15 The first, first essence of immortal life,  
Reproves the heart of thought, the eye of sight,  
The ear of hearing ill, the mind of strife,  
The mouth of speech, the body of despite;  
●…art thinks, eyes sees, ears hears, minds meditate,  
Mouth utters both the soul and bodies hate.   

But Nature differing in each nature's kind,  
Makes differing hearts, each heart, a differing thought,  
Some hath she made to see, some folly blind,  
Some famous, some obscure▪ some good, some nought.  
So these which differeth in each nature's reason,  
Had nature's time, when t●me was out of season.   

verse 16 (Quoth they) he doth reprove our heart of thinking,  
Our eyes of sight, our ears of hearing ill,  
Our minds, our hearts in meditation linking,  
Our mouths in speaking of our bodies will;  
Because heart, sight, and mind do disagree.  
he'd make heart, sight, and mind of their decree.   

He says, our heart is blinded with our eyes,  
Our eyes are blinded with our blinded heart,  
Our bodies on both parts defiled lies,  
Our mouths the trumpets of our vices smart;  
Quoth he, God is my Father, I his son,  
His ways I take, your wicked ways I shun.   

verse 17 As meditated wrongs are deeper placed,  
Within the deep crew of a wronged mind,  
So meditated words is never past,  
Before their sounds a settled harbour find;  
The wicked answering to the latter words,  
Gins to speak as much as speech affords.   

One tongue must answer other tongues reply,  
Beginning boasts, requires an ending fall;  
Words lively spoke, do sometimes wordless die,  
If not, live Echoes unto speeches call;  
Let not the shadow smother up the deed,  
The outward leaf differs from in ward seed.   

verse 18 The shape and show of substance and effect,  
Doth shape the substance in the shadows hue,  
And shadow put in substance, will neglect  
The wont shadow of not being true:  
Let substance follow substance, show a show,  
And let not substance for the shadow go.   

He that could give such admonition,  
Such vaunting words, such words confirming vaunts,  
As if his tongue had mounted to ambition,  
Or climbed the turrets which vainglory haunts:  
Now let his father, if he be his son,  
Undo the knot which his proud boasts have spun.   

We are his enemies, his chain our hands,  
verse 19 Our words his fetters, and our heart his cave,  
Our stern embracements are his servile bands,  
Where is the helper now which he should have?  
In prison like himself, not to be found,  
He wanteth help himself to be unbound.   

Then sith thy father bears it patiently,  
To suffer torments, grief, rebuke, and blame,  
'tis needful thou shouldst bear equality,  
To see if meekness harbour in thy name,  
Help father, for thy son in prison lies,  
Help, son, or else thy helpless father dies.   

verse 20 Thus is the righteous God and righteous man,  
Drowned in oblivion with this vices reign,  
God wanteth power (say they) of what we can,  
The other would perform that which is vain;  
Both faulty in one fault, and both alike,  
Must have the stroke which our laws judgements strike   

He calls himself a son, from heavens descent,  
What can earth's force avalie 'gainst heavens defence?  
His life by immortality is lent:  
Then how can punishment his wrath incense?  
Though death herself in his arraignment deck,  
He hath his life's preserver at a beck.   

verse 21 As doth the Basilisk with poisoned sight,  
Blind every function of a mortal eye,  
Disarm the bodies powers of vital might,  
Rob heart of thought, make living life to die:  
So doth the wicked with their vices look,  
Infect the spring of clearest virtues brook.   

This Basilisk mortalities chief foe,  
And to the heart's long-knitted artery;  
Doth sometime perish at her shadows show,  
Poisoning herself with her own poisoned eye:  
Needs must the sting fall out with over-harming,  
Needs must the tongue burn out in over-warming.   

verse 22 So fares it with the practisers of vice,  
Laden with many venomous adders stings,  
Sometimes are blinded with their own device,  
And tunes that song which their destruction sings;  
Their mischief blindeth their mischievous eyes,  
Like Basilisks which in their shadow dies.   

They go and yet they cannot see their feet,  
Like blinded pilgrims in an unknown way,  
Blind in perceiving things which be most meet,  
But need nor sight nor guide to go astray;  
Tell them of good, they cannot understand,  
But tell them of a mischief, that's at hand.   

The Basilisk, was made to blind the sight,  
verse 23 24 The adder for to sting, the worm to creep,  
The viper to devour, the dog to bite,  
The nightingale to wake when others sleep;  
Only man differs from his makers will,  
Undoing what is good, and doing ill.   

A godlike face he had, a heavenly hue,  
Without corruption, image without spots.  
But now is metamorphosed anew,  
Full of corruption, image full of blots;  
Blotted by him that is the plot of evil,  
Undone, corrupted, vanquished by the devil.    

Chapter III.  

verse 1 But every cloud can not hide Phoebus' face,  
Nor shut the casement of his living flame,  
Nor is there every soul which wanteth grace,  
Nor every heart seducde with mischiefs name;  
Life cannot live without corruption,  
World cannot be without destruction.   

Nor is the body all corrupt, or world  
Bend wholly unto wickedness assault,  
The adder is not always seen uncurlde,  
Nor every soul found guilty in one fault;  
Some good, some bad, but those whom virtues guard,  
Heaven is their haven, comfort their reward.   

verse 2 3 Thrice happy habitation of delight,  
Thrice happy step of immortality,  
Thrice happy souls to gain such heavenly sight,  
Springing from heavens perpetuity;  
Oh peaceful place, but oh thrice peaceful souls,  
Whom neither threats, nor strife, nor wars control▪   

They are not like the wicked, for they live,  
Nor they, like to the righteous, for they die;  
Each of their lives a differing nature give,  
One thinks that life ends with mortality,  
And that the righteous never live again,  
But die as subjects to a grievous pain.   

verse 4 What labouring soul refuseth for to sweat,  
Knowing his hire, his payment, his reward?  
To suffer winters cold, and summer's heat,  
Assured of his labours due regard?  
The Bee with summer's toil will lad her hive,  
In winter's frost to keep herself alive.   

And what divinest spirit would not toil,  
And suffer many torments, many pains,  
This world's destruction, heavy labours foil,  
When heaven is their hire, heavens joy their gains?  
Who would not suffer torments for to die,  
When deaths reward is immortality?   

verse 5 Pain is the entrance to eternal joy,  
Death endeth life, and death beginneth life,  
Beginneth happy, endeth in annoy,  
Gins immortal peace, ends mortal strife;  
Then seeing death and pains bring joy and heaven,  
What need we fear deaths pain when life is given?   

Say sickness or infairmities disease,  
(As many harms hang over mortal heads)  
Should be his world's reward, yet heaven hath ease,  
A salve to cure, and quiet resting beds;  
God maketh in earth's world, lament our pleasure.  
That in heavens world, delight might be our treasure   

verse 6 Fair may the shadow be; the substance foul,  
After the ●●…all followeth the trust,  
The clearest skin may have the foulest soul,  
The purest gold will looner take the rust:  
The brook though near so clear may take some foil,  
The heart though near so strong may take some foil.   

Wouldst thou be counted just? make thyself just,  
Oh purify thy mire be spotted heart,  
For god doth try thy actions ere he trust,  
Thy faith, thy deeds, thy words, and what thou art,  
He will receive no mud, for clearest springs,  
Nor thy unrighteous words for righteous things.   

verse 7 As God is perfect God; and perfect good,  
So he accepteth none but perfect minds,  
They ever prosper, flourish, live, and bud,  
Like blessed plants, far from destruction's winds:  
Still bud, near fade, still flourish, near decay,  
Still rise, near fall, still spring, near fade away.   

Who would not covet to be such a plant?  
Who would not wish to stand in such a ground?  
Sith it doth neither fruit nor blessing want,  
Nor ought which in this plant might not be found;  
They are the righteous which enjoy this earth,  
The figure of an ever-bearing birth.   

verse 8 The small is always subject to the great,  
The young to him which is of elder time,  
The lowest place unto the highest seat,  
And pale-facde Phoebe to bright Phoebus' clime,  
Vice is not governor of virtues place,  
But blushes for to see see so bright a face.   

Virtue is chief, and virtue will be chief,  
Chief good, and chief Astraea, justice mate,  
Both for to punish and to yield relief,  
And have dominion over every state:  
To rghit the wrongs which wickedness hath done,  
Delivering Nations from life-lasting moan.   

verse 9 Oh you whose causes plungeth in despair,  
Sad faced petitioners with griefs request:  
What seek you? here's nor justice, nor her heir,  
But woe and sorrow with deaths dumb arrest:  
Turn up your woe blind eyes unto the sky,  
There sits the judge can yield you remedy.   

Trust in his power, he is the truest God,  
True God, true judge, true justice, and true guide;  
All truth is placed in his truths abode,  
All virtues seated at his verovous side:  
He will regard your sure, and ease your plaint,  
And mollify your miseries constraint.   

verse 10 Then shall you see the judges of the earth,  
Summoned with the trumpet of his ire,  
To give account and reckoning from their birth,  
Where worthy or unworthy of their hire:  
The godly shall receive their labours trial,  
The wicked shall receive their joys denial.   

They which did sleep in sin, and not regarded  
The poor man's fortune, prostrate at their feet,  
Even as they dealt, so shall they be rewarded,  
When they their toiled souls destruction meet,  
From judges they petitioners shall be,  
Yet want the sight which they do sue to see.   

verse 11 That labour which is grounded on delight,  
That hope which reason doth enrich with hap,  
That merit which is placed in wisdoms might,  
Secure from mischiefs bait, or follies clap:  
Wits labour, reasons hope, and wisedomess merit,  
All three in one, make one thrice happy spirit.   

Why set I happiness fore mortal eyes,  
Which covets to be drenched in misery?  
Mantling their foolish minds in follies guise,  
Despising wisdoms perpetuity:  
Sins labour, follies hope, and vices merit,  
These three in one, make a thrice cursed spirit.   

verse 5 Vain hope must needs consist in what is vain;  
All foolish labours flows from follies tears,  
Unprofitable works proceed from pain,  
And pain ill labours duest guerdon bears:  
Their vanities in one, and one in three,  
Make three pains one, and one uncertainty,   

A wicked King, makes a more wicked land,  
Heads once infected, soon corrupts the feet,  
If the tree falls, the branches cannot stand,  
Nor children, be their parents indiscreet;  
The man infects the wife, the wife the child,  
Like birds, which in one nest be all defiled.   

verse 6 The field which never was ordained to bear,  
Is happier far, than a still tilled ground,  
This sleeps with quietness in every year,  
The other cursed if any tars be found,  
The barren happier than she that bears,  
This brings forth joy, the other tars and tears.   

The Eunuch never lay in vices bed,  
The barren woman, never brought forth sin,  
These two in heavens happiness are led,  
She fruit in soul, he fruit in faith doth win:  
O rare and happy man, for ever blest,  
O rare and happy woman, heavens guest.   

verse 1 Who seeks to reap, before the corn be ripe?  
Who looks for harvest among winter's frost?  
Or who in grief, will follow pleasures pipe?  
What mariner can sail upon the coast?  
That which is done in time, is done in season,  
And things done out of time, is out of reason.   

The glorious labour is in doing good,  
In time's observance, and in nature's will,  
Whose fruit is also glorious for our food,  
If glory may consist in labours skill:  
Whose root is wisdom, which shall never whither,  
But spring, and sprout, and love, and live together.   

verse 2 But every ground doth not bear blessed plants,  
Nor every plant brings forth expected fruit,  
What this same ground may have, another wants,  
Nor are all causes answered with one suit:  
That tree whose root is sound, whose grounding strong,  
May firmly stand when others lie along.   

View nature's beauty, mark her changing hue,  
She is not always foul, nor always fair,  
Chaste and unchaste she is, true and untrue,  
And some springs from her in a lustful air,  
And these adulterers be, whose seed shall perish,  
Never shall lust and wickedness long flourish.   

verse 5 Although the flint be hard, the water soft,  
Yet is it molifide with lightest drops,  
Hard is the water, when the wind's aloft,  
Small things in time may vanquish greatest stops:  
The longer grows the tree, the greater moss,  
The longer soil remains, the more the dross.   

The longer that the wicked lives on earth,  
The greater is their pain, their sin, their shame;  
The greater vices reign, and virtues dearth,  
The greater goodness lack, and mischiefs name;  
When in their youth no honour they could get,  
Old age could never pay so young a debt.   

verse 6 To place an honour in dishonours place,  
Were but to make disparagement of both,  
Both enemies they could not brook the case,  
For honour to subvert dishonours growth:  
Dishonour will not change for honour's room,  
She hopes to stay after their body's doom.   

Or live they long, or die they suddenly,  
They have nor hope, nor comfort of reward,  
Their hope of comfort is iniquity,  
The bar by which they from their joys are bard:  
O old new end, made to begin new grief,  
O new beginning, end of old relief.    

Chapter FOUR  

verse 1 IF happiness may harbour in content,  
If life in love, if love in better life;  
Then unto many happiness is lent,  
And long departed joy might then be rife:  
Some happy if they live, some if they die,  
Happy in life, happy in tragedy.   

Content is happiness, because content,  
Barenes and barrenness is virtues grace,  
Bare, because wealth to poverty is bend,  
Barren, in that it scorns ill fortunes place:  
The barren earth is barren of her tars,  
The barren woman barren of her cares.   

verse 2 The soul of virtue is eternity,  
All-filling essence of divinest rage,  
And virtues true eternal memory,  
Is barrenness, her souls eternal gage:  
O happy soul that is engaged there,  
And pawns his life that barren badge to wear.   

See how the multitude with humble hearts,  
Lies prostrate for to welcome her return;  
See how they mourn and wail when she departs  
See how they make their tears her trophies urn:  
Being present they desire her, being gone,  
Their hot desire is turned to hotter moan.   

verse 3 As every one hath not one natures mould,  
So every one hath not one natures mind;  
Some think that dross which others take for gold,  
Each difference cometh from a differing kind:  
Some do despise what others do embrace,  
Some praise the thing which others do disgrace.   

The barren doth embrace their barrenness,  
And hold it as a virtue worthy meed:  
The other calls conception happiness,  
And hold it as a virtue worthy deed:  
The one is firmly grounded on a rock,  
The other billows game and tempests mock.   

verse 4 Sometime the nettle groweth with the rose,  
The nettle hath a sting, the rose a thorn,  
This stings the hand, the other pricks the nose,  
Harming that scent which her sweet birth had borne;  
Weeds among herbs, herbs among weeds are found  
tars in the mantle of a corny ground.   

The nettles growth is fast, the roses slow,  
The weeds outgrow the herbs, the tars the corn,  
These may be well compared to vices show,  
Which covets for to grow ere it be borne:  
As greatest danger doth pursue fast going,  
So greatest danger doth ensue fast growing.   

verse 5 The tallest Cedar hath the greatest wind,  
The highest tree is subject unto falls,  
High soaring Eagles soon are strucken blind,  
The tongue must needs be hoarse with many calls:  
The wicked thinking for to touch the sky,  
Are blasted with the fire of heavens eye.   

So like ascending and descending air,  
Both dusky vapours from two humorous clouds,  
Lies withered the glory of their fair,  
Unpleasant branches wrenched in follies floods:  
Unprofitable fruits like to a weed,  
Made only to infect, and not to feed.   

verse 6 Made for to make a fast, and not a feast,  
Made rather for infection than for meat,  
Not worthy to be eaten of a beast,  
Thy taste so sour, thy poison is so great:  
Thou mayst be well compared to a tree,  
Because thy branches are as ill as thee▪   

Thou hast begot thine own confusion,  
The witnesses of what thou dost begin,  
Thy doomers in thy life's conclusion,  
Which will unasked and asked reveal thy sin:  
Needs must the new hatched birds bewray the nest,  
When they are nursed in a stepdames breast.   

verse 7 But righteousness is of another sex,  
Her root is from an everlasting seed,  
No weake-unable grounding doth connex,  
Her never-limited memorials deed:  
She hath no branches for a tempests pray,  
No deeds, but scorns to yield unto decay.   

She hath no withered fruit, no show of store,  
But perfect essence of a complete power,  
Say that she dies to world, she lives the more,  
As who so righteous but doth wait death's hour?  
Who knows not death to be the way to rest?  
And he that never dies is never blest,   

verse 8 Happy is he that lives, twice he that dies,  
Thrice happy he which neither lived, nor died,  
Which never saw the earth with mortal eyes,  
Which never knew what miseries are tried:  
Happy is life, twice happy is our death,  
But three times thrice he, which had never breath.   

Some thinks that pleasure is achieved by years,  
Or by maintaining of a wretched life,  
When, out alas, it heapeth tears on tears,  
Grief upon grief, strife on beginning strife:  
Pleasure is weak, if measured by length,  
The oldest ages hath the weaker strength.   

verse 9 Three turnings are contained in mortal course,  
Old, mean, and young; mean, and old brings age,  
The youth hath strength, the mean decaying force,  
The old are weak, yet strong in anger's rage:  
Three turnings in one age, strong, weak, & weaker,  
Yet age, nor youth, is youths or age's breaker.   

Some says that youth is quick in judging causes,  
Some says that age is witty, grave, and wise:  
I hold of age's side with their applauses,  
Which judges with their hearts, not with their eyes:  
I say grave wisdom lies in greyest heads,  
And undefiled lives in ages beds.   

verse 10 God is both grave and old, yet young and new,  
Grave because aged, aged because young;  
Long youth may well be called ages hue,  
And hath no differing sound upon the tongue:  
God old, because eternities are old,  
Young, for eternities one motion hold.   

Some in their birth, some dies when they are borne,  
Some borne, and some abortive, yet all die,  
Some in their youth, some in old age forlorn,  
Some, neither young nor old, but equally:  
The righteous, when he liveth with the sinner,  
Doth hope for death, his better life's beginner.   

verse 11 The swine delights to wallow in the mire,  
The giddy drunkard in excess of wine,  
He may corrupt the purest reasons gyre,  
And she turn virtue into vices sign:  
Mischief is mire, and may infect that spring,  
Which every flow and ebb of vice doth bring.   

Fishes are oft deceived by the bait,  
The baite-deceiving fish doth fish deceive;  
So righteous are allured by sins deceit,  
And oft enticed into sinners weave:  
The righteous be as fishes to their gin,  
Beguiled, deceived, alured into sin.   

The fisher hath a bait deceiving fish,  
verse 12 The fowler hath a net deceiving fowls,  
Both wisheth to obtain their snaring wish,  
Observing time like night-obseruing owls:  
The fisher lays his bait, fowler his net,  
He hopes for fish, the other birds to get.   

This fisher is the wicked, vice his bait,  
This fowler is the sinner, sin his net,  
The simple-righteous-falles in their deceit,  
And like a prey, a fish, a fowl beset:  
A bait, a net, obscuring what is good,  
Like fish and fowl took up for vices food.   

verse 13 14 But baits, nor nets, gins, nor beguiling snares,  
Vice, nor the vicious sinner, not the sin  
Can shut the righteous into prisons cares,  
Or set deceiving baits to mew them in:  
They know their lives deliverer, heavens God,  
Can break their baits and snares with justice rod.   

When vice abounds on earth, and earth in vice,  
Then virtue keeps her chamber in the sky,  
To shun the mischief which her baits entice,  
Her snares, her nets, her guiles, her company:  
Assoon as mischief reigns upon the earth,  
Heaven calls the righteous to a better birth.   

verse 15 The blinded eyes can never see the way,  
The blinded heart can never see to see,  
The blinded soul doth always go astray,  
All three want sight, in being blind all three:  
Blind and yet see, they see and yet are blind,  
The face hath eyes, but eyeless is the mind.   

They see with outward sight Gods heavenly grace,  
His grace, his love, his mercy on his Saints,  
With outward faced eye, and eyed face,  
Their outward body inward soul depaintes:  
Of hearts chief eye they chiefly are bearest,  
And yet the shadow of two eyes are left.   

verse 16 Some blinded be in face, and some in soul,  
The faces eyes are not incurable,  
The other wanteth healing to be whole,  
Or seems to some to be indurable:  
Look in a blinded eye, bright is the glass,  
Though brightness banished from what it was.   

So (quoth the righteous) are these blinded hearts,  
The outward glass is clear, the substance dark,  
Both seem as if one took the others parts,  
Yet both in one have not one brightness spark:  
The outward eye, is but destruction's reader,  
Wanting the inward eye to be the leader.   

Our body may be called a commonweal,  
verse 17 Our head the chief, for reason harbours there,  
From thence comes hearts and souls united zeal,  
All else inferiors be, which stand in fear,  
This commonweal ruled by discretion's eye,  
lives likewise if she live, dies if she die.   

Then how can weal, or wealth common, or proper,  
Long stand, long flow, long flourish, long remain,  
When wail is weals, & stealth is wealths chief stopper▪  
When sight is gone which never comes again:  
The wicked sees the righteous lose their breath,  
But know not what reward they gain by death.   

verse 18 19 Though blind in sight, yet can they see to harm,  
See to despise, see to deride and mock,  
But their revenge lies in Gods mighty arm,  
Scorning to choose them for his chosen flock:  
He is the shepherd, godly are his sheep,  
They wake in joy, these in destruction sleep.   

The godly sleep in eyes, but wake in hearts,  
The wicked sleep in hearts, but wake in eyes;  
These ever-wake eyes are no sleepy parts,  
These ever sleep, for sleep is heart's disguise:  
Their waking eyes do see their hearts lament,  
While heart securely sleeps in eyes content.   

verse 20 If they awake, sleeps image doth molest them,  
And beats into their waking memories,  
If they do sleep, ioy-waking doth detest them,  
Yet beats into their sleeping arteries:  
Sleeping or waking they have fear on fear,  
Waking or sleeping they are ne'er the near.   

If waking they remember what they are,  
What sins they have committed in their waking,  
If sleeping they forget torment far,  
How ready they have been in mischiefs making:  
When they awake, their wickedness betrays them,  
When they do sleep, destruction dismays them.    

Chapter V.  

verse 1 AS these two slumbers have two contraries,  
One slumber in the face, one in the mind,  
So their two casements two varieties,  
One unto heaven, and one to hell combined:  
The face is flattery, and her mansion hell,  
The mind is just, this doth in heaven dwell.   

The face heaving her heavy eyelids up,  
From forth the chamber of eternal night,  
Sees virtue hold plenty's replenished cup,  
And boldly stands in Gods and heavens sight:  
She opening the windows of her breast,  
Sees how the wicked rest in their unrest.   

verse 2 3 Quoth she, those whom the curtain of decay,  
Hath tragically summoned to pain,  
Were once the clouds, and clouders of my day,  
Depravers and deprivers of my gain;  
The wicked hearing this descending sound,  
Fear struck their limbs to the pale-clothed ground.   

Amazed at the freedom of her words,  
Their tongue-tied accents drove them to despair,  
And made them change their minds to woes records,  
And say within themselves, lo what we are:  
We have had virtue in derisions place,  
And made a parable of her disgrace.   

verse 4 See where she sits enthronizde in the sky,  
See, see, her labours crown upon her head,  
See how the righteous live which erst did die,  
From death to life with virtues lodestar led,  
See those whom we derided, they are blest,  
They heavens, not hells, we hells, not heavens guest.   

We thought the righteous had been furies son,  
With inconsiderate speech, unstaid way,  
We thought that death had his dishonour won,  
And would have made his life destructions pray:  
But we were mad, they just, we fools, they wise,  
We shame, they praise, we loss, they have the prize.   

verse 5 We thought them fools, when we ourselves were fools  
We thought them mad, when we ourselves were mad,  
The heat which sprang from them, our folly cools,  
We find in us, which we but thought they had:  
We thought their end had been dishonours pledge,  
They but surueyd the place, we made the hedge.   

We see how they are blest, how we are cursed,  
How they accepted are, and we refused,  
And how our bands are tied, their bands are burst,  
Our faults are hourly blamed, their faults excused:  
See how heavens gratulate their welcomed sight,  
Which comes to take possession of their right.   

verse 6 But oh, too late we see our wickedness,  
Too late we lie in a repentant tomb,  
Too late we smooth old hairs with happiness,  
Too late we seek to ease our body's doom:  
Now falsehood hath advauncde her forged banner,  
Too late we seem to verify truths manner.   

The sun of righteousness which should have shined,  
And made our hearts the cabins of his East,  
Is now made cloudy night through vices wind,  
And lodgeth with his downfall in the west:  
That summer's day which should have been nights bar  
Is now made winter in her icy car▪   

verse 7 Too much our feet have gone, but never right▪  
Much labour we have took, but none in good,  
We wearied ourselves with our delight,  
Endangering ourselves to please our mood:  
Our feet did labour much, 'twas for our pleasure,  
We wearied ourselves, 'twas for our leisure.   

In sins perfection was our labour spent,  
In wickedness preferment we did haste,  
To suffer perils we were all content,  
For the advancement of our vices past:  
Through many dangerous ways our feet have gone,  
But yet the way of God we have not known.   

verse 8 9 We which have made our hearts a sea of pride,  
With huge risse billows of a swelling mind,  
With tossing tumults of a flowing tide,  
Leaving our laden bodies plunged behind;  
What traffic have we got? ourselves are drowned,  
Our souls in hell, our bodies in the ground.   

Where are our riches now? like us consumed,  
Where is our pomp? decayed, where's glory? dead;  
Where is the wealth of which we all presumed▪  
where is our profit? gone, ourselves? misled:  
All these are like to shadows what they were,  
There is nor wealth, nor pomp, nor glory here.   

verse 10 The dial gives a caveat of the hour,  
Thou canst not see it go, yet it is gone,  
Like this the dial of thy fortune's power,  
Which fades by stealth till thou art left alone.  
Thy eyes may well perceive thy goods are spent,  
Yet can they not perceive which way they went.   

Lo, even as ships sailing on Tethis lap,  
Ploughs up the furrows of hard grounded waves,  
Enforced for to go by Aeolus' clap,  
Making with sharpest team the water graves:  
The ship once past, the trace cannot be found,  
Although she digged in the water's ground.   

verse 11 Or as an Eagle with her soaring wings▪  
Scorning the dusty carpet of the earth,  
Exempt from all her clogging guesses, flings  
Up to the air, to show her mounting birth:  
And every flight doth take a higher pitch,  
To have the golden sun her wings enrich.   

Yet none can see the passage of her flight,  
But only hear her hovering in the sky,  
Beating the light wind with her being light,  
Or parting through the air where she might fly:  
The ear may hear, the eye can never see,  
What course she takes, or where she means to be.   

verse 12 Or as an arrow which is made to go,  
Through the transparent and coole-blowing air,  
Feeding upon the forces of the bow,  
Else forceless lies in wanting her repair:  
Like as the branches when the tree is lopped,  
Wanteth the forces which they forceless cropped.   

The arrow being fed with strongest shot,  
Doth part the lowest elemental breath,  
Yet never separates the soft airs knot,  
Nor never wounds the still-foote winds to death▪  
It doth sejoine and join the air together,  
Yet none there is can tell, or where, or whither.   

verse 13 So are our lives, now they begin, now end,  
Now live, now die, now borne, now fit for grave,  
As soon as we have breath, so soon we spend,  
Not having that which our content would have:  
As ships, as birds, as arrows, all as one,  
Even so the traces of our lives are gone.   

A thing not seen to go, yet going seen,  
And yet not showing any sign to go;  
Even thus the shadows of our lives have been,  
Which shows to fade, and yet no virtues show:  
How can a thing consumed with vice be good?  
Or how can falsehood bear true virtues food?   

verse 14 Vain hope to think that wickedness hath bearing▪  
When she is drowned in oblivions sea,  
Yet can she not forget presumptions wearing,  
Nor yet the badge of vanities decay:  
Her fruits are cares, her cares are vanities,  
Two, both in one destructions liveries.   

Vain hope is like a vane turned with each wind,  
'tis like a smoke scattered with every storm,  
Like dust, sometime before, sometime behind,  
Like a thin some made in the vainest form:  
This hope is like to them which never stay,  
But comes, and goes again, all in one day.   

verse 15 View Nature's gifts, some gifts are rich▪ some poor,  
Some barren grounds there are, some clothed with fruit,  
Nor hath all nothing, nor hath all her store,  
Nor can all creatures speak, nor are all mute:  
All die by nature, being borne by nature,  
So all change feature, being borne with feature.   

This life is hers, this dead, dead is her power,  
Her bounds gins, and ends in mortal state,  
Whom she on earth accounteth as her flower,  
May be in heaven condemned of mortal hate:  
But he whom virtue judges for to live,  
The Lord his life and due reward will give.   

verse 16 The servant of a king, may be a king,  
And he that was a king, a servile slave;  
Swans before death a funeral dirge do sing,  
And waves their wings again ill fortunes wave.  
He that is lowest in this lowly earth,  
May be the highest in celestial birth.   

The rich may be unjust, in being rich,  
For riches do corrupt and not correct,  
The poor may come to highest honours pitch,  
And have heavens crown for mortal life's respect:  
Gods hands shall cover them from all their foes,  
God's arm defend them from misfortunes blows.   

verse 17 18 19 20 His hand eterniti 〈◊〉 his arm, his force,  
His armour zelousie, his breastplate heaven,  
His helmet judgement, justice, and remorse,  
His shield is victories immortal steaven:  
The world his challenge, and his wrath his sword,  
Mischief his foe, his aid his gospels word.   

His arm doth overthrow his enemy,  
His breastplate, sin, his helmet death and hell,  
His shield prepared against mortality,  
His sword 'gainst them which in the world do dwell:  
So shall vice, sin, and death, world and the devil,  
Be slain by him which slayeth every evil.   

verse 21 All heaven shall be in arms against earth's world,  
The sun shall dart forth fire commixed with blood,  
The blazing stars from heaven shall be hurled,  
The pale-facde moon against the Ocean flood:  
Then shall the thundering chambers of the sky,  
Be lightened with the blaze of Titan's eye.   

The clouds shall then be bend like bended bows,  
To shoot the thundering arrows of the air,  
Thick hail and stones shall fall on heavens foes,  
And Tethis overflow in her despair:  
The moon shall overfill her horny hood,  
With Neptune's Ocean's overflowing flood.   

verse 22 The wind shall be no longer kept in caves,  
But burst the iron cages of the clouds?  
And Aeole shall resign his office staves,  
Suffering the winds to combat with the floods:  
So shall the earth with seas be paled in,  
As erst it hath been overflowde with sin.   

Thus shall the earth weep for her wicked sons,  
And curse the concave of her tired womb,  
Into whose hollow mouth the water runs,  
Making wet wilderness her driest tomb;  
Thus, thus, iniquity hath reigned so long,  
That earth on earth is punished for her wrong.    

Chapter VI.  

verse 1 2 AFter this conflict between God and man,  
Remorse took harbour in Gods angry breast,  
Astraea to be pitiful began,  
All heavenly powers to lie in mercy's rest:  
Forthwith the voice of God did redescend,  
And his Astraea warned all to amend.   

To you I speak, (quoth she) hear, learn, and mark,  
You that be Kings, judges, and Potentates,  
Give ere, (I say,) wisdom your strongest ark,  
Sends me as messenger, to end debates:  
Give care, (I say) you judges of the earth,  
Wisdom is borne, seek out for wisdoms birth.   

verse 3 This heavenly embassage from wisdoms tongue,  
Worthy the volume of all heavens sky,  
I bring as messenger to right your wrong,  
If so her sacred name might never die:  
I bring you happy tidings, she is borne,  
Like golden sunbeams from a silver morn.   

The Lord hath seated you in judgements seat,  
Let wisdom place you in discretions places,  
Two virtues, one, will make one virtue great,  
And draw more virtues with attractive faces:  
Be just and wise, for God is just and wise,  
He thoughts, he words, he words, and actions tries.   

verse 4 5 If you neglect your offices decrees,  
Heap new lament on long-tosst miseries,  
Do and undo by reason of degrees,  
And drown your sentences in briberies:  
Favour and punish, spare and keep in awe,  
Set and unset, plant and supplant the law.   

Oh be assured there is a judge above,  
Which will not let injustice flourish long,  
If tempt him, you, your own temptation move,  
Proceeding from the judgement of hid tongue:  
Hard judgement shall he have which judgeth hard,  
And he that barreth others shall be barred.   

verse 6 For God hath no respect of rich from poor,  
For he hath made the poor, and made the rich,  
Their bodies be alike, though their minds soar,  
Their difference nought, but in presumptions pitch:  
The carcase of a King is kept from soul,  
The Beggar yet may have the cleaner soul.   

The highest men do bear the highest minds,  
The cedars scorn to bow, the muhrooms bend,  
The highest often superstition blinds,  
But yet their fall is greatest in the end:  
The winds have not such power of the grass,  
Because it lowly stoopeth when as they pass.   

verse 7 8 The old should teach the young observance way,  
But now the young doth teach the elder grace;  
The shrubs do teach the Cedars to obey,  
These yield to winds, but these the winds outface:  
Yet he that made the winds to cease and blow,  
Can make the highest fall, the lowest grow.   

He made the great to stoop as well as small,  
The lions to obey as other beasts,  
He cares for all alike, yet cares for all,  
And looks that all should answer his behests:  
But yet the greater hath the sorer trial,  
If once he finds them with his laws denial.   

verse 9 Be warned you tyrants at the fall of pride,  
You see how surges change to quiet calm;  
You see both flow and ebb in folly's tide,  
How fingers are infected by their palm:  
This may your caveat be, you being kings,  
Infect your subjects, which are lesser things.   

Ill scents of vice once crept into the head,  
Doth pierce into the chamber of the brain,  
Making the outward skin diseases bed,  
The inward powers as nourishers of pain:  
So if that mischief reigns in wisdoms place,  
The inward thought lies figured in the face.   

verse 10 Wisdom should cloth herself in King's attire,  
Being the portraiture of heavens Queen,  
But tyrants are no Kings, but mischiefs mire,  
Not sage, but shows of what they should have been:  
They seek for vice, and how to go amiss,  
But do not once regard what wisdom is.   

They which are Kings, by name are Kings by deed,  
Both rulers of themselves and of their land,  
They know that heaven is virtues duest meed,  
And holiness is knit in holy band:  
These may be rightly called by their name,  
whose words and works are blazed in wisdoms flame.   

To nurse up cruelty with mild aspect,  
verse 11 Were to begin, but never for to end,  
Kindness with tigers never takes effect,  
Nor proffered friendship with a foe-like friend:  
Tyrants and tigers have all natural mothers,  
Tyrants her sons, tigers the tyrant's brothers.   

No words delight can move delight in them,  
But rather blow the traces of their ire,  
Like swine that take the dirt defore the gem,  
And skorns that pearl which they should most desire:  
But Kings whose names proceed from kindness sound,  
Do plant their hearts & thoughts on wisdons ground.   

verse 12 13 A grounding ever moist, and never dry,  
An ever fruitful earth, not fruitless way,  
In whose dear womb the tender springs do lie,  
which ever flows, and never ebbs away;  
The sun but shines by day, she day and night,  
Doth keep one stayed essence of her light.   

Her beams are conducts to her substance view,  
Here eye is adamants attractive force,  
A shadow hath she none, but substance true,  
Substance out living life of mortal corpse:  
Her sight is easy unto them which love her,  
Her finding easy unto them which prove her.   

verse 14 The far fet chastity of female sex,  
Is nothing but allurement into lust,  
Which will forswear and take, scorn and annex,  
Deny and practise it, mistrust, and trust:  
Wisdom is chaste and of another kind,  
She loves, she likes, and yet not lustful blind.   

She is true love, the other love a toy,  
Her love hath eyes, the other love is blind,  
This doth proceed from God, this from a boy,  
This constant is, the other vain combined:  
If longing passions follow her desire,  
She offereth herself, as labours hire   

verse 15 She is not coyish she, won by delay,  
With sighs and passions, which all lovers use,  
With hot affection, death, or life's decay,  
With lovers toys, which might their loves excuse:  
Wisdom is poor, her dowry is content,  
She nothing hath because she nothing spent.   

She is not wooed to love, nor won by wooing,  
Nor got by labour, nor possessed by pain,  
The gain of her consists in honest doing,  
Her gain is great, in that she hath no gain:  
He that betimes follows repentance way,  
Shall meet with her his virtues worthy pay.   

To think upon her, is to think of bliss,  
verse 16 The very thought of her is mischiefs bar,  
Depeller of misdeeds which do amiss,  
The blot of vanity, misfortunes scar:  
Who would not think; to reap such gain by thought?  
Who would not love, when such a life is bought?   

If thought be understanding, what is she?  
The full perfection of a perfect power,  
A heavenly branch from God's immortal tree,  
Which death, nor hell, nor mischief can devour:  
Herself is wisdom, and her thought is so,  
Thrice happy he which doth desire to know.   

verse 17 She manlike woes, men womenlike refuses,  
She offers love, they offered love deny,  
And hold her promises as loves abuses,  
Because she pleads with an indifferent eye:  
They think that she is light, vain and unjust,  
When she doth plead for love, and not for lust.   

Hard hearted men (quoth she) can you not love,  
Behold my substance, cannot substance please,  
Behold my feature; cannot feature move?  
Can substance, nor my feature, help or ease?  
See heavens joy, defigured in my face,  
Can neither heaven, nor joy, turn you to grace?   

verse 18 19 Oh how desire sways her pleading tongue,  
Her tongue, her heart, her heart, her soul's affection?  
Feign would she make mortality be strong,  
But mortal weakness yields rejection:  
Her care is care of them, they careless are,  
Her love loves them: they neither love nor care.   

Feign would she make them clients in her law,  
Whose laws assurance is immortal honour,  
But them, nor words, nor love, nor care can awe,  
But still will fight under destruction's bonner.  
Though immortality be their reward,  
Yet neither words, nor deeds will they regard.   

verse 20 Her tongue is hoarse with pleading, yet doth plead,  
Pleading for that which they should all desire,  
Their appetite is heavy made of lead,  
And lead can never melt without a fire:  
Her words are mild and cannot raise a heat,  
Whilst they with hard repulse her speeches beat.   

Requested they; for what they should request,  
Entreated they; for what they should entreat,  
Requested to enjoy their quiet rest,  
Entreated like a sullen bird to eat:  
Their eyes behold joys maker which doth make it,  
Yet must they be entreated for to take it.   

verse 21 You whose delight is placed in honour's game,  
Whose game, in majesties imperial throne,  
Majestic portraitures of earthly fame,  
Releevers of the poor in age's moan:  
If your content be seated on a crown,  
Love wisdom, and your state shall never downe.   

Her crowns are not as earthly diadems,  
But diapasans of eternal rest,  
Her essence comes not from terrestrial stems,  
But planted on the heavens immortal breast:  
If you delight in sceptres and in reigning,  
Delight in her your crowns immortal gaining.   

verse 22 Although the shadows of her glorious view,  
Hath been as accessary to your eyes,  
Now will I show you the true substance hue,  
And what she is, which without knowledge lies:  
From whence she is derived, whence her descent,  
And whence the lineage of her birth is lent.   

Now will I show the sky, and not the cloud,  
The sun, and not the shade, day, not the night,  
Tethis herself, not Tethis in her flood,  
Light, and not shadow of suppressing light:  
Wisdom herself true type of wisdoms grace,  
Shall be apparent before heart and face.   

verse 23 Had I still fed you with the shade of life,  
And hide the sun itself in envies air,  
Myself might well be called natures strife,  
Striving to cloud that which all clouds impair:  
But Envy, haste thee hence, I loath thy eye,  
Thy love, thy life, thyself, thy company.   

Here is the banner of discretion's name,  
Advanced on wisdoms ever-standing tower,  
Here is no place for envy or her shame,  
For Nemesis, or black Mageraes' power:  
He that is envious, is not wisdoms friend,  
She ever lives, he dies when envies end.   

verse 24 25 Happy, thrice happy land, where wisdom reigns,  
Happy, thrice happy king, whom wisdom sways,  
Where never poor laments, or souls complains,  
Where folly never keeps discretions ways:  
That land, that king doth flourish, live and joy,  
far from ill fortunes reach, or sins annoy.   

That land is happy, that king fortunate,  
She in her days, he in his wisdoms force,  
For fortitude is wisdoms sociate:  
And wisdom truest fortitudes remorse:  
Be therefore ruled by wisdom, she is chief,  
That you may rule in joy, and not in grief.    

Chapter VII.  

verse 1 WHat am I? man, oh what is man? oh nought,  
What am I? nought, yes, what? sin & debate,  
Three vices all in one, of one life bought,  
Man am I not, what then? I am man's hate:  
Yes man I am, man, because mortal, dead,  
Mortality my guide, by mischief led.   

Man, because like to man, man, because borne,  
In birth no man, a child, child, because weak,  
Weak, because weakened by ill fortunes scorn,  
Scorned, because mortal, mortal, in wrongs reak:  
My father like myself did live on earth,  
I like myself, and him, follow his birth.   

verse 2 My mother's matrice was my body's maker,  
There had I this same shape of infamies,  
Shape, ah no shape, but substance mischiefs taker,  
In ten months' fashion; months, ah miseries,  
The shame of shape, the very shape of shame,  
Calamity myself lament my name.   

I was conceived with seed, deceived with sin,  
Deceived, because my seed was sins deceit,  
My seed deceit, because it closed me in,  
Hemmed me about, for sins and mischiefs bait:  
The seed of man did bring me into blood,  
And now I bring myself, in what? no good.   

verse 3 When I was borne, when I was, than I was,  
Borne? when? yet borne I was, but now I bear,  
Bear mine own vices, which my joys surpass,  
Bear mine own burden full of mischiefs fear:  
When I was borne, I did not bear lament,  
But now unborn, I bear what birth hath spent.   

When I was borne, my breath was borne to me,  
The common air which airs my body's form,  
Then fell I on the earth with feeble knee,  
Lamenting for my life's ill fortunes storm:  
Making myself the index of my woe,  
Commencing what I could, ere I could go.   

verse 4 5 Fed was I with lament as well as meat,  
My milk was sweet, but tears did make it sour,  
Meat and lament, milk and my tears I eat,  
As bitter herbs commixed with sweetest flower:  
Care was my swaddling clothes as well as cloth,  
For I was swaddled, and clothed in both.   

Why do I make myself more than I am?  
Why say I, I am nourished with cares,  
When every one is clothed with the same,  
Sith as I far myself, another fares?  
No King had any other birth than I,  
But wailed his fortune with a watery eye.   

verse 6 Say what is mirth, an entrance unto woe,  
Say what is woe, an entrance unto mirth,  
That which gins with joy doth not end so,  
These go by change, because a changing birth:  
Our birth is as our death, both barren, bare,  
Our entrance wail, our going out with care.   

Naked we came, into the world as naked,  
We had nor wealth nor riches to possess,  
Now differ we, which difference riches maked,  
Yet in the end we naked ne'ertheless:  
As our beginning is, so is our end,  
Naked and poor, which needs no wealth to spend.   

verse 7 Thus weighing in the balance of my mind,  
My state, all states, my birth, all births alike,  
My meditated passions could not find,  
One freed thought which sorrow did not strike:  
But knowing every ill is cured by prayer,  
My mind besought the Lord my griefs allaier.   

Wherefore I prayed, my prayer took effect,  
And my effect was good, my good was gain,  
My gain was sacred wisdoms bright aspect,  
And her aspect in my respect did reign:  
Wisdom that heavenly spirit of content,  
Was unto me from heaven by prayer sent.   

verse 8 A present far more worthy than a crown,  
Because the crown of an eternal rest,  
A present far more worthy than a throne,  
Because the throne of heaven, which makes us blest:  
The crown of bliss, the throne of God is she,  
Compared unto heaven, not earth to thee.   

Her footstool is thy face, her face thy shame,  
Thy shame her living praise, her praise thy scorn,  
Thy scorn her love, her love thy merits blame,  
Thy blame her worth, her worth thy being borne:  
Thyself art dross to her comparison,  
Thy valour weak unto her garrison.   

verse 9 To liken gold unto her radiant face,  
Were likening day to night, and night to day,  
The King's high seat, to the low subjects place,  
And heavens translucent breast, to earthly way:  
For what is gold? her scorn, her scorn? her ire,  
Melting that dross, with nought but anger's fire.   

In her respect 'tis dust, in her aspects  
Earth, in respect of her 'tis little gravel,  
As dust, as earth, as gravel she rejects,  
The hope, the gain, the sight, the price, the travel:  
Silver, because inferior to the other  
Is clay, which too she in one look doth smother.   

verse 10 Her sight I called health, herself my beauty,  
Health as my life, and beauty as my light,  
Each in performance of the others duty,  
This curing grief, this leading me aright:  
Two sovereign eyes, belonging to two places,  
This guides the soul, and this the body graces.   

The heart sick soul, is cured by heart-strong health,  
The heart-strong health, is the soul's brightest eye,  
The heartsick body healed by beauty's wealth,  
Two sunny windolets of either's sky,  
Whose beams cannot be clouded by reproach,  
Nor yet dismounted from so bright a coach.   

verse 11 What dowry could I wish more than I have?  
What wealth, what honour, more than I possess?  
My soul's request is mine, which I did crave,  
For sole redress in soul, I have redress:  
The bodily expenses which I spend,  
Is lent by her, which my delight doth lend.   

Then I may call her author of my good,  
Sith good and goods are portions for my love,  
I love her well, who would not love his food,  
His joys maintatiner, which all woes remove?  
I richest am, because I do possess her,  
I strongest am, in that none can oppress her.   

verse 12 It made me glad to think that I was rich,  
More gladder for to think that I was strong,  
For lowest minds do covet highest pitch,  
As highest braves proceed from lowest tongue:  
Her first arrival first did make me glad,  
Yet ignorant at first, first made me sad.   

joyful I was, because I saw her power,  
Woeful I was, because I knew her not,  
Glad that her face was in mine eyes locked bower,  
Sad that my senses never drew her plot  
I knew not that she was discretions mother,  
Though I professed myself to be her brother.   

verse 13 Like a rash wooer feeding on the looks,  
Digesting beauty apparitions show,  
Viewing the painted outside of the books,  
And inward works little regards to know:  
So I, feeding my fancies with her sight,  
Forgot to make inquiry of her might.   

external powers I knew, riches I had,  
Internal powers I scarcely had discern,  
Vntamedly I learned to be glad,  
Feigning I hated, verity I learned:  
I was not envious, learned to forsake her.  
But I was loving, learned for to take her.   

verse 14 And had I not, my treasure had been lost,  
My loss, my perils hazard had proclaimed,  
My peril had my life's destruction tossed,  
My life's destruction at my soul had aimed:  
Great perils hazarded from one poor loss,  
As greatest filth doth come with smallest dross.   

This righteous treasure whoso rightly useth,  
Shall be an heir in heavens eternity,  
All earthly fruits her heritage excuseth,  
All happiness in her felicity:  
The love of God consists in her embracing,  
The gifts of knowledge in her wisdoms placing.   

verse 15 I speak as I am prompted by my mind,  
My souls chief agent, pleader of my cause,  
I speak these things, and what I speak I find,  
By heavens judgement, not mine own applause:  
God he is judge, I next, because I have her,  
God he doth know, I next, because I crave her.   

Should I direct, and God subvert my tongue,  
I worthy were of an unworthy name,  
Unworthy of my right, not of my wrong.  
Unworthy of my praise, not of my shame:  
But seeing God directs my tongue from missing,  
I rather look for clapping than for hissing.   

verse 16 He is the prompter of my tongue and me,  
My tongue doth utter what his tongue applies,  
He sets before my sight what I should see,  
He breathes into my heart his verities:  
He tells me what I think, or see, or hear,  
His tongue a part, my tongue a part doth bear.   

Our words he knows, in telling of our hearts,  
Our hearts he knows in telling of our words,  
All in his hands, words, wisdom, works, and arts,  
And every power which influence affords:  
He knows what we will speak, what we will do,  
And how our minds and actions will go.   

verse 17 18 The wisdom which I have, is heavens gift,  
The knowledge which I have, is God's reward,  
Both presents my forewarned senses lift,  
And of my preservation had regard:  
This teaches me to know, this to be wise,  
Knowledge is wits, and wit is knowledge guise.   

Now know I, how the world was first created,  
How every motion of the air was framed,  
How man was made, the devils pride abated,  
How times beginning, midst, and end was named: now know I time, times change, times date, times sho  
And when the seasons come, and when they go.   

verse 19 20 I know the changing courses of the years,  
And the division of all differing climes,  
The situation of the stars and spheres,  
The flowing tides, and the flow-ebbing times:  
I know that every year hath his four courses,  
I know that every course hath several forces.   

I know that nature is in every thing,  
Beasts furious, winds rough, men wicked are,  
whose thoughts their scourge, whose deeds their iugments sling,  
Whose words and works their peril, and their care,  
I know that every plant hath difference,  
I know that every root hath influence.   

verse 21 True knowledge have I got in knowing truth,  
True wisdom purchased in wisest wit,  
A knowledge fitting age, wit fitting youth,  
Which makes me young, though old with gain of it;  
True knowledge have I, and true wisdoms store,  
True hap, true hope, what wish, what would I more?   

Known things I needs must know, sith not unknown,  
My care is knowledge, she doth hear for me,  
All secrets know I more because not shown,  
My wisdom secret is, and her I see;  
Knowledge hath taught me how to hear known causes  
Wisdom hath taught me secrecies applauses.   

verse 22 23 Knowledge and wisdom known in wisest things,  
Is reasons mate, discretion's sentinel,  
More than a trine of joys, from virtues springs,  
More than one union, yet in union dwell,  
One for to guide the spring, summer the other,  
One harvests nurse, the other winter's mother.   

Four mounts, and four high mounters, all four one,  
One holy union, one begotten life,  
One manifold affection, yet alone,  
All one in pieces rest, all none in strife:  
Sure, stable, without care, having all power,  
Not hurtful, doing good, (as one all four.)   

This peaceful army of four knitted souls,  
verse 24 Is marching unto pieces endless war,  
Their weapons are discretions written rolls,  
Their quarrel, love, and amity their jar:  
Wisdom director is, captain, and guide,  
All other take their places, side by side.   

Wisdom divides the conflict of her peace,  
Into four squadrons, of four mutual loves,  
Each bent to war, and never means to cease,  
Her wings of shot her disputation moves:  
She wars unseen, and pacifies unseen,  
She is wars victory, yet pieces Queen.   

verse 25 She is the martial trumpet of alarms,  
And yet the quiet rest in pieces night,  
She guideth martial troops, she honours arms,  
Yet joins she fight with peace, and peace with fight:  
She is the breath of Gods and heavens power,  
Yet pieces nurse, in being pieces flower.   

A flowing in of that which ebbeth out,  
An ebbing out of that which floweth in,  
Presumption she doth hate, in being stout,  
Humility though poor her favours win:  
She is the influence of heavens flow,  
No filth doth follow her, where ere she go.   

verse 26 She is that spring, which never hath an ebb,  
That siluer-coloured brook, which hath no mud,  
That loom, which weaves, and never cuts the web,  
That tree which grows, and never leaves to bud:  
She constant is, unconstancy her foe,  
She doth not flow and ebb, nor come and go.   

Phoebus doth weep, when watery clouds approach,  
She keeps her brightness everlastingly,  
Phoebe, when Phoebus shines forsakes night's coach,  
Her day is night and day immortally:  
The undefiled mirror of renown,  
The image of God's power, her virtues crown.   

verse 27 28 Discretion, knowledge, wit, and reasons skill,  
All four are places in one only grace,  
They wisdom are, obedient to her will,  
All four are one, one in all foures place:  
And wisdom being one, she can do all,  
Sith one hath four, all subject to one call.   

Herself remaining self, the world renews,  
Renewing ages with perpetual youth,  
Entering into the souls, which death pursues,  
Making them Gods friends, which were friends to truth.  
If wisdom doth not harbour in thy mind,  
God loves thee not, and that thy soul shall find.   

For how canst thou be lead without thy light,  
verse 29 30 How can thy eyles soul direct her way,  
If wanting her, which guides thy steps aright,  
Thy steps from night into a path of day?  
More beautiful than is the eye of heaven,  
Guilding herself with her selfe-changing steau'n.   

The stars are twinkling handmaids to the moon,  
Both moon and stars, handmaids to wisdoms sun,  
These shine at midst night, this at mid-noon,  
Each new gins their light, when each hath done:  
Pale-mantled night, follows red mantled day,  
Vice follows both, but to her own decay.    

Chapter VIII.  

verse 1 WHo is the Empress of the world's confine,  
The Monarchesle of the four cornered earth,  
The Princess of the seas, life without fine,  
Commixer of delight with sorrows mirth:  
What sovereign is she which ever reigns,  
Which Queenlike governs all, yet none constrains?   

Wisdom, o fly my spirit with that word,  
Wisdom, o lodge my spirit in that name,  
Fly soul unto the mansion of her lord,  
Although thy wings be findged in her flame:  
Tell her my blackness doth admire her beauty,  
I'll marry her in love, serve her in duty.   

verse 2 If marry her; God is my father God,  
Christ is my brother, Angels are my kin,  
The earth my dowry, heaven my abode,  
My rule the world, my life without my sin:  
She is the daughter of immortal jove,  
My wife in heart, in thought, in soul, in love.   

Happy for ever he that thought in heart,  
Happy for ever he that heart in thought,  
Happy the soul of both which bears both part,  
Happy that love which thought har●, soul, hath sought;  
The name of love is happiest, for I love her,  
Soul, heart, and thoughts, loves agents are to prove her.   

verse 3 Ye parents that would have your children ruled,  
Here may they be instructed, ruled and taught:  
Ye children that would have your parents schooled,  
Feeding their wanton thirst with folly's draft;  
See here the school of discipline erected,  
See here how young and old are both corrected.   

Children, this is the Mistress of your bliss,  
Your schoolemistris reformer of your lives,  
Parents, you that do speak, think, do amiss,  
Here's she, which loves, and life's direction gives:  
She teacheth that which God knows to be true,  
She chooseth that, which God would choose for you.   

verse 4 What is our birth? poor, naked, needy, cold,  
What is our life? poor as our birth hath been:  
What is our age? forlorn in being old:  
What is our end? as our beginnings scene:  
Our birth, our life, our age, our end is poor,  
what birth, what life, what age, what end hath more   

Made rich it is with vanities vain show,  
If wanting wisdom it is folly's game,  
Or like a bended, or unbended bow,  
Ill fortunes scoff it is, good fortunes shame:  
If wisdom be the riches of thy mind,  
Then can thy fortune see, not seeing blind.   

verse 5 6 Then if good fortune doth begin thy state,  
Ill fortune cannot end what she gins,  
Thy fate at first will still remain thy fate,  
Thy conduct unto joys, not unto sins:  
If thou the bridegroom art, wisdom the bride,  
Ill fortune cannot swim against thy tide.   

Thou marrying her, dost marry more than she,  
Thy portion is not faculties, but bliss,  
Thou needst not teaching, for she teacheth thee,  
Nor no reformer she thy mistress is,  
The lesson which she gives thee for thy learning,  
Is every virtues love, and sins deserving.   

verse 7 Dost thou desire experience for to know?  
Why how can she be less than what she is?  
The growth of knowledge doth from wisdom grow▪  
The growth of wisdom is in knowing this:  
Wisdom can tell all things, what things are past,  
What done, what undone, what are doing last.   

Nay more, what things are come, what are to come,  
Or words, or works, or shows, or actions,  
In her brains table-book she hath the sum,  
And knows dark sentences solutions:  
She knows what signs and wonders will ensue,  
And when success of seasons will be new.   

verse 8 Who would not be a bridegroom? who not wed?  
Who would not have a bride so wise, so fair?  
Who would not lie in such a peaceful bed?  
Whose canopy is heaven, whose shade the air:  
How can it be that any of the skies  
Can there be missing, where heavens kingdom lies?   

If care-sicke, I am comforted with joy,  
If surfeiting on joy, she bids me care,  
She says that overmuch will soon annoy,  
Too much of joy, too much of sorrows far:  
She always counsels me to keep a mean,  
And not with joy too fat, with grief too lean.   

verse 9 Feign would the shrub grow by the highest tree,  
Feign would the mushroom kiss the cedars bark:  
Feign would the silly worm a sporting be,  
Feign would the sparrow imitate the lark:  
Though I a tender shrub, a mushroom be,  
Yet covet I the honour of a tree.   

And may I not? may not the blossoms bud?  
Doth not the little seed make ears of corn?  
Doth not a sprig (in time) bear greatest wood?  
Doth not young eu'ning make an elder morn?  
For wisdoms sake, I know, though be young  
I shall have praises from my elders tongue.   

verse 10 And as my growth doth rise, so shall my wit,  
And as my wit doth rise, so shall my growth,  
In wit I grow, both growths grow to be fit,  
Both fitting in one growth, be fittest both:  
Experience follows age, and nature youth,  
Some aged be in wit, though young in ruth.   

The wisdom which I have, springs from above,  
The wisdom from above, is that I have,  
Her I adore, I reverence, I love,  
she's my pure soul, locked in my body's grave:  
The judgement which I use, from her proceeds,  
Which makes me maruelld at in all my deeds.   

verse 11 Although mute silence tie my judgements tongue,  
Sad secretary of dumb action,  
Yet shall they give me place though I be young,  
And stay my leisures satisfaction:  
Even as a judge which keeps his judgements mute,  
When clients have no answer of their suit.   

But if the closure of my mouth unmeetes,  
And dives within the freedom of my words,  
They like petitioners tongues welcome greets,  
And with attentive ear hears my accords:  
But if my words into no limits go,  
Their speech shall ebb, mine in their ebbing flow.   

verse 12 And what of this vain world, vain hope vain show  
Vain glory seated in a shade of praise,  
Mortality's descent, and follies flow,  
The badge of vanity, the hour of days,  
What glory is it for to be a King,  
When care is crown, and crown is fortune's sling?   

Wisdom is immortalities' alline,  
And immortality is wisdoms gain,  
By her the heavens lineage is mine,  
By her I immortality obtain,  
The earth is made immortal in my name,  
The heavens are made immortal in my fame.   

verse 13 14 Two spacious orbs of two as spacious climes,  
Shall be the heritage which I possess,  
My rule in heaven, directing earthly times,  
My reign in earth, commencing earth's redress,  
One king made two, one crown a double crown,  
One rule two rules, one fame a twice renown.   

What heaven is this, which every thought contains,  
Wisdom my heaven, my heaven is wisdoms heaven,  
What earth is this, wherein my body rains?  
Wisdom my earth, all rule from wisdom given:  
Through her I rule, through her I do subdue,  
Through her I reign, through her my empire grew.   

verse 15 A rule, not tyranny, a reign, not blood,  
An empire, not a slaughter house of lives,  
A crown, not cruelty in fury's mood,  
A Sceptre which restores, and not deprives:  
All made to make a peace and not a war,  
By wisdom concord's Queen, and discords bar.   

The coldest word oft cools the hottest threat,  
The tyrant's menaces, the calms of peace,  
Two colds augmenteth one, two heats one heat,  
And makes both too extreme, when both increase:  
My peaceful reign shall conquer tyrant's force,  
Not arms, but words, not battle, but remorse,   

verse 16 Yet mighty shall I be though war in peace,  
Strong though ability hath left his clime,  
And good, because my wars and battles cease,  
Or at the least lie smothered in their prime:  
The sense once digged up with fears amaze,  
Doth rage untamed with follies senseless gaze.   

If wisdom doth not harbour in delight,  
It breaks the outward passage of the mind,  
Therefore I place my war in wisdoms might,  
Whose heavy labours easy harbours find:  
Her company is pleasure, mirth, and joy,  
Not bitterness, not mourning, not annoy,   

When every thought was balanced by weight  
verse 17 18 Within the concave of my body's scale,  
My heart and soul did hold the balance straight,  
To see what thought was joy, what thought was wail:  
But when I saw that grief did weigh down pleasure,  
I put in wisdom to augment her treasure.   

Wisdom the weight of immortality,  
Wisdom the balance of all happiness,  
Wisdom the weigher of felicity,  
Wisdom the Paragon of blessedness:  
When in her hands there lies such plenty's store,  
Needs must her heart have twice as much and more.   

Her heart have I conjoined with her hand,  
verse 19 20 Her hand hath she conjoined with my heart,  
Two souls, one soul, two hearts, one bodies band,  
And two hands made of four, by amours art:  
Was I not wise in choosing earthly life?  
Nay wise, thrice wise, in choosing such a wife?   

Was I not good? good; then the sooner bad,  
Bad, because earth is full of wickedness,  
Because my body is with vices clad,  
Anatomy of my sins heaviness:  
As doth unseemly clothes make the skin foul,  
So the sin-inked body blots the soul.   

verse 21 Thus lay my heart plunged in destruction's mire,  
Thus lay my soul bespotted with my sin,  
Thus lay myself consumed in my desire,  
Thus lay all parts ensnared in one gin:  
At last my heart mounting above the mud,  
Lay between hope and death, mischief, and good.   

Thus panting ignorant to live or die,  
To rise or fall, to stand or else to sink,  
I cast a fainting look unto the sky,  
And s●we the thought, which my poor heart did think  
Wisdom my thought at whose seen sight I prayed,  
And with my heart, my mind, my soul, I said.    

Chapter IX.  

verse 1 2 3 O God of Fathers, Lord of heaven and earth,  
Mercies true sovereign, pities portraiture,  
King of all kings, a birth surpassing birth,  
A life immortal, essence ever pure:  
Which with a breath ascending from thy thought,  
Hast made the heavens of earth, the earth of nought.   

Thou which hast made mortality for man,  
Beginning life to make an end of woe,  
Ending in him, what in himself began,  
His earth's dominion, through thy wisdoms flow:  
Made for to rule according to desert,  
And execute revenge with upright heart.   

verse 4 Behold a crown, but yet a crown of care,  
Behold a sceptre, yet a sorrows guise,  
More than the balance of my head can bear,  
More than my hands can hold wherein it lies:  
My crown doth want supportance for to bear,  
My sceptre wanteth empire for to wear.   

A leglesse body is my kingdoms map,  
Limping in folly, halting in distress,  
Give me thy wisdom (Lord) my better hap,  
Which may my folly cure, my grief redress:  
O let me not fall in oblivions cave,  
Let wisdom be my bail, for her I crave.   

verse 5 Behold thy servant pleading for his hire,  
As an apprentice to thy gospels word,  
Behold his poor estate, his hot-cold fire,  
His weake-strong limbs, his merry woes record:  
Borne of a woman, womanlike in woe,  
They weak, they feeble are, and I am so.   

My time of life is as an hour of day,  
'tis as a day of months, a month of years,  
It never comes again, but fades away,  
As one morn's sun about the hemispheres:  
Little my memory, lesser my time,  
But least of all my understandings prime.   

verse 6 Say that my memory should never die,  
Say that my time should never lose a glide,  
Say that myself had earthly Majesty,  
Seated in all the glory of my pride:  
Yet if discretion did not rule my mind,  
My reign would be like fortunes, follie-blinde.   

My memory, a pathway to my shame,  
My time, the looking-glass of my disgrace,  
Myself, resemblance of my scorned name,  
My pride, the puffed shadow of my face:  
Thus should I be remembered, not regarded,  
Thus should my labours end, but not rewarded.   

verse 7 What were it to be shadow of a king?  
A vanity: to wear a shadowed crown?  
A vanity: to love an outward thing?  
A vanity: vain shadows of renown:  
This King is king of shades, because a shade,  
A king in show, though not in action made.   

His shape have I, his cognisance I wear,  
A smoky vapour hemmed with vanity,  
Himself I am, his kingdoms crown I bear,  
Unless that wisdom change my livery:  
A king I am, God hath inflamed me,  
And lesser than I am I can not be.   

verse 8 When I command, the people do obey,  
Submissive subjects to my votive will,  
A prince I am, and do what princes may,  
Decre●, command, rule, judge, perform, fulfil;  
Yet I myself am subject unto God,  
As are all others to my judgements rod.   

As do my subject honour my command,  
So I at his command a subject am,  
I build a temple on mount Zion's sand,  
Erect an altar in thy cities name:  
Resemblances these are, where thou dost dwell,  
Made when thou framedst heaven, earth and hell.   

verse 9 Al these three casements were contained in wit,  
'twas wisdom for to frame the heavens sky,  
'twas wisdom for to make the earth so fit,  
And hell within the lowest orb to lie:  
To make a heavenly clime, an earthly course,  
And hell, although the name of it be worse.   

Before the world was made wisdom was borne,  
Borne of heavens God, conceived in his breast,  
Which knew what works would be, what ages worn,  
What labours life should have, what quiet rest:  
What should displease and please, in vice, in good,  
What should be clearest spring, what foulest mud.   

verse 10 Oh make my sinful body's world anew,  
Erect new elements, new airs, new skies,  
The time I have is frail, the course untrue,  
The globe unconstant, like ill fortunes eyes:  
First make the world, which doth my soul contain,  
And next my wisdom, in whose power I reign.   

Illumine earth, with wisdoms heavenly sight,  
Make her ambassador to grace the earth,  
Oh let her rest by day, and lodge by night,  
Within the closure of my body's hearth:  
That in her sacred self I may perceive,  
What things are good to take, what ill to leave.   

verse 11 The body's heat will flow into the face,  
The outward index of an outward deed,  
The inward sins do keep an inward place,  
Eyes, face, mouth, tongue & every function feed:  
She is my face, if I do any ill,  
I see my shame in her repugnant will.   

She is my glass, my type, my form, my map,  
The figure of my deed, shape of my thought,  
My life's character, fortune to my hap,  
Which understandeth all that heart hath wrought:  
What works I take in hand, she finisheth,  
And all my vicious thoughts diminisheth.   

My facts are written in her foreheads book,  
verse 12 The volume of my thoughts, lines of my words,  
The sins I have she murders with a look,  
And what one cheek denies, th' other affords:  
As white and red like battles, and retreats,  
One doth defend the blows, the other beats.   

So is her furious mood commixed with smile,  
Her rod is profit, her correction mirth:  
She makes me keep an acceptable style,  
And govern every limit of the earth:  
Through her the state of monarchy is known,  
Through her I rule, and guide my father's throne.   

verse 13 Mortality itself without repair,  
Is ever falling feebly on the ground,  
Submissive body, heart above the air,  
Which feign would know, when knowledge is not found:  
Feign would it soar above the eagle's eye,  
Though it be made of lead, and cannot fly.   

The soul and body are the wings of man,  
The soul should mount, but that lies drowned in sin,  
With leaden spirit, but doth what it can,  
Yet scarcely can it rise when it is in:  
Then how can man so weak, know God so strong?  
What heart from thought, what thought from heart hath sprung?   

verse 14 15 We think that every judgement is alike,  
That every purpose hath one final end,  
Our thoughts (alas) are fears, fears horrors strike,  
Horrors our life's uncertain course do spend:  
Fear follows negligence, both death, and hell,  
Unconstant are the paths wherein we dwell.   

The hollow concave of our bodies vaults,  
Once laden up with sins eternal graves,  
Straight bursts into the soul the slime of faults,  
And overfloweth like a sea of waves:  
The earth as neighbour to our privy thought,  
keeps fast the mansion which our cares have bought   

verse 16 Say, can we see ourselves? are we so wise?  
Or, can we judge our own with our own hearts?  
Alas we cannot; folly blinds our eyes,  
Mischief our minds, with her mischievous arts:  
Folly reigns there, where wisdom should bear sway.  
And follies mischief bars discretion's way.   

O weak capacity of strongest wit,  
O strong capacity of weaker sense,  
To guide, to meditate, unapt, unfit,  
Blind in perceiving earth's circumfluence:  
If labour doth consist in mortal skill,  
'tis greater labour to know heavens will.   

verse 17 The toiling spirit of a labouring man,  
Is tossed in casualties of fortunes seas,  
He thinks it greater labour than he can,  
To run his mortal course without an ease:  
Then who can gain or find celestial things,  
Unless their hopes a greater labour brings?   

What volume of thy mind can then contain,  
thoughts, words, & works, which god thinks, speaks, & makes,  
When heaven itself cannot such honour gain,  
Nor Angels know the counsel which God takes:  
Yet if thy heart be wisdoms mansion,  
Thy soul shall gain thy hearts made mention.   

verse 18 Who can in one days space make two days toil?  
Or who in two days space will spend but one?  
The one doth keep his mean in overbroyle,  
The other under mean, because alone:  
Say, what is man without his spirit sways him?  
Say, what's the spirit if the man decays him?   

An ill reformed breath, a life, a hell,  
A going out worse than a coming in,  
For wisdom is the body's sentinel,  
Set to guard life which else would-fall in sin:  
She doth correct and love, sways, and preserves,  
Teaches, and favours, rules, and yet observes.    

Chapter X.  

verse 1 COrrection follows love, love follows hate,  
For love in hate, is hate in too much love,  
So chastisement is preservations mate,  
Instructing and preserving those we prove:  
So wisdom first corrects, then favoureth,  
But fortune favours first, then wavereth.   

First, the first father of this earthly world,  
First man, first father called for after time,  
Vnfashioned and like a heap was hurled;  
Formed and reformed, by wisdom out of slime,  
By nature ill reformed, by wisdom purer,  
She mortal life, she better life's procurer.   

verse 2 3 Alas what was he? but a clod of clay,  
What ever was he? but an ashy cask,  
By wisdom clothed in his best array,  
If better may be best, to choose a task:  
One gave him time to live, she power to reign,  
Making two powers one, one power twain.   

But o malign ill boding wickedness,  
Like bursting gulfs o'erwhelming virtues seed,  
Too furious wrath forsaking happiness,  
Losing ten thousand joys, with one dire deed:  
Cain could see, but folly struck him blind,  
To kill his brother in a raging mind.   

verse 4 Oh too unhappy stroke to end two lives,  
Unhappy actor in death's tragedy,  
Murdering a brother, whose name murder gives,  
Whose staying action, slaughters butchery:  
A weeping part had earth in that same play,  
For she did weep herself to death that day.   

Water distilled from millions of her eyes,  
Upon the long dried carcase of her time,  
Her watery conduits were the weeping skies,  
Which made her womb an overflowing clime:  
Wisdom preserved it, which preserves all good,  
And taught it how to make an ark of wood.   

verse 5 Oh that one board should save so many lives,  
Upon the world's huge billow-tossing sea,  
'twas not the board, 'twas wisdom which survives,  
Wisdom that ark, that board, that fence, that bay:  
The world was made a water-rowling wave,  
But wisdom better hopes assurance gave.   

And when pale malice did advance her flag,  
Upon the raging standard of despite,  
Fiends sovereign, sins mistr●s, and hell's hag,  
Dunne Pluto's Lady, empress of the night:  
Wisdom from whom immortal joy begun,  
Preserved the righteous, as her faultless son.   

verse 6 The wicked perished, but they survived,  
The wicked were ensnared, they were preserved,  
One kept in joy, the one of joy deprived,  
One feeding, fed, the other feeding, starved,  
The food which wisdom gives, is nourishment,  
The food which malice gives, is languishment.   

One feeds; the other feeds, but choking feeds,  
Two contraries in meat, two differing meats,  
This brings forth hate, and this repentance seeds:  
This war, this peace, this battles, this retreats:  
And that example may be truly tried,  
These lived in Sodomes' fire, the other died.   

verse 7 The land will bear me witness they are dead,  
Which for their sakes bear nothing else but death,  
The witness of itself with vices fed,  
A smoky testimony of sins breath:  
This is my witness, my certificate,  
And this is my sin weeping sociate.   

My pen will scarce hold ink to write these woes,  
These woes, the blotted inky lines of sin,  
My paper wrinkles at my sorrows shows,  
And like that land will bring no harvest in:  
Had Lots unfaithful wife been without fault,  
My fresh-inkt pen had never called her salt.   

verse 8 But now my quill the tell-tale of all moans,  
Is savoury bend to aggravate salt tears,  
And wets my paper with salt-water groans,  
Making me stick in agonising fears:  
My paper now is grown to billows might,  
Sometimes I stay my pen, sometimes I writ.   

O foolish pilot I, blind-harted guide,  
Can I not see the cliffs, but rend my bark,  
Must I needs hoist up sails 'gainst wind and tide,  
And leave my soul behind my wisdoms ark,  
Well may I be the glass of my disgrace,  
And set my sin in other sinner's place.   

verse 9 10 But why despair I? here comes wisdoms grace,  
Whose hope doth lead me unto better hap,  
Whose presence doth direct my forerun race,  
Because I serve her as my beauty's map:  
L●ke Cain I shall be restored to heaven,  
From shipwrecks peril to a quiet haven.   

When that by cain's hand Abel was slain,  
His brother Abel, brother to his ire,  
Then Cain fled, to fly destruction's pain,  
God's heavy wrath, against his bloods desire:  
But being fetched again by wisdoms power,  
Had pardon for his deed, love for his lower.   

verse 11 By his repentance he remission had,  
And relaxation from the clog of sin,  
His painful labour, labours riches made,  
His labouring pain, did pleasures profit win:  
'twas wisdom, wisdom made him to repent,  
And newly placed him in his old content.   

His body which was once destruction's cave,  
Black murders territory, mischiefs house,  
By her, these wicked fins were made his slave,  
And she become his bride, his wife, his spouse:  
Enriching him which was too rich before,  
Too rich in vice, in happiness too poor.   

Maegera which did rule within his breast,  
verse 12 And kept foul Lerna's fen within his mind,  
Both now displease him, which once pleased him best,  
Now murdering murder with his being kind:  
These which were once his friends are now his foes,  
Whose practice he retorts with wisdoms blows.   

Ye still lie they in ambush for his soul,  
But he more wiser keeps a wiser way,  
They see him; and they bark, snarl, grin, and howl,  
But wisdom guides his steps he cannot stray:  
By whom he conquers, and through whom he knows  
The fear of God is stronger than his foes.   

verse 13 14 When man was clad in vices livery,  
And sold as bondman unto sins command,  
She she, forsook him not for infamy,  
But freed him from his hearts imprisoned band:  
And when he lay in dungeon of despite,  
She interlinde his grief with her delight.   

Though servile she with him; she was content,  
The prison was her lodge, as well as his,  
Till she the sceptre of the world had lent,  
To glad his fortune, to augment his bliss,  
To punish false accusers of true deeds,  
And raise in him immortal glories seeds.   

verse 15 Say, shall we call her wisdom by her name,  
Or new invent a nominating style,  
Reciting ancient worth to make new fame,  
Or new-old hierarchy from honour's file:  
Say, shall file out fame for virtues store,  
And give a name not thought, nor heard before▪   

Then should we make her two, where now but one,  
Then should we make her common to each tongue,  
Wisdom shall be her name, she wise alone,  
If altar old for new, we do old wrong,  
Call her still wisdom, mistress of our souls,  
Our lives deliverer from our foes controls.   

verse 16 To make that better which is best of all,  
Were to disarm the title of the power,  
And think to make a raise, and make a fall,  
Turn best to worst, a day unto an hour,  
To give two sundry names unto one thing,  
Makes it more commoner in echoes sling.   

She guides man's soul, let her be called a Queen,  
She enters into man, call her a spirit,  
She makes them godly, which have never been  
Call her herself, the image of her might:  
Those which for virtue plead, she prompts their tongue,  
Whose suit no tyrant, nor no King can wrong.   

verse 17 She stands as bar between their mouth and them,  
She prompts their thoughts, their thoughts prompts speeches sound  
Their tongues reward is honour's diadem,  
Their labours hire with duest merit crowned:  
She is as judge and witness of each heart,  
Condemning falsehood, taking virtues part.   

A shadow in the day, star in the night,  
A shadow for to shade them from the sun,  
A star in darkness for to give them light,  
A shade in day, a star when day is done:  
Keeping both courses true, in being true,  
A shade, a star, to shade and lighten you.   

verse 18 19 And had she not, the suns hot burning fire,  
Had scorched the inward palace of your powers,  
Your hot affection cooled your hot desire,  
Two heats once met make cool distilling, showers,  
So likewise had not wisdom been your star,  
You had been prisoner unto Phoebe's car.   

She made the red-sea subject to your craves,  
The surges, calms, the billows, smoothest ways,  
She made rough winds sleep silent in their caves,  
And Aeole watch, whom all the winds obeys:  
Their foes pursuing them, with death and doom,  
Did make the sea their church, the waves their tome   

verse 20 21 They furrowed up a grave to lie therein,  
Burying themselves with their own handy deed,  
Sin digged a pit itself to bury sin,  
Seed ploughed up the ground, to scatter seed:  
The righteous, seeing this same sudden fall,  
Did praise the Lord, and ceased upon them all.   

A glorious prize, though from inglorious hands,  
A worthy spoil, though from unworthy hearts,  
tossed with the Ocean's rage upon the sands,  
Victorious gain, gained by wisdoms arts:  
Which makes the dumb to speak, the blind to see,  
The deaf to hear, the babes have gravity.    

Chapter XI.  

verse 1 2 3 WHat he could have a heart, what heart a thought  
what thought a tongue, what tongue a show of fear  
Having his ship balanste with such a fraught  
Which calms the ever-weeping oceans tears:  
Which prospers every enterprise of war,  
And leads their fortune by good fortunes star.   

A Pilate on the seas, guide on the land,  
Through uncouth desolate untrodden way,  
Through wilderness of woe, which in woes stand,  
Pitching their tents where desolation lay:  
In just revenge encountering with their foes,  
Annexing wrath to wrath, and blows to blows.   

verse 4 But when the heat of overmuch alarms,  
Had made their bodies subject unto thirst,  
And broiled their hearts, in wraths-allaying harms,  
With fiery surges which from body burst:  
That time had made the total sum of life,  
Had not affection strove to end the strife.   

Wisdom affectionating power of zeal,  
Did cool the passion of tormenting heat,  
With water from a rock which did reveal,  
Her dear dear love, placed in affections seat:  
She was their mother twice, she nursed them twice,  
Mingling their heat with cold, their fire with ice:   

verse 5 From whence received they life, from a dead stone?  
From whence received they speech, from a mute rock?  
As if all pleasure did proceed from moan,  
Or all discretion from a senseless block:  
For what was each but silent, dead, and mute?  
As if a thorny thistle should bear fruit.   

'tis strange how that should cure, which erst did kill,  
Give life, in whom destruction is enshrinde,  
Alas the stone is dead, and hath no skill,  
Wisdom gave life and love, 'twas wisdoms mind:  
She made the store, which poisoned her foes,  
Give life, give cure, give remedy to those.   

verse 6 7 Blood-quaffing Mars, which washed himself in gore,  
Reigned in her foes thirst-slaughter-drinking hearts,  
Their heads the bloody storehouse of blood's store,  
Their minds made bloody streams disbursed in parts:  
What was it else but butchery and hate?  
To przie young infant's blood at murder's rate:   

But let them surfeit on their bloody cup,  
Carousing to their own destruction's health,  
We drink the siluer-streamed water up,  
Which unexpected flowed from wisdoms wealth:  
Declaring by the thirst of our dry souls,  
How all our foes did swim in murders bowls.   

verse 8 What greater ill than famine? or what ill  
Can be compared to the fire of thirst?  
One be as both, for both the body kill,  
And first brings torments in tormenting first:  
Famine is death itself, and thirst no less,  
If bread and water do not yield redress.   

Yet this affliction is but virtues trial,  
Proceeding from the mercy of God's ire,  
To see if it can find his truth's denial,  
His judgements breach, attempts contempts desire:  
But oh, the wicked sleeping in misdeed,  
Had death on whom they fed, on whom they feed.   

verse 9 Judged, condemned, and punished in one breath,  
Arraigned, tormented, tortured in one law,  
Judged like captives with destructions wreath,  
Arraigned like thieves before the bar of awe:  
Condemned, tormented, tortured, punished,  
Like captives bold, thieves unastonished.   

Say God did suffer famine for to reign,  
And thirst to rule amongst the choicest heart,  
Yet fatherlike he eased them of their pain,  
And proved them, how they could endure a smart:  
But as a righteous King condemned the others,  
As wicked sons unto as wicked mothers.   

verse 10 For where the devil reigns, there sure is hell,  
Because the tabernacle of his name,  
His mansion-house, the place where he doth dwell,  
The coal-black visage of his nigrum fame:  
So if the wicked live upon the earth,  
Earth is their hell, from good to worse birth.   

If present, they are present to their tears,  
If absent, they are present to their woes,  
Like as the snail which shows all that she bears,  
Making her back the mountain of her shoes:  
Present to their death, not absent to their care,  
Their punishment alike where ere they are.   

verse 11 Why say they mourned, lamented, greeude, and wailed,  
And fed lament with care, care with lament?  
Say, how can sorrow be with sorrow bailed,  
When tears consumeth that which smiles hath lent?  
This makes a double prison, double chain,  
A double mourning, and a double pain.   

Captivity hoping for freedoms hap,  
At length doth pay the ransom of her hope,  
Yet frees her thought from any clogging clap,  
Though back be almost burst with irons cope:  
So they endured the more, because they knew,  
That never till the spring the flowers grew.   

verse 12 And that by patience cometh heart's delight,  
Long-sought for bliss, Long far fet happiness,  
Content they were to die for virtues right,  
Sith joy should be the pledge of heaviness:  
When unexpected things were brought to pass,  
They were amazed and wondered where God was.   

He whom they did deny now they extol,  
He Whom they do extol, they did deny,  
He whom they did deride, they do enrol,  
In register of heavenly majesty:  
Their thirst was ever thirst, repentance stopped it,  
Their life was ever dead, repentance propped it.   

And had it not their thirst had burnt their hearts,  
verse 13 Their hearts had cried out for their tongues reply,  
Their tongues had raised all their bodies parts,  
Their bodies once in arms had made all die:  
Their foolish practices had made them wise,  
Wise in their hearts, though foolish in their eyes.   

But they (alas) were dead to worship death,  
Senseless in worshipping all shadowed shows,  
Breathless wasting of so vain a breath,  
Dumb in performance of their tongues suppose:  
They in adoring death, in death's behest,  
Were punished with life, and living beasts.   

verse 14 15 Thus for a show of beasts, they substance have,  
The thing itself against the shadows will,  
Which makes the shadows, sad woes in life's grave,  
As nought impossible in heavens skill;  
God sent sad-ohes, for shadows of lament,  
Lions, and bears, in multitudes he sent.   

Newly created beasts; which sight ne'er saw,  
Unknown, which neither eye nor ear did know,  
To breath out blasts of fire against their law,  
And cast out smoke with a tempestuous blow:  
Making their eyes the chambers of their fears,  
Darting forth fire as lightning from the spheres.   

verse 16 Thus marching one by one, and side by side,  
By the profane ill-limnd, pale spectacles,  
Making both fire and fear to be their guide,  
Pulled down their vaine-adoring chronicles:  
Then staring in their faces spit forth fire,  
Which heats, and cools, their frosty-hot desire.   

Frosty in fear, unfrosty in their shame,  
Cool in lament, hot in their powers disgraces,  
Like lukewarm coals, half kindled with the flame,  
Sat white and red mustering within their faces:  
The beasts themselves did not so much dismay them,  
As did their ugly eyes aspects decay them.   

verse 17 Yet what are beasts, but subjects unto man,  
By the decree of heaven, degree of earth?  
They have more strength than he, yet more he can,  
He having reasons store, they reasons dearth,  
But these were made to break subjections rod:  
And show the stubernnesse of man to God.   

Had they not been ordained to such intent,  
God's word was able to supplant their powers,  
And root out them which were to mischief bend,  
With wrath & vengeance, minutes in deaths hours:  
But God doth keep a full-direct-true course,  
And measures pities love, with mercy's force.   

verse 18 19 The wicked thinks, God hath no might at all,  
Because he makes no show of what he is,  
When God is loath to give their pride a fall,  
Or cloud the day wherein they do amiss;  
But should his strength be shown his anger rise,  
Who could withstand the sunne-caves of his eyes.   

Alas, what is the world against his ire?  
As snowy mountains 'gainst the golden sun,  
Forced for to melt, and thaw with frosty fire,  
Fire hid in frost, though frost of cold begun:  
As dew-distilling drops fall from the morn,  
So nw-destructions claps fall from his scorn.   

verse 20 But his revenge lies smothered in his smiles,  
His wrath lies sleeping in his mercy's joy,  
Which very seldom rise at mischiefs coil's,  
And will not wake for every sinner's toy:  
Boundless his mercies are, like heavens grounds,  
They have no limits they, nor heaven no bounds.   

The promontory top of his true love,  
Is like the end of never-ending streams,  
Like Nilus' water-springs which inward move,  
And have no outward show of shadows beams:  
God sees, and will not see, the sins of men,  
Because they should amend, amend? oh when?   

verse 21 The mother loves the issues of her womb,  
As doth the father his begotten son,  
She makes her lap their quiet sleeping tomb,  
He seeks to care for life which new begun:  
What care hath he (think then) that cares for all,  
For aged, and for young, for great and small?   

Is not that father careful, filled with care,  
Loving, long suffering, merciful, and kind;  
Which made with love all things that in love are,  
Unmerciful to none, to none unkind,  
Had man been hateful, man had never been,  
But perished in the spring-time of his green.   

verse 22 23 But how can hate abide where love remains?  
Or how can anger follow mercy's path?  
How can unkindness hinder kindness gains?  
Or how can murder bathe in pities bathe?  
Love, mercy, kindness, pity, either's mate,  
Doth scorn unkindness, anger, murder, hate.   

Had it not been thy will to make the earth,  
It still had been a Chaos unto time,  
But 'twas thy will that man should have a birth,  
And be preserved by good, condemned by crime:  
Yet pity reigns within thy mercy's store,  
Thou sparest & lov'st us all, what would we more?    

Chapter XII.  

verse 1 2 WHen all the elements of mortal life,  
Were placed in the mansion of their skin,  
Each having daily motion to be rife,  
Closed in that body which doth close them in,  
God sent his holy spirit unto man,  
Which did begun when first the world began.   

So that the body which was king of all,  
Is subject unto that which now is king,  
Which chasteneth those whom mischief doth exhale,  
Unto misdeeds from whence destructions spring:  
Yet merciful it is though it be chief,  
Converting vice to good, sin to belief.   

verse 3 Old time is often lost in being balld,  
Balld because old, old because living long,  
It is rejected oft when it is called,  
And wears out age with age, still being young:  
Twice children we, twice feeble, and once strong,  
But being old, we sin, and do youth wrong.   

The more we grow in age, the more in vice,  
A house-room long unswept will gather dust,  
Our long unthawed souls will freeze to ice,  
And wear the badge of long imprisoned rust:  
So those inhabitants in youth twice borne,  
Were old in sin, more old in heavens scorn.   

verse 4 5 Committing works as inky spots of fame,  
Commencing words like foaming vices waves,  
Committing and commencing mischiefs name,  
With works and words sworn to be vices slaves:  
As sorcery, witchcraft, mischievous deeds,  
And sacrifice which wicked fancies feeds.   

Well may I call that wicked which is more,  
I rather would be low than be too high,  
Oh wondrous practisers clothed all in gore,  
To end that life, which their own lives did buy:  
More than swinelike eating man's bowels up,  
Their banquets dish, their blood their banquets cup.   

verse 6 7 Butchers unnatural, worse by their trade,  
Whose house the bloody shambles of decay,  
More than a slaughter-house which butchers made,  
More than an Eschip silly bodies pray:  
Thorough whose hearts a bloody shambles runs,  
They do not butcher beasts, but their own sons.   

Chief murderers of their souls, which their souls bought  
Extinguishers of light which their lives gave,  
More than knive-butchers they, butchers in thought,  
Sextons to dig their own begotten grave:  
Making their habitations old in sin,  
Which God doth reconcile and new begin.   

verse 8 9 That murdering place was turned into delight,  
That bloody slaughter-house to pieces breast,  
That lawless palace, to a place of right,  
That slaughtering shambles to a living rest:  
Made meet for justice, fit for happiness,  
Unmeet for sin, unfit for wickedness.   

Yet the inhabitants, though mischiefs slaves,  
Were not dead-drencht in their destruction's flood,  
God hoped to raise repentance from sins graves,  
And hoped that pains delay would make them good:  
Not that he was unable to subdue them,  
But that their sins repentance should renew them.   

verse 10 Delay is took for virtue and for vice,  
Delay is good, and yet delay is bad,  
'tis virtue when it thaws repentance ice,  
'tis vice to put off things we have or had:  
But here it followeth repentance way,  
Therefore it is not sins nor mischiefs pray.   

Delay in punishment is double pain,  
And every pain makes a twice double thought,  
Doubling the way to our lives better gain,  
Doubling repentance which is single bought:  
For fruitless grafts when they are too much lopped,  
More fruitless are, for why their fruits are stopped.   

verse 11 So fares it with the wicked plants of sin,  
The roots of mischief, tops of villainy,  
They worse are with too much punishing,  
Because by nature prone to injury:  
For 'tis but folly to supplant his thought,  
Whose heart is wholly given to be nought.   

These seeded were in seed; oh cursed plant,  
Seeded with other seed, Oh cursed root,  
Too much of good doth turn unto goods want,  
As too much seed doth turn to too much soot:  
Bitter in taste, presuming of their height,  
Like misty vapours in blacke-coloured night.   

But god whose powerful arms one strength doth hold  
verse 12 Scorning to stain his force upon their faces,  
Will send his messengers both hot and cold,  
To make them shadows of their own disgraces:  
His hot Ambassador is fire, his cold  
Is wind, which two scorn for to be controlled.   

For who dares say unto the King of kings,  
What hast thou done, which ought to be undone?  
Or who dares stand against thy judgements stings?  
Or dare accuse thee for the nations moan?  
Or who dare say, revenge this ill for me?  
Or stand against the Lord with villainy?   

verse 13 What he hath done he knows, what he will do,  
He weigheth with the balance of his eyes,  
What judgement he pronounceth must be so,  
And those he oppresseth cannot rise:  
Revenge lies in his hands, when he doth please,  
He can revenge, and love, punish, and ease.   

The carved spectacle which workmen make,  
Is subject unto them, not they to it,  
They which from God a lively form do take,  
Should much more yield unto their maker's wit:  
Sith there is none but he which hath his thought,  
Caring for that which he hath made of nought.   

verse 14 The clay is subject to the potter's hands,  
Which with a new device makes a new mole,  
And what are we I pray but clayey bands,  
With ashy body, joined to cleaner soul?  
Yet we once made, scorn to be made again,  
But live in sin like clayey lumps of pain.   

Yet if hot anger smother cool delight,  
he'll mould our bodies in destruction's form,  
And make ourselves as subjects to his might,  
In the least fuel of his anger's storm:  
Nor king, nor tyrant, dare ask or demand,  
What punishment is this thou hast in hand?   

verse 15 We all are captives to thy regal throne,  
Out prison is the earth, our bands our sins,  
And our accuser our own bodies groan,  
priest down with vices weights, and mischiefs gins:  
Before the bar of heaven we plead for favour,  
To cleanse our sin-bespotted bodies savour.   

Thou righteous art, our pleading then is right,  
Thou merciful, we hope for mercy's grace,  
Thou orderest every thing with looke-on sight;  
Behold us prisoners in earth's wandering race:  
We know thy pity is without a bound,  
And sparest them which in some faults be found.   

verse 16 Thy power is as thyself, without an end,  
Beginning all to end, yet ending none,  
Son unto virtues son, and wisdoms friend,  
Original of bliss to virtue shown:  
Beginning good which never ends in vice,  
Beginning flames which never end in ice.   

For righteousness is good in such a name,  
It righteous is, 'tis good in such a deed,  
A lamp it is, fed with discretion's flame,  
Gins in seed, but never ends in seed:  
By this we know the Lord is just and wise,  
Which causeth him to spare us when he tries.   

verse 17 just, because justice weighs what wisdom thinks,  
Wise, because wisdom thinks what justice weighs,  
One virtue maketh two, and two more links,  
Wisdom is just, and justice never strays:  
The help of one doth make the other better,  
As is the want of one the others letter.   

But wisdom hath two properties in wit,  
As justice hath two contraries in force,  
Heat added unto heat augmenteth it,  
As too much water bursts a watercourse:  
God's wisdom too much proved doth breed gods hate,  
God's justice too much moved breeds God's debate.   

verse 18 Although the ashy prison of fire-durst,  
Doth keep the flaming heat imprisoned in,  
Yet sometime will it burn, when flame it must,  
And burst the ashy cave where it hath been:  
So if God's mercy pass the bounds of mirth,  
It is not mercy then, but mercy's dearth.   

Yet how can love breed hate, without hate's love?  
God doth not hate to love, nor love to hate,  
His equity doth every action prove,  
Smothering with love that spiteful envies fate:  
For should the teen of anger trace his brow,  
The very puffs of rage would drive the plow.   

verse 19 But God did end his toil when world begun,  
Now like a lover studies how to please,  
And win their hearts again, whom mischief won,  
Lodged in the mansion of their sins disease:  
He made each mortal man two ears, two eyes,  
To hear and see; yet he must make them wise.   

If imitation should direct man's life,  
'tis life to imitate a living corpse,  
The things example makes the thing more rife,  
God loving is, why do we want remorse?  
He put repentance into sinful hearts,  
And said their fruitless souls, with fruitful arts.   

verse 20 21 If such a boundless Ocean of good deeds,  
Should have such influence from mercy's stream,  
Kissing both good, and ill, flowers, and weeds,  
As doth the sunny flame of Titan's beam,  
A greater Tethis than should mercy be,  
In flowing unto them which loveth thee.   

The sun which shines in heaven doth light the earth  
The earth which shines in sin doth spite the haau'n,  
Sin is earth's sun, the sun of heaven sins dearth,  
Both odd in light, being of height note even:  
God's mercy then which spares both good and ill,  
Doth care for both, though not alike in will.   

verse 22 Can vice be virtues mate, or virtues meat?  
Her company is bad, her food more worse,  
She shames to sit upon her betters seat,  
As subject beasts wanting the Lion's force,  
Mercy is virtues badge, foe to disdain,  
Virtue is vices stop, and mercies gain.   

Yet God is merciful, to mischief flows,  
More merciful in sins and sinners want,  
God chast'neth us, and punisheth our foes,  
Like sluggish drones, amongst a labouring ant:  
We hope for mercy at our body's doom,  
We hope for heaven, the bail of earthly tomb.   

verse 23 What hope they for, what hope have they of heaven?  
They hope for vice, and they have hope of hell,  
From whence their soul's eternity is given,  
But such eternity which pains can tell:  
They live; but better were it for to die,  
Immortal in their pain and misery.   

Hath hell such freedom to devour souls?  
Are souls so bold to rush in such a place?  
God gives hell power of vice, which hell controls:  
Vice makes her followers bold with armed face,  
God tortures both, the mistress and the man,  
And ends in pain, that which in vice began.   

verse 24 A bad beginning makes a worse end,  
Without repentance meet the middle way,  
Making a mediocrity their friend,  
Which else would be their foe, because they stray:  
But if repentance miss the middle line,  
The sun of virtue ends in wests decline.   

So did it far with these, which strayed too far,  
Beyond the measure of the middayes' eye,  
In errors ways, lead without virtues star,  
Esteeming beastlike powers for deity:  
Whose heart no thought of understanding meant,  
Whose tongue no word of understanding sent.   

verse 25 Like infant babes bearing their nature's shell,  
Upon the tender heads of tendrer wit,  
which tongue-tied are, having no tale to tell,  
To drive away the childhood of their fit:  
Unfit to tune their tongue with wisdoms string,  
Too fit to quench their thirst in folly's spring.   

But they were trees to babes, babes sprigs to them,  
They not so good as these, in being nought,  
In being nought, the more from vices stem,  
Whose essence cannot come without a thought;  
To punish them, is punishment in season;  
They children like, without or wit, or reason.   

verse 26 To be derided, is to be half dead,  
Derision bears a part tween life and death,  
Shame follows her with misery half fed,  
Halfe-breathing life, to make half life and breath:  
Yet here was mercy shown, their deeds were more,  
Then could be wiped off by derisions score.   

This mercy is the warning of misdeeds,  
A trumpet summoning to virtues walls,  
To notify their hearts which mischief feeds,  
Whom vice instructs, whom wickedness exhals:  
But if derision can not murder sin,  
Then shame shall end, and punishment begin.   

verse 27 For many shameless are, bold, stout in ill,  
Then how can shame take root in shameless plants,  
When they their brows with shameless furrows fill,  
And ploughs each place, which one plow-furrow wants:  
Then being armed 'gainst shame with shameless face,  
How can derision take a shameful place?   

But punishment may smooth their wrinkled brow,  
And set shame on the forehead of their rage,  
Guiding the forefront of that shameless row,  
Making it smooth in shame, though not in age:  
Then will they say, that God is just and true,  
But 'tis too late, damnation will ensue.    

Chapter XIII.  

verse 1 THe branch must needs be weak, if root be so,  
The root must needs be weak, it branches fall,  
Nature is vain, man cannot be her foe,  
Because from nature, and at natures call:  
Nature is vain, and we proceed from nature,  
Vain therefore is our birth, and vain our feature.   

One body may have two diseases sore,  
Not being two, it may be joined to two,  
Nature is one itself, yet two and more,  
Vain, ignorant of God, of good, of show,  
Which not regards the things which god hath done,  
And what things are to do, what new begun.   

verse 2 Why do I blame the tree? when 'tis the leaves,  
Why blame I nature? for her mortal men,  
Why blame I men? 'tis she, 'tis she that weaves,  
That weaves, that wafts unto destruction's pen:  
Then being blameful both, because both vain,  
I leave to both, their vanities due pain.   

To prise the shadow at the substance rate,  
Is a vain substance of a shadows hue,  
To think the son to be the father's mate,  
Earth to rule earth, because of earthly view:  
To think fire wind, air stars, water, and heaven,  
To be as Gods, from whom their selves are given.   

verse 3 Fire as a God? oh irreligious sound,  
Wind as a God? oh vain, oh vainest voice,  
Air as a God? when 'tis but dusky ground,  
Star as a God? when 'tis but Phoebe's choice:  
Water a God? which first by God was made,  
Heaven a God? which first by God was laid.   

Say all hath beauty, excellence, array,  
Yet beautified they are, they were, they be,  
By God's bright excellence of brightest day,  
Which first implanted our first beauty's tree:  
If then the painted outside of the show,  
Be radiant, what is the inward row.   

verse 4 If that the shadow of the body's skin,  
Be so illumined with the sun-shined soul,  
What is the thing itself which is within,  
More wrenched, more cleansed, more purified from foul:  
If elemental powers have God's thought,  
Say what is God, which made them all of nought.   

It is a wonder for to see the sky,  
And operation of each airy power,  
A marvel, that the heaven should be so high,  
And let fall such a low distilling shower:  
Then needs must he be high, higher than all,  
Which made both high and low with one tongues call.   

verse 5 The workman mightier is then his handworke,  
In making that which else would be unmade,  
The nere-thought thing, doth always hidden lurk,  
Without the maker in a making trade:  
For had not God made man, man had not been,  
But nature had decayed, and near been seen.   

The workman never showing of his skill,  
Doth live unknown to man, though known to wit,  
Had mortal birth been never in God's will,  
God had been God, but yet unknown in it:  
Then having made the glory of earth's beauty,  
'tis reason earth should reverence him in duty.   

verse 6 The savage people have a supreme head,  
A king, though savage as his subjects are,  
Yet they with his observances are lead,  
Obeying his behests what ere they were:  
The Turks, the infidels, all have a Lord,  
Whom they observe in thought, in deed, in word.   

And shall we; differing from their savage kind,  
Having a soul to live and to believe,  
Be rude in thought, in deed, in word, in mind,  
Not seeking him which should our woes relieve:  
Oh no dear brethren, seek our God, our fame,  
Then if we err we shall have lesser blame.   

verse 7 How can we err, we seek for ready way,  
Oh that my tongue could fetch that word again,  
Whose very accent makes me go astray,  
Breathing that erring wind into my brain▪  
My word is past and cannot be recalde,  
It is like aged time, now waxed bald.   

For they which go astray in seeking God,  
Do miss the joyful narrow-footed path,  
(joyful, thrice joyful way to his abode,)  
Nought seeing but their shadows in a bath:  
Narcissus-like pining to see a show,  
Hindering the passage, which their feet should go.   

verse 8 9 Narcissus fantasy did die to kiss,  
O sugared kiss died with a poisoned lip,  
The fantasies of these do die to miss,  
Oh tossed fantasies, in folly's ship:  
He died to kiss the shadow of his face,  
These live and die to lives and death's disgrace.   

A fault without amends, crime without ease,  
A sin without excuse, death without aid,  
To love the world, and what the world did please,  
To know the earth, wherein their sins are laid:  
They knew the world, but not the L. that framed it  
They knew the earth, but not the L. that named i●   

verse 10 Narcissus drowned himself, for his selves show,  
Striving to heal himself, did himself harm,  
These drowned themselves on earth, with their selves woe,  
He in a water-brook by fury's charm;  
They made dry earth wet with their follies weeping,  
He made wet earth dry, with his furies sleeping.   

Then leave him to his sleep: return to those,  
Which ever wake in miseries constraints,  
Whose eyes are hollow caves, and made sleeps foes,  
Two dungeons dark with sin, blind with complaints:  
They called images which man first found,  
Immortal Gods: for which, their tongues are bound.   

verse 11 12 Gold was a God with them, a golden God,  
Like children in a pageant of gay toys,  
Adoring images for saints abode,  
Oh vain vain spectacles of vainer joys:  
Putting their hope in blocks, their trust in stones,  
Hoping to trust, trusting to hope in moans.   

As when a carpenter cuts down a tree,  
Meet for to make a vessel for man's use,  
He pareth all the bark most cunningly,  
With the sharp shaver of his knives abuse,  
Ripping the silly womb with no entreat,  
Making her woundy chips to dress his meat.   

verse 13 14 Her body's bones are often rough and hard,  
Crooked with age's growth, growing with crooks,  
And full of wether-chinkes, which seasons marrde,  
Knobbie and rugged, bending in like hooks:  
Yet knowing age can never want a fault,  
Encounters it with a sharp knife's assault.   

And carves it well though it be self-like ill,  
Observing leisure, keeping time and place,  
According to the cunning of his skill,  
Making the figure of a mortal face:  
Or like some ugly beast in ruddy mould,  
Hiding each cranny with a painters fold.   

verse 15 16 It is a world to see, to mark, to view,  
How age can botch up age, with crooked thread,  
How his old hands, can make an old tree new,  
And dead-like he, can make another dead:  
Yet makes a substantive, able to bear it,  
And she an adjective, nor see, nor hear it.   

A wall it is itself, yet wall with wall,  
Hath great supportance bearing either part,  
The image like an adjective would fall,  
Were it not closed with an iron heart:  
The workman being old himself, doth know,  
What great infirmities old age can show.   

verse 17 Therefore to stop the river of extremes,  
He burst into the flowing of his wit,  
Tossing his brains with more than thousand themes,  
To have a wooden stratagem so fit:  
wooden, because it doth belong to wood,  
His purpose may be wise, his reason good.   

His purpose wise? no, foolish, fond, and vain,  
His reason good? no, wicked, vild, and ill;  
To be the author of his own lives pain,  
To be the tragic actor of his will:  
Praying to that which he before had framed,  
For welcome faculties, (and not ashamed.)   

verse 18 19 Calling to folly, for discretion's sense,  
Calling to sickness, for sick bodies health,  
Calling to weakness, for a stronger fence,  
Calling to poverty, for better wealth:  
Praying to death, for life, for this he prayed,  
Requiring help of that, which wanteth aid.   

Desiring that of it, which he not had,  
And for his journey, that which cannot go,  
And for his gain, her furdrance, to make glad,  
The work which he doth take in hand to do:  
These windy words do rush against the wall  
She cannot speak, 'twill sooner make her f●●●.    

Chapter XIIII.  

verse 1 AS doth one little spark make a great flame,  
Kindled from forth the bosom of the flint,  
As doth one plague infect with itself name,  
With watery humours making bodies dint:  
So, even so, this idol worshipper,  
Doth make another idol practiser.   

The shipman cannot teem dame Tethis waves,  
Within a winde-taught-capring anchorage,  
Before he prostrate lies, and suffrage craves,  
And have a block to be his fortune's gage:  
More crooked than his stern, yet he implores her,  
More rotten then his ship, yet he adores her.   

verse 2 3 4 Who made this form? he that was formed and made,  
'twas avarice, 'twas she that found it out,  
She made her craftsman crafty in his trade,  
He cunning was in bringing it about:  
Oh had he made the painted show to speak,  
It would have called him vain, herself to wreak.   

It would have made him blush alive, though he,  
Did die her colour with a deadly blush,  
Thy povidence (o father) doth decree,  
A sure sure way, amongst the waves to rush:  
Thereby declaring that thy power is such,  
That though a man were weak, thou canst do much.   

verse 5 What is one single bar to double death?  
One death in death, the other death in fear,  
This single bar, a board, a poor board's breath,  
Yet stops the passage of each Neptune's tear:  
To see how many lives one board can have,  
To see how many lives one board can save.   

How was this board first made? by wisdoms art,  
Which is not vain, but firm, not weak, but sure,  
Therefore do men commit their living heart,  
To planks which either life or death procure:  
Cutting the storms in two, parting the wind,  
Ploughing the sea till they their harbour find.   

verse 6 The sea whose mountain billows, passing bounds  
Rushes upon the hollow-sided bark,  
With rough-sent kisses from the water grounds,  
Raising a foaming heat with rages spark,  
Yet sea, nor waves, can make the shipman fear,  
He knows that die he must, he cares not where.   

For had his timorous heart been died in white,  
And sent an echo of resembling woe,  
Wisdom had been unknown in folly's night,  
The sea had been a desolations show:  
But one world hope lay hovering on the sea,  
When one world's hap did end with one decay.   

verse 7 8 Yet Phoebus drowned in the oceans world,  
Phoebe disgraced with Tethis billow-roules,  
And Phoebus' firie-golden-wreath vncurled,  
was seated at the length in brightness souls:  
Man tossed in wettest wilderness of seas,  
Had seed on seed, increase upon increase.   

Their mansion-house a tree upon a wave,  
O happy tree, upon unhappy ground,  
But every tree is not ordained to have  
Such blessedness, such virtue, such abound:  
Some trees are carved images of nought,  
Yet Godlike reverenced, adored, besought.   

verse 9 Are the trees nought, alas, they senseless are,  
The hands which fashion them, condemn their growth,  
Cuts down their branches, veils their forehead bare,  
Both made in sin, though not sins equal both:  
First God made man, and vice did make him new,  
And man made vice from vice; and so it grew.   

Now is her harvest greater than her good,  
Her wont winter, turned to summer's air,  
Her ice to heat, her sprig to cedars wood,  
Her hate to love, her loathsome filth to fair:  
Man loves her well by mischief new created,  
God hates her ill, because of virtue hated.   

verse 10 O foolish man mounted upon decay,  
More ugly than Alastor's pitchy back,  
Night's dismal summoner, and end of day,  
Carrying all dusky vapours hemmed in black:  
Behold thy downfall ready at thy hand,  
Behold thy hopes wherein thy hazards stand.   

Oh spurn away that block out of thy way,  
With virtues appetite, and wisdoms force,  
That stumbling block of folly and decay,  
That snare which doth ensnare thy treading corpse:  
Behold thy body falls, let virtue bear it,  
Behold thy soul doth fall, let wisdom rear it.   

verse 11 Say art thou young, or old, tree, or a bud,  
Thy face is so disfigured with sin,  
Young I do think thou art, in what? in good,  
But old I am assured by wrinkled skin:  
Thy lips, thy tongue, thy heart, is young in praying,  
But lips, and tongue, and heart is old in straying.   

Old in adoring idols, but too young,  
In the observance of divinest law,  
Young in adoring God, though old in tongue,  
Old and too old, young, and too young in awe:  
Beginning that, which doth begin misdeeds,  
Inventing vice, which all thy body feeds.   

verse 12 13 But this corrupting and infecting food,  
This caterpillar of eternity,  
The foe to bliss, the canker unto good,  
The new accustomed way of vanity:  
It hath not ever been, nor shall it be,  
But perish in the branch of folly's tree.   

As her descent was vanities aline,  
So her descending like to her descent,  
Here shall she have an end, in hell no fine,  
Vain glory brought her, vainly to be spent:  
You know all vanity draws to an end,  
Then needs must she decay because her friend.   

verse 14 Is there more folly then to weep at joy,  
To make eyes watery, when they should be dry,  
To grieve at that, which murders griefs annoy,  
To keep a shower where the sun should lie?  
But yet this folly-cloude doth oft appear,  
When face should smile and watery eye be clear.   

The father mourns to see his son life-dead,  
But seldom mourns to see his son dead-liued,  
He cares for earthly lodge, not heavens bed,  
For death in life, not life in death survived:  
Keeping the outward shadow of his face,  
To work the inward substance of disgrace.   

verse 15 Keeping a show to counterpoise the deed,  
Keeping a shadow to be substance heir,  
To raise the thing itself from shadows seed,  
And make an element of lifeless air:  
Adoring that which his own hands did frame,  
Whose heart invention gave, whose tongue the name.   

But could infection keep one settled place,  
The poison would not lodge in every breast,  
Nor feed the heart, the mind, the soul, the face,  
Lodging but in the carcase of her rest:  
But this Idolatry once in man's use,  
Was made a custom then without excuse.   

verse 16 Nay more: it was at tyrannies command,  
And tyrants cannot speak without a doom,  
Whose judgement doth proceed from heart and hand,  
From heart in rage, from hand in bloody tomb:  
That if through absence any did neglect it,  
Presence should pay the ransom which reject it.   

Then to avoid the doom of present hate,  
Their absence did perform their presence want,  
Making the image of a kingly state,  
As if they had new seed from sins old plant:  
Flattering the absence of old mischiefs mother,  
With the like form and presence of another.   

verse 17 Making an absence with a present sight,  
Or rather presence with an absent view,  
Deceiving vulgars' with a day of night,  
Which know not good from bad, nor false from true:  
A craftsman cunning in his crafty trade,  
Beguiling them with that which he had made.   

Like as a vane is turned with every blast,  
Until it point unto the windy clime,  
So stand the people at his word aghast,  
He making old, new form in new-olde time,  
Defies, and deifies all with one breath,  
Making them live and die, and all in death,   

verse 18 They like to Tantalus are fed with shoes,  
Shows which exasperate: and cannot cure,  
They see the painted shadow of suppose,  
They see her sight, yet what doth sight procure?  
Like Tantalus they feed, and yet they starve,  
Their food is carved to them, yet hard to carve.   

The craftsman feeds them with a starving meat,  
Which doth not fill but empty hungers gape,  
He makes the idol comely, fair, and great,  
With well limned visage, and best fashioned shape:  
Meaning to give it to some noble view,  
And feign his beauty with that flattering hue,   

verse 19 Enamoured with the sight, the people grew,  
To divers apparitions of delight,  
Some did admire the portraiture so new,  
Hewed from the standard of an old trees hight,  
Some were allured through beauty of the face,  
With outward eye to work the soul's disgrace.   

Adored like a God though made by man,  
To make a God of man, a man of God,  
'tis more than humane life or could, or can,  
Though multitudes applause in error trod,  
I never knew since mortal lives abode,  
That man could make a man much less a God.   

verse 20 Yes man can make his shame, without a maker,  
Borrowing the essence from restored sin,  
Man can be virtues foe, and vices taker,  
Welcome himself without a welcome in:  
Can he do this? yea more, oh shameless ill,  
Shameful in shame, shameless in wisdoms will.   

The river of his vice can have no bound,  
But breaks into the ocean of deceit,  
Deceiving life with measures of dead ground,  
With carved idols, disputations bait:  
Making captivity clothed all in moan,  
Be subject to a God made of a stone.   

verse 21 Too stony hearts had they which made this law,  
Oh had they been as stony as the name,  
They never had brought vulgars' in such awe,  
To be destructions pray, and mischiefs game:  
Had they been stone-dead both in look & favour  
They never had made life of such a savour.   

Yet was not this a too sufficient doom,  
Sent from the root of their sin-oregrowne tongue,  
To cloud gods knowledge with hell mischiefs gloom  
To overthrow truths right with falsehoods wrong:  
But daily practised a perfect way,  
Still to begin and never end to stray.   

verse 22 23 For either murder's paw did gripe their hearts,  
With whispering horrors drumming in each ear,  
Or other villainies did play their parts,  
Augmenting horror to new strucken fear:  
Making their hands more than a shambles stall,  
To slay their children ceremonial.   

No place was free from stain of blood or vice,  
Their life was marked for death, their soul for sin,  
Marriage, for fornications thawed ice,  
Thought for despair, body for either's gin:  
Slaughter did either end what life begun,  
Or lust did end what both had left undone.   

verse 24 25 The one was sure, although the other fail,  
For vice hath more competitors than one,  
A greater troop doth evermore avail,  
And villainy is never found alone,  
The bloodhound follows that which slaughter killed  
And theft doth follow what deceit hath spilled.   

Corruption mate to infidelity,  
For that which is unfaithful is corrupt,  
Tumults are school fellows to perjury,  
For both are full when either one hath supped:  
Vnthankfullnes, defiling, and disorders,  
Are fornications and uncleanness borders.   

See what a sort of rebels are in arms,  
verse 26 To root out virtue, to supplant her reign,  
Opposing of themselves against all harms,  
To the deposing of her empire's gain:  
O double knot of triple miseries,  
Oh triple knot, twice, thrice, in villainies.   

O idoll-worshipping, thou mother art,  
She procreatresse of a he offence,  
I know thee now, thou bear'st a woman's part,  
Thou nature hast of her, she of thee sense:  
These are thy daughters, too too like the mother,  
Black sins I dim you all with inky smother   

verse 27 My pen shall be officious in this scene,  
To let your heart's blood in a wicked vein,  
To make your bodies clear, your souls as clean,  
To cleanse the sinks of sin, with virtues rain:  
Behold your coal-black blood my writing ink,  
My papers poisoned meat, my pens fowl drink.   

New christened are you, with your own new blood,  
But mad before; savage, and desperate,  
Prophesying lies, not knowing what was good,  
Living ungodly evermore in hate:  
Thundering out oaths, pale Sergeants of despair,  
Swore, and forswore, not knowing what you were.   

verse 28 Now look upon the spectacle of shame,  
The well-limnd image of an ill-limnd thought,  
Say, are you worthy now of praise or blame,  
That such selfe-scandall in your own selves wrought?  
You were heartsick before I let you blood,  
But now heart-well since I have done you good.   

Now wipe blind folly from your seeing eyes,  
And drive destruction from your happy mind,  
Your folly now is wit, not foolishwise,  
Destruction, happiness, not mischief blind:  
You put your trust in idols, they deceived you,  
You put your trust in God, and he received you.   

verse 29 Had not repentance grounded on your souls,  
The climes of good or ill, virtue or vice,  
Had it not flowed into the tongues enrolls,  
Ascribing mischiefs hate, with good advice:  
Your tongue had spilled your soul, your soul your tongue  
Wronging each function with a double wrong.   

Your first attempt was placed in a show,  
Imaginary show without a deed,  
The next attempt was perjury, the foe  
To just demeanours, and to virtues seed:  
Two sins, two punishments, and one in two,  
Makes two in one, and more than one can do.   

verse 30 Four scourges from one pain, all comes from sin,  
Single, yet double, double, yet in four,  
It slays the soul, it hems the body in,  
It spills the mind, it doth the heart devour:  
Gnawing upon the thoughts, feeding on blood,  
For why, she lives in sin, but dies in good.   

She taught their souls to stray, their tongues to swear,  
Their thought to think amiss, their life to die,  
Their heart to err, their mischief to appear,  
Their head to sin, their feet to tread awry:  
This scene might well have been destructions tent,  
To pay with pain, what sin with joy hath spent.    

Chapter XV.  

verse 1 But God will never die his hands with blood,  
His heart with hate, his throne with cruelty,  
His face with fury's map, his brow with cloud,  
His reign with rage, his crown with tyranny:  
Gracious is he, long-suffering, and true,  
Which ruleth all things with his mercy's view.   

Gracious, for where is grace but where he is?  
The fountaine-head the ever-boundlesse stream,  
Patient, for where is patience in amiss,  
If not conducted by pure grace's beam:  
Truth is the moderator of them both,  
For grace and patience are of truest growth.   

verse 2 For grace-beginning truth, doth end in grace,  
As truth-beginning grace, doth end in truth,  
Now patience takes the moderators place,  
Yong-olde in suffering, olde-yong in ruth:  
Patience is old in being always young,  
Not having right, nor ever offering wrong,   

So this is moderator of God's rage,  
Pardoning those deeds, which we in sin commit,  
That if we sin, she is our freedoms gage,  
And we still thine, though to be thine unfit:  
In being thine (o Lord) we will not sin,  
That we thy patience, grace, and truth may win.   

verse 3 O grant us patience in whose grant we rest,  
To right our wrong, and not to wrong the right,  
Give us thy grace (o Lord) to make us blest,  
That grace might bless, & bliss might grace our sight:  
Make our beginning and our sequel truth,  
To make us young in age, and grave in youth,   

We know that our demands rest in thy will,  
Our will rests in thy word, our word in thee,  
Thou in our orisons, which dost fulfil,  
That wished action, which we wish to be:  
'tis perfect righteousness to know thee right▪  
'tis immortality to know thy might.   

verse 4 5 In knowing thee, we know both good and ill,  
Good, to know good and ill, ill to know none,  
In knowing all, we know thy sacred will,  
And what to do, and what to leave undone:  
We are deceived, not knowing to deceive,  
In knowing good and ill, we take and leave.   

The glass of vanity, deceit, and shows,  
The painter's labour, the beguiling face,  
The diverse-coloured image of suppose,  
Cannot deceive the substance of thy grace:  
Only a snare, to those of common wit,  
Which covets to be like, in having it.   

verse 6 The greedy lucre of a witless brain,  
This feeding avarice on senseless mind,  
Is rather hurt, then good, a loss, than gain,  
Which covets for to lose and not to find:  
So they were coloured with such a face,  
They would not care to take the idols place.   

Then be your thoughts coherent to your words,  
Your words as correspondent to your thought,  
'tis reason you should have what love affords:  
And trust in that which love so dearly bought:  
The maker must needs love what he hath made,  
And the desirers free of either trade.   

verse 7 Man, thou wast made, art thou a maker now?  
Yes, 'tis thy trade, for thou a potter art,  
Tempering soft earth, making the clay to bow,  
But clayey thou, dost bear too stout a heart:  
The clay is humble to thy rigorous hands,  
Thou clay, too tough against thy God's commands.   

If thou want'st slime, behold thy slimy faults,  
If thou want'st clay, behold thy clayey breast,  
Make them to be the deepest centres vaults,  
And let all clayey mountains sleep in rest:  
Thou bearest an earthly mountain on thy back,  
Thy hearts chief prisonhouse thy souls chief wrack.   

verse 8 Art thou a mortal man, and makest a God,  
A God of clay, thou but a man of clay,  
O suds of mischief, in destruction sod,  
O vainest labour in a vainer play:  
Man is the greatest work which God did take:  
And yet a God with man is nought to make.   

He that was made of earth, would make a heaven,  
If heaven may be made upon the earth,  
Sins heirs, the airs, sins plants, the planet's seven,  
Their God a clod, his birth, true virtues dearth:  
Remember whence you came whither you go,  
Of earth, in earth, from earth to earth in woe.   

verse 9 No, quoth the potter, as I have been clay,  
So will I end with what I did begin,  
I am of earth, and I do what earth may,  
I am of dust, and therefore will I sin:  
My life is short, what then? I'll make it longer,  
My life is weak, what then? I'll make it stronger.   

Long shall it live in vice, though short in length,  
And fetch immortal steps, from mortal stops,  
Strong shall it be in sin, though weak in strength,  
Like mounting Eagles, on high mountains tops:  
My honour shall be placed in deceit,  
And counterfeit new shows of little weight.   

verse 10 My pen doth almost blush at this reply,  
And feign would call him wicked to his face,  
But then his breath would answe●… with a lie,  
And stain my ink with an untruths disgrace:  
Thy master bids thee write, the pen says no,  
But when thy master bids, it must be so.   

Call his heart ashes: oh too mild a name,  
Call his hope vile, more viler than the earth,  
Call his life weaker than a clayeie frame,  
Call his bespotted heart, an ashy hearth:  
Ashes, earth, clay, conjoined to heart, hope, life,  
Are features love, in being nature's strife.   

verse 11 Thou mightst have chose more stinging words then these  
For this he knows he is, and more, then less,  
In saying what he is, thou dost appease,  
The foaming anger which his thoughts suppress:  
Who knows not, if the best be made of clay,  
The worst must needs be clad in foul array.   

Thou in performing of thy masters will,  
Dost teach him to obey his lords commands,  
But he repugnant is, and cannot skill  
Of true adoring, with heart-heaued up hand:  
He hath a soul, a life, a breath, a name,  
Yet is he ignorant from whence they came.   

verse 12 My soul, saith he, is but a map of shoes,  
No substance, but a shadow for to please,  
My life doth pass, even as a pastime goes,  
A momentary time to live at ease:  
My breath a vapour, and my name of earth,  
Each one decaying of the others birth.   

Our conversation best, for there is gains,  
And gain is best in conversations prime,  
A mart of lucre in our conscience reigns,  
Our thoughts as busy agents for the time:  
So we get gain ensnaring simple men,  
It is no matter how, nor where, nor when.   

verse 13 We care not how, for all misdeeds are ours,  
We care not where, if before God or man,  
We care not when, but when our crafts have powers,  
In measuring deceit with mischiefs fan:  
For wherefore have we life, form, and ordaining,  
But that we should deceive, and still be gaining?   

I made of earth, have made all earthen shops,  
And what I sell is all of earthy sale,  
My pots have earthen feet, and earthen tops,  
In like resemblance of my body's vale:  
But knowing to offend the heavens more,  
I made frail images of earthy store.   

verse 14 O bold accuser of his own misdeeds,  
O heavy clod more than the earth can bear,  
Was never creature clothed in savage weeds,  
Which would not blush when they this mischief hear:  
Thou toldst a tale which might have been untold.  
Making the hearers blush, the reader's old.   

Let them blush still that hears, be old that reads,  
Then boldness shall not reign, nor youth in vice,  
Thrice miserable they which rashly speeds,  
With expedition to this bold device:  
More foolish than are fools, whose misery  
Cannot be changed with new felicity.   

verse 15 Are not they fools which live without a sense,  
Have not they misery which never joy?  
Which takes an idol for a God's defence,  
And with their self-willed thoughts themselves destroy?  
What folly is more greater than is here?  
Or what more misery can well appear?   

Call you them gods which have no seeing eyes?  
No noses for to smell, no ears to hear,  
No life but that which in death's shadow lies,  
Which have no hands to feel, no feet to bear:  
If gods can neither hear, live, feel, nor see,  
A fool may make such gods of every tree.   

verse 16 And what was he that made them but a fool?  
Conceiving folly in a foolish brain,  
Taught and instructed in a wooden school,  
Which made his head run of a wooden vain:  
'twas man which made them, he his making had,  
Man full of wood, was wood, and so ran mad.   

He borrowed his life, and would restore  
His borrowed essence to another death,  
He feign would be a maker, though before  
Was made himself, and God did lend him breath:  
No man can make a god like to a man,  
He says he scorns that work, he further can.   

verse 17 He is deceived, and in his great deceit,  
He doth deceive the folly-guided hearts,  
Sin lies in ambush, he for sin doth wait,  
Here is deceit deceived, in either parts:  
His sin deceiveth him, and he his sin,  
So craft with craft is mewed in either gin.   

The craftsman mortal is, craft mortal is,  
Each function nursing up the others want,  
His hands are mortal, deadly what is his,  
Only his sins buds in destructions plant:  
Yet better he, than what he doth devise,  
For he himself doth live that ever dies.   

verse 18 Say, call you this a God? where is his head?  
Yet headless is he not, yet hath he none:  
Where is his godhead? fled; his power? dead▪  
His reign? decayed; and his essence? gone:  
Now tell me, is this God the God of good?  
Or else Silvanus' monarch of the wood.   

There have I pierced his bark, for he is so,  
A wooden god, feigned as Silvanus was:  
But leaving him, to others let us go,  
To senseless beasts their new adoring glass:  
Beasts which did live in life, yet died in reason,  
Beasts which did seasons eat, yet knew no season.   

verse 19 Can mortal bodies, and immortal souls  
Keep one knit union of a living love?  
Can sea with land? can fish agree with fowls?  
Tigers with lambs, a serpent with a dove?  
Oh no, they cannot; then say, why do we,  
Adore a beast which is our enemy.   

What greater foe than folly unto wit?  
What more deformity than ugly face?  
This disagrees, for folly is unfit,  
The other contrary to beauty's place:  
Then how can senseless heads, deformed shoes,  
Agree with you when they are both your foes.    

Chapter XVI.  

verse 1 OH call that word again, they are your friends  
Your lives associates, and your loves content,  
That which gins in them, your folly ends,  
Then how can vice with vice be discontent:  
Behold deformity sits on your heads,  
Not horns but scorns, not visage but whole beds.   

Behold a heap of sins your bodies pale,  
A mountaine-overwhelming villainy,  
Then tell me, are you clad in beauty's vale?  
Or in destructions pale-dead livery:  
Their life demonstrates; now alive now dead,  
Tormented with the beasts which they have fed.   

verse 2 3 You like to Pelicans have fed your death,  
With follies-vaine let blood, from folly's vain,  
And almost sterude yourselves, stopped up your breath,  
Had not God's mercy helped, and eased your pain,  
Behold a newfound meat, the Lord did send,  
Which taught you to be new, and to amend.   

A strange digested nutriment, even quails,  
Which taught them to be strange unto misdeeds,  
When you implore his aid, he never fails,  
To fill their hunger, whom repentance feeds:  
You see when life was half at deaths arrest,  
He new created life at hunger's feast.   

verse 4 Say, is your God like this, whom you adored,  
Or is this God like to your handy frame,  
If so, his power could not then afford,  
Such influence which floweth from his name:  
He is not painted, made of wood and stone,  
But he substantial is, and rules alone.   

He can oppress, and help, help, and oppress,  
The sinful incolants of his made earth,  
He can redress, and pain, pain, and redress,  
The mountaine-miseries of mortal birth:  
Now tyrants you are next, this but a show,  
And merry index of your after woe.   

verse 5 6 Your hot-colde misery is now at hand,  
Hot because fury's heat, and mercies cold,  
Cold because limping, knit in frosty band,  
And cold and hot in being shamefast-bolde:  
They cruel were, take cruelty their part,  
For misery is but too mean a smart.   

But when the tigers jaws, the Serpent's stings,  
Did summon them unto this life's decay,  
A pardon for their faults thy mercy brings,  
Cooling thy wrath with pities sunny day:  
O tyrants tere your sin-bemired weeds,  
Behold your pardon sealed by mercy's deeds.   

verse 7 8 That sting which pained could not ease the pain,  
Those jaws that wounded, could not cure the wounds  
To turn to stings for help, it were but vain,  
To jaws for mercy, which wants mercies bounds:  
The stings, o Saviour, were pulled out by thee,  
Their jaws clasped up, in midst of cruelty.   

O sovereign salve, stop to a bloody stream,  
O heavenly care and cure, for dust and earth,  
Celestial watch to wake terrestrial dream,  
Dreaming in punishment, mourning in mirth,  
Now knows our enemies, that it is thee,  
Which helps and cures, our grief and misery.   

verse 9 Our punishment doth end, theirs new gins,  
Our day appears, their night is not oreblowne,  
We pardon have, they punishment for sins,  
Now we are raised, now they are overthrown:  
We with huge beasts oppressed, they with a fly,  
We live in God, and they against God die.   

A fly, poor fly, to follow such a flight,  
Yet art thou fed, as thou wast fed before,  
With dust and earth, feeding thy wont bite,  
With self-like food, from mortal earthly store:  
A mischiefe-stinging food, and sting with sting,  
Do ready passage to destruction bring.   

verse 10 Man being grass is hoped and grazed upon,  
With sucking grasshoppers of weeping dew,  
Man being earth is worms vermilion,  
Which eats the dust, and yet of bloody hue:  
In being grass he is her grazing food,  
In being dust he doth the worms some good.   

These smallest actors were of greatest pain,  
Of folly's overthrow, of mischiefs fall,  
But yet the furious dragons could not gain,  
The life of those whom verities exhale:  
These folly overcame, they foolish were,  
These mercy cured, and cures, these godly are.   

verse 11 When poisoned jaws and veninated stings,  
Were both as opposite against content,  
(Because content with that which fortune brings,)  
They eased were, when thou thy mercies sent:  
The jaws of dragons had not hungers fill▪  
Nor stings of serpents a desire to kill.   

Appalled they were, and struck with timorous fears,  
For where is fear, but where destruction reigns,  
Aghast they were, with wet eye-standing tears,  
Outward commencers of their inward pains:  
They soon were hurt, but sooner healed and cured,  
Lest black oblivion had their minds enured.   

verse 12 The lion wounded with a fatal blow,  
Is as impatient as a king in rage,  
Seeing himself in his own bloody show,  
Doth rend the harbour of his body's cage:  
Scorning the base-housde earth, mounts to the sky,  
To see if heaven can yield him remedy.   

Oh sinful man, let him example be,  
A pattern to thine eye, glass to thy face,  
That God's divinest word is cure to thee,  
Not earth, but heaven, not man, but heavenly grace:  
Nor herb, nor plaster, could help teeth or sting,  
But 'twas thy word which healeth every thing.   

verse 13 We fools lay salves upon our body's skin,  
But never draw corruption from our mind,  
We lay a plaster for to keep in sin,  
We draw forth filth, but leave the cause behind:  
With herbs and plasters we do guard misdeeds,  
And pair away the tops, but leave the seeds.   

Away with salves, and take our saviours word,  
In this word Saviour lies immortal ease,  
What can thy cures, plasters, and herbs afford?  
When God hath power to please and to displease:  
God hath the power of life, death, help, and pain,  
He leadeth down, and bringeth up again.   

verse 14 15 Trust to thy downfall, not unto thy raise,  
So shalt thou live in death, not die in life,  
Thou dost presume, if give thyself the praise,  
For virtues time is scarce, but mischiefs rife:  
Thou mayst offend, man's nature is so vain,  
Thou now in joy, beware of after pain.   

First cometh fury, after fury thirst,  
After thirst, blood, and after blood, a death,  
Thou mayst in fury kill, whom thou lovedst first,  
And so in quassing blood, stop thine own breath:  
And murder done, can never be undone,  
Nor can that soul once live, whose life is gone.   

verse 16 What is the body but an earthen case,  
That subject is to death, because earth dies?  
But when the living soul doth want God's grace,  
It dies in joy, and lives in miseries:  
This soul is led by God, as others were,  
But not brought up again as others are.   

This stirs no provocation to amend,  
For earth hath many partners in one fall,  
Although the Lord doth many tokens send,  
As warnings for to hear when he doth call:  
The earth was burnt & drowned with fire & rain,  
And one could never quench the others pain.   

verse 17 Although both foes, God made them then both friends,  
And only foes to them which were their foes,  
That hate begun in earth what in them ends,  
Sins enemies they which made friends of those:  
Both bent both forces unto single earth,  
From whose descent they had their double birth.   

'tis strange that water should not quench a fire,  
For they were heating-cold, and cooling hot,  
'tis strange that wails could not allay desire,  
wails waters kind, and fire desires knot:  
In such a cause, though enemies before,  
They would join friendship to destroy the more.   

The often weeping eyes of dry lament,  
verse 18 Doth power forth burning water of despair,  
Which warms the caves from whence the tears are sent,  
And like hot fumes, do foul their nature's fair:  
This contrary to icie-waters vale,  
Doth scorch the cheeks, & makes them red & pale.   

Here fire and water are conjoined in one,  
Within a red-white glass of hot and cold,  
Their fire like this, double and yet alone,  
Raging, and tame, and tame, and yet was bold:  
Tame when the beasts did kill, and felt no fire,  
Raging upon the causers of their ire.   

verse 19 Two things may well put on two several natures,  
Because they differ in each nature's kind,  
They differing colours have, and differing features,  
If so, how comes it that they have one mind?  
God made them friends, let this the answer be,  
They get no other argument of me.   

What is impossible to God's command?  
Nay, what is possible to man's vain ear?  
'tis much he thinks that fire should burn a land,  
When mischief is the brand which fires bear:  
He thinks it more, that water should bear fire,  
Then know it was Gods will, now leave t'inquire.   

verse 20 Yet mightst thou ask, because importunate,  
How God preserved the good; why? because good,  
Ill fortune made not them infortunate,  
They Angels were, and fed with angels food:  
Yet mayst thou say (for truth is always had)  
That rain falls on the good aswell as bad.   

And say it doth; far be the letter P.  
From R. because of a more reverent style,  
It cannot do without suppression be,  
These are two bars against destruction's wile:  
Pain without changing P cannot be rain,  
Rain without changing R can not be pain.   

verse 21 Both sun and rain are portions to the ground,  
And ground is dust, and what is dust but nought?  
And what is nought is nought, with Alphaes' sound,  
Yet every earth the sun and rain hath bought:  
The sun doth shine on weeds, as well as flowers,  
The rain on both distilleth her weeping showers.   

Yet far be death from breath, annoy from joy,  
Destruction from all happiness allines,  
God will not suffer famine to destroy,  
The hungry appetite of virtues signs:  
These were in midst of fire, yet not harmed,  
In midst of water, yet but cooled, and warmed.   

verse 22 And water-wet they were, not water-drowned,  
And firehot they were, not fire-burned,  
Their foes were both, whose hopes destruction crowned:  
But yet with such a crown which ne'er returned,  
Hear fire and water brought both joy and pain,  
To one disprofit, to the other gain.   

The sun doth thaw what cold hath freezde before,  
Undoing what congealed ice had done,  
Yet heat the hail and snow did freeze the more,  
In having heat more piercing than the sun  
A mournful spectacle unto their eyes,  
That as they die so their fruition dies.   

verse 23 24 Fury once kindled with the coals of rage,  
Doth hover vnrecalled, slaughters untamed;  
This wrath on fire no pity could assuage,  
Because they pitiless which should be blamed:  
As one in rage, which cares not who he have,  
Forgetting who to kill and who to save.   

One deadly foe is fierce against the other,  
As vice with virtue, virtue against vice,  
Vice heartened by death his heartless mother,  
Virtue by God, the life of her device:  
'tis hard to hurt or harm a villainy,  
'tis easy to do good to verity.   

verse 25 26 Is grass man's meat, no it is cattles food,  
But man doth eat the cattle which eats grass,  
And feeds his carcase, with their nursed up blood,  
Lengthening the lives which in a moment pass:  
Grass is good food if it be joined with grace,  
Else sweeter food may take a sourer place,   

Is there such life in water and in bread?  
In fish, in flesh, in herbs, in growing flowers,  
We eat them not alive, we eat them dead,  
What fruit then hath the word of living powers?  
How can we live with that which is still dead?  
Thy grace it is, by which we all are fed.   

verse 27 28 This is a living food, a blessed meat,  
Made to digest the burden at our hearts,  
That leaden-weighted food, which we first eat,  
To fill the functions of our bodies parts:  
An indigested heap, without a mean,  
Wanting thy grace, o Lord, to make it clean.   

That ice which sulphur vapours could not thaw,  
That hail which piercing fire could not boar,  
The coole-hot sun did melt their frosty jaw,  
Which neither heat nor fire, could pierce before:  
Then let us take the spring-time of the day,  
Before the harvest of our joys decay.   

verse 29 A day may be divided as a year,  
Into four climes, though of itself but one,  
The morn, the spring, the noon, the summer's sphere,  
The harvest next, evening the winter's moon:  
Then sow new seeds in every new days spring,  
And reap new fruit, in days olds evening.   

Else if too late: they will be blasted seeds,  
If planted at the noontide of their growing,  
Commencers of unthankful too late deeds,  
Set in the harvest of the reapers going:  
Melting like winter-ice against the sun,  
Flowing like folly's tide, and never done.    

Chapter XVII.  

verse 1 Oflie the bed of vice the lodge of sin,  
Sleep not too long in your destruction's pleasures  
Amend your wicked lives, and new begin,  
A more new perfect way to heavens treasures:  
Oh rather wake and weep, than sleep and joy,  
Waking is truth, sleep is a flattering toy.   

O take the morning of your instant good,  
Be not benighted with oblivious eye,  
Behold the sun which kisseth Neptune's flood,  
And resalutes the world with open sky:  
Else sleep, and ever sleep: God's wrath is great,  
And will not alter with too late entreat.   

verse 2 Why wake I them which have a sleeping mind,  
Oh words, sad sergeants to arrest my thoughts,  
If waked, they cannot see, their eyes are blind,  
Shut up like windolets which sleep hath bought:  
Their face is broad awake, but not their heart,  
They dream of rising, yet are loath to start.   

These were the practisers how to betray,  
The simple-righteous with beguiling words,  
And bring them in subjection to obey  
Their irreligious laws and sins accords:  
But nights black coloured vale did cloud their will,  
And made their wish rest in performance skill.   

verse 3 The darksome clouds, are summoners of rain,  
In being something black, and something dark,  
But coal-black clouds makes it pour down amain,  
Darting forth thunderbolts and lightnings spark:  
Sin of itself is black, but black with black,  
Augments the heavy burden of the back.   

They thought that sins could hide their sinful shames,  
In being demi-clouds, and semi-nights,  
But they had clouds enough to make their games,  
Lodged in black coverings of oblivious nights:  
Then was their vice afraid to lie so dark,  
Troubled with visions from Alastor's park.   

verse 4 The greater poison, bears the greater sway,  
The greatest force, hath still the greatest face,  
Should night miss course, it would infect the day,  
With foul risle vapours from a humorous place,  
Vice hath some clouds, but yet the night hath more,  
Because the night was framed and made before.   

That sin which makes afraid, was then afraid,  
Although enchambred in a dens content,  
That would not drive back fear, which comes repaid,  
Nor yet the echoes which the visions sent:  
Both sounds and shows, both words and action,  
Made apparitions satisfaction.   

verse 5 A night in pitchy mantle of distress,  
Made thick with mists and oppsite to light,  
As if Cocytus' mansion did possess,  
The gloomy vapours of suppressing sight,  
A night more ugly than Alastor's pack,  
Mounting all nights upon his night-made back.   

The moon did mourn in sable-suted vale,  
The stars her hand maids were in black attire,  
All nightly visions told a hideous tale,  
The scrich-owles made the earth their dismal choir:  
The moon and stars divide their twinkling eyes,  
To lighten vice, which in oblivion lies.   

verse 6 Only appeared a fire in doleful blaze,  
Kindled by furies, raised by envious winds,  
Dreadful in sight, which put them to amaze,  
Having before, furie-despairing minds:  
What hair in reading, would not stand upright,  
What pen in writing, would not cease to write   

Fire is God's Angel, because bright and clear,  
But this an evil Angel, because dread,  
Evil to them, which did already fear,  
A second death to them which were once dead:  
Annexing horror to dead strucken life,  
Connexing dolour to live nature's strife.   

verse 7 Deceit was then deceived, treason betrayed,  
Mischief beguiled, a night surpassing night,  
Vice fought with vice, and fear was then dismayed,  
Horror itself appalled at such a sight:  
Sin●s snare was then ensnarde, the fisher caught,  
sins net was then entrapped, the fouler fought.   

Yet all this conflict, was but in a dream,  
A show of substance, and a shade of truth,  
Illusions for to mock in flattering theme,  
Beguiling mischief with a glass of ruth:  
For boasts require a fall, and vaunts a shame,  
Which two vice had, in thinking but to game.   

verse 8 Sin told her creditors, she was a Queen,  
And now become revenge, to right their wrong,  
With hony-mermaids speech alluring seen,  
Making new-pleasing words, with her old tongue:  
If you be sick, quoth she, I'll make you whole,  
She cures the body, but makes sick the soul.   

Safe is the body, when the soul is wounded,  
The soul is joyful in the body's grief,  
Ones joy upon the others sorrow grounded,  
Ones sorrow placed in the one's relief:  
Quoth si●, fear nothing, know that I am here,  
When she alas, herself was sick for fear.   

verse 9 A promise worthy of derisions place,  
That fear should help a fear, when both are one,  
She was as sick in heart, though not in face,  
With inward grief, though not with outward moan:  
But she clasped up the closure of the tongue,  
For feat that words should do her body wrong.   

Cannot the body weep without the eyes?  
Yes and frame deepest canzons of lament,  
Cannot the body fear, without it lies  
Upon the outward show of discontent:  
Yes, yes, the deeper fear sits in the heart,  
And keeps the parliament of inward smart,   

verse 10 So sin did snare in mind, and not in face,  
The dragon's jaw, the hissing serpents sting,  
Some lived, some died, some ran a fearful race,  
Some did prevent that which ill fortunes bring:  
All were officious servitors to fear,  
And her pale connizance in heart did wear.   

Malice condemned herself guilty of hate,  
With a malicious mouth of envious spite,  
For Nemesis is her own cruel fate,  
Turning her wrath upon her own delight:  
We need no witness for a guilty thought,  
Which to condemn itself a thousand brought.   

verse 11 12 For fear deceives itself in being fear,  
It fears itself in being still afraid,  
It fears to weep, and yet it sheds a tear,  
It fears itself, and yet it is obeyed:  
The usher unto death, a death to doom,  
A doom to die in horrors fearful tomb.   

His own betrayer, yet fears to betray,  
He fears his life, by reason of his name,  
He fears lament, because it brings decay,  
And blames himself in that he merits blame:  
He is tormented, yet denies the pain,  
He is the king of fear, yet loath to reign.   

verse 13 His sons were they which slept and dreamt of fear,  
A waking sleep, and yet a sleepy waking,  
Which passed that night more longer than a year,  
Being griefs prisoners, and of sorrows taking:  
Slept in night's dungeon insupportable,  
Lodged in nights-horror too indurable.   

Oh sleep, the image of long-lasting woe,  
Oh waking image of long-lasting sleep,  
The hollow cave where visions come and go,  
Where serpents hiss, where mandrakes groan & creep  
Oh fearful show, betrayer of a soul,  
Dying each heart in white, each white in foul.   

verse 14 15 A guileful hole, a prison of deceit,  
Yet nor deceit, nor guile, in being dead,  
Snare without snarer, net without a bait,  
A common lodge, and yet without a bed:  
A holow-sounding vault, known and unknown,  
Yet not for mirth, but too too well for moon.   

'tis a free prison a chained liberty,  
A freedoms cave, a sergeant and a bail,  
It keeps close prisoners, yet doth set them free,  
Their clogs not iron, but a clog of wail:  
It stays them not, and yet they cannot go,  
Their chain is discontent, their prison woe.   

verse 16 Still it did gape for more, and still more had,  
Like greedy avarice without content,  
Like to Avernus which is never glad,  
Before the dead-liude wicked souls be sent:  
Pull in thy head thou sorrows tragedy,  
And leave to practise thy old cruelty.   

The merry shepherd can not walk alone,  
Tuning sweet Madrigals of harvests joy,  
Carving loves Roundelays on every stone,  
Hanging on every tree some amorous toy:  
But thou with sorrow enterlines his song,  
Opening thy jaws of death to do him wrong.   

verse 17 18 Oh now I know thy chain, thy clog, thy fetter,  
Thy freechainde prison, and thy clogged walk,  
'tis gloomy darkness, sins eternal debtor,  
'tis poisoned buds, from Acharonticke stalk:  
Sometime 'tis hissing winds which are their bands,  
Sometime enchanting birds which binds their hands   

Sometime the foaming rage of waters stream,  
Or clattering down of stones upon a stone,  
Or skipping beasts at Titan's gladsome beam,  
Or roaring lions noise at one alone:  
Or babbling Echo tell-tale of each sound,  
From mouth to sky, from sky unto the ground.   

verse 19 20 Can such like fears follow man's mortal pace,  
Within dry wilderness of wettest woe,  
It was God's providence, his will, his grace,  
To make midnoone midnight in being so:  
Midnight with sin, midnoone where virtue lay,  
That place was night, all other places day.   

The sun not past the middle line of course,  
Did clearly shine upon each labours gain,  
Not hindering daily toil of mortal force,  
Nor clouding earth with any gloomy stain:  
Only night's image was apparent there,  
With heavy-leaden appetite of fear.    

Chapter XVIII.  

verse 1 YOu know the Eagle by her soaring wings,  
And how the Swallow takes a lower pitch:  
Ye know the day is clear, & clearness brings,  
And how the night is poor, though gloomy rich:  
This Eagle virtue is which mounts on high,  
The other sin which hates the heavens eye.   

This day is wisdom, being bright and clear,  
This night is mischief, being black and fowl,  
The brightest day doth wisdoms glory wear,  
The pitchy night puts on a blacker roll:  
Thy saints (O Lord) were at their labours hire,  
At whose herded voice the wicked did admire.   

verse 2 They thought that virtue had been clothed in night,  
Captive to darkness, prisoner unto hell,  
But it was sin itself, vice, and despite,  
(Whose wished harbours do in darkness dwell,  
virtues immortal soul had middaies light▪  
Mischiefs eternal foul had middayes night.   

For virtue is not subject unto vice,  
But vice is subject unto virtues seat,  
One mischief is not thawed with others ice,  
But more adjoinde to one, makes one more great:  
Sin virtues captive is, and kneels for grace,  
Requesting pardon for her rude-run race.   

The tongue of virtues life cannot pronounce  
verse 3 The doom of death, or death of dying doom,  
'tis merciful, and will not once renounce  
Repentant tears to wash a sinful room:  
Your sin-shine was not sunshine of delight,  
But shining sin in mischiefs sunny night.   

Now by repentance you are bathed in bliss,  
Blest in your bath, eternal by your deeds,  
Behold you have true light, and can not miss,  
The heavenly food which your salvation feeds:  
True love, true life, true light, your portions true,  
What hate, what strife, what night can danger you?   

verse 4 Oh happy, when you pard your o'ergrown faults,  
Your sin-like eagle's claws past growth of time,  
All undermined with destruction's vaults,  
Full of old filth, proceeding from new slime:  
Else had you been deformed like to those,  
Which were your friends, but now become your foes   

Those which are worthy of eternal pain,  
Foes which are worthy of immortal hate,  
Dimming the glory of thy children's gain,  
With cloudy vapours set at darkness rate:  
Making new laws which are too old in crime:  
Making old-wicked laws, serve a new time.   

verse 5 Wicked? no: bloody laws, bloody? yea worse,  
If any worse may have a worse name,  
Men: oh no, murderers, not of men's remorse,  
For they are shameful, these exempt from shame:  
What? shall I call them slaughter-drinking hearts▪  
To good a word for their too ill deserts?   

Murder was in their thoughts, they thought to slay,  
And who? poor infants; harmless innocents,  
But murder cannot sleep, it will betray  
Her murderous self, with self disparagements:  
One child poor remnant did reprove their deeds,  
And God destroyed the bloody murderers seeds.   

verse 6 Was God destroyer then? no he was just,  
A judge severe, yet of a kind remorse,  
Severe to those in whom there was no trust,  
Kind to the babes which were of little force:  
Poor babes half murdered in whole murders thought,  
Had not one infant their escaping wrought.   

'twas God which breathed his spirit in the child,  
The lively image of his self-like face,  
'twas God which drowned their children, which defiled  
Their thoughts with blood, their hearts with murders place:  
For that night's tidings our old fathers joyed,  
Because their foes by water were destroyed.   

verse 7 Was God a murderer in this tragedy?  
No, but a judge how blood should be repaid:  
Wast he which gave them unto misery?  
No, 'twas themselves which miseries obeyed:  
Their thoughts did kill and slay within their hearts,  
Murdering themselves, wounding their inward parts.   

When shines the sun, but when the moon doth rest?  
When rests the sun, but when the moon doth shine?  
When joys the righteous? when their foes are least,  
And when doth virtue live? when vice doth pine:  
Virtue doth live when villainy doth die,  
Wisdom doth smile when misery doth cry.   

verse 8 The summer days are longer than the nights,  
The winter nights are longer than the days,  
They show both virtues loves and vices spites,  
Sins lowest fall, and wisdoms highest raise:  
The night is foe to day, as nought to good,  
The day is foe to night, as fear to food.   

A king may wear a crown, but full of strife,  
The outward show of a small-lasting space,  
Mischief may live, but yet a deadly life,  
Sorrow may grieve in heart, and joy in face:  
Virtue may live disturbed with vices pain,  
God sends this virtue a more better reign.   

verse 9 She doth possess a crown, and not a care,  
Yet cares, in having none, but self-like awe,  
She hath a sceptre without care or fear,  
Yet fears the Lord, and careth for the law:  
as much as she doth rise, so much sin falls,  
Subject unto her law, slave to her calls.   

Now righteousness bears sway, and vice put down,  
Virtue is Queen, treading on miscchiefes' head,  
The law of God sancited with renown,  
Religion placed in wisdoms quiet bed:  
Now joyful hymns are tuned by delight,  
And now we live in love, and not in spite.   

verse 10 Strong-hearted vices sobs have pierced the ground,  
In the deep cistern of the centres breast,  
Wailing their living fortunes with dead sound,  
Accents of grief, and actions of unrest:  
It is not sin herself, it is her seed,  
Which drowned in sea, lies there for seas foul weed.   

It is the fruit of murders bloody womb,  
The lost fruition of a murderous race,  
A little stone which would have made a tomb,  
To bury virtue with a sin-bolde face:  
methinks I hear the echoes of the vaults,  
Sound and resound their old-new-weeping faults.   

verse 11 View the dead carcases of humane state,  
The outsides of the soul, case of the hearts,  
Behold the king, behold the subjects fate,  
Behold each limb and bone of earthen arts:  
Tell me the difference then of every thing,  
And who a subject was, and who a king.   

The self same knowledge lies in this dead scene,  
Valde to the tragic cypress of lament,  
Behold that man, which hath a master been,  
That king, which would have climbed above content,  
Behold their slaves, by them upon the earth,  
Have now as high a seat as great a birth.   

verse 12 The ground hath made all even which were odd,  
Those equal, which had inequality,  
Yet all alike were fashioned by God  
In body's form, but not in heart's degree:  
One difference had, in sceptre, crown, and throne,  
Yet crowned, ruled, placed, in care in grief in moan.   

For it was care to wear a crown of grief,  
And it was grief to wear a crown of care,  
The king death's subject, death his empire's thief,  
Which makes unequal state, and equal fare,  
More dead than were alive, and more to die,  
Then would be buried with a mortal eye.   

verse 13 O well-fed earth with ill digesting food,  
O well-ill food, because both flesh and sin,  
Sin made it sick, which never did it good,  
Sin made it well, her well, doth worse begin:  
The earth more hungry than was Tantall's jaws,  
Had flesh and blood held in her earthen paws.   

Now could belief some quiet harbour find,  
When all her foes were mantled in the ground,  
Before their sin-enchauntments made it blind,  
Their magic arts, their necromantic sound:  
Now truth hath got some place to speak and hear▪  
And what so ere she speaks, she doth not fear,   

verse 14 15 16 When Phoebe's axle-tree, was limned with pale,  
Pale, which becometh night, night which is black,  
Hemmed round about with gloomy shining vale,  
Borne up by clouds, mounted on silence back?  
And when nights horses, in the running wain,  
Oretook the midst of their journeys pain.   

Thy word o Lord descended from thy throne,  
The royal mansion of thy powers command,  
As a fierce man of war in time of moan,  
Standing in midst of the destroyed land:  
And brought thy precept? as a burning steaven,  
Reaching from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven   

verse 17 Now was the night far spent, and morning's wings,  
Flew through sleepy thoughts and made them dream,  
Hying apace to welcome sunny springs,  
And give her time of day to Phoebus' beam:  
No sooner had she flown unto the east,  
But dreamy passage did disturb their rest.   

And then like sleepie-waking hearts and eyes,  
Turned up the fainting closures of their faces,  
Which between day and night in slumber lies,  
Keeping their wakie, and their sleepy places:  
And lo, a fearing dream, and dreaming fear▪  
Made every eye let fall a sleepy tear.   

verse 18 19 A tear half wet from they themselves half lived,  
Poor drie-wet tear, too moist a wet-drie face,  
A white-red face, whose red-white colour striude,  
To make anatomy of either place:  
Two champions both resolved in faces field,  
And both had half yet either scorned to yield.   

They which were wont to mount above the ground,  
Hath leaden-quick-glude sinews forced to lie,  
One here one there in prison, yet unbound,  
Heart-striving life and death to live and die:  
Nor were they ignorant of fates decree,  
In being told before what they should be.   

verse 20 There falsest visions showed the truest cause,  
False because fantasies, true because haps,  
For dreams though kindled by sleep-idle pause,  
Sometime true indices of dangers claps:  
As well doth prove in these sin-sleeping lines,  
That dreams are falsest shows, and truest signs.   

By this time death had longer pilgrimage,  
And was encaged in more living breasts,  
Now every ship had fleeting anchorage,  
Both good and bad were punished with unrests:  
But yet God's heavy plague endured not long,  
For anger quenched herself with herself wrong.   

verse 21 Not so, for heat can never cool with heat,  
Nor cold can warm a cold, nor ice thaw ice,  
Anger is fire, and fire is anger's meat,  
Then how can anger cool her hot device?  
The sun, doth thaw the ice, with melting harm,  
Ice cannot cool the sun, which makes it warm.   

It was celestial fire, terrestrial cold,  
It was celestial cold, terrestrial fire,  
A true and holy prayer which is bold,  
To cool the heat of angers hot desire:  
Pronounced by a servant of thy word,  
To ease the miseries which wraths afford.   

verse 22 Weapons and wit are double links of force,  
If one unknit they both have weaker strength,  
The longer be the chain, the longer corpse,  
If measured by duplicity of length:  
If weapons fail wit is the better part,  
Wit failing: weapons have the weaker heart.   

Prayer is weak in strength, yet strong in wit,  
And can do more than strength, in being wise,  
Thy word, o Lord, is wisdom, and in it,  
Doth lie more force, than forces can surprise:  
Man did not overcome his foes with arms.  
But with thy word, which conquers greater harms   

verse 23 That word it was, with which the world was framed,  
The heavens made, mortality ordained,  
That word it was, with which all men were named,  
In which one word, there are all words contained:  
The breath of God, the life of mortal state,  
The enemy to vice, the foe to hate.   

When death priest down the sin-dead-living souls,  
And drawed the curtain of their seeing day,  
This word was virtues shield, and deaths controls,  
Which shielded those which never went astray:  
For when the dead did die, and end in sin,  
The living had assurance to begin.   

verse 24 Are all these deeds accomplished in one word,  
O sovereign word, chief of all words and deeds,  
O salve of safrie, wisdoms strongest sword,  
Both food, and hunger, which both starves, and feeds:  
Food unto life, because of living power,  
Hunger to those, whom death and sins devour.   

For they which lived, were those which virtue loved,  
And those which virtue loved, did love to live,  
Thrice happy these, whom no destruction moved,  
She present there, which love and life did give:  
They bore the mottoes of eternal fame,  
On diapasans of their father's name.   

verse 25 Here death did change his pale to purple hue,  
Blushing against the nature of his face,  
To see such bright aspects, such splendent view,  
Such heavenly paradise of earthly grace:  
And hid with life's quick force, his ebon dart,  
Within the crannies of his meager heart,   

Descending to the place from whence he came,  
With rich-stored chariot of fresh bleeding wounds,  
Sore-greeved bodies, from a soules-sick name,  
Sore-greeved souls, in bodies-sin-sick sounds:  
Death was afraid to stay where life should be,  
For they are foes and cannot well agree.    

Chapter XIX.  

verse 1 2 Avaunt destroyer with thy hungry jaws,  
Thy thirsty heart, thy longing ashy bones,  
The righteous live, they be not in thy laws,  
Nor subjects to thy deep oppressing moans.  
Let it suffice that we have seen thy show,  
And tasted but the shadow of thy woe.   

Yet stay and bring thy empty car again,  
More ashy vessels do attend thy pace,  
More passengers expect thy coming wain,  
More groaning pilgrims long to see thy face:  
Wrath now attends the passage of misdeeds,  
And thou shalt still be stored with souls that bleeds,   

verse 3 Some lie half dead, while others dig their graves,  
With weake-forst tears, to moist a long-drie ground  
But tears on tears, in time will make whole waves,  
To bury sin with overwhelming sound:  
Their eyes for mattocks serve, their tears for spades,  
And they themselves, are sextons by their trades.   

What is their fee? lament, their payment? woe,  
Their labour? wail, their practice? misery,  
And can their conscience serve to labour so,  
Yes, yes, because it helpeth villainy:  
Though eyes did stand in tears, and tears in eyes,  
They did another foolishness devise.   

verse 4 5 So that what prayer did, sin did undo,  
And what the eyes did win the heart did lose,  
Whom virtue reconciled, vice did forego,  
Whom virtue did forego, that vice did choose:  
Oh had their hearts been just, eyes had been winners  
Their eyes were just, but hearts new sins beginners.   

They digged true graves with eyes, but not with hearts,  
Repentance in their face, vice in their thought,  
Their delving eyes did take the Sexton's parts,  
The heart undid the labour which eyes wrought:  
A new strange death was portion for their toil,  
While virtue sat as judge to end the broil.   

verse 6 Had tongue been joined with eyes, tongue had not strayed,  
Had eyes been joined to heart, heart than had seen,  
But oh, in wanting eyesight it betrayed,  
The dungeon of misdeeds where it had been:  
So, many living in this orb of woe,  
Have heau'd-vp eyes, but yet their hearts are low.   

This change of sin, did make a change of feature,  
A new strange death, a misery untoulde,  
A new reform of every olde-new creature,  
New serving offices, which time made old:  
New living virtue, from an old dead sin,  
Which ends in ill what doth in good begin.   

verse 7 When death did reap the harvest of despite,  
The wicked ears of sin, and mischiefs seed,  
Filling the mansion of eternal night,  
With heavy-leaden clods of sinful breed:  
Life sowed the plants of immortality,  
To welcome olde-made new felicity.   

The clouds, the gloomy curtains of the air,  
Drawn and redrawne with the foure-winged winds,  
Made all of borrowed vapours, darksome fair;  
Did overshade their tents, which virtue finds,  
The red seas deep, was made a dry trod way,  
Without impediment, or stop, or stay.   

verse 8 9 The thirsty winds with overtoyling puffs,  
Did drink the ruddy-oceans water dry,  
Tearing the Zones hot-cold, whole-ragged ruffs,  
With ruffling conflicts in the field of sky:  
So, that dry earth did take wet waters place,  
With sandy mantle, and hard grounded face.   

That way which never was a way before,  
Is now a trodden path, which was untrod,  
Through which the people went, as on a shore,  
Defended by the stretcht-out arm of God:  
Praising his wondrous works, his mighty hand,  
Making the land of sea, the sea of land.   

verse 10 That breast where anger slept, is mercy's bed,  
That breast where mercy wakes is anger's cave;  
When mercy lives, than Nemesis is dead,  
And one for either's coarse makes others grave:  
Hate furrows up a grave, to bury love,  
And love doth press down hate, it cannot move.   

This breast is God, which ever wakes in both,  
Anger is his revenge, mercy his love,  
He sent them flies in stead of cattle's growth,  
And multitudes of frogs for fishes strove:  
Here was his anger shown, and his remorse,  
When he did make dry land of water course.   

verse 11 The sequel proves what actor is the chief,  
All things beginning knows, but none their end,  
The sequel unto mirth, is weeping grief,  
As doth mishaps with happiness contend:  
For both are agents in this orb of weeping,  
And one doth wake, when other falls a sleeping.   

Yet, should man's eyes pay tribute every hour,  
With tributary tears to sorrows shrine,  
He would all drown himself with his own shower  
And never find the leaf of mercy's line:  
They in God's anger wailed, in his love joyed,  
Their love brought lust, ere love had lust destroyed.   

verse 12 The sun of joy dried up their teare-wet eyes,  
And sat as Lord upon their sobbing heart,  
For when one comfort lives, one sorrow dies,  
Or ends in mirth what it begun in smart:  
What greater grief than hunger-starved mood?  
What greater mirth than satisfying food?   

Quails from the fishy bosom of the sea,  
Came to their comforts which were living starved,  
But punishments fell in the sinner's way,  
Sent down by thunderbolts which they deserved:  
Sin-fed these sinners were, hate cherished,  
According unto both they perished.   

verse 13 Sin-fed, because their food was seed of sins,  
And bred new sin with olde-digested meat,  
Hate cherished, in being hatreds twins,  
And sucking cruelty from tigers teat:  
Was it not sin to err and go astray?  
Was it not hate to stop a stranger's way?   

Was it not sin to see, and not to know?  
Was it not sin to know, and not receive?  
Was it not hate to be a stranger's foe,  
And make them captives which did them relieve?  
Yes, it was greatest sin first for to leave them,  
And it was greatest hate last to deceive them.   

verse 14 Oh hungry Canniballes which know no fill,  
But still do starving feed, and feeding starve,  
How could you so deceive? how could you spill  
Their loving selves, which did yourselves preserve?  
Why did you suck your pelican to death,  
Which fed you too too well with his own breath?   

Oh say that cruelty can have no law,  
And then you speak with a milde-cruel tongue,  
Or say that avarice lodged in your jaw,  
And then you do yourselves but little wrong:  
Say what you will, for what you say is spite,  
'Gainst ill-come strangers which did merit right.   

verse 15 You lay in ambush, oh deceitful snares,  
Enticing baits, beguiling sentinels,  
You added grief to grief, and cares to cares,  
Tears unto weeping eyes where tears did dwell:  
O multitudes of sin, legions of vice,  
Which thaws with sorrow sorrows frozen ice.   

A banquet was prepared, the fare, deceit,  
The dishes, poison, and the cup despite,  
The table, mischief, and the cloth a bait,  
Like spinner's web t'entrap the strange flies flight:  
Pleasure was strewed upon the top of pain,  
Which once digested, spread through every vain.   

verse 16 Oh ill conductors of misguided feet,  
Into a way of death, a path of guile,  
Poor pilgrims which their own destruction meet,  
In habitations of an unknown I'll:  
Oh had they left that broad deceiving way,  
They had been right and never gone astray.   

But mark the punishment which did ensue,  
Upon those ill-misleading villainies,  
They blinded were themselves with their self view,  
And fell into their own made miseries:  
Seeking the entrance of their dwelling places,  
With blinded eyes, and dark misguided faces.   

verse 17 Lo, here was snares ensnared, and guiles beguiled,  
Deceit, deceived, and mischief was misled,  
Eyes blinded sight, and thoughts the hearts defiled,  
Life living in aspects, was dying dead:  
Eyes thought for to mislead, and were misled:  
Feet went to make mis-treads, and did mis-treade.   

At this proud fall the elements were glad,  
And did embrace each other with a kiss,  
All things were joyful which before were sad,  
The pilgrims in their way, and could not miss:  
As when the sound of music, doth resound  
With changing tune; so did the changed ground.   

verse 18 The birds forsook the air, the sheep the fold,  
The Eagle p●tched low, the Swallow hie,  
The Nightingale did sleep and uncontrolled  
Forsook the prickle of her nature's eye:  
The silly worm was friends with all her foes,  
And sucked the dew-teares from the weeping rose.   

The sparrow tuned the larks sweet melody,  
The lark in silence sung a dirge of dole,  
The linnet helped the lark in malady  
The swans forsook the choir of billow-roule:  
The drie-land foul, did make the sea their nest,  
The wet-sea fish did make the land their rest.   

verse 19 The swans the choristers which did complain,  
In inward feeling of an outward loss,  
And filled the choir of waves with laving pain,  
(Yet dancing in their wail, with surges toss:)  
Forsook her cradle-billow-mountaine bed,  
And hies her unto land there to be fed.   

Her seafare now is land-fare of content,  
Old change, is changed new yet all is change,  
The fishes are her food, and they are sent,  
Unto dry land, to creep, to feed, to range:  
Now coolest water cannot quench the fire,  
But makes it proud in hottest hot desire.   

verse 20 The evening of a day, is morn to night,  
The evening of a night is morn to day,  
The one is Phoebe's climb, which is pale-bright,  
The other Phoebus, in more light array:  
She makes the mountains limp in chil-cold snow  
He melts their eyes and makes them weep for woe.   

His beams ambassadors of his hot will,  
Through te transparent element of air,  
Doth only his warm embassage fulfil,  
And melts the icy jaw of Phoebe's heir:  
Yet those, though fiery flames could not thaw cold,  
Nor break the frosty glue of winter's mould.   

Here nature slew herself, or at the least  
verse 21 Did tame the passage of her hot aspects,  
All things have nature to be worst or best,  
And must incline to that, which she affects:  
But nature missed herself, in this same part,  
For she was weak, and had not nature's heart.   

'twas God which made her weak, and makes her strong,  
Resisting vice, assisting righteousness,  
Assisting, and resisting, right, and wrong,  
Making this Epilogue in equallnes:  
'twas God his people's aid, their wisdoms friend,  
In whom I did begin, with whom I end.   A jove surgit opus: de jove finite opus.