HOSANNA, OR DIVINE POEMS ON THE PASSION OF CHRIST.  
BY FRANCIS QUARELES.  
LONDON, Printed for John Benson, and are to be sold at his shop in Chancery Lane near the rolls. 1647.   

Upon THE DAY OF our saviours NATIVITY.  
THis day's a riddle for the God that made  
This day, this day from his own Creature had  
His making too; his flesh, and bone, and limb  
And breath from her, that had her breath from him.  
Th'unbribed Judge of man's eternal doom  
This day was prisoner in a virgin's womb:  
And the Lord Paramount of all the Earth  
Was wanting a poor Tenement at his birth,  
Into the inn this mean guest must not come.  
Strange, he that fills all rooms should have no room▪  
The sun dropped from his sphere, and did decline  
His unshorn head to the Earth; his radiant shine  
Peeped from the windows of the East, to breathe  
New life on People in the shades of Death.  
Dear sun since from thy sphere thou once were sent,  
Here is a soul, make it thy firmament.   

Born of a Virgin.  
ALthough the eye of Faith, not reason can  
Behold a Virgin Mother of a Man,  
Yet Natralists affirm some things may breed  
And have their propagation without seed.  
As that rich crop of Pease which Story says  
Made Orford famous in our grandsire's days  
Th' admired Phoenix which admits no pair  
In her perfumed ashes leaves an heir.  
And this Maiola dares to justify  
To be no false, but true history.  
By seminal commixtion, I had been  
Distained, and soiled with original sin,  
Pure must the Pipe, pure must the Conduit be  
That must convey water oflife to me.  
Our sun of righteousness when he would-shine  
Upon the world, choose Virgo for his sign.   

Born in Augustus time.  
NOw was the man of men great Julius slain,  
And with his blood had dy'd the chair in grain  
He sat in, in the Senate: and the flood  
Which streamed from civil war dried in his blood;  
And now the mild Augustus sat above  
The Sphere of Rome like a propitious Jove.  
And with a milder influence cleared the skies,  
And purged these exhalations which did rise  
From so much blood effused: or was sent  
Like some Apollo to Rome's firmament;  
For in his sunny days was learning's spring,  
All the Arts flourished, and each Muse did sing  
The fullness of all time, who will not think?  
When Peace and Learning were so fairly linked?  
When wisdom hadits flourish on the earth,  
Then had the wisdom of the Father birth.  
And when the Olive branch of Peace was shown  
Then, not before, the Prince of Peace came down!   

Born in Winter.  
Phlegmatic Winter on a bed of Snow  
Lay spitting full of rheum; the sun was now  
Inned at the Goat; the melancholic Earth  
Had her womb bound, and hopeless of the birth  
Of one poor flower, the fields, wood, meads, and all  
Feared in this snowy sheet a funeral,  
Nor only senseless Plants were in decay  
Man, who's a Plant reversed, was worse than they▪  
He had a spiritual Winter, and bereft  
Not of his leaves, but juice, nay, nothing less▪  
His passive power to live was so abated  
He was not to be raised, but new created.  
When all things else were perished, and when  
No flowers were, but in their causes, than  
This wondrous Flower itself to act did bring,  
And Winter was the flower loesses spring.   

Born in the Night.  
THe havens was now but masked, and now forbids  
His eyelike stars to look out of their lids,  
For it had been a shame unto the night  
If but one star had miss so great asight.  
Or else it wa● muffled in silent shade,  
And dressed in sullen blacks, and was afraid  
To let one star gaze out, for had it seen  
This sight, it had for ever blinded been.  
There was a double night, a night of sin,  
Dark heaven designed the darkness we were in  
The darkness, which through heaven with silence rolls  
Was the sad Emblem of our darkened souls.  
Now when the Sun, which daily rounds the skies  
Was gone to bed, this other sun did rise;  
For happy 'twas not fit there should appear  
Two Suns at once, in the same Hemisphere.   

The Angels tell it to the shepherds.  
THere is a point of happiness a time se●  
Wherein felicity either must be met  
Or miss for ever; and that certain now  
Is, when w'are at our Calllngs; from the Plow  
Rome painful Quintus her Dictator makes.  
While Matthew gathers toll, and custom takes  
he's called to write a gospel. At their Net  
The sons of Zebedee their conversions met.  
And while these men stand sentinels and keep  
Strict watd, and watch about their charge their sheep,  
They from themselves are rapt with sacred hymns;  
And ravished with a noise of Chernbimes.  
That sung this infant's lullaby. The story  
Hath some proportion with the auditory,  
They Shepherds were, to them the tidings came▪  
And the first Gospel of the Holy lamb.   

Of the stars that appeared to the wise men.  
Astrology hath this rule; heavens' seldom shine  
With idle fires; like Prophets they divine  
Stupendious events; That spark'ling beam  
That did so long in Cassiopia stream,  
And shot upon the world an angry glance,  
Showed in its looks the Massacree of France  
This star whose coming Balaam had professed,  
From some wise men, think these wise men were guest  
Not framed by nature's fingers, but the hand  
That framed Nature did not move and stand  
A non significant, but itself a wonder,  
Sew`d that a greater miracle lay under.  
How was th' eternal son obscured here  
A Stable was his heaven, a Crib his sphere▪  
Never had Sun such an eclipse as this,  
To want a star to show ●en where it is.   

Of the wise men.  
LEt them not boast, that they first saw this star,  
A brawny brainless clown might go as far,  
The star in Cassiopea as I find.  
Tycho confess, was showed him by a hind,  
Wise though they were, they'd gone they knew not whether  
Had this star then been sent to lead them thither.  
So that the star which did before them go  
Both showed them light, and showed their blindness too.  
But why a star? when God doth mean to woo us,  
He useth means that are familiar to us.  
Peter a fisher was, and with a draught  
Of many fishes was the fisher caught:  
These men were versed in stars and well could read them  
Therefore a star is chose ●●out to lead them.  
How are men drawn to heaven the way they please,  
A fish to●●●Peter, and a star takes these.   

Of the Innocents.  
Hark what is that I hear? O 'tis the sound  
Of Rachel! cause her children can'nt be found.  
Herod that Fox: so is his title good  
He slays the tender Lambs, and sucks their blood.  
Strange tempered hearts whose edges would not yield  
Suppled with all the tears that day were spilt;  
Hearts of the Rock which like to Diamonds must  
Be cut, or ne'er be cut, with their own dust.  
There a child giving death a lovely look  
Smiles on his executioner; there an other  
Asleep is slain; Sleep changed to death his brother  
Dennis who sweats to put on rank and file  
Heavens' Spirits by nine orders; doth beguile  
himself and me; his memory was too blame  
This order of the Innocents not to name.   

Of St. Stephen.  
SOme names are ominous, wherein wise fate  
Writes in fare Characters men's future state  
Hippolytus who scorned incestuou● sports  
Was torn with horses, as his name imports.  
Stephen was a crown, which showed in time to come  
He should put on the Crown of martyrdom.  
A crown enchased with stones, nay such a one  
Earth cannot boast, 'twas all of precious stone;  
The storm of stones which at this Martyr flew  
Recoiled, enriched with an Orient hue.  
The meanest flint which at this Saint was thrown,  
Reflects a ruby, or some richer stone▪  
The stones advanced to a heap, become  
As first our martyr's crown, so now his tomb.  
Muse, make a Pagan wonder: thus set down,  
Here lies a man entombed in his crown.   

Of our saviour's Circumcision, or new-year's day.  
THe seventh day from his birth, he did begin  
Obedience to the Law and pawned his s●●n,  
He would fulfil it; when Ziskas hour was come  
He should expire, he bade them make a Drum  
Of s' skin, conceited it would scare the foe  
'Twas strange antipathy, if it would do so.  
But this small piece of skin was such a spell  
It scared the sooty Regimen●s of Hell.  
He as a Prince a crown like Princes wears,  
And thorns are th' emblems of a Prince's cares:  
The Church a lily amongst Thornes doth grow,  
And as the church's head himself doth so.  
When Rome's Dictators did a Conquest bring  
From some sacked town, or from some petty King  
Triumphing palm, and Temples crowning bays  
Circling their brows shot from their head like rays.  
Here Hell was captive, Death it Triumph borne.  
And yet victor's head but crowned with thorn:  
Peace; 'twas 〈…〉 his blood had died the twigs  
And changed 〈…〉 of coral sprigs,  
Or stained the buds, so 〈…〉 blush  
Out-vied the English or the Province bush.   

They gave him vinegar and Gall, Mat. 27. And Wine mingled with Myrrh, Mark 15.  
WHen one was on the cursed tree to die,  
They gave Narcotick drink to stupefy  
And dull the motion of the active sense  
So to allay the racking violence  
Of his sharp tortures, and the Rabbins say  
That these compounded potions were they  
Give Wine to men ready to quit their breath,  
Vinegar is his preparative to Death;  
He must have nought but vinegar who hath  
Trod in the winepress of his father's wrath.  
Those lips that once like honey combs distilled  
Are now with gall in stead of honey filled.  
And he's presented with a draught of gall,  
Whose innocence before had none at all.  
One of the Wise-men that to Betblem went  
To do him homage, did him Myrh present.  
So they did here, but in a different case  
'Twas there in honour, here in his disgrace.   

They compelled Simon of Siren to bear his cross.  
HE could not bear his cross, his cross must try  
To bear the burden of his Majesty,  
A burden which the Legendaries write  
Made Christopher to stoop, maugre his might,  
Which mazed him, till 'twas whispered in his ear  
He had borne him, that all the world did bear.  
His Yoke is easy; yet on him they lay  
A heavy cross to carry; who dares say  
That this was just? yet thus we men requite  
Him, who professed that his burden's light,  
But this 'twas made it heavy, there came in  
His father's wrath to boot, and the world's fin.  
Poor Simon then coming out of the field  
Where haply he had ploughed, not used a Shield;  
Receives the cross for's arms; no herald can  
Produce me such another Gentleman.  
So he walks on to Golgotha, where he  
Commends his Saviour to the fatal Tree  
Where Death and Life were word in mutual strife,  
It was his tree of death, our tree of life.   

Crucified.  
THose hands, which heaven like to a curtain spread,  
Are spread upon the cross: those hands which did  
Consolidate the metals in the ground,  
One of those metals gave those hands the wound:  
See his hands spread, as if he meant to grace  
His Executioners with his last embrace,  
Nay, all the world: for if his fist can hold  
The winds, his arms can all the world enfold.  
See there Longinus with his ruder spear  
Pierce his Diviners side, from whence appear  
Water and blood, whose white and red present  
Th'admitting and confirming Sacrament.  
See here his feet nailed to the cross, which done  
Those feet with streams of purple did so run,  
That in one sense it might be understood  
Our saviour's feet were swift to shed blood:  
His hands and feet thus forced to obey  
The cruel nails command; may we not say  
The star that out of Jacob shined so far  
Was then, or never made a fixed star?   

Crucified between two thieves.  
What, reckoned amongst rogues? mixed with the rabble  
D●svail'd like the jewel in the fable  
Cast in the count 'mongst thieves? what coin is he  
In Jury stamped, yet there not currant be?  
They should not for inscription sake refuse  
Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews;  
A piece so rich, no angel that could make it  
So good, the devil was content to take it.  
When man's arreareages for sin were paid,  
And the whole ransom of the world defrayed  
Those Moralists who anciently did dream  
Virtue was not a meant, but an extreme,  
If they had seen him placed thus, would swear  
Virtue was in the midst, for he was there,  
And by his presence made it plain to try  
How virtue looked set by her contrary.  
And yet his glory had not an addition  
Of lustre lent it by this opposition;  
To set him off, he stood in need of none  
No foil was needful for so rich a Stone.   

The Earth did quake.  
REst is the property her creator gave her,  
But now a palsy makes her veins to quaver:  
How can't to pass, that wind cholique strove  
In the earth's bowels, and did make her move.  
She once was built so firmly on her base  
She need not fear a shouldering from her place,  
'Tis true; but wa''t not time to stir, when he  
That fastened her, was fastened to a tree.  
When he was in his lowest declination,  
Then dust and ashes had their exaltation.  
And the Earth roused liar self, as if she meant  
To be no more the lowest element.  
Or since his deaths-men did so boldly dare,  
She taught them by example how to fear.  
The Earth did put on man, and trembling shaken,  
Man put on earth, and no amazement took;  
Sure this will aggravate those men's offence  
The Earth showed reason, and the men no sense.   

The sun was in a total eclipse, and not as naturally it should have been in the Sign with the Moon.  
TWo Suns were seen, when Charles the Great deceased  
Whose mighty wings o'ershaded all the West.  
But when this mightier King of Kings did die  
Not one appeared to beautify the sky:  
For when Great Charles did undergo his doom  
One sun seemed added to supply his room.  
But when the God of nature's self was gone  
Into a Passion, there was use for none.  
Nay, when the Sphere of light was puffed out  
How could the sun poor Taper look about?  
Horrid Eclipse; for now the moon by right  
Was not in the sunes' sign, but opposite;  
And the same way our sins eclipsed that Sun  
Upon the cross▪ by opposition.  
Miraculous Eclipse, how could the small  
And less circumference of the moon hide all  
The larger sun, but that our darker sin  
To aid the moon, did bring her forces in.   

The Graves opened, and many of the Saints arose.  
THere was no Trumpet here to raise the dead,  
And call them from their graves, nor was there need,  
Though no archangel with a Trumpet cried,  
Yet now the angel of the Covenant died.  
And dying cried with a loud voice; and those  
Mistook it for the Trumpet, and arose.  
They rose, as if it had been their intents  
To give him choice of all their Monuments.  
And seeing that he must interment have,  
Each Saint did seem to cry, pray take my grave.  
When he bowed down his head, the dead raised theirs  
And looked out of their frighted sepulchers.  
The souls shot out of heaven in to the dead,  
And did a second time their bodies wed.  
And though they had not left their blessed thrones  
To reassume their ancient flesh and bones:  
Yet his last gasp had been enough to have hurled  
Souls into all the bodies of the world.   

Buried in a Garden.  
AFter his spiritual death, first Adam's cast  
Out of the Garden, where he had been placed.  
After his corporal, second Adam's put  
Into a Garden, and there closely shut.  
The first had not gone out but for his sin,  
And but for ours, the second not come in.  
he's in a Garden laid▪ not as one dead,  
But as a living Plant set in a bed:  
Set in the Spring, and without aid of showers  
Sprung in the spring-time, like to other flowers  
To which he gave the beauty that they have,  
And that's the reason, that the spring's so brave,  
Nay, wholesome as 'tis brave; for in that place  
Sprung up (if ever) that rich herb of grace.  
Our Herbalists have writ that Serpents fear  
The virtue of that herb, nor dare come near  
Her sovereign power; I care not though they miss  
I'm sure th'old Serpent dares not come near this.   

Buried in a new tomb hewn out of a Rock.  
When Emperors were crowned, Tomb-makers brought  
Several stones, and what the Emperor thought  
Rest in his choice, that stone was laid aside  
To be the Emperor's tombstone when he died.  
●his Emperor was crowned but choose no stone,  
●seph supplies that want, and chooseth one,  
●nd such a one, as might be censured fit  
●or him that was to be enclosed in it.  
●hat wondrous stone, which Daniel saith was cut  
Out of the Rock, that stone itself was put  
●nto a stone, which lately had forsaken  
The rocky quarry, whence it had been taken.  
That for his Epitaph it might be read,  
Here in a stone, a stone lies buried.  
'Twas a new tomb, and was it not most fit  
For that pure body which was put in it?  
How like his tomb and maiden Mother is,  
Man never lay with her, nor man in this.  
He that was taken from a Virgin womb  
Where should he lie but in a Virgin tomb.   

The Mount of Olives.  
he's humble; and that humbleness will show  
By th' Emblem; Nature plants the Olive low.  
But as presaging that from hence should be  
The starting of a great ascension, she  
Set those upon a Hill, as if she meant  
They should have theirs, where he had his ascent,  
He's a King, and his Majesty will show  
By th'Emblem; oil anoints the royal brow  
Not liquours, unguents, nor rich palms we try,  
But oil; for oil denoteth sovereignty.  
Blended with other liquours it will move  
In an ambition till it flows above.  
In the compounding of a Majesty,  
A chief ingredient is humility.  
The heightened spirits would be too elate  
●f humbleness should not a● temper state.  
In him like friended Elements they do  
Commix; he was a lamb, yet Lion too.   

Whit-Sunday: There was a noise from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind.  
WHen sad Elijah did by Horeb lie,  
A roaring wind so buffeted the sky  
As if the mustered vapours had combined  
To make one storm; God was not in the wind.  
But when th' Apostles by consent were met,  
After their parture from Mount Olivet  
A bellowing tempest volleyed from the Sphere,  
And filled all the room▪ and God was there.  
The spirit and the wind may seem to be  
Employed in consort for their sympathy  
When th' universe was made, and darkness strove  
For place, the spirit did on the waters move;  
When the drowned world was to be made again  
The wind did move upon the waters then.  
Now when th' eternal Spirit was to blow  
And breath on them, he sent a wind, as though  
The uncreated Spirit had assigned  
Th'other created spirit of the wind  
To usher him the way as he should come,  
Or be his Harbinger to take his room.   

There appeared unto them Tongues.  
WHen Babel first reared her ambitious crest  
Upon the plain of Shinar, to contest  
With heaven; a different language did beguile  
The founder's hopes, and stay the rising Pile,  
So when the Church was to be edified,  
The builders' language was diversified;  
But difference of tongues had different power,  
It raised the Church and ruined the Tower.  
Th' Apostles were Ambassadors assigned  
By the King of heaven to go to all Mankind;  
And 'twas both reason, and their King's intent  
That they should know the tongues before they went  
Yet they had none, but as the haste required  
Their language was infused, not acquired.  
Unlettered souls, poor fishermen that spoke  
Hardly more tongues, than the mute fish they took.  
He who's the father's word, a promise gave  
That he should send, and they a present have.  
This mission did the miracle afford,  
He sent the Tongues, who was himself the Word.   

Tongues of fire, and sat upon each of them.  
When fire like the postilion was past  
Elijah; a soft language came at last.  
But here was no precedency in either,  
The fire and language did come both together,  
For he who Father of all language is,  
Was in the Apostles fire, but not in his.  
That fierce apparition which did flame  
In Moses bush, and not enfire the same,  
Helped not his tongue's defect, nor did him store  
With any dialects unknown before.  
Here it did both, here the divided blaze  
Refined their stile, and varied their phrase  
The Prophet had not power to forbear  
Because it was fite in his bones; 'twas here  
Fire in their tongues; they needs must silence break  
Tongues tipped with fire, how can they choose but speak?  
The prophet's tongue once with a ●oale had been  
Touched at the Altar by a Cherubin;  
But here it were superfluous to require  
Coals for these tongues, these tongues themselves were fire,  
These tongues the Spirir would not represent  
In the dry, cold, or the moist Element,  
That temper were too languishing and weak,  
So powerful an embassy to speak.  
They must be fire, whose doctrine must be hurled  
Swift as the wings of lightning through the world,  
And work th' effects of lightning; will not hit  
A heart of flesh, but gently pass by it.  
But grinds these hearts to dust, whose hardness dare  
Provoke a Nether millstone to compare,  
And like the lightnings uncontrolled stroke  
Slides by a Reed, but ruinates an oak;  
Like fire they were to separate the gold  
From the admixture of th' impurer mould,  
To take the mass of the whole rational creature  
To fine, and quintessentiate their nature,  
And with the alchemy of heavenly fire.  
Make the extracted spirits to aspire,  
Which with repeated heats they so refined  
That they drew out th' elixir of Mankind.  
Steele-tempered consciences, and hearts conflate  
Of sturdiest metals, as unmoved as fate  
Were by the working of the fire made fit,  
Celestial forms, and notions to admit.  
Their Sermons were not only heard but felt  
And made a leaden Auditory melt.  
Which being so dissolved they impressed  
Divine Ideas in the softened breast  
Those parted blazes fixed on them did shine  
Like pretty comets, whence one might divine▪  
Some alteration; and there was; for then  
There was the change of souls, and change of men.  
Or else like stars these little flames did slide  
With which th' Apostles were all stellified,  
And turned to the twelve Signs, through which the Sun  
Of righteousness should as his zodiac run,  
Or from the phantasm which did then appear▪  
There was some order instituted there.  
The badge was fiery tongues, and they may boast  
Themselves of th' Order of the Holy Ghost.  
FINIS.