TRINITAS EMBLEMS  
By Fra: Quarles.  
LONDON. Printed by I.D. for Francis. Eglerfeild, and 〈…〉 at the 〈◊〉 of the Marigold in St. Paul's Churchyard 1●7●.    

Haec Laus, hic Apex Sapientiae est, ea viventem appetere, quae morienti forent appetenda.   

TO MY MUCH HONOURED, AND NO less truly beloved Friend EDW. BENLOWES Esquire.  
My dear Friend,  
YOu have put the Theorboe into my hand; and I have played: You gave the Musician the first encouragement; the Music returns to you for Patronage. Had it been a light Air, no doubt but it had taken the most; and, among them, the worst: But being a grave Strain, my hopes are, that it will please the best; and among them, You. Toyish Airs please trivial ears; They kiss the fancy, and betray it: They cry, Hail, first; and, after, Crucify: Let Dorrs delight to immerd themselves in dung, whilst Eagles scorn so poor a Game as Flies. Sir, you have Art, and Candour: Let the one judge, let the other excuse  
Your most affectionate Friend, FRA. QUARLES.   

TO THE READER.  
AN Emblem is but a silent Parable. Let not the tender Eye check, to see the allusion to our blessed SAVIOUR figured, in these Types. In holy Scripture, He is sometimes called a Sour; sometimes, a Fisher; sometimes, a Physician: And why not presented so, as well to the eye, as to the ear? Before the knowledge of letters, GOD was known by Hierogliphics; And, indeed, what are the Heavens, the Earth, nay every Creature, but Hieroglyphics and Emblems of His Glory? I have no more to say. I wish thee as much pleasure in the reading, as I had in the writing. Farewell Reader.   

BY Fathers backed; by Holy Writ, led on,  
Thou showst away to Heaven by Helicon▪  
The Muses Font is consecrate by Thee,  
And Poefie, baptised Divinity:  
Blessed soul, that here embark'st: Thou sayl'st a pace,  
'Tis hard to say, moved more by Wit, or Grace;  
Each Muse so plies her Oar: but O, the Sail  
Is filled from heaven with a Diviner Cale:  
When Poets prove Divines, why should not I  
Approve, in Verse, this Divine Poetry?  
Let this suffice to licence thee the Press;  
I must no more; nor could the Truth say less.  
Sic approbavit RICH. MOVNTGOMERIE Procan. Cantabrigiensis.   

Tot Flores, QUARLES, quot Paradisus, habet. Lectori bene- male-volo.  
Qui legit ex Horto hoc Flores, Qui carpit, Vterque  
Jure potest VIOLAS dicere, jure ROSAS.  
Non è Parnassus VIOLAM, Paestiuè ROSETO  
Carpit Apollo, magis quae sit amoena, ROSAM.  
Quòt Versus, VIOLAS legis; & Quem verba locutum  
Credis, verba dedit: Nam dedit Ille ROSAS.  
Utque Ego non dicam haec VIOLAS suavissima; Tuto  
Ipse facis VIOLAS, Livide, si violas.  
Nàm velūtè VIOLIS sibi sugit Aranea virus:  
Vertis ità in succos Hasque, ROSASque tuos.  
Quas violas Musas, VIOLAS puto quasque reculas  
Dente tuo rosas, has, roor, esse ROSAS.  
Sic rosas, facis esse ROSAS, dùm, Zoile, rodis:  
Sic facis, has, VIOLAS, Livide, dum violas.  
Brent-Hall. 1634. EDW. BENLOWES.   

 emblem 
Dum Caesum aspicio, Solum despicio 〈◊〉 marshal 〈◊〉:    

THE FIRST BOOK.  

The Invocation.  
Rouse thee, my soul; and drain thee from the dregs  
Of vulgar thoughts Screw up the heightened pegs  
Of thy Sublime Theorboe four notes higher,  
And higher yet; that so the shrill-mouthed Choir  
Of swift winged Seraphims may come and join,  
And make thy Consort more than half divine.  
Invoke no Muse; Let heaven be thy Apollo;  
And let his sacred Influences hollow  
Thy highbred Strains; Let his full beams inspire  
Thy ravished brains with more heroic fire;  
Snatch thee a Quill from the spread eagle's wing,  
And, like the morning Lark, mount up and sing:  
Cast off these dangling Plummets, that so clog  
Thy labouring heart, which gropes in this dark fog  
Of dungeon-earth; Let flesh and blood forbear  
To stop thy flight, till this base world appear  
A thin blue Lanskip: Let thy pinions sore  
So high a pitch, that men may seem no more  
Than Pismires, crawling on this Molehill earth,  
Thy ear untroubled with their frantic mirth;  
Let not the frailty of thy flesh disturb  
Thy new-concluded peace; Let reason curb  
Thy hotmouthed Passion; and let heaven's fire season  
The flash Conceits of thy corrected Reason;  
Disdain to warm thee at Lust's smoky fires,  
Scorn, scorn to feed on thy old bloat desires▪  
Come; come, my soul, hoist up thy higher sails,  
The wind blows fair? Shall we still creep like Snails,  
That gilled their ways with their own native slimes?  
No, we must fly like Eagles, and our Rhimes  
Must mount to heaven, and reach th'olympic ear;  
Our heav'n-blowne fire must seek no other Sphere:  
Thou great Theanthropos, that giv'st and crownest  
Thy gifts in dust; and, from our dunghill crownest  
Reflected Honour, taking by Retail,  
(What thou hast given in gross) from lapsed frail,  
And sinful man, that drinkest full draughts, wherein  
Thy children's leprous fingers, scurfed with Sin,  
Have padled, cleanse, O cleanse my crafty Soul  
From secret crimes, and let my thoughts control  
My thoughts▪ O, teach me stoutly to deny  
Myself, that I may be no longer I;  
every my Fancy, clarify my thoughts,  
Refine my dross; O, wink at humane faults;  
And, through this slender conduit of my Quill,  
Convey thy Current, whose clear streams may fill  
The hearts of men with love, their tongues with praise;  
Crown me with Glory: Take, who list, the Bays.   

I.  
 emblem 
Totus mundus in maligno( mali ligno positus est. Will Marshal sculp:    

I. JAM. I.XIU. Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed.  Serpent. Eve. Serp. 
NOt eat? Nor taste? Not touch? Nor cast an eye  
Upon the fruit of this fair Tree? And why?  
Why eatest thou not what Heaven ordained for food?  
Or canst thou think that bad, which heaven called Good?  
Why was it made, if not to be enjoyed?  
Neglect of favours makes a favour void:  
Blessings unused, pervert into a Waste,  
As well as Surfeits; Woman, Do but taste:  
See how the laden boughs make silent Suit  
To be enjoyed; Look how their bending Fruit  
Meet thee half way; Observe but how they crouch  
To kiss thy hand; Coy woman, Do but touch▪  
Mark what a pure Vermillion blush has died  
Their swelling Cheeks, and how, for shame, they hide  
Their palsy heads, to see themselves stand by  
Neglected: Woman, Do but cast an eye;  
What bounteous heaven ordained for use, refuse not;  
Come, pull and eat! y'abuse the things ye use not.  Eve. 
Wisest of Beasts, our great Creator did  
Reserve this Tree, and this alone forbid,  
The rest are freely ours, which, doubtless, are  
As pleasing to the Taste; to th'eye, as fair;  
But touching this, his strict commands are such,  
'Tis death to taste, no less than death to touch.  Serp. 
P'sh; death's a fable: Did not heaven inspire,  
Your equal Elements with living Fire,  
Blown from the spring of life? Is not that breath  
Immortal? Come; ye are as free from death  
As He that made ye: Can the flames expire  
Which he has kindled? Can ye quench His fire?  
Did not the great Creator's voice proclaim  
What ere he made (from the blue spangled frame  
To the poor leaf that trembles) very Good?  
Blessed He not both the Feeder, and the Food?  
Tell, tell me, then, what danger can accrue  
From such blessed Food, to such Halfgods as you?  
Curb needless fears, and let no fond conceit  
Abuse your freedom; woman, Take, and eat.  Eve. 
'Tis true; we are immortal; death is yet  
Unborn; and, till Rebellion make it debt,  
Undue; I know the Fruit is good, until  
Presumptuous disobedience make it ill:  
The lips that open to this Fruits a portal  
To let in death, and make immortal, mortal.  Serp. 
You cannot die; Come, woman, Taste and fear not▪  Eve. 
Shall Eve transgress? I dare not, O I dare not,  Serp. 
Afraid? why drawest thou back thy timorous Arm?  
Harme only falls on such as fear a Harm:  
Heaven knows and fears the virtue of this Tree  
'Twill make ye perfect Gods as well as Herald  
Stretch forth thy hand, and let thy fondness never  
Fear death; Do, pull, and eat, and live for ever.  Eve. 
'Tis but an Apple; and it is as good  
To do as to desire▪ Fruits made for food:  
I'll pull, and taste, and tempt my Adam too  
To know the secrets of this dainty,  Serp. 
Do.  

S. CHRYS sup. Matth.  
He forced him not: He touched him not: Only said, Cast thyself down; that we may know, whosoever obeys the Devil, casts himself down; For the Devil may suggest; compel he cannot.   

S. BERN. in ser.  
It is the Devils part to suggest; Ours, not to consent: As oft as we resist him, so often we overcome him, as often as we overcome him, so often we bring joy to the Angels, and glory to God; Who proposes us, that we may contend, and assists us, that we may conquer.   

EPIG. 1.  
Unlucky Parliament! wherein, at last,  
Both houses are agreed, and firmly past  
An Act of death, confirmed by higher Powers▪  
O had it had but such success as Ours.    

II.  
 emblem 
Sic malum cicuit unicum in evint malum.  
Will: Marshal sculpsit    

II. JAM. I.XU. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death.  

1  
LAment, lament; Look, look what thou hast done  
Lament the worlds, lament thy own Estate;  
Look, look, by doing, how thou art undone;  
Lament thy fall; lament thy change of State:  
Thy faith is broken, and thy Freedom gone,  
See, see too soon, what thou lamentest too late:  
O thou that wert so many men; nay, all  
Abriged in one, how has thy desperate fall  
Destroyed thy unborn seed, destroyed thyself withal.   

2  
Uxorious Adam, whom thy maker made  
Equal to Angels, that excel in power,  
What hast thou done? O why hast thou obeyed  
Thy own destruction? Like a new-cropt flower  
How does the glory, of thy beauty fade!  
How are thy fortunes blasted in an hour!  
How art thou cowed, that hadst the power to quell  
The spite of new-fallen Angels; baffle Hell,  
And vie with those that stood, and vanquish those that fell   

3  
See how the world (whose chaste and pregnant womb,  
Of late, conceived, and brought forth nothing ill)  
Is now degenerated, and become  
A base Adultress, whose false Births do fill  
The Earth with Monsters, Monsters that do roam  
And rage's about, and make a Trade, to kill.  
Now glutt'ny paunches; Lust gins to spawn;  
Wrath takes revenge; and Avarice, a pawn;  
Pale Envy pines; Pride swells; and Sloth gins to yawn▪   

4  
The Air, that whispered, now gins to roar,  
And blustering Boar as blows the boiling Tide;  
The white mouthed water now usurps the Shore,  
And scorns the power of her tried entall Guide;  
The fire now burns, that did but warm before,  
And rules her Ruler with resistless Pride;  
Fire, Water, Earth and Air, that first were made  
To be subdued, see how they how invade;  
They rule whom once they served; command, where once obeyed.   

5  
Behold; that nakedness, that late bewrayed  
Thy Glory, now's become thy shame, thy wonder;  
Behold; those Trees whose various Fruits were made  
For food, now turned a Shade to shroud thee under:  
Behold; That voice (which thou hast disobeyed)  
That late was Music, now affrights like Thunder:  
Poor man! Are not thy Joints grown sore with shaking,  
To view th'effect of thy bold undertaking,  
That in one hour didst mar, what heaven six days was making?   

S. AUGUST. lib. 1. de lib. arbit.  
It is a most just punishment, that man should lose that Freedom which man could not use, yet had power to keep if he would; And that he who had knowledge to do what was right, and did not, should be deprived of the knowledge of what was right; And that he who would not do righteously when he had the power, should lose the power to do it, when he had the will.   

HUGO de anima.  
They are justly punished that abuse lawful things, but they are most justly punished, that use unlawful things; Thus Lucifer fell from heaven; thus Adam lost his Paradise.   

EPIG. 2.  
See how these fruitful kernels, being cast  
Upon the earth, how thick they spring! how fast!  
A full eared Crop, and thriving; rank and proud;  
Preposterous man first sowed, and then he ploughed.    

III.  
 emblem 
Vt potia●, putio●. Paticeis, non poticeis.  
Wills Martial. sculpsit.    

III. PRO. XIV. XIII. Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness.  

1  
ALas fond Child,  
How are thy thoughts beguiled,  
To hope for Honey from a nest of Wasps?  
Thou mayst as well  
Go seek for ease in Hell,  
Or sprightly Nectar from the mouths of Asps.   

2  
The world's a Hive,  
From whence thou canst derive  
No good, but what thy soul's vexation brings:  
Put case thou meet  
Some peti-peti sweet,  
Each drop is guarded with a thousand stings.   

3  
Why dost thou make  
These murmuring Troops forsake,  
The safe Protection of their waxed Homes?  
This Hive contains  
No sweet that's worth thy pains;  
There's nothing here, alas, but empty Combs.   

4  
For trash and Toys,  
And grief engendering Joys  
What torment seems too sharp for flesh and blood!  
What bitter Pills,  
Composed of real Ills,  
Man swallows down, to purchase one false Good!   

5  
The dainties here,  
Are lest what they appear;  
Though sweet in hopes, yet in fruition, sour:  
The fruit that's yellow,  
Is found not always mellow,  
The fairest Tulip's not the sweetest flower.   

6  
Fond youth, give over,  
And vex thy soul no more,  
In seeking, what were better fare unfound;  
Alas thy gains  
Are only present pains  
To gather Scorpions for a future wound.   

7  
What's earth? or in it.  
That longer than a minit  
Can lend a free delight, that can endure?  
O who would droyle,  
Or delve in such a soil,  
Where gain's uncertain, and the pain is sure?   

S. AUGUST.  
Sweetness in temporal matters is deceitful; It is a labour and a perpetual fear; it is a dangerous pleasure, whose beginning is without providence, and whose end is not without repentance.   

HUGO.  
Luxury is an enticing pleasure, a bastard mirth, which hath honey in her mouth, gall in her heart, and a sting in her tail.   

EPIG. 3.  
What, Cupid, thy shafts already made?  
And seeking Hone, to set up thy Trade?  
True Emblem of hy sweets! Thy Bees do bring  
Honey, in their mouths, but in their tails, a sting.    

IV.  
 emblem 
Quis levior? cui phis ponderis adds amor.  
Will: Martial sculpsit.    

iv PSAL. LXII. IX. To be laid in the balance, it is altogether lighter than vanity.  

1  
PUt in another weight: 'Tis yet, too light:  
And yet: Fond Cupid, put another in;  
And yet, another: Still there's under weight;  
Put in another Hundred: Put again:  
Add world to world; then heap a thousand more  
To that; then, to renew thy wasted store,  
Take up more worlds on trust, to draw thy Balance lower.   

2  
Put in the flesh, with all her loads of pleasure;  
Put in great Mammon's endless Inventory;  
Put in the ponderous Acts of mighty Caesar;  
Put in the greater weight of sweden Glory;  
Add Scipio's gauntlet; put in Plato's Gown;  
Put Circe's Charms, put in the Triple Crown.  
Thy Balance will not draw; thy Balance will not down.   

3  
LORD, what a world is this; which, day and night,  
Men seek with so much toil, with so much trouble!  
Which, weighed in equal Scales, is found so light,  
So poorly overbalanced with a Bubble;  
Good GOD? that frantic mortals should destroy  
Their higher Hopes, and place their idle joy  
Upon such airy Trash, upon so light a Toy!   

4  
Thou bold Imposture, how hast thou befooled  
The Tribe of Man, with counterfeit desire!  
How has the breath of thy false bellowes cooled  
heavens freeborn flames▪ and kindled bastard fire!  
How hast thou vented Dross instead of treasure.  
And cheated man with thy false weights and measure,  
Proclaiming Bad for good; and gilding death with pleasure!   

5  
The world 's a crafty Strumpet, most affecting,  
And closely following those that most reject her;  
But seeming careless, nicely disrespecting  
And coily flying those that most affect her:  
If thou be free, she's strange; if strange, she's free;  
Fled, and she follows; Fellow, and she'll flee;  
Than she there's none more coy; there's none more fond than she.   

6  
O, what a Crocodilian world is this,  
Composed, of trech'ries, and ensnaring wiles!  
She clothes destruction in a form all kiss,  
And lodges death in her deceitful smiles;  
She hugs the soul she hates; and, there, does prove  
The veriest Tyrant, where she vows to love:  
And is a Serpent most, when most she seems a Dove.   

7  
Thrice happy he, whose nobler thoughts despise  
To make an Object of so easy Gaines;  
Thrice happy he, who scorns so poor a Prize  
Should be the C own of his heroic pains:  
Thrice happy he, that never was borne to try  
Her frowns or smiles; or, being borne, did lie  
In his sad Nurse's Arms an hour or two, and die.   

S. AUGUST. lib. Confess.  
O you that dote upon this world, for what victory do you fight? Your hopes can be crowned with no greater reward than the world can give; and what is the world but a brittle thing full of dangers, wherein we travel from lesser to greater periis? O let all her vain, light, and momentary glory perish with herself, and let us be conversant with more eternal things. Alas, this world is miserable; life is short, and death is sure.   

EPIG. 4.  
My soul; What's lighter than a feather? Wind▪  
Than wind? The fire▪ And what then fire? The mind:  
What's lighter than the mind? A thought: Than Thought?  
This bubble-world. What, than this Bubble? Nought.    

V  
 emblem 
His ve●titue orbis.  
Will. Martial. sculpfit.    

V I COR. VII. XXXI. The fashion of this world passeth away.  

1  
Go are those golden days, wherein  
Pale conscience started not at ugly sin;  
When good old Saturn's peaceful Throne  
Was usurped by his beardless Son:  
When jealous Ops never feared th'abuse  
Of her chaste bed, or breach of nuptial Truce:  
When just Astraea poised her Scales  
In mortal hearts, whose absence earth bewails:  
When froth-borne Venus, and her brat,  
With all that spurious brood young jove begat,  
In horrid shapes, were yet unknown;  
Those Halcyon days, that golden age is gone:  
There was no Client then, to wait  
The leisure of his long tayled Advocate;  
The Talion Law was in request,  
And Chaunc'ry courts were kept in every breast;  
Abused Statutes had no Tenters,  
And men could deal secure, without indentures;  
There was no peeping hole, to clear  
The Wittols eye from his incarnate fear;  
There were no lustful Cinders, then,  
To broil the Carbonadoed hearts of men;  
The rosy Cheek did, then, proclaim  
A shame of Gild, but not a guilt of shame;  
There was no whining soul to start  
At Cupid's twang, or curse, his flaming dart;  
The Boy had, then, but callow wings,  
And fell Erynnis Scorpions had no stings,  
The better acted world did move  
Upon the fixed Poles of Truth and Love;  
Love essenced in the hearts of men;  
Then, Reason ruled; There was no Passion, then;  
Till Lust and rage began to enter,  
Love the Circumf'rence was, and love the Centre;  
Until the wanton days of jove,  
The simple world was all composed of Love;  
But jove grew fleshly, false, unjust;  
Inferior beauty filled his veins with Lust;  
And Cucqueane junos' Fury hurled  
Fierce Balls of Rage into th'incestuous World:  
Astraea fled; and love returned  
From earth: Earth boiled with Lust; with Rage, it burned:  
And ever since the world has been  
Kept going with the scourge of Lust, and Spleen.   

S. AMBROS.  
Lust is a sharp spur to vice, which always puts the affections into a false Gallop.   

HUGO.  
Lust is an immoderate wantonness of the stesh a sweet poison; a cruel pestilence; a pernicious potion, which weakens the body of man, and effeminates the strength of an heroic mind.   

S. AUGUST,  
Envy is the hatred of another's felicity: in respect of Superiors, because they are not equal 〈◊〉 them in respect of Inferiors, lest they should be equal to them; in respect of equals; because they are equal to them: Through Envy proceeded the fall of the world, and the death of Christ.   

EPIG. 5.  
What? Cupid, must the world be lashed so soon?  
But made at morning, and be whipped at noon?  
'Tis like the Wagg that plays with Venus' Doves,  
The more 'tis lashed, the more perverse it proves.    

VI  
 emblem 
In ceuce tuta quies  
Will Martial Sculpsit    

VI ECCLES. II. XVII. All is vanity and vexation of spirit.  

1  
HOw is the anxious soul of man befooled  
In his desire,  
That thinks a Hectic Fever may be cooled  
In flames of fire,  
Or hopes to rake full heaps of burnished gold  
From nasty mire!  
A whining Lover may as well request  
A scorn full breast  
To melt in gentle tears, as woe the world for rest.   

2  
Let wit and all her studied plots effect  
The best they can;  
Let smiling Fortune prosper, and perfect  
What wit began;  
Let earth advise with both, and so project  
A happy man;  
Let wit, or fawning Fortune vie their best;  
He may be blessed  
With all that earth can give: but earth can give no Rest▪   

3  
Whose Gold is double with a careful hand,  
His cares are double;  
The pleasure, Honour, Wealth of Sea and Land  
Bring but a trouble;  
the world itself, and all the world's Command  
Is but a Bubble.  
The strong desires of man's insatiate breast  
May stand possessed  
Of all that earth can give; but earth can give no Rest.   

4  
The world's a seeming Par'dise, but her own  
And Man's Tormenter;  
Appearing fixed, yet but a rolling Stone,  
Without a Tenter;  
It is a vast Circumference, where none  
Can find a Centre:  
Of more than earth, can earth make none possessed;  
and he that lest  
Regards this restless world, shall in this world find Rest:   

5  
True Rest consists not in the oft revying  
Of worldly dross;  
Earth's miry Purchase is not worth the buying;  
Her gain is loss;  
Her rest, but giddy toil, if not relying  
Upon her Cross;  
How worldlings droyle for trouble! That fond breast  
That is possessed  
Of earth without a Cross, has earth without a Rest.   

CASS. in Ps.  
The Cross is the invincible Sanctuary of the humble: The dejection of the proud; the victory of Christ; the destruction of the devil: the confirmation of the faithful: the death of the unbeliever: the life of the just.   

DAMASCEN.  
The Cross of Christ is the key of Paradise: the weak man's staff: the Converts Convoy: the upright man's perfection: the soul and body's health: the prevention of all evil, and the procurer of all Good,   

EPIG. 9  
Worldling, whose whimpering folly holds the losses  
Of honour, Pleasure, health and wealth such Crosses,  
Look here, and tell me what your Arms engross,  
When the best end of what ye hugg's a cross.    

VII.  
 emblem 
Latet hostis, et otia ducis?  
W. Marshal sculp:    

VII. I PET. V VIII. Be sober; Be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a roaring Lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour.  

1  
WHy dost thou suffer lustful sloth to creep  
(Dull Cyprian lad) into thy wanton brows?  
Is this a time to pay thine idle vows  
At Morpheus Shrine? Is this a time to steep  
Thy brains in wasteful slumbers? up and rouse  
Thy leaden spirits; Is this a time to sleep?  
Adjourn thy sanguine dreams; Awake, arise;  
Call in thy Thoughts, and let them all advise,  
Hadst thou as many Heads, as thou hast wounded Eyes.   

2  
Look, look, what horrid Furies do await  
Thy flattering slumbers; If thy drowsy head  
But chance to nod, thou fall'st into a Bed  
Of sulphurous flames, whose Torments want a date:  
Fond Boy, be wise; let not thy thoughts be fed  
With Phrygian wisdom; Fools are wise too late:  
Beware betimes, and let thy Reason sever  
Those Gates which passion closed; wake now, or never:  
For if thou nod'st, thou fall'st: and falling, fall'st for ever.   

3  
Mark, how the ready hands of death prepare;  
His Bow is bend, and he has noched his dart;  
He aims, he levels at thy slumbering heart;  
The wound is posting; O be wise; Beware,  
What? has the voice of danger lost the art  
To raise the spirit of neglected Care?  
Well; sleep thy fill; and take thy soft reposes;  
But know withal, sweet tastes have sour closes;  
And he reputes in Thorns, that sleeps in Beds of roses.   

4  
Yet sluggard, wake, and gull thy soul no more,  
With earth's false pleasure, and the world's delight,  
Whose fruit is fair, and pleasing to the sight,  
But sour in taste; false at the putrid Core:  
Thy flaring Glass is Gems at her half light;  
She makes thee seeming rich, but truly poor:  
She boasts a kernel, and bestows a Shell;  
Performs an Inch of her fair promised Ell;  
Her words protest a Heaven; Her works produce a Hell.   

5  
O thou, the fountain of whose better part  
Is earthed, and gravailed up with vain desire:  
That daily wallow'st in the fleshly mire  
And base pollution of a lustful heart,  
That feelest no passion but in wanton fire,  
And ownest no torment but from Cupid's dart;  
Behold thy Type; Thou sit'st upon this Ball  
Of earth, secure, while death, that flings at all,  
Stands ar'md to strike thee down, where flames attend thy fall.   

S. BERN.  
Security is no where; It is neither in heaven; nor in Paradise, much less in the world: In heaven the Angels fell from the divine presence; in Paradise. Adam fell from his place of pleasure; in the world, judas fell from the School of our Saviour.   

HUGO.  
I eat secure; I drink secure: I sleep secure, even as though I had past the day of death, avoided the day of judgement, and escaped the torments of hell fire: I play and laugh, as though I were already triumphing in the Kingdom of heaven.   

EPIG. 7.  
Get up, my soul; Redeem thy slavish eyes,  
From drowsy bondage: O beware; Be wise:  
Thy Foe's before thee; thou must fight, or fly:  
Life lies most open in a closed Eye.    

VIII.  
 emblem 
Et risu necat.  
W. Martial. sc▪    

VIII. LUKE. VI XXV. Woe be to you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep.  
THe world's a popular disease, that reigns  
Within the froward heart, and frantic brains  
Of poor distempered mortals, oft arising  
From ill digestion, through th'unequal poising  
Of ill-weighed Elements, whose light directs  
Malignant humours to malign Effects:  
One raves, and labours with a boiling Liver;  
Rents hair by handfuls, cursing Cupid's Quiver:  
Another with a Bloody-fluxe of oaths,  
Vows deep Revenge; one dotes: the other loathes:  
One frisks and sings, and vies a Flagon more  
To drench dry cares; and makes the Welkin roar;  
Another droops; the sunshine makes him sad;  
Heaven cannot please; One's moped; the tother's mad;  
One hugs his Gold; Another let sit fly,  
He knowing not, for whom; nor, other why:  
One spends his day in Plots; his night, in Play;  
Another sleeps and slugs both night and day:  
One laughs at this thing; other cries for that:  
But neither one, nor other knows for what:  
Wonder of wonders! What we ought t'evite  
As our disease, we hug as our delight:  
'tis held a Symptom of approaching danger,  
When disacquainted Sense becomes a stranger,  
And takes no knowledge of an old disease;  
But when a noisome Grief gins to please  
The unresisting sense, it is a fear  
That death has parlyed, and compounded there:  
As when the dreadful thunderers awful hand  
Powers forth a Vial on th'infected land,  
At first th'affrighted Mortals, quake, and faeare:  
And every noise is thought the Thunderer;  
But when the frequent Soule-departing Bell  
Has paved their ears with her familiar knell,  
It is reputed but a nine days wonder,  
They neither fear the Thundre'r, nor his Thunder;  
So when the world (a worse disease) began  
To smart for sin, poor new-created Man  
Can seek for shelter, and his generous Son  
Knew by his wages, what his hands had done;  
But boldfaced Mortals in our blushless times,  
Can sin and smile, and make a sport of Crimes,  
Transgress of Custom, and rebel in ease;  
We false-joyed fools can triumph in disease,  
And (as the careless Pilgrim, being bit  
By the Tarantula, gins a Fit  
Of life-concluding laughter) wast our breath  
In lavish pleasure, till we laugh to death.  

HUGO de anima.  
What profit is there in vain Glory, momentary mirth, the world's power, the flesh's pleasure, full riches, noble descent, and great desires? Where is their laughter? Where is their mirth? Where their Insolence? their Arrogance? From how much joy to how much sadness! After how much mirth, how much misery! From how great glory are they fallen, to how great torments! What hath fallen to them, may befall thee, because thou art a man: Thou art of earth; thou livest of earth; thou shalt return to earth. Death expects thee every where; be wise therefore, and expect death every where.   

EPIG. 8.  
What ails the fool to laugh? Does something please  
His vain conceit? Or is it a mere disease?  
Fool, giggle on, And waste thy wanton breath;  
Thy morning laughter breeds an evening death.    

IX.  
 emblem 
Frustra quis stabilem figat in orbe gradum?  
Will Marshal 〈◊〉    

IX. I JOHN. II. XVII. The world passeth away, and all the lusts thereof.  

1  
DRraw near, brave sparks, whose spirits scorn to light  
Your hallowed Tapours, but at honour's flame;  
You, whose heroic Actions take delight  
To varnish over a new painted name;  
Whose highbred thoughts disdain to take their flight,  
But on th'Icarian wings of babbling Fame,  
Behold, how tottering are your high-built stories  
Of earth, whereon you trust the groundwork of your Glories   

2  
And you, more brainsick Lovers, that can prise  
A wanton smile before eternal joys;  
That know no heaven but in your Mistress eyes:  
That feel no pleasure but what sense enjoys:  
That can, like crowne-distempered fools despise  
True riches, and like Babies, whine for Toys:  
Think ye, the Pageants of your hopes are able  
To stand secure on earth, when earth itself's unstable?   

3  
Come dunghill worldlings: you, that root like swine,  
And cast up golden Trenches, where ye come:  
Whose only pleasure is to undermine,  
And view the secrets of your mother's womb:  
Come bring your Saint, pouched in his leather Shrine,  
And summon all your griping Angels home.  
Behold your world, the Bank of all your store:  
The world ye so admire: the world ye so adore.   

4  
A feeble world; whose hot-mouthed pleasures tire  
Before the Race; before the start, retreat;  
A faithless world, whose false delights expire  
Before the term of half their promised Date;  
A fickle world, not worth the least desire,  
Where every Chance proclajmes a Change of State:  
A feeble, faithless, fickle world, wherein  
Each motion proves a vice; and every act, a Sin.   

5  
The beauty, that of late, was in her flower,  
Is now a ruin, not to raise a Lust;  
He that was lately drenched in Danae's shower,  
Is Master, now, of neither Gold nor Trust;  
Whose Honour, late, was manned with princely power,  
His glory now lies buried in the dust;  
O who would trust this world, or prise what's in it,  
That gives and takes, and chaps, and changes every minit!   

6  
Not length of days nor solid strength of Brain  
Can find a place wherein to rest secure:  
The world is various, and the Earth is vain:  
there's nothing certain here: there's nothing sure:  
We trudge, we travel but from pain to pain,  
And what's our only grief's our only Cure:  
The World's a Torment; he that would endeaver  
To find the way to Rest, must seek the way to leave her,   

S. GREG. in ho.  
Behold, the world is withered in itself, yet flourisheth in our hearts, every where death, every where grief, every where, desolation: On every side we are smitten; on every side filled with bitterness, and yet with the blind mind of carnal desire we love her bitterness; It flies, and we follow it; it falls, yet we stick to it: And because we cannot enjoy it fallen, we fall with it: and enjoy it, fallen.   

EPIG. 9  
If Fortune hale, or envious Time but spurn,  
The world turns round; and, with the world, we turn;  
When Fortune sees, and Lynx-eyed Time is blind,  
I'll trust thy joys, O world; Till then, the Wind.    

X.  
 emblem 
Vtriusque crepundia Merces Will. Martial Sculptit    

X JOH. VIII. XLIV. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your Father ye will do.  
HEre's your right ground: Wag gently o'er this Black;  
ti's a short cast; y'are quickly at the jack:  
Rub, rubbe an Inch or two; Two Crowns to one  
On this Bowls side; blow wind; 't's fairly thrown;  
The next Boul's worse that comes; Come bowl away;  
Mammon, you know the ground untutored, Play;  
Your last was gone; a yard of strength, well spared,  
Had touched the Block; your hand is still too hard.  
Brave pastime, Readers, to consume that day,  
Which, without pastime, flies too swift away!  
See how they labour; as if day and night  
Were both too short, to serve their lose delight▪  
See how their curved body's wreath, and screw  
Such antic shapes as Proteus never knew:  
One raps an oath: another deals a curse;  
He never better bold; this, never worse:  
One rubs his itchlesse Elbow, shrugs, and laughs;  
The t'other bends his beetle-brows, and chafes,  
Sometime they whoop; sometimes their Stygian cries  
Send their Black- Santos to the blushing Skies:  
Thus, mingling Humours in a mad confusion,  
They make bad Premises, and worse conclusion:  
But where's the Palm that Fortune's hand allows  
To bless the victor's honourable Brows?  
Come, Reader come; I'll light thine eye the way  
To view the Prize, the While the Gamesters play;  
Close by the jack, Behold Gill fortune stands  
To wave the game, see, in her partial hands  
The glorious Garland's held in open show,  
To cheer the Lads, and crown the Conq'rers brow:  
The world's the Jack; The Gamesters that contend,  
Are Cupid, Mammon: That judicious Friend,  
That gives the ground, is Satan; and the Bowls  
Are sinful Thoughts: The Prize, a Crown for Fools.  
Who breathes that bowls not? what bold tongue can say  
Without a blush, he hath not bold to day?  
It is the trade of man; and every Sinner  
Has played his Rubbers; Every soul's a winner.  
The vulgar Proverb's crossed: He hardly can  
Be a good Bouler and an honest man  
Good God, turn thou my Brazil thoughts a new;  
New sole my Bowls, and make their Bras true:  
I'll cease to game, till fairer Ground be given,  
Nor wish to win until the Mark be heaven.  

S. BERNARD lib. de Consid.  
O you Sons of Adam, you covetous Generation, what have ye to do with earthly Riches, which are neither true, nor yours. Gold and silver are real earth, red and white, which the only error of man makes, or rather reputes precious: In short, if they be yours carry them with you.   

S. Jerome. in Ep.  
O Lust, thou infernal fire, whose Fuel is Gluttony; whose Flame is Pride; whose sparkles are wanton words; whose smoke is Infamy; whose Ashes are uncleanness; whose end is Hell.   

EPIG. 10.  
Mammon, well followed: Cupid bravely ledde;  
oath Touchers; Equal Fortunes makes a dead:  
No Reed can measure where the Conquest lies;  
Take my advice; Compound, and share the Prize;    

XI.  
 emblem 
Mundus in exitium ruit  
Will Marshal sculpsit.    

XI. EPH. JI.II. Ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the Air.  

1  
O Whether will this madbrain world, at last,  
Be driven? where will her restless wheels arrive?  
Why hurries on her ill matched pair so fast?  
O whether means her furious Groom to drive?  
What? will her rambling Fits be never passed?  
For ever ranging? never once retrieve?  
Will earths perpetual Progress ne'er expire?  
Her Team continuing in their fresh Career,  
And yet they never rest, And yet they never tire.   

2  
Sols hot-mouthed Steeds, whose nostrils vomit flame,  
And brazen lungs belch forth quotidian fire,  
Their twelve hours' task performed, grow stiff and lame,  
And their immortal Spirits faint and tire;  
At th'Azure mountains foot, their labours claim  
The privilege of Rest, where they retire  
To quench their burning Fetlocks, and to steep  
Their flaming nostrils in the Western deep,  
And fresh there tired souls with strength-restoring sleep.   

3  
But these prodigious Hackneys, basely got  
Twixt men and Devils, made for Race, not flight,  
Camn drag the idle world, expecting not  
The bed of Rest but travel with delight;  
Who neither weighing way, nor weather, trot  
Through dust and dirt, and droyle both night and day;  
Thus droyle these fiends incarnate, whose free pains  
Are fed with dropsies, and venereal Blains.  
No need to use the whip; but strength, to rule the raynes.   

4  
Poor Captive world! How has thy lightness given  
A just occasion to thy foe's illusion?  
O, how art thou betrayed, thus fairly driven  
In seeming Triumph to thy own confusion?  
How is thy empty universe bereiven  
Of all true joys, by one false Joys delusion?  
So have I seen an unblown virgin fed  
With suga'rd words so full, that she is fed  
A fair attended Bride, to a false Bankrupts Bed.   

5  
Pull, gracious LORD; Let not thine Arm forsake  
The world, impounded in her own devises;  
Think of that pleasure that thou once did take  
Amongst the Lilies, and sweet Beds of spices▪  
Hale strongly thou whose hand has power to slake  
The swift foot Fury of ten thousand Vices:  
Let not that dust-devouring Dragon boast.  
His craft has won, what Judah's Lion lost;  
Remember what it craved; Recount the price it cost.   

ISIDOR. lib. 1. De summo bono.  
By how much the nearer Satan perceives the world to an end, by so much the more fiercely he troubles it with persecution; that knowing himself is to be damned, he may get company in his damnation.   

CYPRIAN in ep.  
Broad and spacious is the road to infernal life: there are enticements and death, bringing pleasures. There the Devil flatters, that he may deceive; Smiles, that he may endamage; allures, that he may destroy.   

EPIG. II.  
Nay soft and fair, good world; post not too fast;  
Thy journeys end requires not half this haste?  
Unless that Arm thou so disdainest, reprives thee,  
Alas thou needs must go: the devil drives thee.    

XII.  
 emblem 
Inopem me copia fecit  
Will. Martial Sculpsit.    

XII. isaiah LXVI. XI. Ye may suck, but not be satisfied with the breast of her Consolation.  

1  
WHat never filled? Be thy lips skre'wd so fast  
To th'earth's full breast? For shame, for shame unseise thee:  
Thou tak'st a surfeit, where thou shouldst but taste,  
And makest too much not half enough, to please thee  
Ah fool, forbear; Thou swallow'st at one breath  
Both food & poison down; Thou drawest both milk & death.   

2  
The ub'rous breasts, when fairly drawn, repast  
The thriving Infant with their milky flood,  
But being overstraind, return, at last,  
Unwholesome Gulps composed of wind and blood;  
A moderate use does both repast and please;  
Who strains beyond a mean, draws in and gulps disease.   

3  
But, O that mean whose good the least abuse  
Makes bad, is too too hard to be directed;  
Can Thorns bring grapes, or Crabs a pleasing juce?  
there's nothing wholesome, where the wholes infected:  
Unseise thy lips; Earth's milk's a ripened Core  
That drops from her disease, that matters from her Sore.   

4  
Thinkest thou, that Paunch that burlies out thy Coat,  
Is thriving Fat; or flesh, that seems so brawny?  
Thy Paunch is dropfied and thy cheeks are bloat;  
Thy lips are white and thy complexion tawny;  
Thy skin's a Bladder blown with watery tumours;  
Thy flesh a trembling Bog, a Quagmire full of humours?   

5  
And thou whose thrivelesse hands are ever straining  
Earth's fluent Breasts, into an empty Sieve,  
That always hast, yet always art complaining;  
And whinest for more than earth has power to give,  
Whose treasure flows and flees away as fast,  
That ever hast, and hast, yet hast not what thou hast;   

6  
Go choose a Substance, fool, that will remain  
within the limits of thy leaking Measure;  
Or else go seek an Urn that will retain  
The liquid Body of thy slippery Treasure:  
Alas, how poorly are thy labours crowned?  
Thy liquour's neither sweet, nor yet thy vessel sound.   

7  
What less than fool is Man, to progge, and plot,  
And lavish out the Cream of all his care,  
To gain poor seeming goods, which, being got,  
Make firm possession, but a Thoroughfare:  
Or if they stay, they furrow thoughts the deeper,  
And being kept with care, they lose their careful keeper.   

S. GREG. Home 3. secund. parte Ezech.  
If we give more to the flesh than we ought, we nourish an Enemy; If we give not to her necessity what we ought, we destroy a Citizen: The flesh is to be satisfied so fare as suffices to our good; whosoever allows so much to her as to make her proud, knows not how to be satisfied: To be satisfied, is a great Art; least by the society of the flesh we break forth into the Iniquity of her folly.   

HUGO de Anima.  
The heart is a small thing, but desires great matters: It is not sufficient for a Kites dinner, yet the whole world is not sufficient for it.   

EPIG. 12.  
What makes thee, fool, so fat? Fool, thee so Bare?  
Ye suck the selfsame milk; the selfsame air:  
No mean betwixt all Paunch, and skin and bone?  
The meane's a virtue, and the world has none.    

XIII.  
 emblem 
Da mihi froena timor; Da mihi calcar amor. Ro: Vaugahn fecit.    

XIII. JOH. III. XIX. Men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.  
LORD, when we leave the World and come to Thee,  
How dull; how slug are we?  
How backward! how preposterous is the motion  
Of our ungaine devotion!  
Our thoughts are Millstones, and our souls are lead,  
And our desires are dead:  
Our vows are fairly promised, faintly paid;  
Or broken, or not made:  
Our better work (if any good) attends  
Upon our private ends:  
In whose performance one poor worldly scoff  
Foils us, or beats us off:  
If thy sharp scourge find out some secret fault,  
We grumble, or revolt.  
And if thy gentle hand forbear, we stray,  
Or idly lose the way:  
Is the Road fair? we loiter: cloggd with mire▪  
We stick, or else retire:  
A Lamb appears a Lion; and we fear,  
Each bush we see's a Bear.  
When our dull souls direct their thoughts to Thee,  
The soft-paced Snail is not so slow as we:  
But when at earth we dart our winged desire,  
We burn, we burn like fire:  
Like as the amorous needle joys to bend,  
To her Magnetic Friend:  
Or as the greedy Lovers eyeballs fly  
At his fair Mistress eye,  
So, we cling to earth; we fly, and puff,  
Yet fly not fast enough;  
If pleasure beckon with her balmey hand  
Her becke's a strong command▪  
If Honour call us with her courtly breath,  
An hour's delay is death:  
If profits golden fingered Charms enveigles,  
We clip more swift than Eagles:  
Let Auster weep, or blustering Boreas roar  
Till eyes or lungs be sore:  
Let Neptune swell until his dropsie-sides  
Burst into broken Tides;  
Nor threatening Rocks, nor winds, nor waves, nor Fire  
Can curb our fierce desire;  
Nor Fire nor Rocks can stop our furious minds,  
Nor waves, nor winds;  
How fast and fearless do our footsteps flee!  
The lightfoot Roebuck's not so swift as we.  

S. AUGUST. sup. psal. 64.  
Two several Lovers built two several Cities; The love of God builds a jerusalem; The love of the world builds a Babylon: Let every one inquire of himself what he loves, and he shall resolve himself of whence he is a Citizen.   

S. AUGUST. lib 3. Confess.  
All things are driven by their own weight, and tend to their own Centre: My weight is my love; By that I am driven whithersoever I am driven.   

Ibidem.  
LORD, he loves thee the less, that loves any thing with thee, which he loves not for thee.   

EPIG. 13.  
Lord scourge my Ass if she should make no haste,  
And curb my Stag if he should flee too fast:  
If he be overswift, or she should prove idle,  
Let Love lend him a spur: Fear, her, a Bridle.    

XVI.  
 emblem 
P●o●●ce red diem.  
Will Marshal 〈◊〉    

XIV. PSAL. XIII. III. Lighten mine eyes, O Lord, lest I sleep the sleep of death.  

Wiled ne'er be morning? Will that promised light  
Near break, and clear these Clouds of night?  
Sweet Phospher bring the day,  
Whose conquering Ray  
May chase these fogs; Sweet Phospher bring the day,   

How long! how long shall these be nighted eyes  
Languish in shades, like feeble Flies  
Expecting Spring! How long shall darkness soil  
The face of earth and thus beguise  
Our sonules of rightful action? when will day  
Begin to dawn, whose newborn Ray  
May gild the Weathercocks of our devotion,  
And give out unsouled souls new motion?  
Sweet Phospher bring the day,  
Thy light will fray  
These horrid Mists; Sweet Phospher bring the day:   

Let those have night, that slily love t'immure  
Their cloistered Crimes, and sin secure;  
Let those have night, that blush to let men know  
The baseness they ne'er blush to do;  
Let those have night, that love to take a Nap  
And loll in Ignorances' lap;  
Let those whose eyes, like Oules abhor the light,  
Let those have Night that love the Night?  
Sweet Phospher bring the day;  
How sad delay  
Afflicts dull hopes! Sweet Phospher bring the day.   

Alas! my light-invaine-expecting eyes  
Can find no Objects but what rise  
From this poor moral blaze, a dying spark  
Of Vulcan's forge, whose flames are dark  
And dangerous, a dull blue burning light,  
As melancholy as the night:  
Here's all the Suns that glister in the Sphere  
Of earth: Ah me! what comfort's here:  
Sweet Phospher bring the day;  
Haste, haste away,  
heavens loitering lamp; Sweet Phospher bring the day,   

Blow ignorance, O thou, whose idle knee  
Rocks earth into a Lethargy,  
And with thy footy fingers hast bedight  
The world's fair cheeks, blow, blow thy spite;  
Since thou hast puffed our greater Taper, do  
Puff on, and out the lesser too:  
If ere that breath-exiled flame return,  
Thou hast not blown, as it will burn:  
Sweet Phospher bring the day  
Light will repay  
The wrongs of night: Sweet Phospher bring the day.   

S. AUGUST. in joh. ser. 19  
God is all to thee; If thou be hungry, he is bread; If thirsty, he is water; If in darkness he is light; If naked, he is a Robe of Immortality.   

ALANUS de conq: nat.  
God is a light that is never darkened; An unwearied life, that cannot die; a Fountain always flowing; a garden of life; a Seminary of wisdom, a radical beginning of all goodness.   

EPIG. 14.  
My Soul, if Ignorance puff out this light  
she'll do a favour that intends a spite:  
IT seems dark abroad; But take this light away,  
Thy windows will discover break a day.    

XV.  
 emblem 
Debilitata fides: Terras Astraea reliquit.  
W: M: skull:    

XV. REVEL. XII. XII. The Devil is come unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.  

1  
LORD? canst thou see and suffer? is thy hand  
Still bound to th'peace? Shall earths black Monarch take  
A full possession of thy wasted land?  
O, will slumbering vengeance never wake,  
Till full-aged law-resisting Custom shake  
The pillours of thy right, by false command?  
Unlock thy Clouds, great thunderer, and come down;  
Behold whose Temples wear thy sacred Crown;  
Redress, redress our wrongs; revenge, revenge thy own.   

2  
See how the bold Usurper mounts the seat  
Of royal Majesty; How overstrawing  
Perils with pleasure, pointing every threat  
With bugbear death; by torments over-awing  
Thy frighted subjects; or, by favours drawing  
Their tempted hearts to his unjust retreat;  
Lord, canst thou be so mild? and be so bold?  
Or can thy flocks be thriving, when the fold  
Is governed by a Fox? Lord, canst thou see and hold?   

3  
That swift-winged Advocate, that did commence  
Our welcome Suits before the King of Kings,  
That sweet Ambassador, that hurries hence  
What Airs th'harmonious soul or sighs or sings,  
See how she flutters with her idle wings;  
Her wings are clipped, and eyes put out by Sense:  
Sense conquering Faith is now grown blind, and cold,  
And basely craven, that, in times of old,  
Did conquer heaven itself, do what th'Almighty could.   

4  
Behold, how double fraud does scourge and tear  
Astraeas' wounded sides, ploughed up, and rend  
With knotted cords, whose fury has no ear;  
See how she stands a Prisoner, to be sent  
A Slave, into eternal banishment,  
I know not whither, O, I know not where:  
Her Patent must be cancelled in disgrace;  
And sweet-lipt Fraud, with her divided face,  
Must act Astraeas' part, must take Astraeas' place.   

5  
Faiths pinions clipped? And fair Astraea gone?  
Quick seeing Faith now blind? And justice see?  
Has justice now found wings? And has Faith none?  
What do we here? who would not wish to be  
Dissolved from earth; and, with Astraea, flee  
From this blind dungeon, to that Sunne-bright Throne?  
Lord, is thy Sceptre lost, or laid aside?  
Is hell broke lose, and all her Fiends untied?  
Lord rise, and rouse, and rule; and crush their furious Pride.   

PETR. RAVEN. in Math.  
The Devil is the author of evil; the fountain of wickedness; the Adversary of the Truth; the corrupter of the world; man's perpetual Enemy; He plants snares; digs ditches; spurs bodies; he goads souls; He suggests thoughts, belches Anger; exposes virtue to hatred; makes vices beloved; sows Errors, nourishes contention; disturbs peace, and scatters Affections.   

MACAR.  
Let us suffer with those that suffer, and be crucified with those that are crucified, that we may be glorified, with those that are glorified.   

SAVANAR.  
If there he no enemy, no fight; if no fight, no victory; if no victory, no crown.   

EPIG. 15.  
My Soul, sit thou a patiented looker on;  
judge not the Play before the Play is done:  
Her Plot has many Changes: Every Day  
Speaks a new Scene; The last act crownes the Play.     

THE SECOND BOOK.  

I.  
 emblem 
Sic sumine lumen ademptum.  
Will marshal scu:    

I ESAY. L.XI. You that walk in the light of your own fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled ye shall lie down in sorrow.  

1  
DO silly Cupid snuff, and trim  
Thy false, thy feeble light,  
And make herselfe-consuming flames more bright;  
Me thinks, she burns too dim▪  
Is this that sprightly fire,  
Whose more then sacred Beams inspire  
The ravished hearts of men, and so inflame desire?   

2  
See, Boy, how thy unthrifty blaze  
Consumes; how fast she wanes;  
She spends herself, and her, whose wealth maintains  
Her weak, her idle Rays;  
Cannot thy lustful blast,  
Which gave it lustre, make it last?  
What heart can long be pleased, where pleasure spends so fast?   

3  
Go, Wanton, place thy pale-faced light  
Where never breaking day  
Intends to visit mortals, or display  
The sullen shades of night:  
Thy Torch will burn more clear  
In nights un-Titand Hemisphere;  
Heauns scornful flames and thine can never co-appeare.   

4  
In vain thy busy hands address  
Their labour, to display  
Thy easy blaze, within the veirge of day;  
The greater drowns the less:  
If heaven's bright glory shine,  
Thy glimmering sparks must needs resign;  
Puff out heave's glory then, or heaven will work out thine:   

5  
Go Cupid's rammish Pander, go,  
Whose dull, whose low desire  
Can find sufficient warmth from Nature's fire,  
Spend borrowed breath, and blow,  
Blow wind, made strong with spite;  
When thou hast puffed the greater light,  
Thy lesser spark may shine, and warm the new made night;   

6  
Deluded mortals, tell me, when  
Your daring breath has blown  
heavens Taper out, and you have spent your own,  
What fire shall warm ye then?  
Ah Fools, perpetual night  
Shall haunt your souls with Stygian fright,  
Where they shall boil in flames, but flames shall bring no light.   

S. AUGUST.  
The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.   

S. GREG. Mor. 25.  
By how much the less, man sees himself, by so much the less he displeases himself; And by how much the more he sees the light of Grace, by so much the more he disdains the light of nature.   

S. GREG. Mor.  
The light of the understanding humility kindles and pride covers.   

EPIG. 1.  
Thou blows heaven's fire, the whilst thou goest about,  
Rebellious fool, in vain, to blow it out:  
Thy Folly adds confusion to thy death;  
heavens fire confounds, when fanned with Folly's breath,    

II.  
 emblem 
Donce totum expleat orbem.  
Will. Martial. sculpsit.    

II. ECCLES. iv VIII. There is no end of all his labour, neither is his eye satisfied with riches.  
O How our wid'ned Arms can over-stretch  
Their own dimensions! How our hands can reach  
Beyond their distance! How our yielding breast  
Can shrink, to be more full, and full possessed  
Of this inferior Orb! how earth refined  
Can cling to sordid earth! How kind to kind!  
We gape, we grasp, we gripped; add store to store;  
Enough requires too much; too much craves more;  
We charge our souls so sore beyond their stint,  
That we recoil or burst; The busy Mint  
Of our laborious thoughts is ever going,  
And coining new desires; desires, not knowing  
Where next to pitch, but like the boundless Ocean  
Gain, and gain ground, and grow more strong by motion;  
The pale-fac d Lady of the black-eyed night  
First tips her horned brows with easy light,  
Whose curious train of spangled Nymphs attire  
Her next night's Glory with increasing Fire;  
Each evening adds more lustre, and adorns  
The growing beauty of her grasping horns,  
She sucks and draws her brother's golden store  
Until her glutted Orb can suck no more,  
Even so the Vulture of insatiate minds,  
Still wants, and wanting seeks; and seeking, finds  
New fuel to increase her ravenous fire,  
The grave is sooner cloyed than men's desire:  
We cross the Seas, and midst her waves we burn,  
Transporting lives, perchance that ne'er return.  
We sack, we ransack to the utmost sands  
Of native Kingdoms, and of foreign lands;  
We travel Sea, and Soil; we pry; we proule,  
We progress, and we progge from pole to pole;  
We spend our midday sweat, our midnight oil;  
We tire the night in thought; the day, in toil;  
We make Artservill, and the Trade gentile,  
(Yet both corrupted with ingenious guile)  
To compass earth; and with her empty store,  
To fill our Arms, and grasp one handful more;  
Thus seeking Rest, our labours never cease,  
But as our years, our hot desires increase;  
Thus we poor little worlds (with blood and sweat)  
In vain attempt to comprehend the great;  
Thus, in our gain, become we gainful losers,  
And what's enclosed, encloses the enclosers.  
Now, reader, close thy Book, and then advise:  
Be wisely worldly, be not worldly wise;  
Let not thy nobler thoughts be always raking  
The world's base dunghill; Vermins took, by taking▪  
Take heed thou trust not the deceitful Lap  
Of wanton Delilah; The world's a Trap.  

HUGO de anima.  
Tell me where be those now that so lately loved, and hugged the world? Nothing remains of them but dust and worms; Observe what those men were; what those men are: They were like thee; They did eat, drink, laugh, and led merry days, and in a moment slipped into Hell: Here their flesh is food for worms: There, their souls are fuel of fire, till they shall be rejoined in an unhappy fellowship, & cast into eternal torments; where they that were once companions in sin shall be hereafter partners in punishment.   

EPIG. ●.  
Gripe, Cupid, and gripe still until that wind,  
That's penned before, find secret vent behind:  
And when thoust done, bark here, I tell thee what,  
Before I'll trust thy Armful, I'll trust that.    

III.  
 emblem 
Non amat iste; sed hamat amor.  
Will Martial sculpsit.    

III. JOB XVIII. VIII. He is cast into a net by his own feet, and walketh upon a snare.  

1  
WHat? Nets and Quiver too? what need there all  
These sly devices to betray poor men?  
Die they not fast enough, when thousands fall  
Before thy Dart? what need these Engines then?  
Attend they not, and answer to thy Call,  
Like nightly Coveyes, where thou list? and when?  
What needs a Stratagem where strength can sway?  
Or what need strength compel, where none gainsay?  
Or what need stratagem or strength, where hearts obey?   

2  
Husband thy sleights: It is but vain to waste  
Honey on those that will be catcht with Gall;  
Thou canst not, ah, thou canst not bid so fast  
As men obey; Thou art more slow to call:  
Than they to come; thou canst not make such haste  
To strike, as they, being struck, make haste to fall  
Go save thy Nets for that rebellious heart  
That scorns thy power, and has obtained the Art  
T'avoid thy flying shaft, to quench thy fir'y Dart.   

3  
Lost mortal, how is thy destruction sure,  
Between two Bawds! and both without remorse;  
The one's a Line, the t'other is a Lure;  
This, to entice thy soul; that, to enforce;  
Way-layd by both, how canst thou stand secure?  
That draws, this woos thee to th'eternal curse;  
O charming Tyrant, how hast thou befooled  
And slaved poor man, that would not, if he could  
Avoid thy Line, thy Lure; nay, could not, if he would!   

4  
Alas thy sweet perfidious voice betrays  
His wanton ears with thy Syrenian baits;  
Thou wrapft his eyes in mists, then boldly lays  
Thy Lethal 'Gins before their Crystal Gates;  
Thou lock'st up every Sense with thy false keys,  
All willing Prisoners to thy close deceits;  
His ear most nimble whereit deaf should be,  
His eye most blind where most it ought to see,  
And when his heart's most bound, then thinks itself most free.   

5  
Thou grand Imposter, how hast thou obtained  
The wardship of the world; Are all men turned  
Idiots, and Lunatics? Are all retained  
Beneath thy servile bands? Is none returned  
To his forgotten self? Has none regained  
His senses? Are their senses all adjourned,  
What none dismissed thy Court? will no plump Fee  
Bribe thy false fists, to make a glad Decree,  
T'unfoole whom thou hast fooled, and set thy prisoners free?   

S. BERN. in Ser.  
In this world is much treachery, little truth; here, all things are traps; here, every thing is be set with snares; here souls are endangered, bodies are afflicted; Here all things are vanity, and vexation of spirit.   

EPIG. 3.  
Nay, Cupid, pitch thy Trammill where thou please,  
Thou canst not fail to take such fish as these;  
Thy thriving sport will never be spent; no need  
To fear, when every Corck's a world; Thou'lt speed.    

IV.  
 emblem 
Cuam graue seruitium est, quod scuis esca parit.    

iv HOS. XIII. III. They shallbe as the chaff that is driven with a whirlwind out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney.  
FLint-hearted Stoics, you, whose marble eyes  
Contemn a wrinkle, and whose souls despise  
To follow Natures too affected Fashion,  
Or travel in the Regent-walk of Passion;  
Whose rigid hearts disdain to shrink at Fears,  
Or play at fast and lose with Smiles and Tears;  
Come burst your spleens with laughter; to behold  
A new found vanity; which ' days of old  
Never knew; A vanity, that has beset  
The world, and made more slaves than Mahomet:  
That has condemned us to the servile yoke  
Of slavery, and made us slaves to smoke:  
But stay! why tax I thus our modern times,  
For new-blowne Follies, and for newborn Crimes?  
Are we sole guilty, and the first Age free?  
No, they were smoked, and slaved as well as we:  
What's sweet-lipt Honours blast, but smoke? What's treasure  
But very smoke? And what more smoke than pleasure?  
Alas: they're all but shadows, Fumes, and blasts;  
That vanishes; this fades; the other wastes.  
The restless Merchant; he, that loves to steep  
His brains in wealth, and lays his soul to sleep  
In bags of Bullion, sees th'immortal Crown,  
And fain would mount, but Ingots keep him down:  
He brags today, perchance, and begs to morrow;  
He lent but now; wants Credit, now to borrow:  
Blow winds the Treasurs gone; the Merchant's broke;  
A slave to silver's but a slave to smoke:  
Behold the Glory-vying Child of Fame,  
That from deep wounds sucks forth an honoured name,  
That thinks no purchase worth the style of good;  
But what is sold for sweat, and sealed with blood,  
That for a Point, a blast of empty breath,  
Undaunted, gazes in the face of death;  
Whose dear bought Bubble, filled with vain renown,  
Breaks with a Philip, or a Gen'ralls' frown;  
His stroke got Honour staggers with a stroke;  
A Slave to Honour is a Slave to Smoke:  
And that fond soul which wastes his idle days  
In lose delights, and sports about the Blaze  
Of Cupid's Candle; he that daily spies  
Twin Babies in his Mistress Gemenies,  
Whereto his sad devotion does impart  
The sweet burnt offering of a bleeding heart;  
See, how his wings are singed in Cyprian fire,  
Whose flames consume with youth; in Age, expire:  
The world's a Bubble; all the pleasures in it,  
Like morning vapours vanish in a minit.  
The vapours vanish, and the Bubble's broke;  
A slave to pleasure is a slave to smoke.  
Now, Stoic, cease thy laughter, and repast  
Thy pickled cheeks with Tears, and weep as fast.  

S. HIEROM.  
That rich man is great, who thinks not himself great because he is rich: the proud man (who is the poor man) brags outwardly, but begs inwardly: He is blown up, but not full.   

PETR. RAVEN.  
Vexation and anguish accompany riches and honour: The pomp of the world and the favour of the people are but smoke, and a blast suddenly vanishing which, if they commonly please, commonly bring repentance, and for a minute of joy they bring an age of sorrow.   

EPIG. 4.  
Cupid; thy diet's strange; It dulls; It rouses;  
It cools; It heats; it binds, and then it loses:  
Dull-sprightly-cold-hot Fool, if e'er it winds thee  
Into a looseness once, take heed: It binds thee.    

V.  
 emblem 
Non omne, quod hîc micat, aurum est  
Will: Martial. sculpsit.    

V PRO. XXIII. V. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches make themselves wings, they fly away as an Eagle.  

1  
FAlse world, thou liest: Thou canst not lend  
The least delight.  
Thy favours cannot gain a Friend,  
They are so sleight:  
Thy morning pleasures make an end  
To please at night:  
Poor are the wants that thou supply'st  
And yet thou vaun'st, and yet thou vy'st  
With heaven; Fond earth thou boasts; False world thou liest.   

2  
Thy babbling Tongue tells golden Tales  
Of endless Treasure;  
Thy bounty offers easy sales  
Of lasting pleasure;  
Thou asks the Conscience what she ails,  
And swearest to ease her;  
there's none can want where thou supply'st:  
There's none can give where thou deniest▪  
Alas, fond world thou boasts; false world thou liest.   

3  
What well advised ear regards  
What earth can say?  
Thy words are Gold, but thy rewards  
Are painted Clay;  
Thy cunning can but pack the Cards;  
Thou canst not play:  
Thy game at weakest, still thou vy'st;  
If seen, and then revyed, deniest;  
Thou art not what thou seem'st: False world thou liest.   

4  
Thy tinsel bosom seems a Mint  
Of new-coined treasure;  
A Paradise, that has no stint,  
No change, no measure;  
A painted Cask, but nothing in't,  
Nor wealth, nor pleasure:  
Vain earth! that falsely thus comply'st  
With man; Vain man! that thus rely'st  
On earth: Vain man thou dotest: Vain earth thou liest.   

5  
What mean dull souls, in this high measure  
To haberdash  
In earth's base wares, whose greatest treasure  
Is dross and trash?  
The height of whose enchanting pleasure  
Is but a Flash?  
Are these the goods that thou supply'st  
Us mortals with? Are these the highest?  
Can these bring cordial peace? False world thou liest.   

PET. BLESS.  
This world is deceitful; Her end is doubtful; Her conclusion is horrible; Her judge is terrible; And her punishment is intolerable.   

S. AUGUST. lib. Confess.  
The vain glory of this world is a deceitful sweetness, a fruitless labour, a perpetual fear, a dangerous honour; Her beginning is without providence, end her and not without repentance.   

EPIG. 5.  
World; thou'rt a Traitor; Thou hast stamped thy base  
And Chemic metal with great Caesar's face;  
And with thy bastard Bullion thou hast bartered  
For wares of price; How justly drawn and quartered!    

VI  
 emblem 
Sic decipit orbis  
Will▪ Martial. sculpsit.    

VI JOB XV. XXXI. Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity, for vanity shall be his recompense.  

1  
BElieve her not: Her Glass diffuses  
False Portraitures: Thou canst espy  
No true reflection: She abuses  
Her misinformed beholder's eye;  
Her Chrystal's falsely steeled. It scatters  
Deceitful beams; Believe her not: She flatters,   

2  
This flaring Mirror representes  
No right Proportion, heiw, nor Feature:  
Her very looks are Compliments;  
They make thee fairer, goodlier, greater;  
The skilful Gloss of her reflection  
But paints the Context of thy course Complexion.   

3  
Were thy dimension but a stride,  
Nay, wert thou statured but a span,  
Such as the long-billed Troops defied,  
A very Fragment of a Man;  
she'll make thee Mimas, which ye will,  
The love-slaine Tyrant, or th' jonick Hill.   

4  
Had surfeits, or th'ungratious Star  
Conspired to make one Common place  
Of all deformities, that are  
Within the Volume of thy face,  
she'd lend thee favour, should out-move  
The Troy-bane Helen, or the Queen of Love,   

5  
Were thy consumed estate as poor  
As Lazars, or afflicted jobs,  
she's change thy wants to seeming store,  
And turn thy Rags to purple Robes;  
she'll make thy hidebound flank appear  
As plump as theirs that feast it all the year.   

6  
Look off; let not thy Optics be  
Abused; thou seest not what thou shouldst;  
thself's the Object thou shouldst see,  
But 'tis thy shadow thou beholdest:  
And shadows thrive the more in stature,  
The nearer we approach the light of nature.   

7  
Where heavens bright beams look more direct,  
The shadow shrinks as they grow stronger;  
But when they glance their fair aspect,  
The boldfaced shade grows larger, longer;  
And when their lamp gins to fall,  
Th'increasing shadows lengthen most of all.   

8  
The soul that seeks the noon of Grace,  
Shrinks in; but swells, if Grace retreat;  
As heaven lifts up, or veils his Face,  
Our selfe-esteemes self-esteems grow less, or great,  
The least is greatest; And who shall  
Appear the greatest, are the least of all.   

HUGO lib. 3. de anima.  
In vain he lifts up the eye of his heart to behold his God, who is not first rightly advised to behold himself: First thou must see the visible things of thyself, before thou canst be prepared to know the invisible things of God, for if thou canst not apprehend the things within thee, thou canst not comprehend the things above thee: The best lookingglass wherein to see thy God, is perfectly to see thyself.   

EPIG. 6.  
Be not deceived, great Fool; There is no loss  
In being small: Great bulks but swell with dross:  
Man is heaven's Masterpiece; If it appear  
More great, the valu's less; If less, more dear.    

VII.  
 emblem 
Hic pessima, hic optima seruat.  
Will: Martial sculpsit.    

VII. DEUT. XXX. XIX. I have set before thee life and death, blessin and cursing, therefore choose life, that thou and thy seed may live.  

1  
THe world's a Floor, whose swelling heaps retain  
The mingled wages of the Ploughman's toil;  
The world's a Heap, whose yet unwinnowed grain  
Is lodged with chaff and buried in her soil;  
All things are mixed; the useful with the vain;  
The good with bad, the noble with the vile;  
The world's an Ark, wherein things pure and gross  
Present their lossefull gain, and gainful loss,  
Where every dram of Gold contains a pound of dross,   

2  
This furnished Ark presents the greedy view  
With all that earth can give, or heaven can add;  
Here, lasting joys; here, pleasures hourly new,  
And hourly fading, may be wished and had:  
All points of Honour; counterfeit and true  
Salute thy soul, and wealth both good and bad:  
Here mayst thou open wide the two-leaved door  
Of all thy wishes, to receive that store  
Which being empty most; does overflow the more.   

3  
Come then, my soul, approach this royal Burse,  
And see what wares our great Exchange retains;  
Come, come; here's that shall make a firm divorce  
Betwixt thy Wants and thee, if want complains;  
No need to sit in council with thy purse,  
Here's nothing good, shall cost more price than pains:  
But O my soul, take heed; If thou rely  
Upon thy faithless Optics, thou wilt buy  
Too blind a bargain: know; Fools only trade by th'Eye.   

4  
The worldly wisdom of the foolish man  
Is like a Sieve, that does, alone, retain  
The grosser substance of the worthless Bran;  
But thou, my soul, let thy brave thoughts disdain  
So course a purchase; O, be thou a Fan  
To purge the Chaff, and keep the winnowed Grain;  
Make clean thy thoughts, and dress thy mixed desires;  
Thou art heavens Tasker; and thy GOD requires  
The purest of thy Floor, as well as of thy fires.   

5  
Let grace conduct thee to the paths of peace,  
And wisdom bless thy souls umblemisht ways,  
No matter, then, how short or long's the Lease,  
Whose date determins thy self-numbered days;  
No need to care for wealths or Fame's increase,  
Nor Mars his Palm, nor high Apollo's Bays:  
LORD, if thy gracious bounty please to fill  
The floor of my desires, and teach me skill  
To dress and choose the Corn, take those the Chaff that will▪   

S. AUGUST. lib 1. de doct. Christi.  
Temporal things more ravish in the expectation, than in fruition: but things eternal more in the fruition than expectation.   

Ibidem.  
The life of a man is the middle between Angels and beasts: If man takes pleasure in carnal things, he is compared to beasts; But if he delights in spiritual things, he is suited with Angels.   

EPIG. 7.  
Art thou a Child? Thou wilt not then be fed,  
But like a Child, and with the children's bread:  
But thou art fed with chaff, or corn undressed:  
My soul thou savour'st too much of the Breast.    

VIII.  
 emblem 
Haec animant pueros cymbala; at illa viros  
Will Martial. sculpsit.    

VIII. PHIL. III. XIX. They mind earthly things, but our conversation is in heaven.  Venus. Diu. Cupid. Ve. 
WHat means this peevish Brat? Wish, Lullaby;  
What ails my Babe? What ails my Babe to cry?  
Will nothing still it? will it neither be  
Pleased with the Nurse's breast nor Mother's knee?  
What ails my Bird? What moves my froward Boy  
To make such whimpering faces? Peace, my joy:  
Will nothing do? Come, come, this pettish Brat,  
Thus cry and bawl, and cannot tell for what?  
Come buss and friends, my lamb; whish, lullaby,  
What ails my Babe? What ails my Babe to cry?  
Peace, peace my dear; alas, thy early years  
Had never faults to merit half these tears;  
Come smile upon me: Let thy mother spy  
Thy Father's Image in her Babies eye:  
Husband these guiltless drops against the rage  
Of harder fortunes, and the gripes of Age;  
Thine eye's not ripe for tears: whish, lullaby;  
What ails my Babe, mine sweet-faced Babe to cry?  
Look, look, what's here! A dainty Golden thing:  
See how the dancing Bells turn round and ring  
To please my Bantling! Here's a knack will breed  
A hundred kisses: Here's a knack indeed,  
So, now my bird is white, and looks as fair  
As Pelops shoulder, or my milk-white pair:  
Here's right the Father's smile; when Mars beguiled  
Sick Venus of her heart, just thus he smiled.  

DIVIN. CUPID.  
Well may they smile alike: Thy base-bred Boy  
And his base Sire had both one Cause; A Toy:  
How well their subjects and their smiles agree?  
Thy Cupid finds a Toy, and Mars found thee:  
False Queen of Beauty, Queen of false delights,  
Thy knee presents an Emblem, that invites  
Man to himself, whose selfe-transported heart  
(Ov'rwhelmed with native sorrows, and the smart  
Of purchased griefs) lies whining night and day,  
Not knowing why, till heavy-heeld delay  
The dull-browed Pander of despair, lays by  
His leaden Buskins, and presents his eye  
With antic Trifles, which th'indulgent earth  
Makes proper Objects of man's childish mirth:  
These be the coin that pass; the sweets that please;  
There's nothing good, there's nothing great but these:  
These be the Pipes that base-born minds dance after,  
And turn immoderate tears to lavish laughter;  
Whilst heavenly Raptures pass without regard;  
Their strings are harsh and their high strains unheard:  
The plough man's Whistle, or the trivial Flute  
Find more respect than great Apollo's Lute:  
we'll look to heaven and trust to higher joys;  
Let Swine love Husks, and children whine for Toys:   

S. BERN.  
That is the true and chief joy, which is not conceived from the creature, but received from the Creator; which (being once possessed thereof) none can take from thee, whereto all pleasure being compared, is torment; all joy is grief; sweet things are bitter, all glory is baseness, and all delectable things are despicable.   

S. BERN.  
joy in a changeable subject must necessarily change as the subject changes.   

EPIG. 8.  
Peace, childish Cupid, peace: Thy fingered eye  
But cries for what, in time, will make thee cry:  
But are thy peevish wranglings thus appeased?  
Well mayst thou cry, that art so poorly pleased.    

IX.  
 emblem 
Venturum exhorresco diem.  
Will: Marshal sculpsit.    

IX. ESAY X.III. What will ye do in the day of your visitation? to whom will ye fly for help? and where will ye leave your glory?  

1  
IS this that jolly God, whose Cyprian Bow  
Has shot so many flaming darts,  
And made so many wounded Beauties go  
Sadly perplexed with whimpering hearts?  
Is this that sovereign Deity that brings  
The slavish world in awe, and stings  
The blundring souls of swains, and stoops the hearts of Kings   

2  
What Circean Charm? what Hecatean spite  
Has thus abused the God of love?  
Great jove was vanquished by his greater might;  
(And who is stronger-armed than jove?)  
Or has our lustful God performed a Rape,  
And (fearing Argus' eyes) would scape  
The view of jealous earth, in this prodigious shape?   

3  
Where be those Rosy Cheeks, that lately scorned  
The malice of injurious Fates?  
Ah, where's that pearl Portcullis, that adorned  
Those dainty two-leaved Ruby gates?  
Where be those kill eyes, that so controlled  
The world? And locks, that did enfold  
Like knots of flaming wire, like Curls of burnished Gold?   

4  
No, no, 'Twas neither Hecatean spite  
Nor Charm below, nor power above;  
'Twas neither Circe's spell; nor Stygian spirit,  
That thus transformed our God of Love;  
'Twas owle-eyed Lust (more potent fare than they)  
Whose eyes and actions hate the day;  
Whom all the world observe; whom all the world obey.   

5  
See how the latter Trumpets dreadful blast  
Affrights stout Mars his trembling Son!  
See, how he startles! how he stands aghast,  
And scrambles from his melting Throne!  
Hark, how the direful hand of vengeance tears,  
The sweltering Clouds, whilst heaven appears  
A Circle filled with flame, and centered with his fears.   

6  
This is that day, whose oft report hath worn  
Neglected Tongues of Prophets bare;  
The faithless subject of the worldlings scorn,  
The sum of men and Angels prayer:  
This, this the day whose All-descerning light  
Ransacks the secret dens of night,  
And severs Good from Bad; true joys from false Delight.   

7  
You groveling Worldlings, you whose wisdom trades,  
Where light never shot his Golden Ray;  
That hide your Actions in Cimmerian shades,  
How will your eyes endure this day?  
Hills will be deaf, and mountains will not hear;  
There be no Caves, no Corners there,  
To shade your souls from fire, to shield your hearts from fear.   

HUGO.  
O the extreme loathsomeness of fleshly lust, which not only effeminates the mind, but enerves the body; which not only distaines the soul, but disguises the person! It is ushered with fury and wantonness, It is accompanied with filthiness and uncleanness, and it is followed with grief and repentance.   

EPIG. 9  
What? sweet-faced Cupid, has thy bastard-treasure,  
Thy boasted Honours, and thy boldfaced pleasure  
Perplexed thee now? I told thee long ago,  
To what they'd bring thee, fool, To wit, to woe,    

X.  
 emblem 
Tinnit ●inan● est.    

X NAH. JI.X. She is empty, and void, and waste  

1  
SHe's empty: Hark, she sounds: There's nothing there  
But noise to fill thy ear,  
Thy vain enquiry can, at length, but find  
A blast of murmuring wind:  
It is a Cask, that seems as full, as fair;  
But merely turned with Airs  
Fond youth, go build thy hopes on better grounds:  
Thy soul that vainly found'st  
Her joys upon this world, but feeds on empty sounds:   

2  
she's empty: Hark; she sounds: there's nothing in't  
The spark-ingendring Flint  
Shall sooner melt, and hardest rance, shall first,  
Dissolve and quench thy thirst,  
Ere this false world shall still thy stormy breast  
With smooth faced Calms of Rest:  
Thou mayst, as well, expect Meridian light  
From shades of black-mouthed night,  
As in this empty world to find a full delight.   

3  
she's empty: Hark; she sounds; 'Tis void and vast;  
What if some flattering blast  
Of flatuous Honour should perchance, be there;  
And whisper in thine ear,  
It is but wind; and blows but where it list,  
And vanishes like a Mist:  
Poor Honour earth can give! What generous mind  
Would be so base, to bind  
Her heav'n-bred soul a slave, to serve a Blast of wind?   

4  
she's empty: Hark; She sounds: 'Tis but a Ball  
For Fools to play with all;  
The painted film but of a stronger Bubble,  
That's lined with silken trouble;  
It is a world, whose Work, and Recreation  
Is vanity, and vexation;  
A Hag, repaired with vice-complexion, paint:  
A Questhouse of complaint;  
It is a Saint; a Fiend: worse Fiend, when most a Saint.   

5  
she's empty: Hark; she sounds: 'Tis vain and void;  
What's here to be enjoyed,  
But Grief, and sickness, and large bills of sorrow,  
Drawn now, and crossed to morrow?  
Or what are Men, but puffs of dying breath,  
Revived with living death?  
Fond lad; O build thy hopes on surer grounds  
Than what dull flesh propounds;  
Trust not this hollow world, she's empty: Hark; she sounds,   

S. CHRYS. in Ep. ad Heb.  
Contemn riches, and thou shalt be rich; Contemn glory, and thou shalt be glorious; contemn injuries, and thou shalt be a conqueror; Contemn rest, and thou shalt gain rest; Contemn earth, and thou shalt find Heaven.   

HUGO. lib. de Vanit. mundi.  
The world is a vanity which affords neither beauty to the amorous, nor reward to the laborious, nor encouragement to the industrious.   

EPIG. 10.  
This house is to be let; for life or years;  
Her rent is sorrow, and her Income, Tears:  
Cupid, that as long stood void: Her bills make known,  
She must be dear Let; or let alone.    

XI.  
 emblem 
Erras hâc itur ad illam.  
Will Martial sculpsit    

XI. MAT. VII. XIV. Narrow is the way that leadeth unto life and few there be that find it.  
Preposterous fool, thou troul'st amiss:  
Thou errest; That's not the way, 'Tis this:  
Thy hopes, instructed by thine Eye,  
Make thee appear more near than I;  
My floor is not so flat, so fine,  
And has more obvious Rubs than thine;  
'Tis true; my way is hard, and straight,  
And leads me through a thorny Gate;  
Whose rankling pricks are sharp and fell;  
The common way to heavens by Hell:  
'Tis true; Thy path is short and fair,  
And free of Rubs: Ah, fool, beware,  
The safest Road's not always even;  
The way to Hell's a seeming Heaven;  
Thinkest thou, the Crown of Glory's had  
With idle ease, fond Cyprian Lad?  
Thinkest thou, that mirth, and vain delights;  
High feed, and shadow-shortning nights,  
Soft knees, full bones, and Beds of Down  
Are proper Prologues to a Crown?  
Or canst thou hope to come, and view,  
Like prosperous Caesar, and subdue?  
The bondslave Usurer will trudge  
In spite of Gouts, will turn a drudge,  
And serve his soule-condemning purse,  
T'increase it with the widow's Curse;  
And shall the Crown of glory stand  
Not worth the waving of a hand?  
The fleshly wanton, to obtain  
His minit-lust, will count it gain  
To lose his freedom, his Estate  
Upon so dear, so sweet a rate;  
Shall pleasures thus be prized, and must  
heavens Palm be cheaper than a lust?  
The truebred Spark, to hoist his name  
Upon the waxed wings of Fame,  
Will fight undaunted, in a Flood  
That's raised with brackish drops, and blood:  
And shall the promised Crown of life  
Be thought a Toy, not worth a Strife?  
An easy Good, brings easy Gains,  
But things of price are bought with pains:  
The pleasing way is not the right:  
He that would conquer heaven, must fight.  

S. HIEROM. in Ep.  
No labour is hard, no time is long, wherein the glory of Eternity is the mark we level at.   

S. GREG. lib. 8. Mor.  
The valour of a just man is to conquer the flesh, to contradict his own will, to quench the delights of this present life, to endure and love the miseries of this world for the reward of a better, to contemn the flatteries of prosperity, and inwardly to overcome the fears of adversity.   

EPIG. 11.  
O Cupid, if thy smother way were right,  
I should mistrust this Crown were counterfeit▪  
The way's not easy where the Prize is great:  
I hope no virtues, where I smell no sweat.    

XII.  
 emblem 
In cruse 〈◊〉 securus amor.  
〈…〉    

XII. GAL. VI XIV. God forbidden that I should glory, save in the Cross.  

1  
CAn nothing settle my uncertain breast,  
And fix my rambling Love?  
Can my affections find out nothing best?  
But still, and still remove?  
Has earth no mercy? Will no Ark of Rest  
Receive my restless Dove?  
Is there no Good, than which there's nothing higher,  
To bless my full desire  
With joys that never change; with joys that never expire;   

2  
I wanted wealth; and, at my dear request,  
Earth lent a quick supply;  
I wanted Mirth, to charm my sullen breast;  
And who more brisk than I?  
I wanted Fame, to glorify the rest;  
My fame flew Eagle-high:  
My joy not fully ripe, but all decayed;  
Wealth vanished like a shade;  
My mirth began to flag, my Fame began to fade.   

3  
The world's an Ocean, hurried to and fro,  
With every blast of passion:  
Her lustful streams, when either ebb or flow,  
Are tides of man's vexation:  
They altar daily, and they daily grow  
The worse by alteration:  
The Earth's a Cask full tuned, yet wanting measure;  
Her precious wine, is pleasure;  
Her Yeast is Honour's puff; Her Lees are worldly treasure.   

4  
My trust is in the Cross: Let Beauty flag  
Her lose, her wanton sail;  
Let count'nance-gilding Honour cease to brag  
In courtly terms, and vale;  
Let ditch-bred wealth, henceforth, forget to wag  
Her base though golden tail;  
False beauties conquest is but real loss,  
And wealth but golden dross;  
Best Honon's but a blast: my trust is in the Cross.   

5  
My trust is in the Cross: There lies my rest;  
My fast, my sole delight;  
Let cold-mouthed Boreas, or the hot-mouthed East  
Blow till they burst with spite;  
Let earth and hell conspire their worst, their best,  
And join their twisted might:  
Let showers of Thunderbolts dart down, and wound me,  
And troops of Fiends surround me,  
All this may well confront; all this shall never confound me.   

S. AUGUST.  
Christ's Cross is the Christcross of all our happiness; It delivers us from all blindness of error, and enriches our darkness with light; It restores the troubled soul to rest; It brings strangers to God's Acquaintance; It makes remote foreigners near neighbours; It cuts off discord; concludes a league of everlasting peace, and is the bounteous Author of all Good.   

S. BERNARD in Ser. de resur▪  
We find glory in the Cross; To us that are saved it is the power of God, and the fullness of all virtues.   

EPIG. 12.  
I followed Rest, Rest fled, and soon forsook me;  
I ran from Grief, Grief ran, and overtook me.  
What shall I do? Lest I be too much tossed  
On worldly Crosses, LORD, let me be crossed.    

XIII.  
 emblem 
Post Vulnera Daemon  
〈◊〉 Martial sculpsit.    

XIII. PRO. XXVI. XI. As a Dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.  
O I am wounded! And my wounds do smart  
Beyond my patience, or great Chirons Art;  
I yield, I yield; The day, the Palm is thine;  
Thy Bow's more true; thy shafts more fierce than mine.  
Hold, hold, O hold thy conquering hand▪ What need  
To send more darts; The first has done the deed:  
Oft have we struggled, when our equal Arms  
Shot equal shafts; inflicted equal harms;  
But this exceeds, and with her flaming head,  
Twyforked with death, has struck my Conscience dead:  
But must I die? Ah me! If that were all,  
Then, then I'd struck my bleeding wounds, and call  
This dart a Cordial, and with joy, endure  
These harsh Ingredients, where my grief's my Cure.  
But something whispers in my dying ear,  
There is an After-day; which day I fear:  
The slender debt to Nature's quickly paid,  
Discharged, perchance, with greater ease than made;  
But if that pale-faced Sergeant make Attest,  
Ten thousand Actions would (whereof the least  
Is more than all this lower world can bail)  
Be entered, and condemn me to the jail  
Of Stygian darkness, bound in red-hot Chains,  
And gripped with Tortures worse than Tytian pains;  
Farewell my vain, farewell my lose delights;  
Farewell my rambling days; my reveling nights;  
'Twas you betrayed me first, and when ye found  
My soul at vantage: gave my soul the wound:  
Farewell my Bullion Gods, whose sovereign looks  
So often catched me with their golden hooks;  
Go, seek another slave; ye must all go;  
I cannot serve my God, and Bullion too:  
Farewell false Honour; you, whose airy wings  
Did mount my soul above the Thrones of kings;  
Then flattered me; took pet; and, in disdain,  
Nipped my green buds; then kicked me down again:  
Farewell my Bow: Farewell my Cyprian Quiver;  
Farewell, dear world; farewell, dear world, for ever,  
O, but this most delicious world, how sweet  
Her pleasures relish! Ah! How jump they meet  
The grasping soul! And, with their sprightly fire,  
Revive, and raise, and rouse the rapt desire!  
For ever? O, to part so long? What never  
Meet more? Another year; and then, for ever:  
Too quick resolves do resolution wrong;  
What, part so soon, to be divorced so long?  
Things to be done are long to be debated;  
Heaven is not dayed. Repentance is not dated.  

S. AUGUST. lib. de util. again. paen.  
Go up my soul into the Tribunal of thy Conscience; There set thy guilty self before thyself: Hid not thyself behind thyself, lest God bring thee forth before thyself.   

S. AUGUST. in Soliloq.  
In vain is that washing, where the next sin defiles: He hath ill repent whose sins are repeated: that stomach is the worse for vomiting, that licks up his vomit.   

ANSELM.  
God hath promised pardon to him that repenteth, but he hath not promised repentance to him that sinneth.   

EPIG. 13.  
Brain wounded Cupid, had this hasty dart  
As it hath pricked thy Fancy, pierced thy heart,  
IT had been thy Friend: O how has it deceiyed thee?  
For had this dart but killed, this dart had said thee.    

XIV.  
 emblem 
Post lapsum fortiùs acto.  
〈◊〉 Marshal sculpsit.    

XIV. PRO. XXIV. XVI. A just man falleth seven times and riseth up again, but the wicked shall fall into mischief.  

1  
'tIs but a Foil at best, And that's the most  
Your skill can boast:  
My slippery footing failed me; and you tripped,  
Just as I slipped:  
My wanton weakness did herself betray  
With too much play:  
I was too bold: He never yet stood sure,  
That stands secure:  
Who ever trusted to his native strength,  
But fell at length?  
The Title's crazed the Tenor is not good,  
That claims by th'Evidence of flesh and Blood.   

2  
Boast not thy skill; The Righteous man falls oft,  
Yet falls but soft:  
There may be dirt to mire him; but, no stones,  
To crush his bones:  
What, if he staggers? Nay, put case he be  
Foiled on his knee;  
That very knee will bend to heaven, and woe  
For mercy too.  
The truebred Gamester ups a fresh; and then,  
Falls to't again;  
Whereas the leaden-hearted Coward lies,  
And yields his conquered life; or craven, dies:   

3  
Boast not thy Conquest; thou, that every hour,  
Falst ten times lower;  
Nay, hast not power to rise, if not, in case,  
To fall more base:  
Thou wallow'st where I slip; and thou dost tumble,  
Where I but stumble:  
Thou glory'st in thy slav'ries dirty Badges,  
And fall'st for wages:  
Sour grief, and sad repentance scours and clears  
My stains with tears;  
Thy falling keeps thy falling still in ure;  
But when I slip, I stand the more secure.   

4  
LORD what a nothing is this little Span,  
We call a Man!  
What fenny trash maintains the smooth'ring fires  
Of his desires!  
How sleight and short are his Resolves at longest!  
How weak, at strongest.  
O if a Sinner, held by thy fast hand  
Can hardly stand,  
Good GOD! in what a desperate case are they  
That have no stay!  
Man's state implies a necessary Curse;  
When not himself, he's mad; when most himself, he's worse.   

S. AMBROS. in Serm. ad vincula.  
Peter stood more firmly after he had lamented his fall, than before he fell. Insomuch that he found more grace than he lost grace.   

S. CHRYS. in Ep. ad Heliod. monach.  
It is no such heinous matter to fall afflicted; as being down, to lie dejected: It is no danger for a soldier to receive a wound in battle, but after the wound received, through despair of recovery, to refuse a Remedy; For we often see wounded Champions wear the Palm at last, and after flight, crowned with victory.   

EPIG. 14.  
Triumph not, Cupid, His mischance does show  
Thy Trade; does once, what thou dost always do:  
Brag not too soon: Has thy prevailing hand  
Foiled him? Ah Fool, thoust taught him how to stand:    

VI.  
 emblem 
Patet ●ethe●; clauditue orbi.  
〈…〉    

XV. IER. XXXII. XL. I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not departed from me.  
SO; now the soul's sublimed: Her sour desires  
Are recalcined in heavens well tempered Fires:  
The heart restored and purged from drossy Nature,  
Now finds the freedeme of a newborn Creature:  
It lives another life, it breathes new Breath;  
It neither feels nor fears the sting of death:  
Like as the idle vagrant (having none)  
That boldly dopts each house he views, his own;  
Makes every purse his Chequer; and at's pleasure,  
Walks forth, and taxes all the world, like Caesar,  
At length, by virtue of a just command,  
His sides are lent to a severer hand;  
Whereon, his Pass, not fully understood,  
Is taxed in a Manuscript of Blood;  
Thus past from town to town, until he come  
A sore Repentant to his native home:  
Even so the rambling heart, that idly roves  
From Crime to Sin; and uncontroled, removes  
From lust to lust, when wanton flesh invites  
From old-worne pleasures to new choice delights,  
At length corrected by the filial Rod  
Of his offended (but his gracious GOD)  
And lashed from Sins to sighs; and, by degrees.  
From sighs to vows; From vows, to bended knees,  
From bended knees, to a true pensive breast;  
From thence, to torments, not by tongues expressed,  
Returns; and (from his sinful self exiled)  
Finds a glad Father; He, a welcome Child:  
O, then, it lives; O then, it lives involved:  
In secret Raptures; pants to be dissolved:  
The royal Offspring of a second Birth  
Sets open to heaven, and shuts the doors to earth:  
If lovesick love-commanded Clouds should hap  
To rain such showers as quickened Danae's lap:  
Or dogs (far kinder than their purple Master)  
Should lick his sores, he laughs nor weeps the faster.  
If Earth (heavens Rival) dart her idle Ray;  
To heaven, 'tis Wax, and to the world, 'tis Clay;  
If earth present delights, it scorns to draw,  
But, like the jet unrubed, disdains that straw:  
No hope deceives it, and no doubt divides it;  
No Grief disturbs it; and no Error guides it;  
No Fear distracts it; and no Rage inflames it;  
No Gild condemns it; and no Folly shames it;  
No sloth besots it; and no lust inthrals it;  
No Scorn afflicts it; and no Passion gauls it:  
It is a Carcanet of immortal life;  
An Ark of peace; The Lists of sacred Strife;  
A purer piece of endless Transitory;  
A Shrine of Grace; A little Throne of Glory;  
A Heaven borne Offspring of a newborn birth;  
An earthly Heaven; An ounce of heavenly Earth.  

S. AUGUST. de spir. & anima.  
O happy heart, where piety affects; where, humility subjects, where, repentance corrects; where, obedience directs; where, perseverance perfects; where, power protects; where, devotion projects; where, charity connects.   

S. GREG.  
Which way soever the heart turns itself (if carefully) it shall commonly observe, that in those very things we lose God, in those very things we shall find God; It shall find the heat of his power in consideration of those things, in the love of which things he was most cold; and by what things it fell, perverted, by those things it is raised, converted.   

EPIG. 15.  
My heart, but wherefore do I call thee so?  
I have renounced my Interest long ago:  
When thou wert false, and fleshly, I was thine;  
Mine wert thou never, till thou were not mine.     

THE THIRD BOOK.  

 emblem 
Lord all my Desire is before Thee, & my groaning is not aid from Thee●s 38    

The Entertainment.  

ALICE you whose better thoughts are newly born,  
And (rebaptised with holy fire) can scorn  
The world's base trash, whose necks disdain to bear  
Th'imperious yoke of Satan; whose chaste ear  
No wanton Songs of Sirens can surprise  
With false delight; whose more than Eagle-eyes  
Can view the glorious flames of Gold, and gaze  
On glittering beams of Honour, and not daze;  
Whose souls can spurn at pleasure, and deny  
The lose Suggestions of the flesh; draw nigh:   

And you, whose amorous, whose select desires  
Would feel the warmth of those transcendent fires,  
Which (like the rising Sun) put out the light  
Of Venus' star, and turn her day to night;  
You that would love, and have your passions crowned  
With greater happiness than can be found  
In your own wishes; you, that would affect  
Where neither, scorn, nor guile, nor disrespect  
Shall wound your tortured Souls; that would enjoy,  
Where neither want can pinch, nor fullness cloy;  
Nor double doubt afflicts, nor base Fear  
Vnflames your courage in pursuit; draw near:  
Shake hands with earth, and let your soul respect  
Her joys no further than her joys reflect  
Upon her Maker's Glory, if thou swim  
In wealth, See him in all; See all in Him:  
Sink'st thou in want, and is thy small Cruise spent?  
See Him in want; Enjoy Him in Content:  
Conceivest Him lodged in cross▪ or lost in pain?  
In Prayer and Patience find Him out again▪  
Make Heaven thy Mistress, Let no Change remove  
Thy loyal heart: Be fond; be sick of Love:  
What if he stop ear, for knit his Brow?  
At length he'll be as fond, as sick as thou:  
Dart up thy Soul in Groans: Thy secret Groan  
Shall pierce his Ear, shall pierce his Ear, alone:  
Dart up thp Soul in vows; Thy sacred Vow  
Shall find him out, where heaven alone shall know:  
Dart up thy Soul in sighs: Thy whispering sigh  
Shall rouse his ears, and fear no listner nigh:  
Send up thy Groans, thy Sighs, thy closet Vow;  
There's none, there's none shall know but Heaven and thou:  
Groans fresht with vows, and vows made salt with tears,  
Vnscale his eyes, and scale his conquered ears:  
Shoot up the bosom Shafts of thy desire,  
Feathered with Faith, and double forked with Fire,  
And they will hit; Fear not, where heaven bids Come:  
heavens never deaf, but when man's heart is dumb.    

I.  
 emblem 
My Soul hath desired Thee in the Night W. Simpson sc: Esay. 26    

I. ESAY XXIX. VI. My soul hath desired thee in the Night.  
GOod God what horrid darkness does surround  
My groping soul! How are my Senses bound  
In utter shades; and, muffled from the light,  
Lusk in the bosom of eternal night!  
The boldfaced Lamp of heaven can set and rise;  
And, with his morning glory, fill the eyes  
Of gazing Mortals, his victorious Ray  
Can chase the shadows, and restore the day:  
Nights bashful Empress, though she often wain,  
As oft reputes her darkness; primes again;  
And with her circling Horns does re-embrace  
Her brother's wealth, and orbs her silver face.  
But, ah, my Sun, deep swallowed in his Fall,  
Is set, and cannot shine; nor rise at all:  
My bankcrupt Wain can beg nor borrow light;  
Alas, my darkness is perpetual night.  
Falls have their Rise; Waining have their Primes,  
And desperate sorrows wait their better times,  
Ebbs, have their Floods, and Autumns have their Springs;  
All States have Changes hurried with the swings  
Of Chance, and Time, still tiding to and fro:  
Terrestrial Bodies and Celestial too▪  
How often have I vainly groped about,  
With lengthened Arms, to find a passage out,  
That I might catch those Beams mine eye desires,  
And bathe my soul in those Celestial fires:  
Like as the Haggard, cloistered in her mew,  
To scour her downy Robes, and to renew  
Her broken Flags, preparing t'overlooke  
The timorous Malard at the sliding Brook,  
jets oft from Perch to Perch; from Stock to ground;  
From ground to Wandow, thus surveying round  
Her dove-befeatherd Prison, till at length,  
(Calling her noble Birth to mind, and strength  
Whereto her wing was borne) her ragged Beak  
Nips off her dangling jesses', strives to break  
Her gingling Fetters, and gins to bate  
At every glimspe, and darts at every grate:  
Even so my weary soul, that long has been  
An Inmate in this Tenement of Sin,  
Locked up by Cloud-browed Error, which invites  
My cloistered Thoughts to feed on black delights,  
Now scorns her shadows, and gins to dart  
Her winged desires at Thee, that only art  
The Sun she seeks, whose rising beams can fright  
These dusky Clouds that make so dark a night:  
Shine forth, great Glory, shine; that I may see  
Both how to loathe myself, and honour Thee:  
But if my weakensse force Thee to deny  
Thy Flames, yet lend the Twilight of thine Eye:  
If I must want those Beams I wish, yet grant,  
That I, at least, may wish those Beams I want.  

S. AUGUST. Soliloq. cap. 33.  
There was a great and dark cloud of vanity before mine eyes, so that I could not see the Sun of justice, and the light of Truth: I being the Son of darkness, was involved in darkness: I loved my darkness, because I knew not thy Light: I was blind, and loved my blindness, and did walk from darkness to darkness: But Lord, thou art my God, who hast led me from darkness, and the shadow of death; hast called me into this glorious light, and behold, I see.   

EPIG. 1.  
My soul, cheer up: What if the night belong?  
Heaven finds an ear, when sinners find a tongue:  
Thy tears are Morning showers: Heaven bids me say,  
When Peter's Cock gins to crow, 'tis Day.    

II.  
 emblem 
O Lord Thou knowest any Foolishness & my Sins are not hid from Thee Ps: 〈…〉 69 5.    

II. PSAL. LXIX. III. O Lord, thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from thee.  
SEest thou this fulsome Idiot? In what measure  
He seems transported with the antic pleasure  
Of childish Baubles? Canst thou but admire  
The empty fullness of his vain desire?  
Canst thou conceive such poor delights as these  
Can fill th'satiate soul of Man, or please  
The fond Aspect of his deluded eye?  
Reader, such very fools are thou and I:  
False puffs of Honour; the deceitful streams  
Of wealth; the idle, vain; and empty dreams  
Of pleasure, are our Traffic, and ensnare  
Our souls; the threefold subject of our Care:  
We toil for Trash, we barter solid joys  
For airy Triffes'; sell our Heaven for Toys:  
We snatch at Barley grains, whilst Pearls stand by  
Despised; Such very Fools are Thou and I;  
Aim'st thou at Honour? Does not th'idiot shake it:  
In his left hand? Fond man, step forth and take it:  
Or wouldst thou Wealth? See how the fool presents thee  
With a full Basket; if such Wealth contents thee:  
Wouldst thou take pleasure? If the Fool unstride  
His prancing Stallion, thou mayst up, and ride:  
Fond man: Such is the Pleasure, Wealth, and Honour  
The earth affords such Fools as dote upon her;  
Such is the Game whereat earth's Idiots fly;  
Such Idiots, ah, such Fools are thou and I  
Had rebell-mans' Foolhardiness extended  
No further than himself, and there, had ended,  
It had been Just; but, thus, enraged to fly  
Vnon th'eternal eyes of Majesty,  
And drag the Son of Glory, from the breast  
Of his indulgent Father; to arrest  
His great and sacred Person; in disgrace,  
To spit and spawl upon his Sunbright face;  
To taunt him with base terms; and, being bound,  
To scourge his soft, his trembling sides; to wound  
His head with Thorns; his heart, with humane fears;  
His hands, with nails; and his pale Flank with spears;  
And, then, to paddle in the purer stream  
Of his spilt Blood, is more than most extreme:  
Great Builder of mankind, canst thou propound  
All this to thy bright eyes, and not confound  
Thy handiwork? O, canst Thou choose but see,  
That mad'st the Eye? Can aught be hid from Thee?  
Thou seest our persons, LORD, and not our Gild;  
Thou seest not what thou mayst, but what thou wilt:  
The Hand, that formed us, is enforced to be  
A Screen set up betwixt thy Work and Thee:  
Look, look upon that Hand, and thou shalt spy  
An open wound, a Thoroughfare for thine Eye;  
Or if that wound be closed, that passage be  
Denied between Thy gracious eyes, and me,  
Yet view the Scarre; That Star will countermand  
Thy Wrath: O read my Fortune in thy Hand.  

S. CHRYS. Hom. 4. joan.  
Fools seem to abound in wealth, when they want all things; they seem to enjoy happiness, when indeed they are only most miserable; neither do they understand that they are deluded by their fancy, till they be delivered from their folly.   

S. GREG. in Mor.  
By so much the more are we inwardly foolish, by how much we strive to seem outwardly wise.   

EPIG. 2.  
Rebellious fool, what has thy Folly done:  
Controlled thy GOD, and crucified His Son:  
How sweetly has the LORD of life deceived thee?  
Thou sheddest His Blood, and that shed Blood has saved thee.    

III.  
 emblem 
Have mercy on me o Ld for I am weak o Ld me for my bones are vexed Ps: ●2.    

III. PSAL. VI.II. Have mercy, Lord, upon me, for I am weak, O Lord heal me, for my bones are vexed.  Soul. Iesus Soul. 
AH, Son of David, help:  jes. 
What sinful cry  
Implores the Son of David?  Soul. 
It is I:  jes. 
Who art thou?  Soul. 
Oh, a deeply wounded breast  
That's heavy laden, and would fain have rest.  jes. 
I have no scraps, and dogs must not be fed  
Like household Children, with the children's bread:  Soul. 
True Lord; yet tolerate a hungry whelp  
To lick their crumbs: O, Son of David, help.  jes. 
Poor Soul, what ail'st thou?  Soul. 
O I burn, I fry▪  
I cannot rest; I know not where to fly  
To find some case; I turn my blubbered face  
From man to man; I roll from place to place,  
T'avoid my tortures, to obtain relief,  
But still am dogged and haunted with my grief:  
My midnight torments call the sluggish light,  
And when the morning's come, they woe the night.  jes. 
Surcease thy tears, and speak thy free desires;  Soul. 
Quench, quench my flames, & suage these scorching fires  jes. 
Canst thou believe my hand can cure thy grief?  Soul. 
Lord, I believe; Lord, help my unbelief:  jes. 
Hold forth thy Arm, and let my fingers try  
Thy Pulse; where (chief) does thy torment lie?  Soul. 
From head to foot; it reigns in every part,  
But plays the selfe-lawed Tyrant in my heart.  jes. 
Canst thou digest? canst relish wholesome food?  
How stands thy taste?  Soul. 
To nothing that is good:  
All sinful trash, and earth's unsavoury stuff  
I can digest, and relish well enough:  jes. 
Is not thy blood as cold as hot, by turns?  Soul. 
Cold to what's good; to what is bad, it burns:  jes. 
How old's thy grief?  Soul. 
I took it at the Fall  
With eating Fruit.  jes. 
'Tis Epidemical;  
Thy blood's infected, and th'Infection sprung  
From a bad Liver: 'Tis a fever strong.  
And full of death, unless, with present speed,  
A vein be oped; Thou must die, or bleed.  Soul. 
O I am faint, and spent: That Lance that shall  
Let forth my blood, let's forth my life withal;  
My soul wants Cordials, and has greater need  
Of blood, than (being spent so fare) to bleed:  
I faint already: If I bleed, I die.  jes. 
'Tis either thou must bleed, sick soul, or I:  
My blood's a Cordial. He that sucks my veins,  
Shall cleanse his own, and conquer greater pains  
Than these: Cheer up: this precious Blood of mine  
Shall cure thy Grief; my heart shall bleed for thine:  
Believe, and view me with a faithful eye;  
Thy soul shall neither languish, bleed, nor die.  

S. AUGUST. lib. 10. Confess.  
Lord, Be merciful unto me: Ah me: Behold, I hide not my wounds. Thou art a Physician, and I am sick; Thou art merciful, and I am miserable.   

S. GREG. in Pastoral.  
O Wisdom, with how sweet an art does thy wine and oil restore health to my healthless soul! How powerfully merciful, how mercifully powerful art thou! Powerful, for me, Merciful, to me!   

EPIG. 3.  
Canst thou be sick, and such a Doctor by?  
Thou canst not live, unless thy Doctor die!  
Strange kind of grief, that finds no medicine good  
To suage her pains, but the Physicians Blood!    

iv  
 emblem 
Look upon my Affliction & misery & forgive me all my Sin 〈…〉    

iv PSAL. XXV. XVIII. Look upon my affliction and my pain, and forgive all my sins.  
BOth work, and strokes? Both lash, and labour too?  
What more could Edom, or proud Ashur do?  
Stripes after stripes? and blows succeeding blows?  
Lord, has thy scourge no mercy, and my woes  
No end? My pains no ease? No intermission?  
Is this the state? Is this the sad condition  
Of those that trust thee? Will thy goodness please  
T'allow no other favours? None but these?  
Will not the Rethrick of my torments move?  
Are these the symptoms? these the signs of love?  
Is't not enough, enough that I fulfil  
The toilsome task of thy laborious Mill?  
May not this labour expiate, and purge  
My sin, without th'addition of thy scourge?  
Look on my cloudy brow, how fast it raines  
Sad showers of sweat, the fruits of fruitless pains:  
Behold these ridges; see what purple furrows  
Thy plough has made; O think upon those sorrows,  
That once were thine; will't, wilt thou not be wooed  
To mercy, by the charms of sweat and blood?  
Canst thou forget that drowsy Mount, wherein  
Thy dull Disciples slept? Was not my sin  
There, punished in thy soul? Did not this brow  
Then sweat in thine? Were not those drops enough?  
Remember Golgotha where that springtide  
O'er flowed thy sovereign Sacramental side;  
There was no sin; there was no guilt in Thee,  
That caused those pains; Thou sweat'st; thou bledst for me:  
Was there not blood enough, when one small drop  
Had power to ransom thousands worlds, and stop  
The mouth of justice? Lord, I bled before,  
In thy deep wounds; Can justice challenge more?  
O do thou vainly labour to hedge in  
Thy losses from my sides? My blood is thin;  
And thy free bounty scorns such easy thrift;  
No, no, thy blood came not as lone, but gift:  
But must I ever grind? And must I earn  
Nothing but stripes? O, widow t thou disalterne  
The rest thou gav'st? Hast thou perused the curse  
Thou laidest on Adam's fall, and made it worse?  
Canst thou repent of mercy? Heaven thought good  
Lost man should feed in sweat; not work in blood:  
Why dost thou wound th'already wounded breast?  
Ah me; my life is but a pain at best?  
I am but dying dust: my days, a span;  
What pleasure tak'st thou in the blood of man?  
Spare, spare thy scourge, and be not so austere;  
Send fewer strokes, or lend more strength to bear.  

S. BERN. Hom. 81. in Cant.  
Miserable man! Who shall deliver me from the reproach of this shameful bondage? I am a miserable man; but a free man; free, because a man; Miserable, because a servant: In regard of my bondage, miserable; In regard of my will, inexcusable: For my will, that was free, be slaved itself to sin, by assenting to sin; for he that commits sin, is the servant to sin.   

EPIG. 4.  
Tax not thy God: Thine own defaults did urge  
This twofold punishment; the Mill, the Scourge:  
Thy sin's the Author of thyself tormenting:  
Thou grind'st for sinning; scourged for not repenting:    

V.  
 emblem 
Remember I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay, & wilt thou bring me into dust again job. 〈…〉 will simp: scu:    

V JOB. X.IX. Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay, and wilt thou bring me to dust again?  
THus from the bosom of the newmade earth,  
Poor man was delved, and had his unborn birth:  
The same the stuff; the selfsame hand does trim  
The Plant that fades, the Beast that dies; and Him:  
One was their Sire; one was their common mother;  
Plants are his sisters; and the Beast; his brother,  
The elder too, Beasts draw the selfsame breath,  
Wax old alike, and die the selfsame death:  
Plants grow as he, with fairer robes arrayed;  
Alike they flourish, and alike they fade:  
The beast, in sense, exceeds him; and, in growth,  
The three-aged Oak doth thrice exceed them both:  
Why look'st thou then so big, thou little span  
Of earth? What art thou more, in being man?  
I; but my great Creator did inspire  
My chosen earth with that diviner fire  
Of Reason; gave me judgement, and a Will;  
That, to know good; this, to choose good from ill:  
He put the raines of power in my free hand,  
And jurisdiction oversea and land:  
He gave me art, to lengthen out my span  
Of life, and made me all, in being man▪  
I; but thy Passion has committed treason  
Against the sacred person of thy Reason;  
Thy judgement is corrupt; perverse thy Will;  
That knows no good; and this makes choice of ill:  
The greater height sends down the deeper fall,  
And good, declined, turns bad; turns worst of all:  
Say then proud inch of living earth, what can  
Thy greatness claim the more in being man?  
O but my soul transcends the pitch of nature,  
Borne up by th'Image of her high Creator;  
Out-braves the life of reason, and beats down  
Her waxed wings kicks off her brazen Crown;  
My earth's a living Temple t'entertain  
The King of Glory, and his glorious train:  
How can I mend my Title then? where can  
Ambition find a higher style than man?  
Ah, but that Image is defaced and soiled;  
Her Temple's razed, her altars all defiled;  
Her vessels are polluted, and distained  
With loathed lust; her ornaments profaned;  
Her oil forsaken lamps, and hallowed Tapoure  
Put out; her incense breathes unsavoury vapours:  
Why swel'st thou then so big, thou little span  
Of earth? What art thou more in being man?  
Eternal Porter, whose blessed hands did lay  
My course foundation from a sod of clay,  
Thou knowst my slender vessell's apt to leak;  
Thou knowst my brittle Temper's prone to break;  
Are my Bones Brazzill, or my Flesh of Oak?  
O, mend what thou hast made, what I have broke:  
Look, look with gentle eyes, and in thy day  
Of vengeance, Lord remember I am clay.  

S. AUGUST Soliloq. 32.  
Shall I ask, who made me? It was thou that madest me, without whom nothing was made: Thou art my maker, and I thy work: I thank thee my Lord God, by whom I live, and by whom all things subsist, because thou madest me: I thank thee O my Potter, because thy hands have made me, because thy hands have form me.   

EPIG. 5.  
Why swellest thou, Man, puffed up with Fame, and Purse?  
thou'rt better earth, but borne to dig the worse:  
Thou cam'st from earth, to earth thou must return;  
And art but earth, cast from the womb, to th'●ne.    

VI  
 emblem 
What shall I do unto thee, O thou ● preserver of men; why hast thou set me as a mark against thee. job. 7.2.    

VI JOB. VII. XX. I have sinned: What shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men, why hast thou set me as a mark against thee?  
LOrd I have done: and Lord, I have misdone;  
'Tis folly to contest, to strive with one,  
That is too strong; 'tis folly to assail  
Or prove an Arm, that will, that must prevail?  
I've done, I've done; these trembling hands have thrown  
Their daring weapons down: The day's thine own:  
Forbear to strike, where thou hast won the field;  
The palm, the palm is thine: I yield, I yield.  
These treacherous hands, that were so vainly bold  
To try a thrivelesse combat, and to hold  
Selfe-wounding weapons up, are now extended  
For mercy from thy hand; that knee that bended  
Upon her guardlesse guard, does now repent  
Upon this naked floor; See, both are bend,  
And sue for pity; O, my ragged wound  
Is deep and desperate; it is drenched and drowned  
In blood, and briny tears: It does begin  
To stink without, and putrify within:  
Let that victorious hand, that now appears  
Just in my blood, prove gracious to my tears:  
Thou great Preserver of presumptuous man,  
What shall I do? What satisfaction can  
Poor dust and ashes make? O, if that blood  
That yet remains unshed, were half as good  
As blood of Oxen; if my death might be  
An offering to atone my God and me,  
I would disdain injurious life, and stand  
A suitor, to be wounded from thy hand.  
But may thy wrongs be measured by the span  
Of life? or balanced with the blood of man?  
No, no, eternal sin expects for guerdon,  
Eternal penance, or eternal pardon:  
Lay down thy weapons; turn thy wrath away;  
And pardon him that hath no price to pay;  
Enlarge that soul, which base presumption binds;  
Thy justice cannot lose what mercy finds:  
O thou that wilt not bruise the broken reed,  
Rub not my sores, nor prick the wounds that bleed:  
Lord, if the peevish Infant fights, and flies,  
With unpared weapons, at his mother's eyes,  
Her frowns (half mixed with smiles) may chance to show  
An angry love-trick on his arm, or so;  
Where, if the babe but make a lip, and cry,  
Her heart gins to melt; and by and by,  
She coakes his dewy cheeks; her babe she blisses,  
And chokes her language with a thousand kisses.  
I am that child; lo, here I prostrate lie,  
Pleading for mercy; I repent, and cry  
For gracious pardon: let thy gentle ears  
Hear that in words, what mothers judge in tears:  
See not my frailties, Lord, but through my fear,  
And look on every trespass through a tear:  
Then calm thy anger, and appear more mild:  
Remember, thou'rt a Father; I, a child.  

S. BERN. Ser. 21. in Cant.  
Miserable man! Who shall deliver me from the reproach of this shameful bondage? I am a miserable man, but a free man: Free because like to God; miserable, because against God: O keeper of mankind, why hast thou set me as a mark against thee? Thou hast set me, because thou hast not hindered me. It is just that thy enemy should be my enemy, and that he who repugns thee, should repugn me: I who am against thee, am against myself.   

EPIG. 6.  
But formed, and fight? But borne, and then rebel?  
How small a blast will make a bubble swell?  
But dare the floor affront the hand that laid it?  
So apt is dust to fly in's face that made it.    

VII.  
 emblem 
Wherefore hidest thou thy face & holdest me for thine Enemy job: ●3. 24 W. S. sc.    

VII. JOB XIII. XXIV. Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy?  

WHy dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why  
Does that eclipsing hand so long, deny  
The Sunshining of thy soule-enliv'ning eye?   

Without that Light, what light remains in me  
Thou art my Life, my Way, my Light; in Thee  
I live, I move, and by thy beams I see:   

Thou art my Life; If thou but turn away,  
My life's a thousand deaths: thou art my Way;  
Without thee, Lord, I travel not but stray.   

My Light thou art; without thy glorious sight,  
Mine eyes are darkened with perpetual night.  
My God, thou art my Way, my Life, my Light.   

Thou art my Way; I wander, if thou fly:  
Thou art my Light; It hide, how blind am I?  
Thou art my Life; If thou withdraw, I die:   

Mine eyes are blind and dark, I cannot see;  
To whom, or whether should my darkness flee,  
But to the Light? And who's that Light but Thee?   

My path is lost; my wand'ring steps do stray;  
I cannot safely go, nor safely stay;  
Whom should I seek but Thee, my Path, my Way?   

O, I am dead: To whom shall I, poor I  
Repair? To whom shall my sad Ashes fly  
But Life? And where is Life but in thine eye?   

And yet thou turn'st away thy face, and fliest me;  
And yet I sue for Grace, and thou deniest me;  
Speak, art thou angry, Lord, or only try'st me?   

Vnskreene those heavenly lamps, or tell me why  
Thou shad'st thy face; Perhaps, thou thinkest, no eye  
Can view those flames, and not drop down and die:   

If that be all; shine forth, and draw thee nigher;  
Let me behold and die; for my desire  
Is Phoenixlike to perish in that Fire.   

Death conquered Laz'rus was redeemed by Thee;  
If I am dead, Lord set death's prisoner free;  
Am I more spent, or stink I worse than he?   

If my puffed light be out, give leave to tine  
My flamelesse snuff at that bright Lamp of thine;  
O what's thy Light the less for lighting mine?   

If I have lost my Path, great Shepherd, say,  
Shall I still wander in a doubtful way?  
Lord, shall a Lamb of israels sheepfold stray?   

Thou art the Pilgrim's Path; the blind man's Eye?  
The dead man's Life; on thee my hopes rely;  
If thou remove, I err; I grope; I die:   

Disclose thy Sunbeams; close thy wings, and stay;  
See see, how I am blind and dead, and stray,  
O thou, that art my Light, my Life, my Way.   

S. AUGUST. Soliloq. cap. 1.  
Why dost thou hide thy face? Happily thou wilt say, none can see thy face and live: Ah Lord, let me die, that I may see thee; let me see thee, that I may die: I would not live, but die; That I may see Christ, I desire death; that I may live with Christ, I despise life.   

ANSELM. Med. cap. 5.  
O excellent hiding, which is become my perfection! My God, thou hidest thy treasure, to kindle my desire; Thou hidest thy pearl, to inflame the seeker; thou delay'st to give, that thou mayst teach me to importune, seem'st not to hear, to make me persever,   

EPIG. 7.  
If heaven's all-quickning Eyes vouchsafe to shine  
Upon our souls, we slight; If not, we whine:  
Our Equinoctial hearts can never lie  
Secure, beneath the Tropics of that eye.    

VIII.  
 emblem 
O that my Head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears! jer: 9 ●. Will. Martial sculpsit.    

VIII. IER. IX.I. O that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night.  
O That mine eyes were springs, and could transform  
Their drops to seas! My sighs, into a storm  
Of Zeal, and sacred Violence, wherein  
This labouring vessel, laden with her sin,  
Might suffer sudden shipwreck, and be split  
Upon that Rock, where my drenched soul may sit  
O'erwhelmed with plenteous passion; O, and there  
Drop, drop into an everlasting tear!  
Ah me! that every sliding vein that wanders  
Through this vast Isle, did work her wild Meanders  
In brackish tears, in stead of blood, and swell  
This flesh with holy Dropsies, from whose Well,  
Made warm with sighs, may fume my wasting breath  
Whilst I dissolve in streams, and reek to death!  
These narrow sluices of my dribbling eyes  
Are much too straight for those quick springs that rise,  
And hourly fill my Temples to the top;  
I cannot shed for every sin a drop:  
Great builder of mankind, why hast thou sent,  
Such swelling floods, and made so small a vent?  
O that this flesh had been composed of snow,  
Instead of earth; and bones of Ice, that so,  
Feeling the Fervour of my sin; and loathing  
The fire I feel, I might be thawed to nothing!  
O thou, that didst, with hopeful joy, entomb,  
Me thrice three Moons in thy laborious womb,  
And then, with joyful pain, brought'st forth a Son,  
What worth thy labour, has thy labour done?  
What was there? Ah! what was there in my birth  
That could deserve the easiest smile of mirth?  
A man was borne: Alas, and what's a man?  
A scuttle full of dust, a measured span  
Of flitting Time; a furnished Pack, whose wares  
Are sullen Griefs, and soule-tormenting Cares:  
A vale of tears; a vessel turned with breath,  
By sickness broached, to be drawn out by death:  
A hapless, helpless thing; that, borne, does cry  
To feed; that feeds to live; that lives to die.  
Great God and Man, whose eyes spent drops so often  
For me, that cannot weep enough; O soften  
These marble brains, and strike this flinty rock;  
Or if the music of thy Peter's Cock  
Will more prevail, fill, fill my harkening ears  
With that sweet sound, that I may melt in tears:  
I cannot weep, until thou broach ruin eye;  
Or give me vent, or else I burst, and die.  

S. AMBROS: in Psal. 118.  
He that commits sins to be wept for, cannot weep for sins committed: And being himself most lamentable, hath no tears to lament his offences.   

NAZIANZ. Orat. 3.  
Tears are the deluge of sin, and the world's sacrifice:   

S. HIEROM. in Esaiam.  
Prayer appeases God, but a tear compels him: That moves him, but this constrains him.   

EPIG. 8.  
Earth is an Island ported round with Fears;  
The way to Heaven is through the Sea of tears.  
It is a stormy passage, where is found  
The wrack of many a ship, but no man drowned.    

IX.  
 emblem 
The sorroves of hell have encompassed me the snares of death have overtaken me. psal. 17: Will simpson    

IX. PSALM. XVIII. V. The sorrows of hell compassed me about, and the snares of death prevented me.  
IS not this Type well cut? In every part  
Full of rich cunning? filled with Zeuxian Art?  
Are not the Hunters, and their Stygian Hounds  
Limned full to th'life? Didst ever hear the sounds,  
The music, and the lip-divided breathes  
Of the strong-winded Horn Recheats, and deaths  
Done more exact? Th'infernal Nimrods' hollow?  
The lawless Purliews? and the Game they follow?  
The hidden Engines? and the snares that lie  
So undiscovered, so obscure to th'eye?  
The new-drawne net? and her entangled Prey?  
And him that closes it? Beholder, say,  
Is't not well done? seems not an em'lous strife  
Betwixt the rare cut picture, and the life?  
These Purlieu-men are Devils; And the Hounds,  
(Those quick nosed Cannibals that scour the grounds)  
Temptations and the Game these Friends pursue,  
Are humane souls, which still they have in view;  
Whose fury if they chance to scape, by flying,  
The skilful Hunter plants his net, close lying  
On th'unsuspected earth, baited with treasure,  
Ambitious honour, and self-wasting pleasure;  
Where if the soul but stoop, death stands prepared  
To draw the net, and drawn, the soul's ensnared.  
Poor soul! how art thou hurried to and fro?  
Where canst thou safely stay? where safely go?  
If stay: these hot-mouthed Hounds are apt to tear thee,  
If go; the snares enclose, the nets ensnare thee:  
What good in this bad world has power t'invite thee  
A willing Guest? wherein can earth delight thee?  
Her pleasures are but Itch; Her wealth, but Cares;  
A world of dangers, and a world of snares:  
The close Pursuers busy hands do plant  
Snares in thy substance; Snares attend thy want;  
Snares in thy credit; Snares in thy disgrace;  
Snares in thy high estate; Snares in thy base;  
Snares tuck thy bed; and Snares arround thy board;  
Snares watch thy thoughts; and Snares attach thy word;  
Snares in thy quiet; Snares in thy commotion;  
Snares in thy diet; Snares in thy devotion;  
Snares lurk in thy resolves; Snares, in thy doubt;  
Snares lie within thy heart, and Snares, without;  
Snares are above thy head, and Snares, beneath;  
Snares in thy sickness; Snares are in thy death:  
O, if these Purlieus be so full of danger,  
Great God of Hearts, the world's sole sovereign Ranger,  
Preserve thy Deer, and let my soul be blessed  
In thy safe Forest, where I seek for rest:  
Then let the Hellhounds roar; I fear no ill;  
Rouse me they may, but have no power to kill.  

S. AMBROS. lib. 4. in cap. 4. Lucae.  
The reward of honours, the height of power, the delicacy of diet, and the beauty of a harlot are the snares of the Devil.   

S. AMBROS. de bono mortis.  
Whilst thou seekest pleasures, thou runnest into snares, for the eye of the harlot is the snare of the Adulterer.   

SAVANAR.  
In eating, he sets before us Gluttony; In generation, luxury; In labour sluggishness; In conversing, envy; in governing, covetousness; In correcting, arger; In honour, pride; In the heart, he sets evil thoughts; in the mouth, evil words; in actions evil works; when awake, he moves us to evil actions; when asleep, to filthy dreams.   

EPIG. 9  
Be sad, my Heart, Deep dangers wait thy mirth;  
Thy soul's way laid by sea; by Hell; by earth;  
Hell has her hounds; Earth, snares; the Sea, a shelf;  
But most of all, my heart, beware thyself.    

X.  
 emblem 
Enter not into judgement with thy servant for no man living shall be justified in thy sight Will simpson    

X. PSAL. CXLIII. TWO. Enter not into judgement with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.  Jesus. Justice. Sinner. jes. 
BRing forth the prisoner, justice.  Just. 
Thy commands  
Are done, just judge; See here the prisoner stands.  jes. 
What has the prisoner done? Say; what's the cause  
Of his committment?  Just. 
He has broke the laws  
Of his too gracious God; conspired the death  
Of that great Majesty that gave him breath,  
And heaps transgression, Lord, upon transgression:  jes. 
How knowst thou this?  Iu. 
Even by his own confession:  
His sins are crying; and they cried aloud;  
They cried to heaven; they cried to heaven for blood:  jes. 
What sayest thou sinner? hast thou ought to plead,  
That sentence should not pass? Hold up thy head,  
And show thy brazen, thy rebellious face.  Sin. 
Ah me! I dare not: I'am too vile and base,  
To tread upon the earth, much more, to lift  
Mine eyes to heaven; I need no other shrift  
Than mine own conscience; Lord, I must confess,  
I am no more than dust, and no whit less  
Than my Indictment styles me; Ah, if thou  
Search too severe, with too severe a Brow,  
What Flesh can stand? I have transgressed thy laws;  
My merits plead thy vengeance; not my cause.  Just. 
Lord shall I strike the blow?  jes. 
Hold, justice, stay,  
Sinner, speak on; what hast thou more to say?  Sin. 
Vile as I am, and of myself abhorred,  
I am thy handiwork, thy creature, Lord,  
Stamped with thy glorious Image, and at first,  
Most like to thee, though now a poor accursed  
Convicted Caitiff, and degen'rous creature,  
Here trembling at thy Bar.  Just. 
Thy fault's the greater;  
Lord shall I strike the blow?  jes 
Hold, justice, stay,  
Speak, sinner; hast thou nothing more to say?  Sin. 
Nothing but Mercy, Mercy; Lord, my state  
Is miserably poor and desperate;  
I quite renounce myself, the world, and flee  
From Lord to jesus; from thyself, to Thee.  Just. 
Cease thy vain hopes; my angry God has vowed:  
Abused mercy must have blood for blood:  
Shall I yet strike the blow?  jes. 
Stay, justice, hold;  
My bowels yearn, my fainting blood grows cold,  
To view the trembling wretch; Me thinks, I spy  
My father's Image in the prisoners eye:  Just. 
I cannot hold.  Jes. 
Then turn thy thirsty blade  
Into my sides: let there the wound be made:  
Cheer up, dear soul; Redeem thy life with mine:  
My soul shall smart; My heart shall bleed for thine.  Sin. 
O groundless deeps! O love beyond degree!  
Th'offended dies, to set th'offender free.  

S. AUGUST.  
Lord, if I have done that, for which thou mayest damn me; thou hast not lost that, whereby thou mayest save me: Remember not sweet Jesus, thy justice against the sinner, but thy benignity towards thy Creature: Remember not to proceed against a guilty soul, but remember thy mercy towards a miserable wretch: Forget the insolence of the provoker, and behold the misery of the invoker; for what is Jesus but a Saviour.   

ANSELM.  
Have respect to what thy Son hath done for me, and forget what my sins have done against thee: My flesh hath provoked thee to vengeance; let the flesh of Christ move thee to mercy: It is much that my rebellions have deserved; but it is more that my Redeemer hath merited.   

EPIG. 10.  
Mercy of mercies! He that was my drudge  
Is now my Advocate, is now my judge:  
He suffers, pleads, and sentences, alone:  
Three I adore, and yet adore but One.    

XI.  
 emblem 
Let not the water-flood overflow me▪ neither let the deep swallow me up▪ Ps: 69.15. Will: Simpson sculpsit    

XI. PSAL. LXIX. XV. Let not the water-flood overflow me, neither let the deeps swallow me up.  
THe world's a Sea; my flesh, a ship, that's maned  
With labouring Thoughts; and steered by Reason's hand:  
My heart's the Seaman's Card, whereby she sails;  
My lose Affections are the greater Sails:  
The Topsail is my Fancy; and the Gusts  
That fill these wanton Sheets, are worldly Lusts.  
Prayer is the Cable, at whose end appears  
The Anchor Hope, never slipped but in our fears:  
My Will's th'unconstant Pilot, that commands  
The staggering Keel; my Sins are like the Sands:  
Repentance is the Bucket; and mine Eye  
The Pump, unused (but in extremes) and dry:  
My conscience is the Plummet, that does press  
The deeps, but seldom cries, A fathom less:  
Smooth Calm's security; The Gulf, despair;  
My Freight's Corruption, and this life's my Fan  
My soul's the Passenger, confusedly driven  
From fear to fright; her landing Port, is Heaven.  
My seas are stormy, and my Ship does leak;  
My Sailor's rude▪ My Steersman faint and weak:  
My Canvace torn, it flappes from side to side;  
My Cable's cracked; my Anchor's slightly tied;  
My Pilot's crazed; my shipwreck sands are cloaked;  
My Bucket's broken, and my Pump is choked;  
My Calm's deceitful; and my Gulf too near;  
My Wares are flubbered; and my Fares too dear:  
My Plummet's light, it cannot sink nor sound;  
O shall my Rock-be threatened Soul be drowned?  
Lord still the seas, and shield my ship from harm;  
Instruct my sailors; guide my Steersmans' Arm;  
Touch thou my Compass, and renew my Sails;  
Send stiffer courage, or send milder gales;  
Make strong my Cable; bind my Anchor faster;  
Direct my Pilot, and be thou his Master;  
Object the Sands to my more serious view,  
Make sound my Bucket; bore my Pump anew;  
New cast my Plummet, make it apt to try  
Where the Rocks lurk, and where the Quicksands lie;  
Guard thou the Gulf, with love; my Calms, with Care▪  
Cleanse thou my Freight; accept my slender Fare;  
Refresh the Sea-sick passenger; cut short  
His Voyage; land him in his wished Port:  
Thou, thou, whom winds and stormy seas obey,  
That, through the deeps, gav'st grumbling Isr'ell way.  
Say to my soul, be safe; and then mine eye  
Shall scorn grim death, although grim death stand by;  
O thou whose strength-reviving Arm did cherish  
Thy sinking Peter, at the point to perish,  
Reach forth thy hand, or bid me tread the Wave,  
I'll come, I'll come, The voice that calls will save.  

S. AMBROS. Apol. post. pro David. Cap. 3.  
The confluence of lusts make a great Tempest, which in this sea disturbs the seafaring soul, that reason cannot govern it.   

S. AUGUST. Soliloq. Cap. 35.  
We labour in a boisterous sea: Thou standest upon the shore and seest our dangers: Give us grace to hold a middle course betwixt Scylla and Charybdis, that both dangers escaped, we may arrive at our Port, secure.   

EPIG. 11.  
My soul; the seas are rough; and thou a stranger  
In these false coasts; O keep aloof; there's danger:  
Cast forth thy Plummet; see a rock appears;  
Thy ship wants sea-room; Make it with thy tears.    

XII.  
 emblem 
O that thou wouldst protect me in the grave and hide me ontill thy fury be passed▪ job 14 Will: simpson sculp:    

XII. JOB XIV. XIII. O that thou wouldst hide me in the grave, that thou wouldst keep me secret until thy wrath be passed!  

O Whether shall I fly? what path untrod  
Shall I seek out, to scape the flaming rod  
Of my offended, of my angry God?   

Where shall I sojourn? What kind sea will hide  
My head from Thunder? where shall I abide,  
Until his flames be quenched, or laid aside?   

What if my feet should take their hasty flight,  
And seek protection in the shades of night?  
Alas, no shades can blind the God of Light:   

What, if my soul should take the wings of day,  
And find some desert; if she spring away,  
The wings of vengeance clip as fast as they:   

What if some solid Rock should entertain  
My frighted soul? Can solid Rocks restrain  
The stroke of justice, and not cleave in twain?   

Nor Sea, nor Shade, nor Shield, nor Rock, nor Cave,  
Nor silent deserts, nor the sullen grave,  
Where flame eyed fury means to smite, can save.   

The Seas will part; graves open; Rocks will split;  
The shield will cleave; the frighted shadows flit;  
Where justice arms, her fiery darts must hit.   

No, no, if stern-browed vengeance means to thunder,  
There is no place above; beneath, nor under,  
So close, but will unlock, or rive in sunder.   

'Tis vain to flee; 'Tis neither here nor there  
Can scape that hand until that hand forbear;  
Ah me! where is he not, that's every where?   

'Tis vain to flee; till gentle mercy show  
Her better eye, the farther off we go,  
The swing of justice deals the mightier blow▪   

Th'ingenious child, corrected, does not fly  
His angry mother's hand, but clings more nigh.  
And quenches, with his tears, her flaming eye.   

Shadows are faithless, and the rocks are false;  
No trust in brass; no trust in marble walls;  
Poor Cotts are e'ven as safe as Prince's Halls:   

Great God, there is no safety here below;  
Thou art my Fortress, though thou seem'st my foe,  
'Tis thou, that strik'st the stroke, must guard the blow.   

Thou art my God; by thee I fall or stand;  
Thy Grace hath given me courage to withstand  
All tortures, but my Conscience, and thy Hand.   

I know thy justice is thyself; I know,  
Just God, thy very self is mercy too;  
If not to thee, where? whether should I go?   

Then work thy will; If passion bid me flee,  
My Reason shall obey; my wings shall be  
Stretched out no further than from Thee to Thee.   

S. AUGUST. in Psal. 30.  
Whether fly I? To what place can I safely fly? To what mountain? To what den? To what strong house? What Castle shall I hold? What walls shall hold me? Whethersoever I go, myself follows me: For whatsoever thou fliest, O man, thou mayst, but thy own Conscience: wheresoever O Lord I go, I find thee, if angry, a Revenger; if appeased, a Redeemer: What way have I, but to flee from thee, to thee: That thou mayst avoid thy God, address thee to thy Lord.   

EPIG. 12.  
Hath vengeance found thee? Can thy fears command  
No Rocks to shield thee from her thundering hand?  
knowst thou not where to scape? I'll tell thee where;  
My soul make clean thy Conscience; Hid thee there;    

XIII.  
 emblem 
Are not my days few? Cease then, and let me alone that I may bewail me a little  
job. 10.20. Will. simpson. sculpsit    

XIII. JOB. X.XX. Are not my days few? Cease then, and let me alone, that I may bewail myself a little.  

MY Glass is half unspent: Forbear t'rrest  
My thriftless day too soon: My poor request  
Is that my glass may run but out the rest.   

My time-devoured minutes will be done  
Without thy help; See, see how swift they run;  
Cut not thy thread before my thread be spun:   

The gain's not great I purchase by this stay;  
What loss sustainest thou by so small delay,  
To whom ten thousand years are but a day?   

My following eye can hardly make a shift  
To count my winged hours; they fly so swift,  
They scarce deserve the bounteous name of gift.   

The secret wheels of hurrying Time do give  
So short a warning, and so fast they drive,  
That I am dead before I seem to live:   

And what's a life? A weary Pilgrimage,  
Whose glory, in one day, doth fill the stage  
With Childhood, Manhood, and decrepit Age.   

And what's a Life; the flourishing Array  
Of the proud Summer meadow, which to day  
Wears her green plush; and is, to morrow, Hay;   

And what's a Life? A blast sustained with clothing,  
Maintained with food; retained with vile selfe-loathing,  
Then weary of itself, agained to nothing.   

Read on this dial, how the shades devour  
My short-lived winter's day; Hours eats up hour;  
Alas, the total's but from eight to four.   

Behold these Lilies (which thy hands have made  
Fair copies of my life, and open laid  
To view) how soon they droop, how soon they fade!   

Shade not that dial, night will blind too soon;  
My nonaged day already points to noon;  
How simple is my suit? How small my Boon!   

Not do I beg this slender inch, to while  
The time away, or falsely to beguile  
My thoughts with joy; Here's nothing worth a smile.   

No, no: 'Tis not to please my wanton ears:  
With frantic mirth; I beg but hours; not years:  
And what thou giv'st me, I will give to tears.   

Draw not that soul which would be rather led;  
That Seed has yet not broke my Serpent's head;  
O shall I die before my sins are dead?   

Behold these Rags; Am I a fitting Guest  
To taste the dainties of thy royal Feast,  
With hands and face unwashed, ungirt, unblessed?   

First, let the jordan streams (that find supplies  
From the deep fountain of my heart) arise,  
And cleanse my spots, and clear my leprous eyes:   

I have a world of sins to be lamented;  
I have a sea of tears that must be vented;  
O spare till then; and then I die, contented.   

S. AUGUST. lib. 7. de Civit. Dei cap. 10.  
The time wherein we live is taken from the space of our life; and what remains is daily made less and less, in somuch that the time of our life is nothing but a passage to death.   

S. GREG. lib. 9 mor. Cap. 44. in Cap. 10. job.  
As moderate afflictions bring tears; so immoderate take away tears; Insomuch that sorrow becomes no sorrow which swallowing up the mind of the afflicted, takes away the sense of the affliction.   

EPIG. 13.  
Fearest thou to go, when such an Arm invites thee?  
Dread'st thou thy loads of sin? or what affrights thee?  
If thou begin to fear, thy fear gins;  
Fool, can he bear thee hence, and not thy sins?    

XIV.  
 emblem 
Oh that they were wise, than they would understand this; they would consider their latter end. Deeteron: 32. I pain scult    

XIV. DEUT. XXXII. XXIX. O that men were wise, and that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end.  Flesh. Spirit. Fl. 
WHat means my sisters' eye so oft to pass  
Through the long entry of that Optic glass?  
Tell me; what secret virtue does invite  
Thy wrinkled eye to such unknown delight?  Sp. 
It helps the sight; makes things remote appear  
In perfect view; It draws the object near.  Fl. 
What sense-delighting objects dost thou spy?  
What does that Glass present before thine eye?  Sp. 
I see thy foe, my reconciled friend,  
Grim death, even standing at the Glasses end;  
His left hand holds a branch of Palm; his right  
Holds forth a two-edged sword.  Fl. 
A proper sight!  
And is this all? does thy Prospective please  
Th'abused fancy with no shapes but these?  Sp. 
Yes, I behold the darkened Sun bereaven  
Of all his light, the battlements of heaven  
Sweltering in Flames; the Angell-guarded Son  
Of glory on his high Tribunal Throne;  
I see a Brimstone Sea of boiling Fire,  
And Fiends, with knotted whips of flaming Wire,  
Torturing poor souls, that gnash their teeth, in vain,  
And gnaw their flame-tormented tongues, for pain;  
Look sister, how the queazie-stomacked Graves  
Vomit their dead, and how the purple waves  
Scaled their consume less bodies, strongly cursing  
All wombs for bearing, and all paps for nursing▪  Fl. 
Can thy distempered fancy take delight  
In view of Tortures? These are shows t'affright:  
Looke in this glasse-Triangular; look here,  
Here's that will ravish eyes.  Sp. 
What seest thou there?  Fl. 
The world in colours; colours that distain  
The cheeks of Proteus, or the silken Train  
Of Flora's Nymphs; such various sorts of hue,  
As Sun-confronting Iris never knew:  
Here, if thou please to beautify a Town,  
Thou mayst; or, with a hand, turned upside down;  
Here, mayst thou scant or widen by the measure  
Of thine own will; make short or long, at pleasure▪  
Here mayst thou tire thy fancy, and advise  
With shows more apt to please more curious eyes;  Sp. 
Ah fool! that dotest on vain, on present toys,  
And disrespects those true, those future joys!  
How strongly are thy thoughts befooled, Alas,  
To dote on goods that perish with thy Glass!  
Nay, vanish with the turning of a hand!  
Were they but painted colours, it might stand  
With painted reason, that they might devote thee;  
But things that have no being, to besot thee?  
Foresight of future torments is the way  
To balk those ills which present joys bewray;  
As thou hast fooled thyself, so now come hither,  
Break that fond glass, and let's be wise together.  

BONAVENT. de contemptu seculi.  
O that men would be wise, understand, and foresee: Be wise, to know three things: The multitude of those that are to be damned: the few number of those that are to be saved; and the vanity of transitory things: Understand three things; the multitude of sins, the omission of good things, and the loss of time: Foresee three things, the danger of death, the last judgement, and eternal punishment.   

EPIG. 14.  
What soul, no farther yet? what never commence  
Master in Faith? Still Bachelor of Sense?  
Is't insufficiency? Or what has made thee  
Over slip thy lost degree; Thy lusts have stayed thee.    

XV.  
 emblem 
My life is spent with grief & my years with Sighing. Ps: 30: 10. W: M. sculp:    

XV. PSAL. XXX.X. My life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing.  
WHat sullen Star ruled my untimely birth,  
That would not lend my days one hour of mirth!  
How oft have these bare knees been bend, to gain  
The slender Alms of one poor smile in vain!  
How often, tired with the fastidious light,  
Have my faint lips implored the shades of night?  
How often have my nightly Torments prayed  
For lingering twilight, glutted with the shade!  
Day, worse than night, night, worse than day, appears,  
In fears I spend my nights; my days, in tears:  
I moan, unpitied; groan without relief,  
There is nor end, nor measure of my grief;  
The smiling flower salutes the day; it grows  
Untouched with care; It neither spins, nor sows;  
O that my tedious life, were like this flower,  
Or freed from grief; or furlished with an hour:  
Why was I borne? Why was I borne a man?  
And why proportioned by so large a Span?  
Or why suspended from the common lot,  
And being borne to die, why die I not?  
Ah me! why is my sorrow-wasted breath  
Denied the easy privilege of death?  
The branded Slave, that tugs the weary Oar,  
Obtains the Sabbath of a welcome Shore;  
His ransomed stripes are healed; His native soil  
sweetens the memory of his foreign toil▪  
But ah! my sorrows are not half so blessed;  
My labour finds no point; my pains, no rest:  
I barter sighs for tears; and tears for Groans▪  
Still vainly rolling Sysiphaean stones:  
Thou just Observer of our flying hours,  
That, with thy Adarmantine fangs, devours  
The brazen Monuments of renowned Kings,  
Does thy glass stand? Or be thy moulting wings  
Unapt to fly▪ If not why dost thou spare  
A willing breast; a breast, that stands so fair?  
A dying breast, that has but only breath  
To beg a wound; and strength, to crave a death:  
O, that the pleased heavens would once dissolve  
These fleshly fetters, that so fast involve  
My hampered soul; then should my soul be blessed  
From all these ills▪ and wrapher thoughts in rest:  
Till then, my days are months, my months are years▪  
My years are ages, to be spent in tears:  
My Grief's entailed upon my wasteful breath,  
Which no Recovery can cut off, but death;  
Breath drawn in Cottages, puffed out in Thrones,  
Gins continueth, and concludes in Groans.  

INNOCENT. de vilitate condit humanae.  
O who will give mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I may bewail the miserable ingress of man's condition; the sinful progress of man's conversation, the damnable egress in man's dissolution? I will consider with tears, whereof man was made, what man does, and what man is to do: Alas, he is form of earth, conceived in sin, borne to punishment: He does evil things, which are not lawful; He does filthy things, which are not decent; He does vain things, which are not expedient.   

EPIG. 15.  
My heart, Thy life's a debt by Bond, which bears  
A secret date; The use, is Groans and Tears.  
Plead not; Usurious Nature will have all,  
As well the Interest, as the Principal.     

THE FOURTH BOOK,  

I.  
 emblem 
My soul hath Coveted to desire thy judgement▪ psal. 119 Will simpson    

I. ROM. VII. XXIII. I see another Law in my members warring against the Law of my mind, & bringing me into captivity to the Law of sin.  

1  
O How my will is hurried to and fro,  
And how my unresolved resolves do vary!  
I know not where to fix; sometimes I go  
This way; then that; and then the quite contrary:  
I like, dislike; I lament for what I could not;  
I do; undo; yet still do what I should not;  
And at the self same instant; will the Thing I would not.   

2  
Thus are my weatherbeaten thoughts oppressed  
With th'earth-bred winds of my prodigious will;  
Thus am I hourly tossed from East to West  
Upon the rolling streams of Good and Ill:  
Thus am I driven upon these slippery Sudds,  
From real Ills to false apparent Goods;  
My life's a troubled sea, composed of Ebbs and Floods.   

3  
The curious Penman, having trimmed his Page  
With the dead language of his dabbled Quill,  
Let's fall a heedless drop, then, in a Rage,  
Cashieres the fruit of his unlucky skill;  
Even so my pregnant soul in th'infant bud  
Of her best thoughts, showers down a Coal-black flood  
Of unadvised Ills, and cancels all her Good.   

4  
Sometimes a sudden flash of sacred heat  
Warms my i'll soul, and sets my thoughts in frame:  
But soon that fire is shouldered from her seat  
By lustful Cupid's much inferior flame;  
I feel two flames, and yet no flame, entire:  
Thus are the Mongrel thoughts of mixed desire  
Consumed between that heavenly and this earthly fire.   

5  
Sometimes my trash-disdaining thoughts outpass  
The common Period of terrene conceit;  
O then, me thinks I scorn the Thing I was,  
Whilst I stand ravished at my new Estate:  
But when th'Icarian Wings of my desire  
Feel but the warmth of their own native fire,  
O then they melt and plunge within their wont mire.   

6  
I know the nature of my wavering mind;  
I know the frailty of my fleshly will:  
My Passion's Eagle-eyed; my judgement, blind;  
I know what's good, but yet make choice of ill;  
When th'Ostrich wings of my desires shall be  
So dull, they cannot mount the least degree,  
Yet grant my soul desire but of desiring Thee.   

S. BERN. Med. 9  
My heart is a vain heart, a vagabond, and instable heart▪ while it is led by its own judgement, and wanting divine counsel, cannot subsist in itself, and whilst it diverse ways seeks rest, finds none, but remains miserable through labour, and void of peace: It agrees not with itself; it dissents from itself; it altars resolutions, changes the judgement, frames new thoughts, pulls down the old, and builds them up again: It wils and wils not; and never remains in the same state.   

EPIG. 1.  
My soul how are thy thoughts disturbed! confined,  
Enlarged betwixt thy Members, and thy Mind!  
Fix here, or there; Thy doubt-depending cause  
Can never expect one verdict, 'twixt two Laws.    

II.  
 emblem 
Oh that my ways were Directed to keep thy Statutes. Ps. 119.5. W. Simpson Sculy:    

II. PSAL. CXIX. V. O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes.  

1  
THus I, the object of the world's disdain,  
With Pilgrim-pace, surround the weary earth;  
I only relish what the world counts vain:  
Her mirth's my grief; her sullen Grief, my mirth;  
Her light, my darkness; and her Truth, my Error;  
Her freedom is my jail; and her delight my Terror:   

2  
Fond earth! Proportion not my seeming love  
To my long stay; let not thy thoughts deceive thee;  
Thou art my Prison, and my Home's above;  
My life's a Preparation but to leave thee:  
Like one that seeks a door, I walk about thee.  
With thee I cannot live; I cannot live without thee.   

3  
The world's a labyrinth, whose anfractious ways  
Are all composed of Rub's, and crooked Meanders;  
No resting here; he's hurried back that stays  
A thought; And he that goes unguided, wanders;  
Her way is dark; her path untrod, unev'n;  
So hard's the way from earth; so hard's the way to Heaven.   

4  
This gyring labyrinth is betrenched about  
On either hand, with streams of sulphurous fire,  
Streams closely sliding, erring in and out,  
But seeming pleasant to the fond descrier;  
Where if his footsteps trust their own Invention,  
He falls without redress, and sinks beyond Dimension,   

5  
Where shall I seek a Guide? Where shall I meet  
Some lucky hand to lead my trembling paces?  
What trusty Lantern will direct my feet  
To scape the danger of these dangerous places?  
What hopes have I to pass without a Guide?  
Where one gets safely through, a thousand fall beside.   

6  
An unrequested Star did gently slide  
Before the Wisemen, to a greater Light;  
Back-sliding Isr'el found a double Guide;  
A Pillar, and a Cloud; by day, by night:  
Yet, in my desperate dangers, which be fare  
More great than theirs, I have nor Pillar, Cloud, nor Star.   

7  
O that the pinions of a clipping Dove  
Would cut my passage, through the empty Air;  
Mine eyes being ceil, how would I mount above  
The reach of danger, and forgotten Care!  
My backward eyes should never commit that fault,  
Whose lasting Gild should build a Monument of Salt.   

8  
Great God, that art the flowing Spring of Light,  
every mine eyes with thy refulgent Ray:  
Thou art my Path; direct my steps aright;  
I have no other Light, no other Way:  
He trust my God, and him alone pursue;  
His Law shallbe my Path; his heavenly Light my Clue.   

S. AUGUST. Soliloq. cap. 4.  
O Lord, who art the Light, the Way, the Truth, the Life; in whom there is no darkness, error, vanity, nor death: The light, without which there is darkness; The way, without which there is wand'ring; The Truth, without which there is error; Life, without which there is death: Say, Lord, let there be light, and I shall see light, and eschew darkness; I shall see the way, and avoid wand'ring; I shall see the truth, and shun error; I shall see life, and escape death; Illuminate, O illuminate my blind soul, which sits in darkness and the shadow of death, and direct my feet in the way of peace.   

EPIG. 2.  
Pilgrim trudge on: What makes thy soul complain,  
Crowns thy complaint. The way to rest is pain:  
The Road to Resolution lies by doubt:  
The next way Home's the farthest way about.    

III.  
 emblem 
Stay my steps in thy Paths that my feet do not slide. Ps. ●7. ●. W. M. sc:    

III. PSAL XVII. V. Stay my steps in thy paths, that my feet do not slide.  

1  
WHen ere the Old Exchange of Profittings  
Her silver Saints-bell of uncertain gains,  
My merchant soul can stretch both legs and wings;  
How I can run, and take unwearied pains!  
The Charms of Profit are so strong, that I  
Who wanted legs to go, find wings to fly.   

2  
If time-beguiling Pleasure but advance  
Her lustful Trump, and blow her bold Alarms,  
O, how my sportful soul can frisk and dance,  
And hug that Siren in her twined Arms?  
The sprightly voice of sinew-strengthning Pleasure  
Can lend my bedrid soul both legs and leisure.   

3  
If blazing Honour chance to fill my veins  
With flattering warmth, and flash of Courtly fire,  
My soul can take a pleasure in her pains;  
My lofty strutting steps disdain her pains;  
My antic knees can turn upon the hinges  
Of Compliment, and screw a thousand Cringes.   

4  
But when I come to Thee, my God, that art  
The royal Mine of everlasting Treasure,  
The real Honour of my better part,  
And living Fountain of eternal pleasure,  
How nervelesse are my limbs! how faint and slow:  
I have nor wings to fly, nor legs to go.   

5  
So when the streams of swift-foot Rhine convey  
Her upland Riches to the Belgic shore;  
The idle vessel slides the watery lay,  
Without the blast, or tug, of wind, or Oar;  
Her slippery keel divides the silver foam  
With ease; So facile is the way from home.   

6  
But when the home-bound vessel turns her sails  
Against the breast of the resisting stream,  
O then she slugs; nor Sail, nor Oar prevails;  
The Stream is sturdy, and her Tides extreme:  
Each stroke is loss, and every Tug is vain:  
A Boat-lengths purchase is a League of pain.   

7  
Great All in All, that art my Rest, my Home,  
My way is tedious, and my steps are slow:  
Reach forth thy helpful hand, or bid me come;  
I am thy child, O teach thy child to go:  
Conjoin thy sweet commands to my desire,  
And I will venture, though I fall or tyre.   

S. AUGUST. Ser. 15. de Verb. Apost.  
Be always displeased at what thou art, if thou desirest to attain to what thou art not: For where thou hast pleased thyself, there thou abidest: But if thou sayest, I have enough, thou perishest: Always add, always walk, always proceed; neither stand still, nor go back, nor deviate: He that stands still▪ proceeds not; He goes back, that continues not; He deviates, that revolts: He goes better that creeps, in his way, than he that runs, out of his way.   

EPIG. 3.  
Fear not, my soul, to lose for want of cunning;  
Weep not; heaven is not always got by running:  
Thy thoughts are swift, although thy legs be slow;  
True love will creep, not having strength to go,    

IU.  
 emblem 
My flesh trembleth for fear of thee: & I am afraid of thy judgements. Ps: 119.120. W.M. sculp:    

iv PSAL. CXIX. CXX. My flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgements.  
LEt others boast of Luck: and go their ways  
With their fair Game; Know, vengeance seldom plays,  
To be too forward; but does wisely frame  
Her backward Tables, for an Aftergame:  
She gives thee leave to venture many a blot;  
And, for her own advantage, hits thee not;  
But when her pointed Tables are made fair,  
That she be ready for thee, then beware;  
Then, if a necessary blot be set.  
She hits thee; wins the Game; perchance the Set;  
If prosperous Chances make thy Casting high,  
Be wisely temperate; cast a serious eye  
On after-dangers, and keep back thy Game;  
Too forward seed-times make thy Harvest lame:  
If lefthand Fortune give thee lefthand chances,  
Be wisely patiented; let no envious glances  
Repine to view thy Gamesters heap so fair;  
The hind most Hound takes oft the doubling Hare.  
The world's great Dice are false; sometimes they go  
Extremely high; sometimes, extremely low:  
Of all her Gamesters, he that plays the least,  
Lives most at ease; plays most secure, and best:  
The way to win, is to play fair, and swear  
Thyself a servant to the Crown of Fear:  
Fear is the primer of a Gamester's skill;  
Who fears not Bad, stands most unarmed to Ill:  
The Ill that's wisely feared, is half withstood;  
And fears of Bad is the best foil to Good:  
True Feare'sth ' Elixir, which in days of old,  
Turned leaden Crosses into Crowns of Gold:  
The World's the Tables; Stakes, Eternal life;  
The Gamesters, Heaven and I; Unequal strife!  
My Fortunes are my Dice, whereby I frame  
My indisposed Life: This Life's the Game;  
My sins are several Blots; the Looker's on  
Are Angels; and in death, the Game is done:  
Lord, I'm a Bungler, and my Game does grow  
Still more and more unshaped; my Dice run low:  
The Stakes are great; my careless Blots are many;  
And yet, thou passest by, and hitst not any:  
Thou art too strong; And I have none to guide me  
With the least jog; The lookers on deride me;  
It is a Conquest, undeserving Thee,  
To win a Stake from such a Worm as me:  
I have no more to lose; If we persever,  
'Tis lost; and that, once lost, I'm lost for ever.  
Lord, wink at faults, and be not too severe,  
And I will play my Game with greater fear;  
O give me Fear, ere Fear has passed her date:  
Whose blot being hit, than fears; fear's then, too late.  

S. BERN. Ser. 54. in Cant.  
There is nothing so effectual to obtain Grace, to retain Grace, and to regain Grace, as always to be found before God not over-wise, but to fear: Happy art thou if thy heart be replenished with three fears, a fear for received grace, a greater fear for lost Grace, a greatest fear to recover Grace.   

S. AUGUST. super Psalm.  
Present fear begets eternal security: Fear God, which is above all, and no need to fear man at all.   

EPIG. 4.  
Lord shall we grumble, when thy flames do scourge us?  
Our sin's breath fire; that fire returns to purge us.  
Lord, what an Alchemist art thou, whose skill  
Transmutes to perfect good, from persect ill!    

V  
 emblem 
Turn a way mine eyes lest they behold wanite psal▪ 118 ●    

V PSAL. CXIX. XXXVII. Turn away mine eyes from regarding vanity.  

1  
HOw like to threads of Flax  
That touch the flame, are my inflamed desires!  
How like to yielding Wax,  
My soul dissolves before these wanton fires!  
The fire, but touched; the flame, but felt,  
Like Flax, I burn; like Wax, I melt.   

2  
O how this flesh does draw  
My fettered soul to that deceitful fire!  
And how th'eternal Law  
Is baffled by the law of my desire!  
How truly bad, how seeming good  
Are all the Laws of Flesh and Blood!   

3  
O wretched state of Men,  
The height of whose Ambition is to borrow  
What must be paid again,  
With griping Interest of the next day's sorrow!  
How wild his Thoughts! How apt to range!  
How apt to vary! Apt to change!   

4  
How intricate, and nice  
Is man's perplexed way to man's desire!  
Sometimes upon the Ice  
He slips, and sometimes falls into the fire;  
His progress is extreme and bold,  
Or very hot, or very cold.   

5  
The common food, he doth  
Sustain his soule-tormenting thoughts withal▪  
Is honey, in his mouth,  
To night; and in his heart, to morrow, Gall;  
'Tis oftentimes, within an hour,  
Both very sweet, and very sour.   

6  
If sweet Corinna smile,  
A heaven of joy breaks down into his heart:  
Corinna frowns a while?  
Hell's Torments are but Copies of his smart:  
Within a lustful heart does dwell  
A seeming Heaven; a very Hell.   

7  
Thus worthless, vain and void  
Of comfort, are the fruits of earth's employment;  
Which, ere they be enjoyed,  
Distract us; and destroy us in th'enjoyment;  
These be the pleasures that are prized  
When heavens cheap pennyworth stands despised.   

8  
Lord quench these hasty flashes,  
Which dart as lightning from the thundering skies;  
And every minute, dashes  
Against the wanton windows of mine eyes:  
Lord, close the Casement, whilst I stand  
Behind the curtain of thy Hand.   

S. AUGUST▪ Soliloq. cap. 4.  
O thou Son that illuminates both Heaven and Earth; Woe be unto those eyes which do not behold thee: Woe be unto those blind eyes which cannot behold thee: Woe be unto those which turn away their eyes that they will not behold thee: Woe be unto those that turn not away their eyes that they may behold vanity.   

S. CHRYS. sup. Matth. 19  
What is an evil women but the enemy of friendship, an unavoidable pain, a necessary mischief, a natural tentation, a desiderable calamity, a domestic danger, a delectable inconvenience, and the nature of evil painted over with the colour of good!   

EPIG. 5.  
'Tis vain, great God, to close mine eyes from ill,  
When I resolve to keep the old man still:  
My rambling heart must covenant first with Thee,  
Or none can pass betwixt mine eyes and me.    

VI  
 emblem 
If I have found favour in thy sight, let: my life be given me at my petition. Ester. 7.3. Will: Simpson sculpsit    

VI ESTER. VII. III. If I have found favour in thy sight, and if it please the King, let my life be given me at my petition.  
THou art the great Assuerus, whose command  
Doth stretch from Pole to Pole; The World's thy Land;  
Rebellious Vashts the corrupted Will▪  
Which being called, refuses to fulfil  
Thy just command: Hester, whose tears condole  
The razed City's the Regen'rate Soul;  
A captive maid, whom thou wilt please to grace  
With nuptial Honour in stout Vashti's place:  
Her kinsman, whose unbended knee did thwart  
Proud Hamans' glory, is the Fleshly part:  
The sober Eunuch, that recalled to mind  
The new-built Gibbet (Haman had divined  
For his own ruin) fifty Cubits high,  
Is lustful thought-controlling Chastity;  
Insulting Haman is that fleshly lust  
Whose red-hot fury, for a season, must  
Triumph in Pride, and study how to tread  
On Mordecay, till royal Hester plead:  
Great King, my sent-for Vashti will not come;  
O let the oil o'th' blessed Virgins womb  
Cleanse my poor Hester; look, O look upon her  
With gracious eyes; and let thy Beams of honour  
So scour her captive stains, that she may prove  
A holy Object of thy heavenly love:  
Anoint her with the spikenard of thy graces,  
Then try the sweetness of her chaste embraces:  
Make her the partner of thy nuptial Bed,  
And set thy royal Crown upon her head:  
If then, ambitious Haman chance to spend  
His spleen on Mordecay, that scorns to bend  
The wilful stiffness of his stubborn knee,  
Or basely crouch to any Lord but Thee;  
If weeping Hester should prefer a Groan  
Before the high Tribunal of thy Throne,  
Hold forth thy Golden Sceptre, and afford  
The gentle Audience of a gracious Lord:  
And let thy royal Hester be possessed  
Of half thy Kingdom, at her dear request:  
Curb lustful Haman; him, that would disgrace,  
Nay, ravish thy fair Queen before thy face:  
And as proud Haman was himself ensnared  
On that self Gibbet, that himself prepared,  
So nail my lust, both Punishment and Gild  
On that dear Cross that mine own Lusts have built.  

S. AUGUST. in Ep.  
O holy Spirit, always inspire we with holy works; constrain me, that I may do: Counsel me that I may love thee; Confirm me, that I may hold thee; Conserve me that I may not lose thee.   

S. AUGUST. sup. joan.  
The Spirit rusts where the flesh rests: For as the flesh is nourished with sweet things, the Spirit is refreshed with sour.   

Ibidem.  
Wouldst thou that thy flesh obey thy Spirit? Then let thy Spirit obey God: Thou must be governed, that thou mayst govern.   

EPIG. 6.  
Of Merc' and justice is thy Kingdom built;  
This plagues my Sin; and that removes my guilt;  
When ere I sue, Assuerus like decline  
Thy Sceptre; Lord, say, Half my kingdom's thine.    

VII.  
 emblem 
Come my beloved, let us go forth into the fields, let us remain in the Villages. Cant: 7. ij. W. Simpson. sculp:    

VII. CANT. VII. XI. Come my beloved, let us go forth into the fields, and let us remain in the villages.  

1  Christ. Soul. 
Chr. COme, come, my dear, and let us both retire  
And whiff the dainties of the fragrant fields:  
Where warbling Phil'mel and the shrill-mouthed Choir  
Chaunt forth their raptures; where the Turtle builds  
Her lovely nest; and where the newborn Briar  
Breathes forth the sweetness that her April yields:  
Come, come, my lovely fair, and let us try  
These rural delicates; where thou and I  
May melt in private flames, and fear no slander by.   

2  
Soul. My hearts eternal joy, in lieu of whom  
The earth's a blast, and all the world, a Bubble;  
Our Citie-mansion is the fairer Home,  
But Country-sweets are tanged with lesser Trouble;  
Let's try them both, and choose the better; Come;  
A change in pleasure makes the pleasure double:  
On thy Commands depends my Go, or Tarry;  
I'll stir with Martha; or I'll stay with Marie:  
Our hearts are firmly fixed, although our pleasures vary.   

3  
Chr. Our Country-Mansion (situate on high)  
With various Objects, still renews delight;  
Her arched roof's of unstained Ivory;  
Her walls of fiery sparkling Chrysolite;  
Her pavement is of hardest Porphery;  
Her spacious windows are all glazed with bright  
And flaming Carbuncles; no need require  
Titan's faint rays, or Vulcan's feebler fire;  
And every Gate's a Pearl; and every Pearl, entire.   

4  
Soul. Fool, that I was! how were my thoughts deceived!  
How falsely was my fond conceit possessed!  
I took it for an Hermitage, but paved  
And daubed with neighbouring dirt, & thatched at best;  
Alas, I never expected more, nor craved;  
A Turtle hoped but for a Turtles nest:  
Come, come, my dear, and let no idle stay  
Neglect th'advantage of the headstrong day;  
How pleasure grates, that feels the curb of dull delay!   

5  
Chr. Come, than my joy; let our divided paces  
Conduct us to our fairest Territory;  
O there we'll twine our souls in sweet embraces;  
Sou. And in thine Arms I'll tell my passion story:  
Chr. O there I'll crown thy head with all my Graces;  
Sou. And all those Graces shall reflect thy Glory;  
Chr. O there, I'll feed thee with celestial Manna;  
I'll be thy Elkanah.  
Soul. And I, thy Hanna.  
Chr. I'll sound my Trump of joy..  
So. And I'll resound Hosanna   

S. BERN.  
O blessed Contemplation! The death of vices, and the life of virtues! Thee the Law and Prophets admire: Who ever attained perfection, if not by thee! O blessed Solitude, the Magazine of celestial Treasure! by thee things earthly, and transitory, are changed into heavenly, and eternal.   

S. BERN. in Ep.  
Happy is that house, and blessed is that Congregation, where Martha still complains of Mary.   

EPIG. 7.  
Mechanic soul; thou must not only do  
With Martha; but, with Mary, ponder too:  
Happy's that house, where these fair sisters vary;  
But most, when Martha's reconciled to Mary.    

VIII.  
 emblem 
Draw me: we will run after thee because of the savour of thy good ointments. Cant: ●4 Will: simpson. sculp▪    

VIII. CANT. I.III. Draw me, we will follow after thee by the savour of thy Ointments.  

THus like a lump of the corrupted Mass,  
I lie secure; long lost, before I was:  
And like a Block, beneath whose burden lies  
That undiscovered Worm that never dies,  
I have no will to rouse; I have no power to rise.   

Can stinking Lazarus compound, or strive  
With deaths entangling Fetters, and revive?  
Or can the water-buried Axe implore  
A hand to raise it; or, itself, restore  
And, from her sandy deeps, approach the dryfoot shore?   

So hard's the task for sinful flesh and Blood  
To lend the smallest step to what is Good;  
My God, I cannot move, the least degree;  
Ah! If but only those that active be  
None should thy glory see, none should thy Glory see.   

But if the Potter please t'inform the Clay;  
Or some strong hand remove the Block away;  
Their lowly fortunes soon are mounted higher,  
That proves a vessel, which, before, was mire;  
And this being hewed, may serve for better use than fire.   

And if that life-restoring voice command  
Dead Laz'rus forth; or that great Prophet's hand  
Should charm the sullen waters, and begin  
To beckon, or to dart a Stick but in,  
Dead Laz'rus must revive, and th' Axe must float again.   

Lord, as I am, I have no power at all  
To hear thy voice, to Echo to thy call;  
The gloomy Clouds of mine own Gild be night me;  
Thy glorious beams, or dainty sweets invite me;  
They neither can direct; nor these at all delight me.   

See how my Sin-bemangled body lies,  
Nor having power, to will; nor will, to rise!  
Shine home upon thy Creature, and inspire  
My liveless will with thy regen'rate fire;  
The first degree to do, is only to desire.   

Give me the power to will; the will, to do;  
O raise me up, and I will strive to go:  
Draw me, O draw me with thy triple twist,  
That have no power but merely to resist;  
O lend me strength to do; and then command thy List.   

My soul's a Clock, whose wheels (for want of use  
And winding up, being subject to th'abuse  
Of eating Rust) wants vigour to fulfil  
Her twelve hours' task, and show her maker's skill;  
But idly sleeps unmoved, and standeth vainly still.   

Great God, it is thy work: and therefore, Good;  
If thou be pleased to cleanse it with thy Blood;  
And wind it up with thy soule-moving keys,  
Her busy wheels shall serve thee all her days;  
Her hand shall point thy power; her Hammer strike thy praise   

S. BERN. Serm. 21. in Cant.  
Let us run: let us run, but in the savour of thy Ointments, not in the confidence of our merits, nor in the greatness of our strength: we trust to run, but in the multitude of thy mercies, for though we run & are willing, it is not in him that wills, nor in him that runs, but in God that showeth mercy: O let thy mercy return, and we will run: Thou, like a Giant, runnest by thy own power; We, unless thy ointment breath upon us, cannot run.   

EPIG. 8.  
Look not, my Watch, being once repaired, to stand  
Expecting motion from thy maker's hand.  
H'as wound thee up, and cleansed thy Clogs with blood:  
If now thy wheels stand still; thou art not good.    

IX.  
 emblem 
O that thou wert as my Brother, that Sucked the Breasts of my Mother. Cant: ● W. marshal sc.    

IX. CANT. VIII. I. O that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of thy mother, I would find thee without, and I will kiss thee.  

1  
COme, come my blessed Infant, and immure thee  
Within the Temple of my sacred Arms;  
Secure mine Arms; mine Arms shall, then, secure thee  
From Herod's fury, or the High-Priests Harms;  
Or if thy dangered life sustain a loss,  
My folded Arms shall turn thy dying Cross.   

2  
But, ah, what savage Tyrant can behold  
The beauty of so sweet a face as this is,  
And not himself, be, by himself, controlled,  
And change his fury to a thousand kisses?  
One smile of thine is worth more mines of treasure  
Than there be Myriad in the days of Caesar.   

3  
O, had the Tetrarch, as he knew thy birth,  
So known thy Stock; he had not sought to paddle  
In thy dear Blood; but, prostrate on the earth,  
Had vayld his Crown before thy royal Cradle,  
And laid the Sceptre of his Glory down,  
And begged a heavenly for an earthly Crown.   

4  
Illustrious Babe! How is thy handmaid graced  
With a rich Armful! How dost thou decline  
Thy Majesty, that wert, so late, embraced  
In thy great Father's Arms, and now, in mine!  
How humbly gracious art thou, to refresh  
Me with thy Spirit, and assume my flesh.   

5  
But must the Treason of a Traitors Hail  
Abuse the sweetness of these ruby lips?  
Shall marble▪ hearted Cruelty assail  
These Alabaster sides with knotted whips?  
And must these smiling Roses entertain  
The blows of scorn, and Flurts of base disdain?   

6  
Ah! must these dainty little sprigs that twine  
So fast about my neck, be pierced and torn  
With ragged nails? And must these Brows resign  
Their Crown of Glory for a Crown of thorn?  
Ah, must this blessed Infant taste the pain  
Of deaths injurious pangs? nay worse; be slain?   

7  
Sweet Babe! At what dear rates do wretched I  
Commit a sin! Lord, every sin's a dart;  
And every trespass lets a javelin fly;  
And every javelin wounds thy bleeding heart:  
Pardon, sweet Babe, what I have done amiss,  
And seal that granted pardon with a kiss.   

BONAVENT. Soliloq. Cap 1.  
O sweet jesus, I knew not that thy kisses were so sweet, nor thy society so delectable, nor thy attraction so virtuous: For when I love thee, I am clean; when I touch thee, I am chaste; when I receive thee, I am a virgin: O most sweet jesus, thy embraces defile not, but cleanse; thy attraction pollutes not, but sanctifies: O jesus, the fountain of universal sweetness, pardon me, that I believed so late, that so much sweetness is in thy embraces.   

EPIG. 9  
My burden's greatest: Let not Atlas boast:  
Impartial Reader, judge, which bears the most:  
He bears but Heaven; My folded Arms sustain  
heavens maker, whom heaven's heaven cannot contain.    

X.  
 emblem 
By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth; I sought him, but I found him not Cant: ●● Will▪ simpson sculpsit.    

X. CANT. JII.I. In my bed, by night, I sought him, that my soul loved; I sought him, but I found him out.  

THe learned Cynic, having lost the way  
To honest men, did in the height of day,  
By Taper-light, divide his steps about  
The peopled Streets, to find this dainty out;  
But failed. The Cynic searched not where he ought;  
The thing he sought for was not where he sought:  
The Wiseman's task seemed harder to be done,  
The Wisemen did, by Starlight seek the Son,  
And found; the Wisemen searched it where they ought;  
The thing they hoped to find, was where they sought:  
One seeks his wishes where he should; but then  
Perchance he seeks not as he should, nor when:  
Another searches when he should, but there  
He fails; not seeking as he should, nor where  
Whose soul desires the good it wants, and would  
Obtain; must seek Where, As, and when he should:  
How often have my wild Affections led  
My wasted soul to this my widowed Bed,  
To seek my Lover, whom my soul desires!  
(I speak not, Cupid of thy wanton fires;   

3  
Where have my busy eyes not pried? O where,  
Of whom hath not my threadbare tongue demanded?  
I searched this glorious City; he's not here;  
I sought the Country; She stands emptyhanded:  
I searched the Court; He is a stranger there:  
I asked the land; he's shipped: the sea; he's landed:  
I climbed the air, my thoughts began t'aspire;  
But, ah! the wings of my too bold desire,  
Soaring too near the Sun, were singed with sacred fire.   

4  
I moved the Merchant's ear; alas, but he  
Knew neither what I said, nor what to say:  
I asked the Lawyer; He demands a Fee,  
And then demurs me with a vain delay▪  
I asked the Schoolman; His advice was free,  
But scored me out too intricate a way;  
I asked the Watchman (best of all the four)  
Whose gentle answer could resolve no more;  
But that he lately left him at the Temple door.   

5  
Thus having sought, and made my great Inquest  
In every place, and searched in every ear;  
I threw me on my Bed; but ah! my rest  
Was poisoned with th'extremes of grief and fear,  
Where, looking down into my troubled breast,  
The Magazine of wounds, I found him there;  
Let others hunt, and show their sportful Art;  
I wish to catch the Hare before she start,  
As Potchers use to do; heavens Forms a troubled heart.   

S. AMBROS. Lib. 3. de Virg.  
Christ is not in the market; nor in the streets: For Christ is peace; in the market are strifes: Christ is justice; in the market is iniquity: Christ is a Labourer; in the market is idleness: Christ is Charity; in the Market is slander: Christ is Faith; in the market is fraud: Let us not therefore seek Christ, where we cannot find Christ.   

S. HIEROM Ep. 22. Eustoch.  
jesus is jealous: He will not have thy face seen: Let foolish virgins ramble abroad; seek thou thy Love at home.   

EPIG. 11.  
What lost thy Love? Will neither Bed nor Board  
Receive him? Not by tears to be implored?  
It is the Ship that moves, and not the Coast;  
I fear, I fear, my soul, 'tis thou art lost.    

XI.  
 emblem 
I will rise now & go about the city in the Streets & in the broad ways I will seek him whom my Soul loveth I sought him but I found him not. Cant. 3.2. Will simpson    

XI. CANT. III. TWO. I will rise, and go about in the City, and will seek him that my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.  

1  
O How my disappointed soul's perplexed!  
How restless thoughts swarm in my troubled breast!  
How vainly pleased with hopes; then, crossly vexed  
With fears! And how, betwixt them both, distressed!  
What place is left unransacked? Oh I Where, next,  
Shall I go seek the Author of my Rest?  
Of what blessed Angel shall my lips inquire  
The undiscovered way to that entire  
And everlasting solace of my hearts desire!   

2  
Look how the strike Hart, that wounded, flies  
O'er hills and dales, and seeks the lower grounds  
For running streams; the whilst his weeping eyes  
Beg silent mercy from the following Hounds,  
At length, embossed, he droops, drops down, and lies  
Beneath the burden of his bleeding wounds:  
Even so my gasping soul, dissolved in tears,  
Doth search for thee, my God, Whose deafened ears  
Leave me th'unransomed Prisoner to my panic fears.   
Where Thy fires are all but dying sparks to mine;  
My flames are full of heaven, and all divine)  
How often have I sought this Bed, by night,  
To find that greater, by this lesser light!  
How oft has my unwitnessed groans lamented  
Thy dearest absence! Ah, how often vented  
The bitter Tempests of despairing breath,  
And tossed my soul upon the waves of death!  
How often has my melting heart made choice  
Of silent tears, (tears louder than a voice)  
To plead my grief, and woe thy absent ear!  
And yet thou wilt not come; thou wilt not hear:  
O is thy wont love become so cold?  
Or do mine eyes not seek thee where they should▪  
Why do I seek thee, if thou art not here?  
Or find thee not, if thou art every where?  
I see my error; 'Tis not strange I could not  
Find out my love; I sought him where I should not  
Thou art not found in downy Beds of ease;  
Alas, thy music strikes on harder keys:  
Nor art thou found by that false, feeble light  
Of Nature's Candle; Our Egyptian night  
Is more than common darkness; nor can we  
Expect a morning, but what breaks from Thee.  
Well may my empty Bed lament thy loss,  
When thou art lodged upon thy shameful Cross:  
If thou refuse to share a Bed with me;  
we'll never part, I'll share a Cross with Thee.  

ANSELM. in Protolog. Cap. 1.  
Lord, if thou are not present, where shall I seek thee absent? If every where, why do I not see thee present? Thou dwellest in light inaccessible; and where is that inaccessible light? Or how shall I have access to light inaccessible? I beseech thee, Lord, teach me to seek thee, and show thyself to the seeker, because I can neither seek thee, unless thou teach me, nor find thee, unless thou show thyself to me: Let me seek thee, in desiring thee, and desire thee in seeking thee; Let me find thee in loving thee, and love thee in finding thee.   

EPIG. 10.  
Where shouldst thou seek for rest, but in thy Bed?  
But now thy Rest is gone; thy Rest is fled:  
'Tis vain to seek him there; My soul, be wise;  
Go ask thy sins; They'll tell thee where he lies,    

XII.  
 emblem 
Saw ye him whom my Soul loveth? It was but a little that I passed from them but I found Him whom my soul loveth, I held Him and would not let him go. Cant: 3.4. Will: sim: sculp    

XII. CAN. III. III. Have you seen him whom my soul loveth? When I had past a little from them, than I found him, I took hold on him, and left him not.  

1  
WHat secret corner? What unwonted way  
Has scaped the ransack of my rambling thoughts?  
The Fox by night, nor the dull Owl, by day,  
Have never searched those places I have sought,  
Whilst thy lamented absence taught my breast  
The ready Road to Grief, without request;  
My day had neither comfort, nor my night had rest:   

2  
How has my unregarded language vented  
The sad Tautologies of lavish passion?  
How often have I languished, unlamented!  
How oft have I complained without compassion!  
I ask the Citie-Watch; but some denied me  
The common strait, whilst others would misguide me;  
Some would debar me; some, divert me; some, deride me.   

3  
Mark, how the widowed Turtle, having lost  
The faithful partner of her loyal Heart,  
Stretches her feeble wings from Coast to Coast,  
Haunts every path; thinks every shade does part  
Her absent Love, and her; At length, unsped,  
She rebetakes her to her lovely Bed,  
And there bewails her everlasting widowhood;   

4  
So when my soul had progressed every place,  
That love and dear affection could contrive;  
I threw me on my Couch, resolved t'embrace  
A death for him, in whom I ceased to live:  
But there injurious Hymen did present  
His Lanskip joys; my pickled eyes did vent  
Full streams of briny tears, tears never to be spent.   

5  
Whilst thus my sorrow-wasting soul was feeding  
Upon the rad'call Humour of her thought,  
Even whilst mine eyes were blind, and heart was bleeding,  
He that was sought, unfound, was found, unsought;  
As if the Sun should dart his Orb of light  
Into the secrets of the black-browed night.  
Even so appeared my Love, my sole, my soul's delight.   

6  
O how mine eyes, now ravished at the sight  
Of my bright Sun, shot flames of equal fire!  
Ah! how my soul, dissolved with ov'r-delight,  
To re-enjoy the Crown of chaste desire!  
How sovereign joy deposed and dispossessed  
Rebellious grief! And how my ravished breast  
But who can press those heights, that cannot be expressed?   

7  
O how these Arms, these greedy Arms did twine,  
And strongly twist about his yielding waist!  
The sappy branches of the Thespian vine  
Never clinged their less beloved Elm so fast;  
Boast not thy flames, blind boy, nor feathered shot;  
Let Hymen's easy snarls be quite forgot:  
Time cannot quench our fires, nor death dissolve our knot.   

ORIG. Hom. 10. in diverse.  
O most holy Lord, and sweetest Master, how good art thou to those that are of upright heart, and humble spirit! O how blessed are they that seek thee with a simple heart! How happy that trust in thee! It is a most certain truth, that thou lovest all that love thee, and never forsakest those that trust in thee: For behold thy Love simply sought thee, and undoubtedly found thee: She trusted in thee, and is not forsaken of thee, but hath obtained more by thee, than she expected from thee.   

BEDE cap. 3. Cant.  
The longer I was in finding whom I sought, the more earnestly I held him being found.   

EPIG. 12.  
What? found him out? Let strong embraces bind him;  
he'll fly perchance, where tears can never find him.  
New Sins will lose what old Repentance gains:  
Wisdom not only gets, but got, retains.    

XIII.  
 emblem 
It is good for me to draw near to the Lord 〈◊〉 I have put my trust in the Lord God Ps: 73.20▪ Will Simpson▪ sculpsit    

XIII. PSAL. LXXII. XXVIII. It is good for me to draw near to God, I have put my trust in the Lord God.  

WHere is that Good, which wisemen please to call  
The Chiefest? Does there any such befall  
Within man's reach? Or is there such a Good at all?   

If such there be: it neither must expire,  
Nor change; than which, there can be nothing higher;  
Such Good must be the utter point of man's desire:   

It is the Mark, to which all hearts must tend,  
Can be desired for no other end,  
Then for itself; on which, all other Goods depend:   

What may this excellence be? does it subsist  
A real Essence, clouded in the midst  
Of curious Art, or clear to every eye that list?   

Or is't a tart Idea, to procure  
An Edge, and keep the practic soul in ure,  
Like that dear Chemic dust, or puzzling Quadrature?   

Where shall I seek this Good? Where shall I find  
This Cath'licke pleasure, whose extremes may bind  
My thoughts, and fill the gulf of my insatiate mind?  
Lies it in Treasure? In full heaps untold?  
Does gouty Mammon's griping hand enfold  
This secret Saint in sacred Shrines of sovereign Gold?   

No, no; she lies not there; Wealth often sours  
In keeping; makes us hers, in seeming ours;  
She slides from heaven indeed, but not in Danae's showers.   

Lives she in Honour? No. The royal Crown  
Builds up a Creature, and then batters down:  
Kings raise thee with a smile, and raze thee with a frown.   

In pleasure? No, Pleasure gins in rage;  
Acts the fool's part on earth's uncertain Stage,  
Gins the Play in Youth; and Epilogues in Age.   

These, these are bastard-goods; the best of these  
Torment the soul with pleasing it, and please,  
Like water gulped in Fevers, with deceitful ease.   

Earth's flattering dainties are but sweet distresses:  
Molehills perform the mountains she professes;  
Alas, can earth confer more good than earth possesses?   

Mount, mount my soul; and let thy thoughts cashier  
Earth's vain delights, and make their full career  
At heaven's eternal joys; stop, stop thy Courier there.   

There shall thy soul possess uncarefull Treasure;  
There shalt thou swim in never-fading pleasure;  
And blaze in Honour fare above the frowns of Caesar.   

Lord, if my hope dare let her Anchor fall  
On thee, the chiefest Good, no need to call  
For earth's inferior trash; Thou, thou art All in All.   

S. AUGUST. Soliloq. cap. 13.  
I follow this thing, I pursue that; but am filled with nothing. But when I found thee, who art that immutable, individed, and only good, in myself, what I obtained, I wanted not; for what I obtained not, I grieved not; with what I was possessed, my whole desire was satisfied.   

S. BERN. Ser. 9 sup. beati qui habent, etc.  
Let others pretend merit: let him brag of the burden of the day; let him boast of his Sabbath fasts, and let him glory that he is not as other men: but for me, it is good to cleave unto the Lord, and to put my trust in my Lord God.   

EPIG. 13.  
Let Boreas blasts, and Neptune's waves be joined,  
Thy Aeolus commands the waves, the wind:  
Fears not the Rocks or worlds imperious waves:  
Thou climb'st a Rock (my soul) a Rock that saves.    

XIV.  
 emblem 
I sat under the shadove of him whom I have desired. Cant: 2 Will sim son sculp    

XIV. CANT. II. III. ● sat under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.  

1  
LOok how the sheep▪ whose rambling steps do stray  
From the safe blessing of her Shepherd's eyes  
Eftsoon, becomes the unprotected Prey  
To the winged Squadron of beleagring flies,  
Where, sweltered with the scorching beams of day,  
She frisks from Bush to Brak; and wildly flies  
From her own self, even of herself afraid;  
She shrouds her troubled brows in every Glade,  
And craves the mercy of the soft removing shade.   

2  
Even so my wand'ring Soul, that has digressed  
From her great Shepherd, is the hourly prey  
Of all all my Sins. These vultures in my Breast  
Gripe my Promethian heart both night and day;  
I hunt from place to place, but find no rest;  
I know not where to go nor where to stay:  
The eye of vengeance burns; her flames invade  
My sweltering Soul. My soul has oft assayed  
But she can find no shroud, but she can feel no Shade.   

3  
I sought the Shades of Mirth, to wear away  
My slow paced hours of soul-consuming grief;  
I searched the Shades of Sleep, to ease my day  
Of griping sorrows with a night's reprieve;  
I sought the Shades of Death; thought, there, t'allay  
My final torments with a full relief;  
But Mirth, nor Sleep, nor Death can hide my hours  
In the false Shades of their deceitful Bowers;  
The first distracts, the next disturbs, the last devours.   

4  
Where shall I turn? To whom shall I apply me?  
Are there no Streams where a faint soul may wade?  
Thy Godhead, JESUS, are the flames that fry me;  
Has thy All-glorious Deity never a Shade,  
Where I may sit, and vengeance never eye me,  
Where I might sit refreshed, or unaffraid;  
Is there no Comfort? Is there no Refection?  
Is there no Covert that will give Protection  
T'a fainting soul, the subject of thy wrath's reflection?   

5  
Look up, my soul; advance thy lowly stature  
Of thy sad Thoughts; advance thy humble eye:  
See, here's a Shadow found; The humane nature  
Is made th'ymbrella to the Deity,  
To catch the Sunbeams of thy just Creator;  
Beneath this Covert thou mayst safely lie:  
Permit thine eyes to climb this fruitful Tree,  
As quick Zacheus did, and thou shalt see  
A Cloud of dying flesh betwixt those Beams and thee.   

GUILL. in cap. 2. Cant.  
Who can in dure the fierce rays of the Sun of justice? Who shall not be consumed by his beams? Therefore the Sun of justice took flesh, that through the conjunction of that Sun and this humane body, a shadow may be made,   

S. AUGUST Med. cap. 37.  
Lord, let my soul flee from the scorching thoughts of the world under the Covert of thy wings, that being refreshed by the moderation of thy shadow, she may sing merrily, In peace will I lay me down and rest.   

EPIG. 14.  
Ah, treacherous soul, would not thy Pleasures give  
That Lord which made thee living, leave to live?  
See, what thy sins have done: Thy sins have made  
The Sun of Glory now become thy Shade.    

XV.  
 emblem 
How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a strange Land w s. skull    

XV. PSAL. CXXXVII. IV. How shall we sing a song of the Lord in a strange land?  
Urge me no more: This Airy mirth belongs  
To better times: These times are not for songs:  
The sprightly Twang of the melodious Lute  
Agrees not with my voice: and both unsuit  
My untuned fortunes: The affected measure  
Of strains that are constrained, afford no pleasure;  
music's the Child of mirth: where griefs assail  
The troubled soul, both voice and fingers fail;  
Let such as ravel out their lavish days  
In honourable Riot; that can raise  
Dejected hearts, and conjure up a Spirit  
Of madness by the Magic of delight;  
Let those of Cupid's Hospital that lie  
Impatient Patients to a smiling eye,  
That cannot rest, until vain hope beguile  
Their flattered Torments with a wanton smile;  
Let such redeem their peace, and salve the wrongs  
Of froward Fortune with their frolic Songs:  
My grief, my grief's too great for smiling eyes  
To cure, or Countercharms to exorzise;  
The Ravens dismal Croaks; the midnight howls  
Of empty Wolves, mixed with the screech of Owls;  
The nine sad knowls of a dull Passing Bell,  
With the loud language of a nighty knell,  
And horrid out cries of revenged Crimes,  
Joined in a Medley's Music for these Times;  
These are no Times to touch the merry string  
Of Orpheus; No, these are no times to sing:  
Can hide bound Prisoners, that have spent their souls  
And famished Bodies in the noisome holes  
Of hell-black dungeons, apt their rougher throats,  
Grown hoarse with begging Alms, to warble notes?  
Can the sad Pilgrim, that has lost his way  
In the vast desert; there, condemned a Prey  
To the wild subject, or his Savage Kings  
Ronze up his palsy smitten spirits, and sing?  
Can I a Pilgrim, and a Prisoner too,  
(Alas) where I am neither known, nor know  
Aught but my Torments, an unransomed stranger  
In this strange Climate in a land of danger,  
O, can my voice be pleasant, or my hand,  
Thus made a Prisoner to a foreign land?  
How can my music relish in your ears,  
That cannot speak for sobs, nor sing for tears?  
Ah, if my voice could, Orpheus-like, unspell  
My poor Euridicê, my soul, from hell  
Of earth's misconstrued Heaven, O then my breast  
Should warble Airs, whose Rhapsodies should feast  
The ears of Serathims, and entertain  
heavens highest Deity with their lofty strain,  
A strain well drenched in the true Thespian Well,  
Till then; earths Semiquaver, mirth, farewell.  

S. AUGUST. Med. cap. 33.  
O infinitely happy are those heavenly virtues which are able to praise thee in holiness and purity, with excessive sweetness and inutterable exultation! From thence they praise thee from whence they rejoice, because they continually see for what they rejoice, for what they praise thee: But we pressed down with this burden of flesh fare removed from thy countenance in this pilgrimage, and blown up with worldly vanities, cannot worthily praise thee: We praise thee by faith; not face to face: but those Argelicall Spirits praise thee face to face, and not by faith.   

EPIG. 15.  
Did I refuse to sing? Said I these times  
Were not for Songs? nor music for these Climes?  
It was my Error: Are not Groans and tears  
Harmonious Raptures in th'Almighties cares?     

THE FIFT BOOK,  

I.  
 emblem 
I charge you, o ye Daughters of jerusalem if ye find my beloved that you tell him that I am sick of love. Can●t ● w. simpsen scupsit    

I. CANT. V. VIII. I charge you, O daughters of jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that I am sick of love.  

1  
YOu holy Virgins, that so oft surround  
The City's Sapphire Walls, whose snowy feet  
Measure the pearly Paths of sacred ground,  
And trace the new Jerus'lems jasper street;  
Ah you whose care-forsaken hearts are crowned  
With your best wishes; that enjoy the sweet  
Of all your Hopes; If ere you chance to spy  
My absent Love, O tell him that I lie  
Deep wounded with the flames, that furnaced from his eye.   

2  
I charge you, Virgins, as you hope to hear  
The heavenly Music of your Lover's voice;  
I charge you by the solemn faith ye bear  
To plighted vows, and to the loyal choice  
Of your affections; or, if aught more dear  
You hold; by Hymen; by your marriage joys,  
I charge you tell him, that a flaming dart,  
Shot from his Eye, hath pierced my bleeding heart;  
And I am sick of love, and languish in my smart.   

3  
Tell him. O tell him, how my panting breast  
Is scorched with flames, and how my soul is pined;  
Tell him, O tell him, how I lie oppressed  
With the full torments of a troubled mind;  
O tell him, tell him, that he loves in jest,  
But I, in earnest; Tell him, he's unkind:  
But if a discontented frown appears  
Upon his angry Brow, accost his ears  
With soft and fewer words, and act the rest in tears.   

4  
O tell him, that his cruelties deprive  
My soul, of peace, while peace, in vain, she seeks;  
Tell him, those Damask roses, that did strive,  
With white, both fade, upon my sallow cheeks;  
Tell him, no token does proclaim I live,  
But tears, and sighs, and sobs, and sudden shrieks;  
Thus if your piercing words should chance to boar  
His harkening ear, and move a sigh, give over  
To speak; and tell him— Tell him, that I could no more.   

5  
If your elegious breath should hap to rouse  
A happy tear, close harbouring in his eye,  
Then urge his plighted faith, the sacred vows,  
Which neither I can break, nor He deny;  
Bewail the Torments of his loyal Spouse,  
That for his sake, would make a sport to die:  
O blessed Virgins, how my passion tires  
Beneath the burden of her vain desires!  
Heaven never shot such flames, Earth never felt such fires.   

S. AUGUST. Med. cap. 40.  
What shall I say? What shall I do? Whether shall I go? Where shall I seek him? Or when shall I find him? Whom shall I ask? Who will tell my beloved that I am sick of love?   

GULIEL. in Cap. 5. Cant.  
I live; But not I: It is my beloved that lives in me: I love myself, not with my own love, but with the love of my beloved, that loves me: I love not myself in myself, but myself in him, and him in me.   

EPIG. 1.  
Grieve not (my soul) nor let thy love wax faint,  
Weepst thou to lose the cause of thy Complaint?  
he'll come; Love never was bound to Times nor Laws:  
Till then, thy tears complain without a Cause.    

II.  
 emblem 
Stay me with Flowers; Comfort me with Apples, for I am sick of love. Cant: 2.5. Will: Martial. sculpsit▪    

II. CANT. JI.U. Stay me with Flowers, and comfort me with Apples, for I am sick with love.  

1  
O Tyrant love! how does thy sovereign power  
Subject poor souls to thy imperious thrall!  
They say, thy Cup's composed of sweet and sour;  
They say, thy diet's Honey, mixed with Gall;  
How comes it then to pass, these lips of our  
Still trade in bitter; taste no sweet at all?  
O tyrant love! Shall our perpetual toil  
Never find a Sabbath, to refresh, a while,  
Our drooping souls? Art thou all frowns, and never a smile?   

2  
You blessed Maids of Honour, that frequent  
The royal Courts of our renowned JEHOVE,  
With Flowers restore my spirits faint, and spent;  
O fetch me Apples from Love's fruitful Grove,  
To cool my palate, and renew my scent,  
For I am sick, for I am sick of Love:  
These will revive my dry, my wasted powers,  
And they, will sweeten my unsavoury hours;  
Refresh me then with Fruit, and comfort me with Flowers.   

3  
O bring me Apples to assuage that fire,  
Which, Aetna-like, inflames my flaming breast;  
Nor is it every Apple I desire,  
Nor that which pleases every palate best:  
'Tis not the lasting Deuzan I require,  
Nor yet the red-cheeked Queening I request;  
Nor that which, first, beshrewd the name of wife,  
Nor that whose beauty caused the golden strife;  
No, no, bring me an Apple from the Tree of life.   

4  
Virgins, tuck up your silken laps, and fill ye  
With the fair wealth of Flora's Magazine;  
The purple Vy'let, and the pale-faced Lily;  
The Pauncy and the Organ Colombine;  
The flowering Thyme, the guilt-boule Daffodil;  
The lowly Pink, the lofty Eglantine:  
The blushing Rose, the Queen of flowers, and be  
Of Flora's beauty; but, above the rest,  
Let jesses' sovereign Flower perfume my qualming breast.   

5  
Haste, Virgins, haste; for I lie weak and faint,  
Beneath the pangs of love; why stand ye mute;  
As if your silence neither cared to grant,  
Nor yet your language to deny my suit?  
No key can lock the door of my complaint,  
Until I smell this Flower, or taste that Fruit;  
Go, Virgins, seek this Tree, and search that Bower,  
O, how my soul shall bless that happy hour,  
That brings to me such fruit, that brings me such a Flower?   

GISTEEN. in cap. 2. Cant. Expos. 3.  
O happy sickness! where the infirmity is not to death, but to life, that God may be glorified by it: O happy fever, that proceeds not from a consuming, but a calcining fire! O happy distemper, wherein the soul relishes no earthly things, but only savours divine nourishment!   

S. BERN. Scrm. 51. in Cant.  
By flowers understand faith; by fruit, good works: As the flower or blossom is before the fruit, so faith is before goodworks: So neither is the fruit without the flower, nor good works without faith.   

EPIG. 2.  
Why Apples, O my soul? Can they remove  
The Pangs of Grief, or ease the flames of love;  
It was that Fruit which gave the first offence;  
That sent him hither; that removed him hence.    

III.  
 emblem 
My Beloved is mine and I am his, He feedeth among the Lilies. Cant: 2.16.  
Will simpson sculp:    

III. CANT. II. XVI. My beloved is mine, and I am his; He feedeth among the Lilies.  

1  
Even like two little bank-dividing brooks,  
That wash the pebbles with their wanton streams,  
And having ranged and searched a thousand nooks,  
Meet both at length, in silver-brested Thames;  
Where, in a greater Current they conjoin:  
So I my Best Beloved's am; so He is mine.   

2  
Even so we met; and after long pursuit,  
Even so we joined; we both became entire;  
No need for either to renew a Suit,  
For I was Flax and he was Flames of fire:  
Our firm united souls did more than twine;  
So I my Best-Beloveds am; so He is mine.   

3  
If all those glittering Monarches that command  
The servile Quarters of this earthly Ball,  
Should tender, in Exchange, their shares of land,  
I would not change my Fortunes for them all:  
Their wealth is but a Counter to my Coin;  
The world's but theirs; but my Beloved's mine.   

4  
Nay, more; If the fair Thespian Ladies, all  
Should heap together their diviner treasure:  
That Treasure should be deemed a price too small  
To buy a minute's Lease of half my Pleasure;  
'Tis not the sacred wealth of all the Nine  
Can buy my heart from Him; or His, from being mine:   

5  
Nor Time, nor place, nor Chance, nor Death can bow  
My least desires unto the least remove;  
he's firmly mine by Oath; I, His, by Vow;  
he's mine by Faith; and I am His, by Love;  
he's mine by Water; I am His, by Wine;  
Thus I my Best-beloveds am; Thus He is mine.   

6  
He is my Altar; I, his Holy Place;  
I am his Guest; and He, my living Food;  
I'm his, by Penitence; He, mine by Grace;  
I'm his, by Purchase; He is mine, by Blood;  
he's my supporting Elm; and I, his Vine:  
Thus I my Best-Beloveds am. Thus He is mine.   

7  
He giveth me wealth: I give him all my Vows:  
I give Him songs; He gives me length of days:  
With wreaths of Grace he crownes my conquering brows:  
And I his Temples, with a Crown of Praise,  
Which be accepts as an everlasting sign,  
That I my best-beloveds am; that He is mine.   

S. AUGUST. Manu. cap. 24.  
O my soul stamped with the Image of thy God; love him, of whom thou art so much beloved: bend to him that bows to thee, seek him that seeks thee: Love thy lover, by whose love thou art prevented, being the cause of thy love: Be careful with those that are careful, want with those that want; Be clean with the clean, and holy with the holy: Choose this friend above all friends, who, when all are taken away, remains only faithful to thee: In the day of thy burial, when all leave thee, he will not deceive thee, but defend thee from the roaring Lions, prepared for their prey.   

EPIG. 3.  
Sing Hymen to my soul: What? lost and found,  
Welcomed Espoused, enjoyed so soon, and crowned!  
He did but climb the Cross; and then came down  
To th'Gates of Hell; triumphed, and fetched a Crown.    

iv  
 emblem 
I am my beloved's, & his Desire is towards me. Cant: 7.10. W. Simpson Sc:    

iv CANT. VII.X. I am my Beloved's, and his desire is towards me.  

1  
LIke to the Arctic needle, that does guide  
The wand'ring shade by his Magnetic power,  
And leaves his silken Gnomon to decide  
The question of the controverted hour,  
First frantics up and down, from side to side,  
And restless beats his christalled Ivory case  
With vain impatience; jets from place to place,  
And seeks the bosom of his frozen Bride,  
At length he slacks his motion, and does rest  
His trembling point at his bright Poles beloved Breast.   

2  
Even so my soul, being hurried here and there,  
By every object that presents delight,  
Feign would be settled, but she knows not where;  
She likes at morning what she loathes at night?  
She bows to Honour; then, she lends an ear  
To that sweet Swanlike voice of dying Pleasure,  
Then tumbles in the scattered heaps of Treasure;  
Now flattered with false hope; now, foiled with fear:  
Thus finding all the world delights to be  
But empty toys, good GOD, she points alone to Thee,  
But has the virtued Steel a power to move?  
Or can the untouched Needle point aright?  
Or can my wand'ring Thoughts forbear to rove,  
Unguided by the virtue of thy Spirit?  
O has my leaden Soul the Art t'improve  
Her wasted Talon; and unraised, aspire  
In this sad moulting time of her desire?  
Not first beloved have I the power to love?  
I cannot stir, but as thou please to move me,  
Nor can my heart return thee love, until thou love me.   

4  
The still Commandress of the silent night  
Borrows her beams from her bright brother's Eye;  
His fair aspect fills her sharp horns with light,  
If he withdraw, her flames are quenched and die;  
Even so the beams of thy enlightening Spirit  
Infused and shot into my dark desire,  
Inflame my thoughts, and fill my soul with fire,  
That I am ravished with a new delight;  
But if thou shrowded thy face, my glory fades,  
And I remain a Nothing, all composed of shades.   

5  
Eternal God, O thou that only art  
The sacred Fountain of eternal light,  
And blessed Loadstone of my better part,  
O thou my hearts desire, my soul's delight,  
Reflect upon my soul; and touch my heart,  
And then my heart shall prise no good above thee;  
And than my soul shall know thee; knowing, love thee;  
And than my trembling thoughts shall never start  
From thy commands, or swerve the least degree,  
Or once presume to move, but as they move in thee.   

S. AUGUST. Med. Cap. 25.  
If man can love man with so entire affection, that the one can scarce brook the others absence? If a Bride can be joined to her Bridegroom with so great an ardency of mind, that for the extremity of love she can enjoy no rest, not suffering his absence without great anxiety, with what affection, with what fervency ought the soul whom thou hast espoused by faith and compassion, to love thee her true God and glorious Bridegroom?   

EPIG. 4.  
My soul; thy love is dear; 'Twas thought a good  
And easy pennyworth of thy Saviour's Blood:  
But be not proud; All matters rightly scanned,  
'Twas over brought: 'Twas sold at second hand.    

I.  
 emblem 
My Soul melted, when my beloved spoke. Cant: 5.6. Will: Simpson skull:    

V CANT. V.VI. My Soul melted whilst my Beloved spoke.  
LOrd, has the feeble voice of flesh and blood  
The power to work thine ears into a flood  
Of melted Mercy? or the strength, t'unlocke  
The gates of Heaven, and to dissolve a Rock  
Of marbel Clouds into a morning shower?  
Or has the breath of whining dust the power  
To stop, or snatch a falling Thunderbolt  
From thy fierce hand, and make thy hand revolt  
From resolute Confusion, and in stead  
Of Vyals, pour full Blessings on our head?  
Or shall the wants of famished Ravens cry,  
And move thy mercy to a quick supply?  
Or shall the silent suits of drooping flowrs  
Woe thee for drops, and be refreshed with Showrs?  
Alas, what marvel then, great GOD, what wonder  
If thy Hell-rouzing voice, that splits in sunder  
The brazen Portals of eternal death;  
What wonder if that life-restoring breath  
Which dragged me from th'infernal shades of night,  
Should melt my ravished soul with ore-delight?  
O can my frozen gutters choose but run,  
That feel the warmth of such a glorious Sun?  
Me thinks his language, like a flaming Arrow,  
Doth pierce my bones, and melts their wounded marrow;  
Thy flames O Cupid (though the joyful heart  
Feels neither tang of grief, nor fears the smart  
Of jealous doubts, but drunk with full desires)  
Are torments weighed with these celestial fires;  
Pleasures that ravish in so high a measure,  
That O I languish in excess of pleasure:  
What ravished heart, that feels these melting joys,  
Would not despise and loathe the treacherous Toys  
Of dunghill earth! what soul would not be proud  
Of wry-mouthed scorns, the worst that flesh and blood  
Had rancour to divise? Who would not bear  
The world's derision with a thankful ear?  
What palate would refuse full bowls of spite,  
To gain a minutes taste of such delight?  
Great spring of light, in whom there is no shade  
But what my interposed sins have made,  
Whose marrow-melting Fires admit no screen  
But what my own rebellions put between  
Their precious flames, and my obdurate care;  
Disperse these plague-distilling Clouds, and clear  
My mungy Soul into a glorious day;  
Transplant this screen, remove this Bar away;  
Then, than my fluent soul shall feel the fires  
Of thy sweet voice, and my dissolved desires  
Shall turn a sovereign Balsam, to make whole  
Those wounds my sins inflicted on thy soul.  

S. AUGUST. Soliloqu. Chap. 34.  
What fire is this that so warms my heart? What light is this that so enlightens my soul! O fire, that always burnest, and never goest out, kindle me: O light, which ever shinest, and art never darkened, illuminate me: O that I had my heat from thee, most holy fire! How sweetly dost thou burn! How secretly dost thou shine! How desiderably dost thou inflame me!   

BONAVENT. Stim. amoris Chap. 8.  
It makes God man; and man, God; things temporal, eternal; mortal, immortal; it makes an enemy a friend; a servant a Son: vile things, glorious; cold hearts fiery, and hard things liquid.   

EPIG. 5.  
My soul; Thy gold is true; but full of dross;  
Thy SAVIOUR'S breath refines thee with some loss,  
His gentle Furnace makes thee pure as true;  
Thou must be melted, ere thou'rt cast anew.    

VI  
 emblem 
Whom have I in heaven but thee & what desire I on earth in respect of thee. Ps: 73. ● W. S. sc:    

VI PSAL. LXXIII. XXV. Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and what desire I on earth in respect of Thee?  

1  
I Love (and have some cause to love) the earth;  
She is my Maker's Creature; therefore Good:  
She is my Mother; for she gave me birth;  
She is my tender Nurse; she gives me food:  
But what's a Creature, Lord, compared with Thee?  
Or what's my mother, or my nurse to me?   

2  
I love the Air; her dainty sweets refresh  
My drooping soul, and to new sweets invite me;  
Her shrill-mouthed Choir sustain me with their flesh,  
And with their Polyphonian notes delight me:  
But what's the Air, or all the sweets that she  
Can bless my soul withal, compared to Thee?   

3  
I love the Sea; She is my fellow-Creature;  
My careful Purveyor; She provides me store;  
She walls me round; She makes my diet greater;  
She wafts my treasure from a foreign shore;  
But Lord of Oceans, when compared with thee,  
What is the Ocean, or her wealth, to me?   

4  
To heaven's high City I direct my journey,  
Whose spangled Suburbs entertain mine eye;  
Mine Eye, by Contemplations great Attorney,  
Transcends the Crystal pavement of the sky;  
But what is heaven, great GOD, compared to Thee?  
Without Thy presence heavens no Heaven to me.   

5  
Without Thy presence Earth gives no Refection;  
Without Thy presence, Sea affords no treasure;  
Without Thy presence air's a rank Infection;  
Without Thy presence Heaven itself's no pleasure;  
If not possessed if not enjoyed in Thee,  
What's Earth, or Sea, or Air, or Heaven to me?   

6  
The highest Honours that the world can boast  
Are subjects fare too low for my desire;  
The brightest beams of glory are (at most)  
But dying sparkles of thy living fire:  
The proudest flames that earth can kindle, be  
But nightly Glow-worms, if compared to Thee.   

7  
Without Thy presence, wealth are Bags of Cares;  
Wisdom, but Folly; Joy, disquiet sadness,  
Friendship is Treason, and Delights are snares;  
Pleasures but pain, and mirth, but pleasing Madness  
Without Thee, Lord, things be not what they be,  
Nor have they being, when compared with Thee.   

8  
In having all things, and not Thee what have I?  
Not having Thee, what have my labours got?  
Ler me enjoy but Thee, what farther crave I?  
And having Thee alone, what have I not?  
I wish nor Sea, nor Land; nor would I be  
Possessed of Heaven, Heaven unpossessed of Thee.   

BONAVENT. Cap. 1. Soliloq.  
Alas my God, now I Understand (but blush to confess) that the beauty of thy Creatures have deceived mine eyes; and I have not observed that thou art more amiable than all thy creatures; to which thou hast communicated but one drop of thy inestimable beauty; For who hath adorned the heavens with Stars? Who hath stored the air with fowl? the waters, with fish? the earth, with plants and flowers? But what are all these but a small spark of divine beauty.   

S. CHR. Hom. 5. in Ep ad Rom.  
In having nothing I have all things, because I have Christ; Having therefore all things in Him, I seek no other reward, for he is the universal Reward.   

EPIG. 6.  
Who would not throw his better thoughts about him,  
And scorn this dross within him; that, without him?  
Cast up (my soul) thy clearer eye; Behold.  
If thou be fully melted: There's the Mould.    

VII.  
 emblem 
Woe is me that I am constrained to dwell with Meseth: & to have my habitation among the tent: of Cedar: Psal. 120.4. Will. simpson sculpsit.    

VII. PSAL. CXX.U. Woe is to me! that I remain in Meshech, and dwell in the Tents of Kedar.  
IS Nature's course dissolved? Does Time's glass stand?  
Or has some frolic heart set back the hand  
Of Fates perpetual Clock? Wiled never strike?  
Is crazy Time grown lazy, faint, or sick  
With very Age? Or has that great Purroyall  
Of Adamantine sisters late made trial  
Of some new Trade? Shall mortal hearts grow old.  
In sorrow? Shall my weary Arms enfold  
And underprop my panting sides for ever?  
Is there no charitable hand will sever  
My well-spun Thread, that my imprisoned soul  
May be delivered from this dull dark hole  
Of dungeon flesh? O shall I, shall I never  
Be ransomed, but remain a slave for ever?  
It is the Lot of man but once to dye,  
But ere that death, how many deaths have I?  
What humane madness makes the world afraid  
To entertain heaven's joy? because conveiged  
By th'hand of death? Will nakedness refuse  
Rich change of robes, because the man's not spruce  
That brought them? Or will Poverty send back  
Full bags of gold, because the bringer's black?  
Life is a Bubble, blown with whining breaths,  
Filled with the torments of a thousand deaths;  
Which, being pricked by death (while death deprives  
One life) presents the soul a thousand lives:  
Of frantic mortal, how has earth bewitched  
Thy Beldame soul, which has so fond pitched  
Upon her false delights! Delights, that cease  
Before enjoyment finds a time to please;  
Her fickle joys breed doubtful fears; her fears  
Bring hopfull Griefs; her griefs weep fearful tears,  
Tears coin deceitful hopes; hopes, careful doubt,  
And surly passion justles passion out:  
To day, we pamper with a full repast  
Of lavish mirth; at night, we weep as fast:  
To night we swim in wealth, and lend; To morrow,  
We sink in want, and find no friend to borrow;  
In what a Climate does my soul reside!  
Where pale-faced murder, the first borne of pride,  
Sets up her kingdom in the very smiles,  
And plighted faiths of men-like Crocodiles  
A land, where each embroidered Satin word  
Is lined with Fraud; where Mars his lawless sword  
Exiles Astraeas' Balance; where that hand  
Now flays his brother, that new-sowed his land:  
O that my days of bondage would expire  
In this lewd Soil! Lord, how my soul's on fire  
To be dissolved! that I might once obtain  
These longed for joys, longed for so oft, in vain!  
If Moses-like I may not live possessed  
Of this fair Land; Lord, let me see't, at least.  

S. AUGUST. Soliloq. Cap. 2.  
My life is a frail life; a corruptible life; A life, which the more increases, the more decreases: The farther it goes, the nearer it comes to death: A deceitful life, and like a shadow; full of the snares of death: Now I rejoice; now I languish; now I flourish; now infirm; now I live, and strait I die; now I seem happy, always miserable; now I laugh, now I weep: Thus all things are subject to mutability, that nothing continues an hour in one state: O joy above joy, exceeding all joy, without which there is no joy, when shall I enter into thee; that I may see my God that dwells in thee?   

EPIG. 7.  
Art thou so weak? O canst thou not digest  
An hour of travel for a night of Rest?  
Cheer up, my soul; call home thy spirits, and bear  
One bad Good-Friday; Full-mouthed Easter's neare.    

VIII.  
 emblem 
O wretched Man that I am: who shall deliver me from the body of this Death▪  
Rom: 7.24. Will: simpson sculp:    

VIII. ROM. VII. XXIV. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?  
BEhold thy darling, which thy lustful care  
Pampers; for which thy restless thoughts prepare  
Such early Cates; For whom thy bubbling brow  
So often sweats, and bankrupt eyes do owe  
Such midnight scores to Nature, for whose sake  
Base earth is Sainted, the Infernal Lake  
Vnfeard; the Crown of glory poorly rated;  
Thy GOD neglected, and thy brother hated:  
Behold thy darling, whom thy soul affects  
So dear; whom thy fond Indulgence decks  
And puppets up in soft, in silken weeds:  
With farre-fetched delicates, the dear-bought gainer  
Of ill-spent Time, the price of half thy pains:  
Behold thy darling, who, when clad by Thee,  
Derides thy nakedness; and, when most free,  
Proclaims her lover, slave; and, being fed  
Most full, then strikes th'indulgent Feeder dead:  
What meanest thou thus, my poor deluded soul,  
To love so fond? Can the burning Coal  
Of thy Affection last without the fuel  
Of counter-love? Is my Compeer so cruel,  
And thou so kind, to love unloved again?  
Canst thou sow favours, and thus reap disdain?  
Remember, O remember thou art borne  
Of royal Blood; remember thou art sworn  
A Maid of Honour in the Court of Heaven;  
Remember what a costly price was given  
To ransom thee from slavery thou wert in;  
And wilt thou now, my soul, turn slave again?  
The Son and Heir to heavens Triune JEHOVA  
Would fain become a Suitor for thy Love,  
And offers for thy dower, his Father's Throne,  
To sit, for Seraphims to gaze upon;  
he'll give thee Honour, Pleasure, Wealth, and Things  
Transcending fare the Majesty of Kings:  
And wilt thou prostrate to the odious charms  
Of this base Scullion? Shall his hollow Arms  
Hugg thy soft sides? Shall these course hands untie  
The sacred Zone of thy Virginity?  
For shame, degen'rous soul, let thy desire  
Be quickened up with more heroic fire;  
Be wisely proud; let thy ambitious eye  
Read nobler objects; let thy thoughts defy  
Such amorous baseness; Let thy soul disdain  
Th'ignoble proffers of so base a Swain;  
Or if thy vows be past, and Hymen's bands  
Have ceremonyed your unequal hands,  
Annul, at least avoid thy lawless Act  
With insufficience, or a Prae contract:  
Or if the Act be good, yet mayst thou plead  
A second Freedom; for the flesh is dead.  

NAZIANZ. Orat. 16.  
How I am joined to this body, I know not; which when it is healthful, provokes me to war, and being damaged by war, affects me with grief; which I both love as a fellow servant, and hate as an utter enemy; It is a pleasant Foe, and a perfidious friend: O strange conjunction and Alienation: What I fear I embrace, and what I love I am afraid of; Before I make war, I am reconciled; Before I enjoy peace, I am at variance.   

EPIG. 8.  
What need that House be daubed with flesh and blood?  
Hanged round with silks and gold; repaired with food?  
Cost idly spent! That cost does but prolong.  
Thy thraldom; Fool, thou makest thy I ail too strong.    

IX.  
 emblem 
I am in a straight betwixt two having a Desire to Departed & to be with Christ Phil: 5.23. Will: Simpson. Sculpsit    

IX. PHIL. I. XXIII. I am in a straight between two, having a desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ.  

1  
WHat meant our careful parents so to wear,  
And lavish out their ill expended hours,  
To purchase for us large possessions, here,  
Which (though unpurchased) are too truly ours?  
What meant they, ah what meant they to endure  
Such loads of needless labour, to procure,  
And make that thing our own, which was our own too sure.   

2  
What mean these liv'ries and possessive keys?  
What mean these bargains, and these needless sales?  
What need these jealous, these suspicious ways  
Of law-divised, and law-dissolved entails?  
No need to sweat for gold; wherewith, to buy  
Estates of high-prized land; no need to tie  
Earth to their heirs, were they but clogged with earth as I   

3  
O were their souls but clogged with earth, as I,  
They would not purchase with so salt an Itch;  
They would not take, of Alms, what now they buy;  
Nor call him happy, whom the world counts rich:  
They would not take such pains, project and prog,  
To charge their shoulders with so great a log;  
Who has the greater lands, has but the greater clog.   

4  
I cannot do an act which earth disdains not;  
I cannot think a thought which earth corrupts not;  
I cannot speak a word which earth profanes not;  
I cannot make a vow earth interrupts not;  
If I but offer up an early groan,  
Or spread my wings to heavens long longed for Throne,  
She darkens my complaints, and drags my Offering down.   

5  
Even like the Hawlk, (whose keepers wary hands  
Have made a prisoner to her wethring stock)  
Forgetting quite the power of her fast bands,  
Makes a rank Bate from her forsaken Block,  
But her too faithful Leash does soon restrain  
Her broken flight, attempted oft in vain;  
It gives her loins a twitch, and tugs her back again.   

6  
So, when my soul directs her better eye  
To heaven's bright Palace (where my treasure lies).  
I spread my willing wings, but cannot fly,  
Earth hales me down, I cannot, cannot rise;  
When I but strive to mount the least degree,  
Earth gives a jerk, and foils me on my knee;  
LORD, how my soul is racked, betwixt the world and Thee.   

7  
Great GOD, I spend my feeble wings, in vain;  
In vain I offer my extended hands;  
I cannot mount till thou unlink my chain;  
I cannot come till thou release my Bands:  
Which if thou please to break, and then supply  
My wings with spirit, th'Eagle shall not fly  
A pitch that's half so fair, nor half so swift as I.   

BONAVENT. cap. 1. Soliloq.  
Ah sweet jesus, pierce the marrow of my soul with the healthful shafts of thy love, that if may truly burn, and melt, and languish with the only desire of thee; that it may desire to be dissolved, and to be with thee: Let it hunger alone for the bread of life; let it thirst after thee, the spring and fountain of eternal light, the stream of true pleasure: let it always desire thee, seek thee, and find thee, and sweetly rest in thee.   

EPIG. 9  
What? will thy shackles neither lose, nor break?  
Are they too strong? or is thy Arm too weak?  
Art will prevail where knotty strength denies;  
My soul; there's Aquafortis in thine eyes.    

X.  
 emblem 
Bring my soul out of Prison that I may praise thy Name: Ps: 142.7. Will simpson. sculpsit    

X. PSAL. CXLII. VII. Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy Name.  
MY Soul is like a Bird; my Flesh the Cage;  
Wherein she wears her weary Pilgrimage  
Of hours as few as evil, daily fed  
With sacred Wine, and Sacramental Bread;  
The keys that locks her in, and lets her out,  
Are Birth and Death; 'twixt both she hops about  
From perch to perch; from Sense to reason; then  
From higher Reason, down to Sense again:  
From Sense she climbs to Faith; where, for a season,  
She sits and sings; then down again to Reason;  
From Reason back to Faith; and strait from thence  
She rudely flutters to the Perch of Sense;  
From Sense, to Hope; then hops from Hope to Doubt;  
From Doubt, to dull Despair; there, seeks about  
For desperate Freedom; and at every Grate,  
She wildly thrusts, and begs th'untimely date  
Of unexpired thraldom, to release  
Th' afflicted Captive, that can find no peace:  
Thus am I cooped within this fleshly Gage,  
I wear my youth, and waste my weary Age,  
Spending that breath which was ordained to chant  
heavens praises forth, in sighs and sad complaint:  
Whilst happier birds can spread their nimble wing  
From Shrubs to Cedars, and there chirp and sing,  
In choice of raptures, the harmonious story  
Of man's Redemption, and his Maker's Glory:  
You glorious Martyrs; you illustrious Troops,  
That once were cloistered in your fleshly Coops,  
As fast as I, what Reth'rick had your tongues?  
What dextrous Art had your Elegiak Songs?  
What Paul-like power had your admired devotion?  
What shackle breaking Faith infused such motion  
To your strong Prayers, that could obtain the boon  
To be enlarged, to be uncaged so soon?  
When I (poor I) can sing my daily tears,  
Grown old in Bondage, and can find no ears:  
You great partakers of eternal Glory,  
That with your heav'n-prevailing Oratory,  
Released your souls from your terrestrial Cage,  
Permit the passion of my holy Rage  
To recommend my sorrows (dear known  
To you, in days of old; and, once, your own)  
To your best thoughts, (but oh't does not befit ye  
To move your prayers; you love and joy; not pity:)  
Great LORD of souls to whom should prisoners fly,  
But Thee? Thou hadst thy Cage, as well as I:  
And, for my sake, thy pleasure was to know  
The sorrows that it brought, and feltst them too;  
O set me free, and I will spend those days,  
Which now I wast in begging, in Thy praise.  

ANSELM. in Protolog. cap. 1.  
O miserable condition of mankind, that has lost that for which he was created! Alas What has he left? And what has he found? He has lost happiness for which he was made, and found misery for which he was not made: What is gone? and what is left? That thing is gone, without which he is unhappy; that thing is left, by which he is miserable: O wretched men! From whence are we expelled? To what are we impelled? Whence are we thrown? And whether are we buried? From our home into banishment; from the slight of God into our own blindness; from the pleasure of immortality to the bitterness of death: Miserable change! From how great a good, to how great an evil? Ah me; What have I enterprised? What have I done? Whither did I go? Whither am I come?   

EPIG. 10.  
Paul's Midnight voice prevailed; his music's thunder  
Vnhinged the prison doors; split bolts in sunder:  
And sit'st thou here? and hangest the feeble wing?  
And whinst to be enlarged? Soul, learn to sing.    

XI.  
 emblem 
As the Hart panteth after the waterbrooks so panteth my soul after thee o Lord. Will: Simpson. Sculpsit    

XI. PSAL. XLII. I. As the Hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee O God.  

1  
HOw shall my tongue express that hollowed fire  
Which heaven has kindled in my ravished heart?  
What Muse shall I invoke, that will inspire  
My lowly Quill to act a lofty part!  
What Art shall I divise t'express desire,  
Too intricate to be expressed by Art!  
Let all the nine be silent; I refuse  
Their old in this high task, for they abuse  
The flames of Love too much: Assist me David's Muse.   

2  
Not as the thirsty soil desires soft showers,  
To quicken and refresh her Embryo grain;  
Nor as the drooping Crests of fading flowers  
Request the bounty of a morning Raine,  
Do I desire my GOD: These, in few hours,  
Rewish, what late their wishes did obtain,  
But as the swift-foot Hart does, wounded, fly  
To th' much desired streams, even so do I  
Pant after Thee, my GOD, whom I must find, or die.   

3  
Before a Pack of deepmouthed Lusts I flee;  
O, they have singled out my panting heart,  
And wanton Cupid, sitting in a Tree,  
Hath pierced my bosom with a flaming dart;  
My soul being spent, for refuge, seeks to Thee,  
But cannot find where Thou my refuge art:  
Like as the swift-foot Hart does, wounded, fly  
To the desired streams, even so do I  
Pant after Thee, my GOD, whom I must find, or die.   

4  
At length, by flight, I over-went the Pack;  
Thou drewest the wanton dart from out my wound;  
The blood, that followed, left a purple tract,  
Which brought a Serpent, but in shape, a Hound;  
We strove; He bitten me; but Thou brok'st his back,  
I left him groveling on th'envenomed ground;  
But as the Serpent-bitten Hart does fly  
To the long-longed for streams, even so did I  
Pant after Thee, my GOD, whom I must find, or die.   

5  
If lust should chase my soul, made swift by fright,  
Thou art the streams whereto my soul is bound:  
Or if a lav'lin wound my sides in flight,  
Thou art the Balsam that must cure my wound:  
If poison chance t'infest my soul, in fight,  
Thou art the Treacle that must make me sound;  
Even as the wounded Hart, embossed, does fly  
To th'streams extremely long for, so do I  
Pant after Thee, my GOD, whom I must find, or die.   

CYRIL. lib. 5. in joh. cap. 10.  
O precious water, which quenches the noisome thirst of this world, that scours all the stains of sins; that waters the earth of our souls with heavenly showers, and brings back the thirsty heart of man to his only God   

S. AUGUST. Soliloq. 35.  
O fountain of life, and vein of living waters, when shall I leave this forsaken, impassable, and dry earth, and taste the waters of thy sweetness, that I may behold thy virtue, and thy glory, and slake my thirst with the streams of thy mercy; Lord, I thirst: Thou art the spring of life, satisfy me; I thirst, Lord, I thirst after thee the living God   

EPIG. 11.  
The Arrow-smitten Hart, deep wounded, flies  
To th' Springs with water in his weeping eyes:  
Heaven is thy Spring: If Satan's fiery dart  
Pierce thy faint sides; do so, my wounded Hart.    

XII.  
 emblem 
When shall I come and appear before the Lord Ps: 42.2. W. M. Sculp:    

XII. PSAL. XLII. TWO. When shall I come and appear before God?  
WHat is my soul the better to be tind  
With holy fire? What boots it to be coined  
With heavens own stamp? What vantage can there be  
To souls of heav'n-descended Pedigree,  
More than to Beasts, that grovel? Are not they  
Fed by th'Almighties hand? and, every day,  
Filled with His Blessing too? Do they not see  
GOD in His Creatures as direct as we?  
Do they not taste Thee? hear Thee? nay, what Sense  
Is not partaker of Thine Excellence?  
What more do we? Alas, what serves our reason,  
But, like dark lanterns, to accomplish Treason  
With greater closeness? It affords no light,  
Brings Thee no nearer to our pur blind sight;  
No pleasure rises up the least degree,  
Great GOD, but in the clearer view of Thee:  
What privilege more than Sense, has Reason than?  
What vantage is it to be borne a Man?  
How often has my patience built, (dear LORD)  
Vain towers of Hope upon Thy gracious Word?  
How often has Thy Hope-reviving Grace  
Wooed my suspicious eyes to seek Thy face!  
How often have I sought Thee? Oh how long  
Hath expectation taught my perfect tongue  
Repeated prayers, yet prayers could never obtain;  
In vain I seek Thee, and I beg in vain:  
If it be high presumption to behold  
Thy face, why didst Thou make mine eyes so bold  
To seek it? If that object be too bright  
For man's Aspect, why did thy lips invite  
Mine eye t'expect it? If it might be seen,  
Why is this envious curtain drawn between  
My darkened eye and it? O tell me, why  
Thou dost command the thing Thou dost deny?  
Why dost thou give me so unprized a treasure,  
And then deniest my greedy soul the pleasure  
To view thy gift? Alas, that gift is void,  
And is no gift, that may not be enjoyed:  
If those refulgent Beams of heavens great light  
Guido not the day, what is the day, but night?  
The drowsy Shepherd sleeps; flowers droop and fade;  
The Birds are sullen, and the Beast is sad;  
But if bright Titan dart his golden Ray,  
And, with his riches, glorify the day,  
The jolly Shepherd pipes; Flowers freshly spring  
The beast grows gamesome, and the birds they sing.  
Thou art my Sun, great GOD, O when shall I  
View the full beams of thy Meridian eye?  
Draw, draw this fleshly curtain, that denies  
The gracious presence of thy glorious eyes;  
Or give me Faith; and, by the eye of Grace,  
I shall behold Thee, though not face to face.  

S. AUGUST. in Psal. 39  
Who created all things is better than all things; who beautified all things is more beautiful than all things: who made strength is stronger than all things: who made great things is greater than all things: Whatsoever thou lovest he is that to thee: Learn to love the workman in his work; the Creator in his creature: Let not that which was made by Him possess thee, lest thou lose Him by whom thyself was made.   

S. AUGUST. Med. cap. 37.  
O thou most sweet, most gracious, most amiable, most fair, when shall I see Thee? when shall I be satisfied with thy beauty? When wilt thou lead me from this dark dungeon, that I may confess thy name?   

EPIG. 12.  
How art thou shaded in this vale of night,  
Behind thy Curtain flesh? Thou seest no light,  
But what thy Pride does challenge as her own;  
Thy flesh is high: Soul take this Curtain down:    

XIII.  
 emblem 
Oh that I had the wings of a Dove for then I would fly away & be at rest. Ps: 55. 6 W. Simpson▪ sc.    

XIII. PSAL. LVI. VI. O that I had the wings of a Dove, for than I would flee away and be at rest.  

1  
ANd am I sworn a dunghill slave for ever  
To earth's base drudgery? Shall I never find  
A night of Rest? Shall my Indentures never  
Be cancelled? Did injurious nature bind  
My soul earth's Apprentice, with no Clause, to leave her?  
No day of freedom? Must I ever grind?  
O that I had the pinions of a Dove;  
That I might quit my Bands, and sore above,  
And pour my just Complaints before the great JEHOVA!   

2  
How happy are the Doves, that have the power,  
When ere they please, to spread their airy wings!  
Or cloud-dividing Eagles, that can tower  
Above the Sent of these inferior things!  
How happy is the Lark, that every hour,  
Leaves earth, and then for joy, mounts up and sings!  
Had my dull soul but wings as well as they,  
How I would spring from earth, and clip away,  
As wise Astraea did, and scorn this ball of Clay!   

3  
O how my soul would spurn this Ball of Clay,  
And loathe the dainties of earth's painful pleasure!  
O how I'd laugh to see men night and day,  
Turmoil, to gain that Trash they call their treasure!  
O how I'd smile to see what plots they lay  
To catch a blast, or own a smile from Caesar!  
Had I the pinions of a mounting Dove,  
How would I sore and sing, and hate the Love  
Of transitory Toys; and feed on joys above!   

4  
There should I find that everlasting Pleasure,  
Which Change removes not, & which Chance prevents not  
There should I find that everlasting Treasure;  
Which force deprives not, fortune dis-augments not;  
There should I find that everlasting Caesar,  
Whose hand recals not, and whose heart reputes not:  
Had I the pinions of a clipping Dove,  
How I would climb the skies, and hate the Love  
Of transitory Toys, and joy in Things above!   

5  
No rank-mouthed flander, there, shall give offence,  
Or blast our blooming names, as here they do;  
No liver scalding Lust shall, there, incense  
Our boiling veins: There is no Cupid's Bow:  
LORD, give my soul the milk-white Innocence  
Of Doves, and I shall have their pinions too:  
Had I the pinions of a sprightly Dove,  
How I would quit this earth, and sore above,  
And heaven's blessed kingdom find, with heaven's blessed King JEHOVE.   

S. AUGUST. in Psal. 38.  
What wings should I desire but the two precepts of love, on which the Law and the Prophets depend! O if I could obtain these wings, I could fly from thy face to thy face, from the face of thy justice to the face of thy Mercy: Let us find those wings by love which we have lost by lust.   

S. AUGUST. in Psal. 76.  
Let us cast off whatsoever hinders, entangles or burdens our flight until we attain that which satisfies; beyond which nothing is; beneath which, all things are; of which, all things are.   

EPIG. 13.  
Tell me, my wishing soul, didst ever try  
How fast the wings of, Red-crost Faith can fly?  
Why beg'st thou then the pinions of a Dove?  
Faith's wings are swifter, but the swiftest, Love    

XIV.  
 emblem 
How amiable are thy Tabernacles O Lord of Hosts my Soul longeth, yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: Ps. 84.1. Will: Martial. Sculp    

XIV. PSAL. LXXXIV. I. How amiable are thy Tabernacles O God of Hosts.  
ANcient of days, to whom all times are Now,  
Before whose Glory, Seraphims do bow  
Their blushing Cheeks, and vale their blemished faces;  
That uncontained, at once, dost fill all places,  
How glorious, O how fare beyond the height  
Of puzzled Quills, or the obtuse conceit  
Of flesh and Blood, or the too flat reports  
Of mortal tongues, are thy experssesse Courts!  
Whose glory to paint forth with greater Art,  
Ravish my Fancy, and inspire my heart,  
Excuse my bold attempt, and pardon me  
For showing Sense, what Faith alone should see.  
Ten thousand Millions, and ten thousand more  
Of Angell-measured leagues from th'eastern shore  
Of dungeon earth this glorious Palace stands,  
Before whose pearly gates, ten thousand Bands  
Of armed Angels wait, to entertain  
Those purged souls, for whom the Lamb was slain,  
Whose guiltless death, and voluntary yielding  
Of whose given life, gave this brave Court her building;  
The lukewarm Blood of this dear Lamb being spilt,  
To Rubies turned, whereof her posts were built;  
And what dropped down in cold and gelid gore,  
Did turn rich Sapphires, and impaved her floor:  
The brighter flames, that from his eyeballs rayed,  
Grew Chrysolites, whereof her walls were made:  
The milder glances sparkled on the Ground,  
And grunsild every door with Diamond:  
But, dying, darted upwards, and did fix  
A Battlement of purest Sardonix.  
Her streets with burnished Gold are paved round:  
Stars lie like pebbles scattered on the ground:  
Pearl, mixed with Onyx, and the jasper stone,  
Made graviled Causwayes to be trampled on.  
There shines no Sun by day; no Moon, by night;  
The Palace glory is the Palace light:  
There is no time to measure motion by,  
There, time is swallowed with Eternity;  
Wry-mouthed disdain, and corner-haunting lust,  
And twy-faced Fraud; and beetle-browed Distrust;  
Soule-boyling Rage; and trouble-state sedition;  
And giddy doubt; and goggle-eyed suspicion;  
And lumpish sorrow, and degen'rous fear  
Are banished thence, and death's a stranger there:  
But simple love, and sempeternall joys,  
Whose sweetness neither gluts, nor fullness cloys;  
Where face to face, our ravished eye shall see  
Great ELOHIM, that glorious One in Three,  
And Three in One, and, seeing Him, shall bless Him,  
And blessing, love Him; and, in love, possess Him:  
Here stay, my soul, and ravish in relation:  
Thy words being spent; spend now, in Contemplation.  

S. GREG. in Psal. 7. penitent.  
Sweet jesus, the Word of the Father, the brightness of paternal glory, whom Angels delight to view, teach me to do thy will; that, led by thy good Spirit, I may come to that blessed City, where day is eternal, where there is certain security, and secure eternity, and eternal peace, and peaceful happiness, and happy sweetness, and sweet pleasure; where thou O God with the Father and the holy Spirit livest and raignest world without end.   

Ibid.  
There is light without darkness; joy without grief; desire without punishment; love without sadness; satiety without loathing; safety without fear; health without disease; and life without death.   

EIPG. 14.  
My soul, pry not too nearly; The Complexion  
Of Sols bright face is seen, but by Reflection:  
But wouldst thou know what's heaven? I'll tell thee what;  
Think what thou canst not think, and Heaven is that.    

XV.  
 emblem 
Make haste my Beloved, and be Thou like to a Roe, or to a young Hart upon the Mountains of Spices. Cant: 8.14. Will: sim: sc    

XV. CANT. VIII. XIV. Make haste my Beloved, and be like the Roe. or the young Hart upon the Mountains of Spices.  

GO, Gentle Tyrant, go; thy flames do pierce  
My soul too deep; thy flames are too too fierce;  
My marrow melts; my fainting Spirits fry  
Ith'torrid Zone of thy Meridian Eye;  
Away, away: thy sweets are too perfuming;  
Turn, turn thy face; Thy fires are too consuming,   

Hast hence; and let thy winged steps outgo  
The frighted Roebuck, and his flying Roe:  
But wilt thou leave me then? O thou that art  
Life of my Soul, Soul of my dying heart,  
Without the sweet Aspect of whose fair Eyes,  
My soul does languish, and her solace dies;  
Art thou so easily wooed? So apt to hear  
The frantic language of my foolish fear?   

Leave, leave me not; nor turn thy beauty from me,  
Look, look upon me, though thine eyes overcome me.  
O how they wound! But, how my wounds content me!  
How sweetly these delightful pains torment me!  
How I am tortured in excessive measure  
Of pleasing cruelties too cruel pleasure!  
Turn, turn away; remove thy scorching beams;  
I languish with these bitter-sweet extremes:   

Hast then, and let thy winged steps outgo  
The flying Roebuck, and his frighted Roe.  
Turn back, my dear; O let my ravished eye  
Once more behold thy face before thou fly;  
What; shall we part without a mutual kiss?  
O who can leave so sweet a face as this;  
Look full upon me; for my soul desires  
To turn a holy Martyr in those fires:   

O leave me not, nor turn thy beauty from me;  
Look, look upon me, though thy flames overcome me.  
If thou becloud the Sunshine of thine eye,  
I frieze to death; and if it shine, I fry;  
Which like a Fever, that my soul has got,  
Makes me to burn too cold, or freeze too hot:  
Alas, I cannot bear so sweet a smart,  
Nor canst thou be less glorious than thou art:   

Hast then, and let thy winged steps outgo  
The frighted Roebuck, and his flying Roe.  
But go not fare beyond the reach of breath?  
Too large a distance makes another death:  
My youth is in her Sping; Autumnal vows  
Will make me riper for so sweet a Spouse,  
When aftertimes have burnished my desire,  
I'll shoot thee flames for flames, and fire for fire.   

O leave me not, nor turn thy beauty from me;  
Look, look upon me, though thy flames overcome me.   

Author sealae Paradisi. Tom. 9 Aug cap. 8.  
Fear not O Bride, nor despair; Think not thyself contemned, if thy Bridegroom withdraw his face a while: All things cooperate for the best: Both from his absence, and his presence thou gainest light: He comes to thee, and he goes from thee, He comes, to make thee consolate; He goes, to make thee cautious, lest thy abundant consolation puff thee up: He comes, that thy languishing soul may be comforted; He goes, left his familiarity should be contemned; and, being absent, to be more desired; and being desired, to be more earnestly sought; and being long sought, to be more acceptably found.   

EPIG. 15.  
My soul, sin's monster, whom, with greater ease  
Ten thousand fold, thy GOD could make than pleases:  
What wouldst thou have? Nor pleased with Sun, nor shade?  
Heaven knows not what to make of what He made.    

 emblem 
●● Fidesque Coronat ad aras Will: marshall-sculp:    

THE FAREWELL. REVEL. JI.X. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life.  

1  
BE faithful? LORD, what's that?  
Believe: 'Tis easy to Believe; But what?  
That He whom thy hard heart has wounded,  
And whom thy scorn has spit upon,  
Has paid thy Fine, and has compounded  
For those soul deeds thy hands have done.  
Believe, that He whose gentle palms  
Thy needle-pointed Sins have nailed,  
Hath borne thy slavish load (of Alms)  
And made supply where thou hast failed:  
Did ever mis'ry find so strange Relief?  
It is a Love too strong for man's Belief.   

2  
Believe that He whose side  
Thy crimes have pierced with their rebellions, died,  
To save thy guilty soul from dying,  
Ten thousand horrid deaths, from whence  
There was no escape, there was no flying,  
But through his dearest bloods expense:  
Believe, this dying Friend requires  
No other thanks for all his pain;  
But even the truth of weak desires,  
And for his love, but love again;  
Did ever mis'ry find so true a Friend?  
It is a love too vast to comprehend.   

3  
With Floods of tears baptise  
And drench these dry, these unregen'rate eyes;  
LORD, whet my dull, my blunt belief,  
And break this fleshly rock in sunder,  
That from this heart, this hell of grief  
May spring a Heaven of love and wonder:  
O, if thy mercies will remove  
And melt this lead from my belief,  
My grief will then refine my love,  
My love will then refresh my grief;  
Then weep mine eyes as He has bled; vouchsafe  
To drop for every drop an Epitaph.   

4  
But is the Crowd of Glory  
The wages of a lamentable Story?  
Or can so great a purchase rise  
From a salt Humour? Can mine eye  
Run fast enough t'obtain this Prize?  
If so; LORD, who's so mad to die?  
Thy Tears are Trifles; Thou must do:  
Alas, I cannot; Then endeavour:  
I will: But will a tug or two  
Suffice the turn? Thou must persever:  
I'll strive till death; And shall my feeble strife  
Be crowned? I'll crown it with a Crown of life.   

5  
But is there such a dearth.  
That thou must buy what is thy due by birth?  
He whom Thy hands did form of dust,  
And gave him breath upon Condition,  
To love his great Creator, must  
He now be thine, by Composition?  
Art thou a gracious GOD, and mild,  
Or headstrong man rebellious rather?  
O, man's a base rebellious Child,  
And thou a very gracious Father:  
The Gift is Thine; we strive; thou crownest our strife;  
Thou giv'st us Faith; and Faith, a Crown of Life.    
THE END.   

The mind of the Frontispiece.  
This Bubble's Man: Hope, Fear, False joy and Trouble, Are those Four Winds which daily toss this Bubble.   

Hieroglyphica haec de vitâ hominis perlegi, & digna censeo quae typis mandentur.  
jan. 9 1637. Tho: Wykes R. P. Episc. Lond. Capell. domest.   


Hieroglyphikes of the life of Man  
Fra. Quarles   
LONDON, Printed by john Dawson, for Francis Eglessield, and are to be sold by him at the sign of the Marigold in Paul's Churchyard. 1639.   

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE both in Blood and Virtue; and most accomplished LADY, MARY, COUNTESS OF DORSET; LADY GOVERNESS to the most Illustrious, CHARLES, Prince of great BRITAIN, and JAMES, Duke of YORK.  
Excellent Lady,  
I Present these Tapours to burn under the safe Protection of your honourable Name: where, I presume, they stand secure from the Damps of Ignorance, and blasts of Censure: It is a small part of that abundant service, which my thankful heart owes your incomparable Goodness. Be pleased to honour it with your noble Acceptance, which shall be nothing but what your own esteem shall make it  
Madam Your La pps. most humble servant FRA: QVARLES.   

To The Reader.  
IF you are satisfied with my Emblems, I here set before you a second service. It is an Egyptian dish, dressed on the English fashion: They, at their Feasts, used to present a Deaths-head at their second course; This will serve for both: You need not fear a surfeit: Here is but little; And that, light of digestion: If it but please your Palate, I question not your stomach: Fall too; and much good may't do you.  
Covivio addit Minerval. E. B.  Rem, Regem, Regimen, Regionem, Relligionem, Exornat, celebrat, laudat, honorat, amat. 
BENEVOLUS.   


 hieroglyph 
Sine Lumine inane.    

Behold I was shapen in Iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. PSAL. 51.5.  
MAn is man's ABC: There is none that can  
Read God aright, unless he first spell Man:  
Man is the Stairs, whereby his knowledge climbs  
To his Creator; though it oftentimes  
Stumbles for want of light, and sometimes trips  
For want of careful heed; and sometimes slips  
Through unadvised haste; and when, at length,  
His weary steps have reached the top, his strength  
Oft fails to stand; his giddy brains turn round,  
And Phaeton-like, falls headlong to the ground:  
These stairs are often dark, and full of danger  
To him, whom want of practice makes a stranger  
To this blind way: The Lamp of nature lends  
But a false Light; and lights to her own ends:  
These be the ways to Heaven; These paths require  
A Light that springs from that diviner fire  
Whose humane soule-enlightning sunbeams dart  
Through the bright Crannies of th'immortal part.  
And here, thou great Original of Light,  
Whose error-chaceing Beams do unbenight  
The very soul of Darkness, and untwist  
The Clouds of Ignorance; do thou assist  
My feeble Quill; Reflect thy sacred Rays  
Upon these lines, that they may light the ways  
That lead to thee; So guide my heart, my hand,  
That I may do what others understand,  
Let my heart practice what my hand shall write;  
Till then, I am a Taper wanting light.  
This golden Precept, Know thyself, came down  
From heaven's high Court; It was an Art unknown  
To flesh and blood. The men of Nature took  
Great journeys in it; Their dim eyes did look  
But through a Mist; Like Pilgrims they did spend  
Their idle steps, but knew no journeys end:  
The way to know thyself, is first to cast  
Thy frail beginning, Progress, and thy Last:  
This is the Sum of Man: But now return  
And view this Taper standing in this Urn:  
Behold her Substance, sordid, and impure,  
Useless and rain, and (wanting light) obscure:  
'tis but a Span at longest, nor can last  
Beyond that Span; ordained, and made to waste:  
Even such was Man (before his soul gave light  
To his vile substance) a mere Child of night;  
Ere he had life, estated in his Urn,  
And marked for death; by nature, borne to burn:  
Thus liveless, sightless, worthless first began  
That glorious, that presumptuous thing, called Man.  

S. AUGUST.  
Consider o men what thou wert before thy Birth, and what thou art from thy birth to thy death, and what thou shalt be after death: Thou wert made of an impure substance, clothed and nourished in thy Mother's blood.   

EPIG. 1.  
Forbear fond Taper: What thou seekest, is Fire:  
Thy own destructions lodged in thy desire:  
Thy wants are fare more safe than their supply:  
He that gins to live, gins to die.    

 hieroglyph 
Nescius Vnde.  
Will. Marshal 〈◊〉    

And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. GEN. 1.3.  

THis flame-expecting Taper hath, at length,  
Received fire; and, now, gins to burn:  
It hath no vigour yet, it hath no strength;  
Apt to be puffed and quenched at every turn:  
It was a gracious hand that thus endowed  
This snuff with flame: But mark, this hand doth shroud  
Itself from mortal eyes, and folds it in a Cloud.   

2  
Thus man gins to live; An unknown flame  
Quickens his finished Organs; now, possessed  
With motion; and which motion doth proclaim  
An active soul, though in a feeble breast:  
But how, and when infused, ask not my Pen;  
Here flies a Cloud before the eyes of men:  
I cannot tell thee, how; nor canst thou tell me, when,   

3  
Was it a parcel of celestial fire,  
Infused, by Heaven, into this fleshly mould?  
Or was it (think you) made a soul entire?  
Then; was it new created? Or of old?  
Or is't a propagated Spark, raked out  
From Nature's embers? While we go about,  
By reason, to resolve, the more we raise a doubt.   

4  
If it be part of that celestial Flame,  
It must be even as pure, as free from spot  
As that eternal fountain whence it came:  
If pure, and spotless; then, whence came the blot?  
Itself, being pure could not itself defile;  
Nor hath unactive Matter power to soil  
Her pure and active Form, as jars corrupt their Oil.   

5  
Or, if it were created, tell me, when?  
If in the first six days, where kept till now?  
Or, if the soul were new created, than  
Heaven did not all, at first, he had to do:  
Six days expired, all Creation ceased,  
All kinds, even from the greatest to the least  
Were finished, and complete, before the day of Rest.   

6  
But why should Man, the Lord of Creatures, want  
That privilege which Plants and Beasts obtain?  
Beasts bring forth Beasts, the Plant a perfect Plant;  
And every like brings forth her like again:  
Shall fowls, and fishes, beasts and plants convey  
Life to their issue? And Man less than they?  
Shall these get living souls? And Man, dead lumps of clay?   

7  
Must humane souls be generated then?  
My water ebbs; behold, a Rock is nigh:  
If Nature's work produce the souls of men,  
Man's soul is mortal: All that's borne must die.  
What shall we then conclude? What sunshine will  
Disperse this gloomy cloud? Till then, be still,  
My vainly striving thoughts; Lie down, my puzzled quill.   

ISODOR.  
Why dost thou wonder, o man, at the height of the Stars? or the depth of the Sea? Enter into thine own soul, and wonder there.  
The soul by creating is infused; by infusion, created.   

EPIG. 2.  
What art thou now the better by this flame?  
Thou know'st not how, nor when, nor whence it came:  
Poor kind of happiness, that can return  
No more account but this, to say, I burn!    

 hieroglyph 
Quo me cunque rapit. Will: Martial. ●●●sit.    

The wind passeth over it and it is gone. PSAL. 103.16.  

NO sooner is this lighted Taper set  
Upon the transitory Stage  
Of eye-bedarkning night,  
But it is strait subjected to the threat  
Of envious winds, whose waist full rage  
Disturbs her peace full light,  
And makes her substance waste, and makes her flame less bright.   

2  
No sooner are we borne, no sooner come  
To take possession of this vast,  
This soule-afflicting earth;  
But Danger meets us at the very womb,  
And Sorrow with her full mouthed blast,  
Salutes our painful birth,  
To put out all our joys, and puff out all our mirth.   

3  
Nor Infant Innocence, nor childish tears,  
Nor youthful wit, not manly power,  
Nor politic old age,  
Nor virgins pleading, nor the widow's prayers,  
Nor lowly Cell, nor lofty Tower,  
Nor Prince, nor Peer, nor Page  
Can scape this common blast, or curb her stormy rage.   

4  
Our life is but a pilgrimage of blasts;  
And every blast brings forth a fear;  
And every fear, a death;  
The more it lengthens, ah, the more it wastes:  
Were, were we to continue here  
The days of long lifed Seth,  
Our sorrows would renew, as we renew our breath:   

5.  
Tossed too and fro, our frighted thoughts are driven  
With every puff, with every Tide.  
Of self-consuming Care;  
Our peaceful flame, that would point up to heaven,  
Is still disturbed, and turned aside;  
And every blast of Air  
Commits such waist in man, as man can not repair.   

6  
weare all borne Debtors, and we firmly stand  
Obliged for our first Parent's Det,  
Besides our Interest;  
Alas we have no harmless Counterband,  
And we are, every hou'r, beset  
With threatenings of Arrest,  
And till we pay the Det, we can expect no Rest.   

7  
What may this sorrow-shaken life present  
To the false relish of our Taste,  
That's worth the name of sweet?  
Her minutes pleasures choked with discontent,  
Her glory foiled with every blast;  
How many dangers meet  
Poor man, betwixt the Biggin and the Winding sheet!   

S. AUGUST.  
In this world, not to be grieved, not to be afflicted, not to be in danger, is impossible.   

Ibid.  
Behold; the world is full of troubles; yet, beloved; What if it were a pleasing world? How wouldst thou delight in her Calms, that canst so well endure her storms?   

EPIG. 3▪  
Art thou consumed with soule-afflicting crosses?  
Disturbed with grief? annoyed with worldly losses  
Hold up thy head; the Taper lifted high  
Will brook the wind, when lower Tapors dye.    

 hieroglyph 
Curando Labascit.    

The whole need not the Physician. MAT. 9.12.  

Always pruning? always cropping?  
Is her brightness still obscured?  
Ever dressing? ever topping?  
Always cureing? never cured?  
Too much snuffing makes a waste;  
When the spirits spend too fast,  
They will shrink at every blast.   

2  
You that always are bestowing  
Costly pains in life repairing,  
Are but always overthrowing,  
Nature's work, by overcaring:  
Nature meeting with her Foe,  
In a work she hath to do,  
Takes a pride to overthrow.   

3  
Nature knows her own perfection,  
And her pride disdains a Tutor,  
Can not stoop to Arts correction,  
And she scorns a Coadjutor;  
Saucy Art should not appear  
Till she Whisper in her ear:  
Hagar flees, if Sara bear.   

3  
Nature worketh for the better,  
If not hindered, that she cannot;  
Art stand by as her A bettor,  
Ending nothing she began not;  
If distemper chance to seize,  
(Nature foiled with the disease)  
Art may help her if she please.   

5  
But to make a Trade of trying  
Drugs, and Dofies, always pruning,  
Is to dye, for fear of dying;  
he's untuned, that's always tuneing.  
He that often loves to lack  
Dear bought Drugs, has found a Knack  
To foil the man, and feed the Quack.   

6  
O the sad, the frail Condition  
Of the pride of Nature's glory!  
How infirm his Composition!  
And, at best, how Transitory!  
When his Riot doth impair  
Nature's weakness, than his care  
Adds more ruin, by repair.   

7  
Hold thy hand, healths Dear maintainer,  
Life perchance may burn the stronger:  
Having substance to sustain her,  
She, untouched, may last the longer:  
When the Artist goes about  
To redress her flame, I doubt,  
Oftentimes he snuffs it out.   

NICOCLES.  
Physicians of all men are most happy; what good success soever they have, the world proclaims, and what faults they commit, the earth covers.   

EPIG. 4.  
My purse being heavy, if my Light appear  
But Dim, Quack comes to make all clear;  
Quack, leave thy trade; Thy Deal are not right,  
Thou tak'st our weighty gold, to give us light.    

 hieroglyph 
Te auxiliante resurgo. Will Marshal, sculpsit    

And he will give his Angels charge over thee. PSAL. 91.  

1  
O How mine eyes could please themselves, and spend  
Perpetual Ages in this precious sight!  
How I could woe Eternity, to lend  
My wasting day an Antidote for night!  
And how my flesh could with my flesh contend,  
That views this object with no more delight!  
My work is great, my Taper spends too fast:  
'Tis all I have, and soon would out, or waste,  
Did not this blessed Screen protect it from this blast.   

2  
O, I have lost the jewel of my soul,  
And I must find it out, or I must dye:  
Alas! my sin-made darkness doth control  
The bright endeavour of my careful eye:  
I must go search, and ransack every hole;  
Nor have I other light to seek it by:  
O if this light be spent, my work not done,  
My labour's worse than lost; my jewel's gone,  
And I am quite forlorn, and I am quite undone.   

3  
You blessed Angels, you that do enjoy  
The full fruition of eternal Glory,  
Will you be pleased to fancy such a Toy  
As man, and quit your glorious Territory,  
And stoop to earth, vouchsafing to employ  
Your care to guard the dust that lies before ye?  
Disdain you not these lumps of dying Clay,  
That, for your pains, do oftentimes repay  
Neglect, if not disdain, and send you grieved away?   

4  
This Taper of our lives, that once was placed  
In the fair Suburbs of Eternity,  
Is now, alas, confined to every blast,  
And turned a Maypole for the sporting Fly;  
And will you, sacred Spirits, please to cast  
Your care on us, and lend a gracious eye?  
How had this slender Inch of Taper been  
Blasted, and blazed, had not this heavenly Screen  
Curbed the proud blast, and timely stepped between!   

5.  
O Goddess, fare transcending the report  
Of lavish tongues! too vast to comprehend I  
Amazed Quill, how fare dost thou come short  
T'express expressions, that so fare transcend!  
You blessed Courtiers of th'eternal Court,  
Whose full-mouthed Hallelujahs have no end,  
Receive that world of praises that belongs  
To your great sovereign; fill your holy tongues  
With our Hosannas mixed with your Seraphic Songs.   

S. BERN.  
If thou desirest the help of Angels, flee the comforts of the world, and resist the Temptations of the Devil.  
He will give his Angels charge over thee? O what reverence, what love, what confidence deserves so sweet a saying? For their presence, reverence; for their good will, love; for their tuition, confidence.   

EPIG. 5.  
My flame, art thou disturbed, diseased, and driven  
To Death with storms of grief? Point thou to heaven:  
One Angel, there, shall ease thee more, alone,  
Then thrice as many thousands of thy own.    

 hieroglyph 
Tempus erit.  
Will Martial. sculpsit.    

To every thing there is an appointed time. ECCLES. 3.1.  
Time. Death. 
Time BEhold the frailty of this slender snuff;  
Alas it hath not long to last:  
Without the help of either Thief, or puff,  
Her weakness knows the way to waste:  
Nature hath made her Substance apt enough  
To spend itself, and spend too fast:  
It needs the help of none,  
That is so prone  
To lavish out, untouched; and languish all alone.   

2  
Death. Time, hold thy peace, and shake thy flow paced Sand;  
Thy idle Minutes make no way:  
Thy glass exceeds her how'r, or else does stand,  
I can not hold; I can not stay;  
Surcease thy pleading, and enlarge my hand,  
I surfeit with too long delay:  
This brisk, this boldfaced Light  
Does burn too bright;  
Darkness adorns my throne; my day is darkest night.   

3  
Time. Great Prince of darkness, hold thy needless hand;  
Thy Captiv's fast, and can not flee:  
What arm can rescue? Who can countermand,  
What power can set thy Prisoner free?  
Or if they could, what close, what foreign land  
Can hide that head, that flees from Thee?  
But if her harmless light  
Offend thy sight,  
What needst thou snatch at noon, what will be thine at night?   

Death. I have outstaid my patience; My quick Trade  
Grows dull and makes too flow return:  
This long lived det is due, and should been paid  
When first her flame began to burn:  
But I have stayed too long, I have delayed  
To store my vast, my craving Urn.  
My Patent gives me power,  
Each day, each how'r,  
To strike the Peasant's thatch, and shake the Princely Tower.   

5  
Time. Thou countest too fast: Thy Patent gives no Power  
Till Time shall please to say, Amen.  
Death. Canst thou appoint my shaft?  
Time. Or thou my How'r?  
Death. 'tis I bid, do:  
Time 'tis I bid, When.  
Alas, thou canst not make the poorest Flowed  
To hang the drooping head, tell then:  
Thy shafts can neither Kill,  
Nor strike, until  
My power give them wings, and pleasure arm thy will.   

S. AUGUST.  
Thou knowest not what Time he will come: Wait always, that because thou knowest not the time of his coming, thou mayest be prepared against the time he comes. And for this, perchance, thou knowest not the Time, because thou mayest be prepared against all times.   

EPIG. 6.  
Expect, but fear not Death: Death cannot Kill,  
Till Time, (that first must seal her Patent) will:  
Wouldst thou live long? Keep Time in high esteem;  
Whom, gone, if thou canst not recall, redeem,    

 hieroglyph 
Nec sine, nec Tecum  
Will Martial sculpsit    

His light shall be dark, and his candle shall be put out. JOB 18.6.  

What ails our Taper? Is her lustre fled,  
Or foiled? What dire disaster bred  
This Change? that thus she veils her golden head?   

2  
It was but very now, she shined as fair  
As Venus' star: Her glory might compare  
With Cynthia, burnished with her brother's hair.   

3  
There was no Cave-begotten damp that might  
Abuse her beams; no wind, that went about  
To break her peace; no Puff, to put her out.   

4  
Lift up thy wondering thoughts, and thou shalt spy  
A Cause, will clear thy doubts, but cloud thine eye:  
Subjects must veil, when as their sovereign's by.   

5  
Canst thou behold bright Phoebus, and thy sight  
No whit impaired? The object is too bright;  
The weaker yields unto the stronger Light.   

6  
Great God, I am thy Taper; Thou my Sun;  
From thee the Spring of Light, my Light begun,  
Yet if thy Light but shine, my light is done.   

7  
If thou withdraw thy Light, my light will shine,  
If thine appear, how poor a light is mine!  
My light is darkness, if compared to thine.   

8  
Thy Sun beams are too strong for my weak eye;  
If thou but shine, how nothing, Lord, am I!  
Ah, who can see thy visage, and not die!   

9  
If intervening earth should make a night,  
My wanton flame would then shine forth too bright;  
My earth would even presume t'eclipse thy Light.   

10  
And if thy Light be shadowed, and mine fade,  
If thine be dark, and my dark light decayed,  
I should be clothed with a double shade.   

11  
What shall I do? O what shall I desire?  
What help can my distracted thoughts require,  
That thus am wasting 'twixt a double Fire?   

12  
In what a straight, in what a straight am I?  
Twixt two extremes how my racked fortunes lie?  
See I thy face, or see it not, I die.   

13  
O let the steam of my Redeemers blood,  
That breathes fro'my sick soul, be made a Cloud,  
T'inter pose these Lights, and be my shroud.   

14  
Lord, what am I? or what's the light I have?  
May it but light my Ashes to their Grave,  
And so from thence, to Thee? 'tis all I crave.   

15  
O make my Light, that all the world may see  
Thy Glory by't: If not, It seems to me  
Honour enough, to be put out by Thee.   

O Light inaccessible, in respect of which my light is utter darkness; so reflect upon my weakness, that all the world may behold thy strength. O Majesty incomprehensible, in respect of which my glory is mere shame: so shine upon my misery that all the world may behold thy glory.   

EPIG. 7.  
Wilt thou complain, because thou art bereaven  
Of all thy light? Wilt thou vie Lights with Heaven?  
Can thy bright eye not brook the daily light?  
Take heed: I fear, thou art a Child of night.    

 hieroglyph 
Nec Virtus obscurapetit.  
Will: Martial sculpsit    

Let your light so shine, that men seeing your good works may glorify your Father which is in Heaven. MAT. 5.16.  

WAs it for this, the breath of Heaven was blown  
Into the nostrils of this Heavenly Creature?  
Was it for this, that sacred Three in One  
Conspired to make this Quintessence of Nature?  
Did heavenly Providence intent  
So rare a Fabric for so poor an end?   

2  
Was Man, the highest Masterpiece of Nature,  
The curious Abstract of the whole Creation,  
Whose soul was copied from his great Creator,  
Made to give Light, and set for Observation,  
Ordained for this? To spend his Light  
In a darke-Lanthorne? Cloistered up in night?   

3  
Tell me, recluse Monastic, can it be  
A disadvandtage to thy beams to shine?  
A thousand Tapours may gain light from Thee.  
Is thy Light less, or worse for lighting mine?  
If, wanting Light, I stumble, shall  
Thy darkness not be guilty of my fall?   

4  
Why dost thou lurk so close? Is it for fear  
Some busy eye should pry into thy flame,  
And spy a Thief or else some blemish there?  
Or being spied, shrinkest thou thy head for shame?  
Come, come, fond Taper shine but clear,  
Thou needst not shrink for shame, nor shroud for fear.   

5  
Remember, O remember, thou wert set,  
For men to see the Great Creator by;  
Thy flame is not thy own: It is a Det  
Thou ow'st thy Maker; And wilt thou deny  
To pay the Interest of thy Light?  
And skulk in Corners, and play least in sight?   

6  
Art thou afraid to trust thy easy flame  
To the injurious waist of Fortune's puff?  
Ah, Coward, rouse; and quit thyself, for shame;  
Who dies in service, hath lived long enough:  
Who shines, and makes no eye partaker,  
Usurps himself, and closely robs his Maker.   

7  
Take not thyself a Prisoner, that art free:  
Why dost thou turn thy Palace to a jail?  
Thou art an Eagle; And befits it thee  
To live immured, like a cloistered Snail?  
Let Toys seek Corners: Things of cost  
Gaine worth by view: Hid jewels are but lost.   

8  
My God, my light is dark enough at lightest,  
Increase her flame, and give her strength to shine:  
'tis frail at best▪ 'tis dim enough at brightest,  
But 'tis her glory to be foiled by Thine.  
Let others lurk; My light shall be  
Proposed to all men; and by them, to Thee.   

S. BERN.  
If thou be one of the foolish Virgins, the Congregation is necessary for thee; If thou be one of the wise Virgins, thou art necessary for the Congregation.   

HUGO.  
monastics make Cloisters to enclose the outward man, O would to God they would do the like to restrain the inward Man.   

EPIG. 8  
Afraid of eyes? What, still play least in sight?  
'tis much to be presumed all is not right:  
Too close endeavours, bring forth dark events:  
Come forth, Monastic; Here's no Parliaments.    

 hieroglyph 
Vt Luna Infantia torpet.  
Will. Martial. sculpsit.    

He cometh forth like a Flower and is cut down. JOB 14.2.  

1  
Behold  
How short a span  
Was long enough, of old,  
To measure out the life of Man!  
In those well tempered days his time was then  
Surveyed, cast up, and found but threescore years and ten.   

2  
Alas  
And what is that?  
They come & slide and pass  
Before my Pen can tell thee, what.  
The Posts of Time are swift, which having run  
Their seven short stages o'er, their short lived task is done.   

3  
Our days  
Begun, we lend  
To sleep, to antic plays  
And Toys, until the first stage end:  
12. waning Moons, twice 5. times told, we give  
To unrecovered loss: We rather breathe, then live.   

4  
We spend  
A ten years' breath,  
Before we apprehend  
What is to live, or fear a death:  
Our childish dreams are filled with painted joys,  
which please our sense a while, & waking, prove but Toys.   

5  
How vain.  
How wretched is  
Poor man, that doth remain  
A slave to such a State as this!  
His days are short, at longest; few, at most;  
They are but bad, at best; yet lavished out, or lost.   

6  
They be  
The secret Springs,  
That make our minutes flee  
On wheels more swift than Eagles wings:  
Our life's a Clock, and every gasp of breath  
Breathes forth a warning grief, till Time shall strike a death.   

7  
How soon  
Our newborn Light  
Attains to full-aged noon!  
And this, how soon to gray-hayred night!  
We spring, we bud, we blossom, and we blast  
ere we can count our days; Our days they flee so fast.   

8  
They end  
When scarce begun;  
And ere we apprehend  
That we begin to live, our life is done:  
Man, Count thy days; And if they flee too fast  
For thy dull thoughts to count, count every day thy last.   

Our Infancy is consumed in eating and sleeping; in all which time what differ we from beasts, but by a possibility of reason, and a necessity of sin?  
O misery of man kind, in whom no sooner the Image of God appears in the act of his Reason, but the Devil blurs it in the corruption of his will!   

EIPG. 9 To the decrepit man.  
Thus was the first seaventh part of thy few days  
Consumed in sleep, in food, in Toyish plays:  
Know'st thou what tears thine eyes imparted then?  
Review thy loss, and weep them o'er again.    

 hieroglyph 
Preles tua, Maia, juventus  
Will. Marshal sculpt▪    

His bones are full of the sins of his youth. JOB 20.11.  

1  
THe swift-foot Post of Time hath now begun  
His second Stage;  
The dawning of our Age  
Is lost and spent without a Sun:  
The light of Reason did not yet appear  
Within th'Horizon of this Hemisphere.   

2  
The infant Will had yet none other guide,  
But twilight Sense;  
And what is gained from thence  
But doubtful Steps, that tread aside?  
Reason now draws her Curtains; Her closed  
Begin to open, and she calls to rise.   

3  
Youths now disclosing Bud peeps out, and shower  
Her April head;  
And, from her grass green bed,  
Her virgin Primrose early blows;  
Whilst waking Philomela prepares to sing  
Her warbling Sonnets to the wanton Spring.   

4  
His Stage is pleasant, and the way seems short.  
All strowed with flowers;  
The days appear but hours,  
Being spent in time-beguiling sport.  
Here griefs do neither press, nor doubts perplex;  
Here's neither fear, to curb; nor care, to vex.   

5  
His downy Cheek grows proud, and now disdains  
The Tutor's hand;  
He glories to command  
The proud necked Steed with prouder Reynes:  
The strong breathed Horn must now salute his ear,  
With the glad downfall of the falling Deer.   

6  
His quicknosed Army, with their deepmouthed sounds,  
Must now prepare  
To chase the timorous Hare  
About his, yet unmorgaged, Grounds;  
The evil he hates, is Counsel, and delay,  
And fears no mischief, but a rainy day.   

7  
The thought he takes, is how to take no thought  
For bale, nor bliss;  
And late Repentance is  
The last dear Pen'worth that he bought:  
He is a dainty Morning, and he may,  
If lust'ore cast him not, b'as fair a Day.   

8  
Proud Blossom, use thy Time; Times head strong Horse  
Will post away:  
Trust not the following day,  
For every day brings forth a worse:  
Take time at best: believe't, thy days will fall  
From good, to bad; From bad, to worst of all.   

S. AMBR.  
Humility is a rare thing in a young man, therefore to be admired: When youth is vigorous, when strength is firm, when blood is hot, when Cares are strangers, when mirth is free, than Pride swells, and humility is despised.   

EPIG. 10. To the old Man.  
Thy years are newly grey: His, newly Green;  
His youth may live to see what thine hath seen:  
He is thy Parallel: His present Stage  
And thine, are the two Tropics of Man's Age.    

 hieroglyph 
jam ruit in Venerem  
Will: Martial sculpsit.    

Rejoice O young man, and let thy heart cheer Thee, but know, etc. ECCLES. 11.9.  

HOw flux! how alterable is the date  
Of transitory things!  
How hurried on the clipping wings  
Of Time, and driven upon the wheels of Fate!  
How one Condition brings  
The leading Prologue to another State!  
No transitory things can last:  
Change waits on Time; and Time is winged with haste;  
Time presents but the Ruins of Time past.   

2  
Behold how Change hath incht away thy Span,  
And how thy light does burn  
Nearer and nearer to thy Urn:  
For this dear waist what satisfaction can  
Injurious time return  
Thy shortened days, but this; the style of Man?  
And what's a Man? A cask of Care,  
New turned and working; he's a middle Staire  
Twixt birth and death; A blast of full aged Air.   

3  
His breast is Tinder, apt to entertain  
The sparks of Cupid's fire,  
Whose new-blowne flames must now inquire  
A wanton Juilippe out, which may restrain  
The Rage of his desire,  
Whose painful pleasure is but pleasing pain.  
His life's a sickness, that doth rise  
From a hot Liver, whilst his passion lies  
Expecting Cordials from his Mistress eyes.   

His Stage is strewed with Thorns, and decked with Flowers;  
His year sometimes appears  
A Minit; and his Minutes, years;  
His doubtful Weather's sunshine, mixed with showers;  
His traffic, Hopes and Fears:  
His life's a Medley made of sweets and sowers;  
His pains reward is Smiles, and Pouts;  
His diet is fair language mixed with Flouts;  
He is a Nothing, all composed of Doubts.   

5  
Do; wast thy Inch, proud Span of living earth;  
Consume thy golden days  
In slavish freedom; Let thy ways  
Take best advantage of thy frolic mirth;  
Thy Stock of Time decays;  
And lavish plenty still foreruns a Dearth:  
The bird that's flown may turn at last;  
And painful labour may repair a waist;  
But pains nor price can call thy minutes past.   

SEN.  
Expect great joy when thou shalt lay down the mind of a Child, and deserve the style of a wise man; for at those year's childhood is past, but oftentimes childishness remains, and what is worse, thou hast the Authority of a Man, but the vices of a Child.   

EPIG. 11. To the declining Man.  
Why stand'st thou discontented? Is not he  
As equal distant from the Top as thee?  
What then may cause thy discontented frown?  
he's mounting up the Hill; Thou plodding down.    

 hieroglyph 
Vt Sol ardore Virilj  
Will: Martial sculpsit    

As thy days, so shall thy strength be. DEUT. 33.25.  

The Post  
Of swift foot Time  
Hath now, at length, begun  
The Kalends of our middle Stage:  
The numbered Steps that we have gone, do show  
The number of those Steps we are to go:  
The Buds and blossoms of our Age  
Are blown, decayed, and gone,  
And all our prime  
Is lost;  
And what we boast too much, we have least cause to boast.   

Ah me!  
There is no Rest,  
Our Time is always fleeing:  
What Rein can curb our headstrong hours!  
They post away: They pass we know not how:  
Our Now is gone, before we can say, Now:  
Time past and futur's none of ours;  
That, hath as yet no Being;  
And This hath ceased  
To be:  
What is, is only ours: How short a Time have We▪   

And now  
Apollo's ear  
Expects harmonious strains,  
New minted from the Thracian Lyre;  
For now the Virtue of the twiforkt Hill  
Inspires the ravished fancy, and doth fill  
The veins with Pegasean fire:  
And now, those sterile brains  
That cannot show,  
Nor bear  
Some fruits, shall never wear Apollo's sacred Bow.   

Excess  
And surfeit uses  
To wait upon these days:  
Full feed, and flowing cups of wine  
Conjure the fancy, forcing up a Spirit,  
By the base Magic of debauched delight;  
Ah pity twiseborne Bacchus' Vine  
should starve Apollo's Bays,  
And drown those Muses  
That bless  
And calm the peaceful soul, when storms of cares oppress.   

Strong light,  
Boast not those beams  
That can but only rise,  
And blaze a while, and then away:  
There is no Solstice in thy day;  
Thy midnight glory lies  
Betwixt th' extremes  
Of night,  
A Glory foiled with shame, and fooled with false delight.   

Hast thou climbed up to the full age of thy few days? Look backwards, and thou shalt see the frailty of thy youth; the folly of thy Childhood, and the waste of thy Infancy: Look forwards; thou shalt see, the cares of the world, the troubles of thy mind, the diseases of thy body.   

EPIG. 12. To the middle aged.  
Thou that art prancing on the lusty Noon  
Of thy full Age, boast not thyself too soon:  
Convert that breath to wail thy fickle state;  
Take heed; thou'lt brag too soon, or boast too late.    

 hieroglyph 
Et Martem spirat et arma  
Will Martial. sculpsit.    

He must increase, but I must decrease. JOH. 3.30.  
TIme voids the Table: Dinner's done;  
And now our days declining Sun  
Hath hurried his diurnal Load  
To th'Borders of the Western road;  
Fierce Phlegon, with his fellow Steeds,  
Now puffs and pants, and blows and bleeds,  
And froths, and fumes, remembering still  
Their lashes up th'olympic Hill;  
Which having conquered, now disdain  
The whip, and champs the frothy rein,  
And, with a full Career, they bend  
Their paces to their journeys end:  
Our blazing Taper now hath lost  
Her better half: Nature hath crossed  
Her forenoon book, and cleared that score,  
But scarce gives trust for so much more:  
And now the generous Sappe forsakes  
Her seir-grown twig: A breath even shakes  
The down-ripe fruit; fruit soon divorced  
From her dear Branch, untouchd, unforced.  
Now sanguine Venus doth begin  
To draw her wanton colours in;  
And flees neglected in disgrace,  
Whilst Mars supplies her luke warm place:  
Blood turns to Choler: What this Age  
Loses in strength it fines in Rage:  
That rich enamel, which of old,  
Damaskt the downy Cheek, and told  
A harmless guilt, unasked, is now  
Worn off from the audacious brow;  
Luxurious Dalliance, midnight Revels,  
Lose Riot, and those venial evils  
Which inconsiderate youth of late  
Can plead, now wants an Advocate,  
And what appeared in former times  
Whispering as faults, now roar as crimes:  
And now all ye, whose lips were wont  
To drench their Coral in the Font  
Of forked Parnassus; you that be  
The Sons of Phoebus, and can flee  
On wings of Fancy, to display  
The Flag of high Invention, stay:  
Repose your Quills; Your veins grow sour,  
Tempt not your Salt beyond her power:  
If your palled Fancies but decline,  
Censure will strike at every line  
And wound your names; The popular ear  
Weighs what you are, not what you were.  
Thus hackney like, we tyre our Age,  
Spurgalled with Change, from Stage to Stage.  

Seest thou the daily light of the greater world? When attained to the highest pitch of Meridian glory, it stayeth not, but by the same degrees, it ascended, it descends. And is the light of the lesser world more premanent? Continuance is the Child of Eternity, not of Time.   

EPIG. 13: To the young Man.  
Young man, rejoice; And let thy rising days  
Cheer thy glad heart; Thinkest thou these uphill ways  
Lead to death's dungeon? No: but know withal,  
Arising is but Prologue to a Fall.    

 hieroglyph 
Invidiosa Senectus.  
Will▪ Martial. sculpsit.    

Yet a little while is the light with you. JOH. 12.35.  

1  
THe day grows old; The low pitched Lamp hath made  
No less than triple shade:  
And the descending damp does now prepare  
T'uncurle bright Titan's hair;  
Whose Western Wardrobe, now gins t'unfold  
Her purples, fringed with gold,  
To clothe his evening glory; when th'alarms  
Of Rest shall call to rest in restless Thetis arms▪   

2  
Nature now calls to Supper, to refresh  
The spirits of all flesh;  
The toiling ploughman drives his Thirsty Teams,  
To taste the slippery Streams:  
The droyling Swineherd knocks away, and feasts  
His hungry-whining guests:  
The boxbill Ouzel, and the dappled Thrush  
Like hungry Rivals meet, at their beloved bush.   

3  
And now the cold Autumnal dews are seen  
To copwebbe every Green;  
And by the low-shorne Rowins doth appear  
The fast-declining year.  
The Sapless Branches d'off their summer Suits  
And wain their winter fruits:  
And stormy blasts hare forced the quaking Trees  
To wrap their trembling limbs in Suits of mossy Frieze.   

4  
Our wasted Taper now hath brought her light  
To the next door to night;  
Her sprightless flame, grown great with snuff, does turn  
Sad as her neigbr'ring Urn:  
Her slender Inch, that yet unspent remains,  
Lights but to further pains,  
And in a silent language bids her guest  
Prepare his weary limbs to take eternal Rest.   

5  
Now carkfull Age hath pitched her painful plough  
Upon the surrowed brow;  
And snowy blasts of discontented Care  
Hath blanched the falling hair:  
Suspicious envy mixed with jealous Spite  
Disturb's his weary night:  
He threatens youth with age: And, now, alas,  
He owns not what he is, but vaunts the Man he was.   

6  
Grey hairs, peruse thy days; And let thy past  
Read lectures to thy last:  
Those hasty wings that hurried them away  
Will give these days no Day:  
The constant wheels of Nature scorn to tire  
Until her works expire:  
That blast that nipped thy youth, will ruin Thee;  
That hand that shaken the branch will quickly strike the Tree.   

S. CHRYS.  
Grey hairs are honourable, when the behaviour suits with grey hairs: But when an ancient man hath childish manners, he becomes more ridiculous than a child.   

SEN.  
Thou art in vain attained to old years, that repeatest thy youthfulness.   

EPIG. 14. To the Youth.  
Seest thou this good old man? He represents  
Thy Future; Thou, his Preterperfect Tense;  
Thou go'st to labour, He prepares to Rest:  
Thou break'st thy Fast; He sups: Now which is best▪    

 hieroglyph 
Plumbeus in terram  
Will Martial sculpsit    

The days of our years are threescore years and ten PSAL. 90.10.  

1  
SO have I seen th'illustrious Prince of Light  
Rising in glory from his Crocean bed,  
And trampling down the horrid shades of night,  
Advancing more and more his conquering head,  
Pause first; decline; at length, begin to shroud  
His fainting brows within a coal black cloud.   

2  
So have I seen a well built Castle stand  
Upon the Tiptoes of a lofty Hill,  
Whose active power commands both Sea and Land,  
And curbs the pride of the Beleag'rers will;  
At length her aged Foundation fails her trust,  
And lays her tottering ruins in the Dust.   

3  
So have I seen the blazing Taper shoot  
Her golden head into the feeble Air;  
Whose shadow-gilding Ray, spread round about,  
Makes the foul face of black browed darkness fair;  
Till at the length her wasting glory fades,  
And leaves the night to her inveterate shades.   

4  
Even so this little world of living Cloy,  
The pride of Nature, glorified by Art,  
Whom earth adores, and all her hosts obey,  
Allied to Heaven by his Diviner part,  
Triumphs a while, then droops, and then decays,  
And worn by Age, death cancels all his days.   

5  
That glorious Sun, that whilom shone so bright,  
Is now even ravished from our darkened eyes;  
That sturdy Castle, maned with so much might,  
Lies now a Monument of her own disguise:  
That blazing Taper, that disdained the puff  
Of troubled Air, scarce owns the name of Snuffe.   

6  
Poor bedrid Man! where is that glory now,  
Thy Youth so vaunted? Where that Majesty  
Which sat enthroned upon thy manly brow?  
Where, where that braving Arm? that daring eye?  
Those buxom tunes? Those Bacchanalian Tones?  
Those swelling veins? those marrow-flaming bones?   

7  
Thy drooping Glory's blurrd, and prostrate lies  
groveling in dust; And frightful Horror, now,  
Sharpens the glances of thy gashfull eyes,  
Whilst fear perplexes thy distracted brow:  
Thy panting breast vents all her breath by groans,  
And Death enerus thy marrow-wasted bones.   

8  
Thus Man, that's borne of woman can remain  
But a short tine; His days are full of sorrow;  
His life's a penance, and his death's a pain,  
Springs like a flower to day, and fades to morrow?  
His breath's a bubble, and his days a Span:  
'tis glorious misery to be borne a Man.   

CYPR.  
When eyes are dim, ears deaf, visage pale, teeth decayed, skin withered; breath tainted, pipes furred, knees trembling, hands fumbling; feet failing, the sudden downfall of thy fleshy house is near at hand.   

S. AUGUST.  
All vices wax old by Age: Covetousness done, grows young   

EPIG. 15. To the Infant.  
What he doth spending in groans, thou spendst in tears?  
judgement and strength's alike in both your years;  
he's helpesse; so art thou; What difference then?  
he's an old Infant; Thou, a young old Man.    
THE END.