A FIG FOR Fortune. Recta Securus. A. C.  
LONDON Printed by Richard johnes for C. A. 1596.   

To the Right Honourable Anthony Browne, L. Vic●mpt Mont-ague, everlasting glory to his virtues.  

Fly vale-bred Muse to heaven-high Mont-ague  
Honouring thy plainness with so acquaint aspire:  
It is a baggard Hawk that never knew  
The Fawlkoners fist; It is a drowsic fire  
That yields nor flame nor fume; It is an idle voice  
That ●ere was hard to tune nor sound, nor note nor noise.  
Great Mont-ague; thrice great in virtues glory  
And therefore duly great in my affections,  
Whom not a Pickthank spirit of flattery  
But well advised zeal to your perfections  
Moves to enstyle you so: Though likewise so you be  
In the sublimity of your blood and Vicomptie.  
Deign in your grace the spirit of a man  
Disastered for virtue; if at least it be  
Disaster to be winnowed out Fortune's Fan  
Into the Fan of Grace and Sionrie  
Wherein repurifyed to God's eternal glory  
The Devil rues in man old Adam's injury.  
Though mean and meritlesse the Muse may seem  
To your advice; as not from Helicon,  
Yet well I hope the matter will redeem  
That frail default, as spirited from Zion:  
If Zions holy name be gracious to your ear  
Hold it in gree; else for the zeal to you I bear,  
At least your happy Names fair livery let it wear.   
Your Lordsh. humbly at commandment. Anthony Copley.   

The Argument to the Reader.  
AN Elysian outcast of Fortune, ranging on his jade Melancholy through the Desert of his affliction, in hope to find out some where either ease or end of the same, happeneth first upon Cato's ghost a spirit of despair & self-misdoom which persuades him to kill himself: But, for she ended her Oratory with a Sulphur vanish from out his sight, he misdoubted both her and her tale. Then posting onward through the residue of the night; he next chanceth on the spirit of Revenge: She persuades him blood and treachery against all his enemies, as th'only means to remount to pristin bless in despite of Fortune: But she likewise manifesting in the end the treason of her tale by a sudden whip-away from his eye at the sight of break of day in the East, left him also conceited of her danger. Thirdly, rapt from off his Melancholy (which now began to faint under him at the light of a new day of Grace) he was suddenly mounted upon the Steed of Good Desire, and by him brought to Mount- Zion the Temple of Peace; where by Catechtysius an Hermit (who greatly wondered to see a distressed Elysian in those parts under so happy days of Eliza) he was by him in the house of Devotion catechised, and there also celestially armed by an Angel, and within a while after indenized by the high Sacrificator a Champion of that Temple against the insults of Fortune; whom I have titled by the name of Doblessa in respect of the double danger both of her luring and lowering inconstancy: She, whiles the Sionttes were all in peaceful adoration of Almighty God in the Temple, came with her Babellonian-rout to assault the place, but was eftsoons by the valour of those Templars shamefully repulsed: Feast and thanks was made to God therefore throughout all the Region; in which solemnity the Grace of God hovering over the multitude in the Procession time like a virgin attended upon with all the Court of heaven, showered down Roses amongst them, leaving them there a scambling for the same. The Elysian was one that scambled his lapful among the rest: and for he thought it was his sovereign Lady Eliza, and those Roses hers, he was suddenly in joy thereof rapt home again to Elysium.   

Faults escaped in printing.  
Pag 5. Lin 18 It shuts itself and as read Do shut themselves and are.  
P. 8 l 3. to give thyself read. to give thy flesh.  
P. 16. l. to aw●like read. aulike.  
P 64. l. 1. Peacefullie advance. read. pace-fully advance.   

A Fig for Fortune:  

VEsted in sable vale, exiled from joy,  
I ranged to seek out a propitious place,  
Where I might sit and descant of annoy  
And of fair Fortune, astered to disgrace,  
At last, even in the confines of the night  
I did discern aloof a sparkling light.   

Then set I spurs unto my Melancholy,  
A jade whereon I had ridden many a mile,  
Which less then in the twinkling of an eye,  
Brought me unto that fatal lights beguile:  
Where I might see an agonizing beast,  
Bleeding his venom blood out at his breast.   

His upper shape was fair-Angelical,  
The rest below, all wholly Serpentine,  
Cole black encroaching upon his pectoral,  
And rudely inrowlled in a Gorgon-twine,  
His eyes like Goblins stared here and there,  
In fell disdain of such disfigured gear.   

At last he spied me, and staring on my face,  
He reared his mongrel-lumpe up towards me,  
Fainting and falling in his Deaths-disgrace,  
And yet enforcing still more stabs to die,  
Then thus he vauntingly began to tell me  
Of such his fortitude in adversity.   

Welcome dear guest (quoth he) to Cato's Ghost,  
Welcome true witness of my fortitude,  
Seest thou not how this hell-blacke shape almost  
Hath quite subdued my upper-albitude?  
It is adversity upon my state,  
Which see how I revenge it desperate.   

With that, as with a new supplied flood  
The angry stream bears quite adown the river  
All obstacle with unappeased mood:  
So his enraged hand did fierce deliver  
Fresh death-stabbes to his loathed mortality  
Even at the naming of adversity.   

And then in fourfold misconsorted voice  
Of Life and Death: Rage and Disdain, he added:  
Whilom I was a man of Rome's rejoice  
Whiles happy Fortune my estate uppropped:  
But once when Caesar overtopped all,  
Then (lo) this midnight shape did me befall.   

Then 'gan I to conceit my Censure-ship,  
My Senatorie-pomp, and liberty  
All base-subjected to his Tyrant-whip:  
My mind was mighty against such misery,  
And rather would I die magnanimous  
Then live to see a Caesar over us.   

It was enough that the Thessalian fields  
Sucked up the mutual bloodshed of our men,  
That Pompey dies, and all the Empire yields  
To Caesar's dancing Fortune, and Omen:  
Cato must die as free from servitude  
As he disdaineth Caesar's altitude.   

Yet for my Country is a part of me,  
And it is all subjected to disgrace,  
Lo, that's my serpentine obscurity  
For which I spite, and spit on Caesar's face,  
And stab me with a acquaint disdain and ange●  
Because I will not live in Caesar's danger.   

Thou therefore that dost seem a doleful wight,  
View me the precedent of Cares redress,  
And if that Fortune be above thy might  
Yet death is in thy power and readiness:  
Disdain Misfortune then t'insult upon thee  
Seeing that to die is all so fair and easy.   

Death is misfortunes monarchizing foe,  
Prime Nature of Almighty fortitud,  
Eternal Sanctuary from unrest and woe,  
Fame's Ark and all our frailties Period:  
Our ly●es true tuchstone, nature's offertory,  
And bridge to sweet elizium's eternity.   

And as for base Adversity, what is it?  
But Glories grave, a coward minds ingalley,  
The carrion of our life, suppress of spirit,  
Shadow of Ioues hate: Disdains obloquy,  
Helles ongate, an Owlish conversation,  
All joys deprife, and sorrows inundation.   

Look not so down aghast at what I say,  
But with a generous erected front,  
Number these willing wounds (my bartes defray)  
To Glory sole landlady of this account:  
They are the Tithes I pay to eternal Fame:  
There is not any one of them profane.   

Be not injayld to base Adversity,  
Rather slip out thy life at glories window,  
One stab will send thee to eternity,  
And rid thee quite and clean of all thy woe.  
Then there lies lifeless all Calamity,  
Thy name and Spirit fair amountes to glory.   

It is not as vulgarity esteems  
Sincere worth to be be blest of Fortune,  
A fickle Dame that commonly misdeemes  
Those that her favours most of all importune.  
Bless thou thyself, and if that Fortune curse thee,  
Die in despite of her, and her discourt'sie.   

Oh what a base ingenerous sight it is,  
To see men crouch and pewle at her vain Altars,  
Offering their presents to her peevishness  
And therewithal, their necks unto her halter's:  
Be thou subsistant of thyself alonely,  
And if thou canst not live, yet die with glory.   

Fie on those loutish growt-head lobbernowlles  
That slander Nature with their Modicums,  
I tell thee nature's like to Marygowldes,  
Largely displayed to twenty thousand Suns,  
Which if they cease to shine in Majesty,  
It shuts itself, and is content to die.   

Thy Spirit is a particle of jove,  
It scorns indignity and mean suffice,  
Like as a flame, or oil, it mounts above,  
And take but Glory from it, and it dies:  
Yet dies it not, but to indignity,  
Mounting by Death, to Fame's eternity.   

There is no hell like to declined glory,  
Nor is Prometheus' Vulture half so fell  
As the sad memory of a happy story  
To him, that in adversity doth dwell:  
Ah, let him die that is not as he was,  
With ending bless break he the hourglass.   

What booteh it to live in base contempt  
In ever melancholie-adumbred mood?  
A fable to the vulgar babblement,  
A muddy ebb after a Crystal flood?  
Out with thy candle, let it burn no more,  
When once thou art become the world's eyesore.   

And tell not me of duty unto life;  
Nature is as indifferent to death,  
Life led in joys abandon and deprife  
Is Natures deeper grave, than earth beneath:  
It is not death, that which the world calls dying,  
But that is death, which is all joys denying.   

Nature disdains all gross encountering meat  
Fore-fed with Nectar, and Ambrosian sweets,  
And Night that is the merry days defeat  
We see how Nature gives it drowsy greets:  
Now: Sleep by night is but a silent sign  
How sweet it is to die in joys decline.   

And then as is the morrowe-dawning day  
A fresh rebless to Nature's next awake;  
So to the wretch that dies disgrace away  
Elysium is his second life's partake:  
Where he shall triumph in eternity,  
And Fame the Chanteclere of such his glory.   

Lo, I a precedent before thine eyes;  
This gore imports the glory of my Ghost,  
Who but fore-weening Caesar's tyrannies  
Foredoomed myself in care-preventing post:  
Then thou that art a very wretch indeed,  
Oh, why deferrest thou so long to bleed?   

Out with that jayle-bird of adversity,  
Disdain to live at Nature's joyless leisure:  
Bale drowned in gore and magnanimity  
Is an updive to all eternal pleasure:  
Think what a Fame-renowned thing it is  
In crimson floods to warfare base de-blisse.   

Defer no longer than thy doom of death,  
But Championlike confound Calamity,  
Prosperities Satrap fears not to unsheath  
His kil-care blade 'gainst flesh's fearful frailty:  
Flesh of itself will one day turn to dust,  
Then doom it thou thyself since so it must.   

Thou wouldst not gladly eat an Abricocke,  
Or Peache unpared, because their rind is bitter,  
And fearest thou then to give thyself the stock,  
That so unkindly bittereth all thy better?  
Oh, off with it, and yield thy sweets to jove,  
And he will counter-sweet thee with his love.   

He will embosom thee in his embrace,  
And joye-embalme thee in his Heaven-delights,  
Thy scars and gashes he will fair deface,  
And sanctify thee with alhallowed rites:  
Thou shalt be as a Meteor overshining  
All mortal glory in her dust declining.   

There will we meet thee in Vermilion vest,  
I, Otho, Hannibal, and all the rest,  
Fame's choicest Martyrs, who in Fates detest,  
Doomed all ourselves to everlasting rest▪  
There will we magnify thy happy wounds,  
And high applaud them with Crownets & Crowns.   

With that I drew out my emboldened blade,  
Resolved to massacre my loathed life:  
When (lo) the Ghost from out my sight did vade,  
As though to tell his jove of my arife:  
But such a Sulphur stench he left behind him  
That I in dread thereof shook every limb.   

And therewithal my sword fell to the ground  
And I misdoubted some illusion:  
Such was the safety that then I found  
In drowsy dread, and death's confusion;  
Profanely spoken: 'twas no frailties deed,  
But God alonely stood thee then in steed.   

So then remounted on my Sable jade,  
I ranged over craggy cliffs and desert dales  
In wayless wander, and in Horrors shade,  
One while conceipting Cato's death-availes,  
And then anon reflecting on his stink,  
Thus strayed I most in dread & death's instinct.   

Thrice drew I out my dagger for to stab me  
And then so oft I mused why Cato stunk so,  
Me thought there should no such disglory be  
In sacred Ghosts, freed from the filth of woe:  
So was my moody minds perplexed wander  
Partial on life's behalf 'gainst deadly danger.   

Then on I road, and riding through a dale  
Hell-like adumbred with a dusky gloom,  
A sudden fatal blast did me assail  
And drove me to a second damned doom,  
Where I might see a more than hell-black finger  
That pointed me, and said: Lo yonder, yonder.   

With that my Melancholy stared round about  
And like a whirlwind posted to the place,  
Where I might hear a voice that roared out  
Revenge, revenge, thy dolorous disgrace:  
And then eftsoons all in a Sulphur-flame  
Appeared unto my sight a shape of shame.   

Her face was Skowl-regarding on the ground,  
Her eyes like Heclas ever-sparkling fires,  
Her finger on her mouth was a dumb bound  
Of her Cyclopian frets and fell desires:  
In th'other hand she bore a fiery sheaf,  
And all her body was as pale as death.   

Her hair was Snake-incurled Medusa-like,  
Having the power t'instone me where I stood:  
So was I senseless all but in dislike  
And deadly horror of so dread a Bug:  
At last she fretted out an angry noise  
And thus inspeeched it into a voice.   

Fear not my wan and moody misproportion,  
For (I confess) I am no foundlings joy,  
Nor am I of a wanton disposition  
As is the God of Love that idle boy,  
Yet am I a joy in another kind  
To such as in un-ioy most joy do find.   

I am Revenge, the doom of injuries:  
The Miser's refuge, and revive to bless  
Occasions Argus, pith of Tragedies  
The sum of policy in all distress:  
Wraths thunderbolt, and triumph over those  
That in their jollity work others woes.   

Th'injurious Gallant in his Commick-brave  
I agonize with unexpected bale,  
Because he shall not think that in the grave  
Lies nought but impotence and deaths avail;  
I'll show him that the worm hath power to move,  
And none so low but may amount above.   

There is a Phoenix of Adversity  
That fair results from her incinderment,  
And dares to brave with an undaunted eye  
Prosperities shine, & brightest blandishments  
It is Revenge, 'tis I can stare it out,  
And make it by disgrace the Miser's flout.   

I reared Corelian from his exile state  
To triumph over Rome's ingratitude,  
And Caesar I did wholly animate  
To down with Pompey's scornful altitude,  
His suit denied him by the Senate-house,  
Did cause me make him Rome-Emperious.   

Of latter days a Bourbon in disgrace  
I armed against his Liege's injury,  
And gave him victory at Pavia-chace  
Where he beheld him in captivity:  
What though he were a Traitor in so doing,  
'tis stately done to overtop a King.   

To be fair Fortunes ever Carpet-darling  
Is female glory: But Revenged disgrace  
That's truly Masculine, and rich triumphing:  
All peace-content is too too cheap and base:  
What manhood is it still to feed on Chickens  
Like infant nurse-boys in nice Fortune's kitchens?   

Give me the man that with undaunted spirit  
Dares give occasion of a Tragedy:  
And be content for his more after-merit  
To be down beaten from felicity:  
To th'end that with a fierce amount he may  
Rebless himself in spite of Fortune's nay.   

'tis brave to plunge adown into the deep  
And so up-bound again above the wave,  
To be continually a mountain-sheep  
Is Cockrell-like, it is a dunghill brave:  
The cravin Cock is heartless from his hill,  
Shame to be so that hast a manly will.   

To be deposed from bliss by injury,  
Is double glory to remount to it,  
Nor is thy title lost to dignity  
Unless suppress of spirit forfeit it:  
Misfortunes power cannot foil thy right,  
Do thou but bear a mind in her despite.   

We cannot say that man is overcome  
That still bears up his arm against his foe,  
Nor that he is sincerely outrun  
Whom the Corrivals trip doth overthrow:  
What ere is lost with fore-wits unprevention,  
Win it again with after-wits contention.   

This human fate, sometime to slip and fall,  
But to ingrovell in dirt is beastly base:  
To rise again, oh that is jovial,  
Or else revenge to death the downe-disgrace:  
Therefore, thou hast a spirit of despite,  
As well as in good hap to take delight.   

The gallant man unhorsed amidst his foes  
Fights to the death his latest wrath away,  
And when he can no more: with mops and mows  
He flouts both them, and Death, and Destiny:  
So if not Victor, yet unvanquished  
He dies to everlasting livelihed.   

Be not as is the coward Scorpion  
That rounded all about with ashy embers  
Despairs and dies in self-destruction  
Renting with fierce enrage his venom members:  
But if that jove nill aid thy fortitude  
Down to all Acheron, and the Fury brood.   

Hell holds in honour the brave minded man  
That knows the price and value of his head,  
That measures not Renown by inch or span,  
But by th'eternity of Ioues Godhead,  
That scorns to brook base infelicity,  
Or pocket up degraded dignity.   

And haply jove himself suppliants thy state  
To see how thou canst scamble up again,  
And scuffle manly with malignant fate  
To a redoubled glories rich attain:  
Then cheerly (man) inhearten all thy sperites  
And dead Revenge thy miseries demerits.   

Lo, I thy Advocate unto the Hags  
Will still importune thy Prosperity,  
And be at hand with poison, and with dags  
To execute each plotted tragedy:  
Misfortune ●●all not scoff at thy confusion,  
If hell and I befriend thee in conjunction.   

Lay but thy hand upon thy conscience,  
And fair in-vow me in an earnest spirit,  
So shalt thou compass Tragic consequence  
On all thy foes that now so frolic it.  
They shall no longer feast upon thy frets  
Nor register thy woes in their banquets.   

Thou shalt eniowle them one against another  
With hostile jealousy, and dead debate:  
I tell thee (man) all friendship is unsure  
Founded upon another's down estate:  
Nor joys he long against Revenges doom,  
That wrong instates him in another's room.   

Heaven is the Arbiter, and wills it so,  
I and the Furies are the instruments  
To act that justice in all tragic woe,  
Now is it in this case our good intents  
To join with us thy manual act herein  
That more than pristin glory thou mayst win.   

But say thou win not pristin glory by it  
Yet shalt thou see thy foes in down disgrace,  
Thyself shalt act it, such shall be thy merit,  
And such thy glory in a higher place:  
What greater glory can betide the vale  
Then force the Mountain-top adown to fall?   

So shall thy glory not be lost, but left,  
Yea loss to them that all so dearly buy it,  
When thou shalt Phoenixlike of bliss bearest  
R●se from thy ruins to a higher merit:  
Degraded from a puppet Commicke-stage  
To act the stately Tragic parsonage.   

Changed to a fair enfiered Salamander  
Breathing Revenges bright & sacred flames,  
Which high inspirits men to lofty matter  
In acquaint disdain of aulicke infant games;  
Games of the body, follies of the mind,  
Oh, how 'tis base to live so like a Hind.   

Nature hath given you male & female wills,  
The one wherewith to covet merriments,  
The other to detest all adverse ills,  
Now is almighty Ioues great woonderments  
More in his Thunderbolts then in his sweets,  
To show Revenge more worth than Pleasures greets.   

Then arm thyself Revenges Champion,  
To bandy away thy foes, and all disgrace  
With politic dissimulation  
Of contrary language, and contrary face:  
As the Chameleon changeth still his hue  
With every object colour: so change thou.   

So mayst thou close Chameleon-like conceal  
Thy tragic shape of Horror and Revenge,  
Whiles they misdoubting not thy false reveal  
Are caught unwares like Woodcocks in a sprenge,  
Such is the honour of Adversity,  
With sleights to undermine Prosperity.   

Be to thy oath, as th' Ape is to his block,  
Sometimes stick to it, sometimes flit from it  
As pregnant policy may thee provoke:  
'tis foole-sincerity, and want of wit  
To make a pot to break thy head withal,  
Or rather not to break it first of all.   

Use Friend and Foe, and Neuter all alike,  
Only as instrumental implements  
To thy design; thy aimed stroke to strike:  
And fee them but with eyrie compliments:  
That done, and thy affair effected,  
Destroy them all for fear thou be detected.   

Dead dogs bark not, nor stands it with thy honour  
To be upbraided with a courtesy;  
Much less to be employed in like devoir  
Accord Quid pro Quoes servility:  
Such is the sum of perfect policy  
To work securely with vulgarity.   

Be close, and jealous in each action  
For that close dealing is good Speeds assurance;  
And jealousy's the Sentinel of Caution;  
And bear thou still in mind this circumstance;  
If all good fortune, and advise should fail thee  
To have a starring hole for after safety.   

'Twas meager Prudence in the antic Sages  
That but with Goodness could recure an Evil:  
Give me the man that with wits policies  
Can Saint a Devil with another Devil:  
That can so shift, and s●uffle the cards in fist,  
As turn up whatsoever Trump he lift.   

'tis heavens attain to send thy foes to Hell  
With mutual murders in Seditions field:  
The upper Buckets fall into the well  
The lours fair amount we see doth yield:  
Such is the merit of Revenges deed,  
With others wrack to work thine own good speed.   

At least to die in well appeased wrath  
And in survive of all thine enemies  
Is stately dying: 'tis fair lie down and laugh,  
And an uprise to Ioues benignities,  
●lizium and Fame in after ages,  
Revenges blessed Rights and Appennages.   

Then come, embrace me with a firm assent  
And think no idle voice solicits thee;  
I tell thee (man) in thy arbitrement  
Lies all thy glory, and felicity:  
I'll be thy handmaid here in earth below,  
The rest above great jove he will bestow.   

So said, she reared her scowl down-looke on  
And vagrantlie regarding round about  
In Period-pawse; At last as one distraught  
She stared, and trembled, and began to pout  
And suddenly she vanished out of sight  
Because now in the East it dawn'd daylight.   

Even so (quoth I) is it Revenges guise  
To be in force by Night, be gone by Day?  
Such is not the instinct of Paradise,  
God grant it be no Plutonicke affray:  
Oh what it is to be a mortal man  
Subject to all the guiles and sleights of Satan.   

Yet for her speech was consonant to Nature,  
I wished sh'had been an Oracle of truth;  
So credulous is Angers moody vigure  
When once it is in-Caelared in youth:  
And hand in-handed with a acquaint Disdain  
Injurious disglorie to sustain.   

Yea what is not the miser apt to do,  
What not believe to mitigate his evil?  
Well may he feign a patiented outward hue,  
But not exile his inward damned devil,  
The Vulture of despite that never dies  
But rends and tears his heart in ravin-wise.   

Now Chanteclere the vigil of the night  
Crew broad day light: when Titan in the East  
piece-meal appearing in his pristin bright  
Broad-waked every creature, man and beast,  
Each musick-bird be blessing his amount  
Both in the humble vale and haughty mount.   

When (lo) my jade unsprighted, and unnighted,  
Raged and engaged himself to all adventure  
o'er hedge, and ditch, and flood, so fell affrighted  
He was to see the Sun, so shone a creature:  
All as the Tench in waterles despair  
Beateth himself to death in spite of ay●e.   

So on I hasted at my jade's behest,  
As whilom Phaeton in his skyey cart,  
Weak (God he knows) to rule so fierce a beast,  
Deadly feare-frighted both in heart and art:  
But whom our Lords safe providence bespeedeth,  
No humane power of heart or art he needeth.   

At last in process of an over-tire  
My moody beast stood still in palsie-wise,  
Trembling and fainting in a daunted ire,  
(Such is the end of Rages ryotize:)  
Then had I leisure for to look about me,  
And (lo) I spied a Rock in shining glory.   

I hied me to it with a pleasing pace,  
And yet not pleasant, for 'twas all to slow:  
So flight is Melancholy to dark disgrace  
And deadly drowsy to a bright good morrow;  
Yet on I marched, and marvelled at the sight,  
I never in all my life saw thing so bright:   

As more and more I neered unto the place  
So by degrees my Melancholy fainted,  
When (lo) anon with a religious pace  
A snowwhite I ennet towards me advanced:  
His name was Good desire, his saddle green  
Was Reverend Solace of a godly spleen.   

Whereat my jade affrighted and despited  
Sped all to nought as mist before the Son:  
When I eftsoons internally delighted  
Was rapt by Good desire unto Devotion:  
A penal place, yet parcel of the rock,  
And brighter than the Noony Zodiac.   

There kneeled a reverend Sophy all in tears  
With needle-pointed Discipline correcting  
His Flesh's frailty: Oh how he besmears  
The place with penal blood, and blubbering:  
His heart was wholly fixed on Christ his Passion,  
So show'd his Crucifixe-contemplation.   

Before him was a Deaths-head full of worms,  
The picture of a Grave, and an Hourglass,  
A map of Doomsday, and Hell in fearful forms,  
And Heaven figured all in Saintlie solace:  
His pale and megre countenance areeded  
His spare poor fare, and how hard he bedded.   

Standing behind him, he was in a trance,  
And I betook my Eye to a steady gaze,  
My Mind to an amaze at so great sufferance,  
So penal sufferance in so bright a place,  
And now I see (said I) there is a bliss  
Even in Adversity what ere it is.   

And thus aside I argued the case:  
In place so bright what mean these drearements?  
A heavy case deserves a doleful place  
Since bale and bless are adverse Compliments:  
And yet the Glow-worm in the darkest night  
Though black it be, shines forth a starry bright.   

Cato and Revenge were black, and both to blame  
Th' one in sulphur stench, th' other in Lights abhor,  
And Melancholy was the jade of shame  
That darkeling brought me to that double dolour;  
A better horse I hope hath brought me hither  
For both the place is bright, and 'tis fair weather.   

Long have I ranged to find a place of ease  
Where I may pass away my pensive plaints,  
And haply if this be now that place of peace  
Heer rest I ever in my woes attaints:  
Here in this Cave, and in this sable shroud  
Dye I a Caitiff under Fortune's cloud.   

This aged man and I will both together  
Complain in common our calamity;  
That haply whiles we strive t'outplaine each other  
Such our ambition may suage our misery,  
Or both at once, may crack as overstrained,  
Ambitious dying is a glory gained.   

But (well I wots) thou wrong'st this holy place  
By misconstructing it to care and bale,  
'tis puddle sacrilege so to disgrace  
The grace of God, through errors rude misprisall●  
What though the man do seem disconsolate,  
Somewhat it is doth thee exhilarate.   

For why, I felt my spirit all possessed,  
With a revived hope to happiness;  
It was the Grace of God in my unrest  
That inly cheered me up to future bless,  
Dear gift of God, the Character of life  
And heavenly make-peace of our ghostly strife.   

It is the Ray, and Speech of heaven to man,  
The Rainbowe-pledge of God's benevolence,  
The Limbeck of our justice, and the Fan  
That winnoweth sin away from innocence:  
Prime moo●er, and efficient cause of good  
To all that are redeemed with Christ his blood.   

Whiles thus with infant zeal I did applaud  
The income grace of God into my heart  
In full detest of fore-affected fraud,  
Lo, now this penal Sage began to start  
From out his trance, and with a heavenly voice▪  
And arms a cross, he bid his soul rejoice.   

Rejoice (quoth he) at this eternal truth,  
The man is blest that for God's justice sake  
Sustains with Patience reproach and ruth,  
Our Lord hath promised that he will partake  
His heaven to him: His name be praised therefore,  
And so he kissed the Cross, and said no more.   

With that my heart exulted in my breast,  
As fair presaging weal unto my woe;  
For why I was not vulgarly distressed  
But, for a cause that bore an honest show,  
Yet for my frailty was impatient  
I longed for speedy death or solagement.   

Then stepped I to that man of Mysteries  
With careful Complement lest to offend,  
When he eftsoons with reverend arise  
Did recomplie me like a perfect friend:  
The tears of joy that trilled adown his chin  
Did swear what true affection was within.   

And lastly he thus embracingly bespoke me,  
Welcome (Elizian-man) a thousandfold  
More dear and shone to Catechrysius eye  
Then all the pleasant pride of Pearl or Gold:  
Rare, yea all too rare are now adays  
Eliza's subjects seen to pass this ways.   

Belike ye are a Paradised people  
That so contain yourselves in home-delights,  
As though that only under your steeple  
And no where else were all May-mery Rights:  
A blessed people ye are, if it be so  
And yet me thinks thou seem'st a man of woe.   

Whereto I answered all with humble thanks:  
First, that I was the man he took me for  
Bred and brought up on fair Eliza's banks,  
Next, did I largely show him furthermore  
How blessedly we live, as he had heard  
Under Eliza's peaceful power and guard.   

And as for my peculiar distress,  
I told him so I seemed, and so I was  
The Rag of Fortune: Badge of base deblesse,  
The Sponge of care, a broken Hourglass:  
The Finger-man of shame, and Obloquy  
Downly degraded from Felicity.   

I told him of my dreary iournement  
On moody Melancholy; and how I sped  
With Cato, and Revenges babblement,  
And how, along the Desert as I fled  
I met with Good Desire a goodly Steed  
That brought me thither in my ghostly need.   

I would have told him more of my arrange  
Even all the very conscience of my case,  
The cause of such my reprobate exchange  
From bless to bale: & how from place to place  
Bownd●esse in care, I ranged to bound my Fate,  
Content to die: but not die desperate.   

But he eftsoons prevented me, and said:  
Oh happy thou, if so thou knewest thy hap,  
I tell thee (man) thou art right ●aire paid  
Exiled from Mammon into jesus lap:  
Come sit we down, and I will show thee how  
In this distress, thou mayst nor break, nor bow.   

So down we sat: my heart was festival  
My care was eager-liquorish to embaite  
Good Catechrysius his Cordial:  
Who then with eyes to heaven elevate  
And crosse-laid arms did vow sincerely  
All love, and truth in what he meant to show me.   

And then (quoth he) dear Englishman, suppose  
Me not uncivil t'interrupt thy tale,  
For in our Lord I well aread thy woes  
And Charity hies me to recure them all:  
Now all is but the action of the Mind,  
That rectified, the rest is all but wind.   

Know then, thou art no better than a man  
Natured indifferently, to weal or woe,  
Who ere he be that's borne of a woman  
Is first just nothing, next an Embryo,  
Then borne into the world in impotence  
Poor interest to future Excellence.   

Nay borne in sable sin to God's offence,  
Nipped in the blossom by the blast of Hell,  
spur-galled of Adam both in soul and sense  
And hodge podged between a man & devil,  
A farthel of frailties doomed unto damnation  
So sore we have incurred God's indignation.   

If these be titles of felicity,  
Ah, poor felicity, unpleasant Pride:  
Rooted in hell, branched in mortality  
And round embarked with sin on every side:  
Nor are we thus disgraced but of ourselves  
For first we eat the Apple of all these hells.   

We might have chosen in Adam's Liberty  
Whether t'have eat that Apple yea or no,  
But needs we would adventure: And wots you why?  
Forsooth of Pride both good and bad to know:  
So slunk from us the glory and grace of God  
Leaving us quite to ourself breeching-rod   

Heerhence we covet counterfeit content,  
Sublime mundanitie, and our Flesh's ease,  
Rating the trash of earth true solagement  
And every toy of price our sense to please:  
Such is our frailty, and yet we see it not  
So to subject us to so servile Lot.   

And such the matter of thy discontent,  
Because thou overprizest Flesh's sense,  
Rating the world at all too high a rent  
Whereas it is but dust and God's offence:  
The Mammon of iniquity in Scripture phrase  
And but a mere Crocadyle-amaze.   

Conceit thyself no better than thou art,  
A sorry journeyman from birth to death  
And all this world but matter of undesart  
And a mere momentary trash-bequeath:  
Death dooms all Flesh at last, and Flesh-affaires  
Be it Flesh's joys, or Flesh's servile cares.   

Bless being the perfect Counterpane of good  
This world is not of worth to correspond it  
It being but trash o'erflown with Frailties flood  
And deep indowned from heavens fellowship:  
Then up to heaven amount thy true ambition  
And as for earth out-care it in contrition.   

Not to despair and die as Cato told thee,  
For that is base Pusillanimity  
And Nature's most unhallowed infamy,  
Treason to God, and fell disloyalty  
So to betray his Fort and Character  
To selfe-misdoome, and dreary disaster.   

We ought not cancel Gods eternal doom  
Vn-labelling our life from his fair Charter,  
For such is diffidence in his holidoome  
And proud in-officing us in his affair:  
Nor can we kill Calamity by death  
For he is just in earth, and hell beneath.   

Thou canst not flit from his almighty doom  
He being th' Arbiter of all, and nothing:  
Who gave thee Essence out of Vacuum  
Can pain thy ashes all in earth reposing:  
Well mayst thou shift his anger into grace  
But not deprive thee from his heavenly face.   

As vain it is to think Revenges deed  
Can counter-doome thy bale to blessedness,  
The power of Flesh being but a rotten reed  
And selfely inclined unto all distress:  
Then since we are so wretched of ourselves  
Add worse to ill doth but increase our hells.   

Such is Revenge: It is a haggard ill,  
A Luciferiall rank uncharitie:  
The venom, and black- Sanctus of our will  
Vnreasons rage's; spawn of Impiety,  
Breath of Despair, Prime-brat of envies brood,  
And all good Nature's satire- Antipode.   

Revenges arm reared up against the Foe  
Aims to defeat God of his interest  
Who clausually reserved that work of woe  
Unto his own judicial behest;  
Thou art a man, and once didst suck thy mother,  
Thou canst not judge thyself, much less another.   

And what knowst thou whether haply for thine own  
Or for thy Predecessors sins thou sufferest,  
God oft transfers his indignation  
From the offending East to th'ending West.  
Or whether it be to try thy patience,  
And flush the more thy good obedience.   

If it be for thy sins, oh happy thou  
That art so temporally corrected:  
Such is God's mercy, not his justice-blow,  
A worse doom is to thy evil indebted:  
For God being good in all infinity  
Such is thy sins, and hell's affinity.   

And if for thy forefathers trespasses,  
'tis brave to be so good a Sacrifice,  
God erst to expiate thy amisses  
Being a precedent before thine eyes  
Of willing death; we are not borne only  
Unto ourselves: Such is uncharitie.   

The feeble Nature even of Flesh and Blood  
Hath been so kind to die for Ancestry,  
Gentility records Aeneas good  
In that he bore his aged father's frailty  
Through Troy's flames: much more ought Charity  
Bear patiently another's penalty.   

But shall I say that haply in this case  
Our Lord is pleased to try thy patience,  
Thy valour, and obedience in disgrace?  
Oh, that were all-too glorious a pretence:  
For (well ye wots) that Soldier is a King  
That choycelie is employed in warfaring.   

'tis Scowndrell-glorie still to sit at ease  
In gaudy satisfaction of thy sense:  
Nay, 'tis no glory at all, but a disease  
That Canker-like consumes thine Innocence.  
Now God being pleased to cure thee thereof  
Doth thus confound it all into a scoff.   

And yet confounds it so, as thou mayst see  
His justice and his Mercy joined together,  
Thy ill controlled to future dignity,  
So doth the goodness of thy cause aver:  
If God did mean thy eternal infamy,  
Worse passive cause had foul befallen thee.   

Thou canst not have a more assured pawn  
Of God's benignity then a good cause,  
It being unto thy soul a sacred dawn  
Of heavens day; and an especial clause  
Or Charter-warrant of Salvation  
By a secure Conscience-attestation.   

Not all the glory of this world is worth  
The minnim- Emphosis of a good Conscience:  
The very penal tears it sendeth forth  
Are more than pearls of Indie-excellence:  
Much more are they Imperial dignities  
Her inward joys and jocundities.   

Say that the Corpses of such a Conscience  
Lie all in mange before the Miser's door,  
His name as hell held in the world's offence,  
Yet is he not unfortunate therefore;  
For heaven and he being still in good conjunction  
All that's but vapour, and no sound confusion.   

Nay 'tis to thee a haughty merit-matter  
If brooked with patiented valour to the end;  
Which easily thou mayst do, if thou consider  
That jesus tempts thy patience as a friend,  
Not in his rage above thy power and strength,  
Whom he reproves at first, he saves at length.   

And sooth to say, what is Prosperity  
That so should make thee abhor Adversity?  
Even Caesar's lofty pomp, and soucraigntie  
Is not by odds sincere felicity;  
Subject to Care and Alteration  
Through Envy, Error, and Adulation.   

How much ado is done ere men attain  
To wealth and glory by Ambition?  
Still cark and care shares half the servile gain,  
The rest remains to Death's confusion:  
'tis well if tart Synderisie and Hell  
Triumver not to towlle the passing-bell.   

Care in attaining, and care in attain  
Care is the lower and the upper stair:  
Such careful glory is but glorious pain,  
Yea care, or careless either, all's but air:  
Feast it in care, or feast it carelessly  
Death is the latter Harpy of all glory.   

Besides, how many Villains are advanced  
To such theatrical, and stagie-state  
Whilst Virtue lies obliviously entranced,  
Neglected, and disdained as out of date:  
Besides the multiplicity of abuse  
That is in such mundanities misuse.   

Whereas the patiented S●rapin distress  
Behonesteth his guikie sufferance:  
And if he suffer for God's righteousness,  
Lo, there the sumine of all true valiance:  
Heavens Machabe he is that so downe-dies  
Guilty of all glory, and Gods dear dainties.   

Who hears his name a thousand years hence  
Will give it glory, praise, and reverence  
As to a Temples ruin-Monuments  
Razed in Sacrilege, and God's offence:  
He will be-villaine those that did the deed  
As Scowndrell-Agents of Hell's black aread.   

We are not borne to Fortune's compliments,  
As sovereign dainties; but as virtues tools  
Wherewith to shape us perfect lineaments  
Of honourable Manhood: And not as Fools  
To dote upon the Pencil in our hand  
And not depaint us like to God's command.   

virtue's the Lady of our Humanity,  
And Fortune but the handmaid of our merit,  
Now, were it homelied one to magnify  
The mean above the main: 'Twere petty spirit  
To slip our nets into the Sea for water  
And pardon Fish, as no part of the matter.   

This life is but a warfare against sin  
And either Fortune is but sins Coat-armour,  
Be it bright or black, great danger lies therein  
If thou resist not with a haughty valour:  
'tis witless yielding to her gawdements,  
And cowardi●e unto her orearements.   

What skills it whether we fight with black or white  
If black and white be both our enemies,  
The one in guile, tho'other in flat despite?  
The Goblin-Bugs, and Fairy Hiedegies  
Are both the shades of hell, and night-affrayes  
Encounter, not assent quelles their dismays.   

And why are we the image of our God  
The monarchs over all Elementaries?  
But to controwll with Reason's righteous rod  
All flesh and bloods frail sensualities;  
'tis sensuality, and petty power  
To malcontent thee for a fading flower.   

Stand thou on Reasons haughty Promontory  
Superior and secure over all disgrace,  
Rage wind, and wave, & horror round about thee  
Yet all is glory and peace in that bright place:  
Nor Death, nor Hell can damnify thy honer  
So long as Reason's arm bears up thy banner.   

Oh generous minded men that can esteem  
All state inferior to their minds degree,  
And not abandon it to base misdeem  
Of any Fortune's power above her glee  
But can outstare it with a acquaint regard  
In reference to merit, and Gods grand reward.   

That can conceit all Fortune as a Fog  
Be't black or bright, all but a matter of air,  
If bright, oh then it doth but flatter and cog,  
If black, it drowns thee with a flood of care,  
Unless thy mind be as a Sun above it  
Fair overshining all her mist-demerit.   

Fair Fortune is a Bog, a dancing danger,  
And Temperance must foot it with a modest pace;  
Her frown, a gulf that drowns the heartless stranger  
That cannot wend with Patience his disgrace;  
Both that and it are mortuary matter  
If fed upon in Indiscretions platter.   

Submit not then thy sacred Substantive  
To Fortune's hests: but as thou art of Nature,  
So still continue thy prerogative  
Above her blandishing and spiteful power,  
So shone a Patrimony as thy Mind  
Let never Fortune waste it out of kind.   

Thou art no part of Fortune, but thine own:  
Virtue thy foreguide, Heaven thy attain,  
Good death, not lofty life thy best Renown,  
Contented mind thy glories after-gaine:  
Without content all glory is but gall,  
And with content disgrace is festival.   

Contents the Sponge of true felicity,  
The Cordial against degraded bless,  
Corrival to the highest Empirie,  
The badge of Innocence and Righteousness,  
Virtues enthrone, Rend of a manly mind  
To God for whatsoever state assigned.   

It is the Phoenix of fore-glories Embers:  
Patience her wing, Heaven is her amount,  
It is the Christopher whose manly members  
Wasteth the miser-man through all affrount,  
It is the true and perfect Salamander,  
Breathing vitality in flames of fire.   

Not so the Skowndrell in his greatest glory,  
For there is no Content in guilt of evil,  
A skowll down-looke, and swart synderisie  
Betokening him a member of the Devil:  
He cannot with a fair erected front  
Be- Abba God: nor yield him good account.   

His glory in guilt of ill is as a flower  
Begnawne with an accursed Caterpillar,  
Or as an Apple perished in the coure  
Though feigning outwardly a faithful fair;  
Oh fatal incense, oh accursed fume  
That so chokes up the wretch doth it assume.   

Whereas the others conscientiall-content  
Doth feast his Fates, and civillize their rage,  
Turning their gall to glee and solagement  
And fair be-heavening hell with her assuages  
he's as a Bwoy above the bosterous wave  
Dancing to scorn the Seas ybillowy-brave.   

So strong in power is his sincere incline  
To Gods ordain and holy providence,  
Resting therein as in a sacred shrine  
Or Sanctuary against all hell's offence:  
The devils eager-gripe cannot confound  
Him whom our Lords protection doth bound.   

There is no hell but in our God's offence:  
Please him, and boldly plunge adown the deep  
Of all accurse: his holy Providence  
Being the Argus which doth never sleep,  
Will on the wings of safe Protection  
Still bear the just man up from all perdition.   

What hap can hap amiss to God's be blest?  
What wave can surge above his providence?  
The Hags of hell are chained to his behest  
Hell gates obey his high omnipotence:  
Dive down to Hell, if he bear up thy chin  
Well mayst thou sink a while, near drown therein.   

If once thy hope be anchored in God  
No wave, no bluster can endanger thee,  
Thy foot from falling is securely shod  
He corresponding thy fidelity:  
If God thy Centre be and thy defence  
Be Hell, be Devil thy Circumference.   

The Tyrant's steel, the Hangman's axle-tree,  
His strangles, mangles, and his fiery dooms  
Cannot confound true magnanimity  
Founded on God's true love & hollidoomes;  
His life in gore, his Ghost in shades of hell  
Are more at ease than any tongue can tell.   

The earthen minded man cannot conceive  
So haughty glory in disglorie and dole:  
His groveling appetite doth so bereave  
His wit, impelling it to another goal;  
he's so befotted in his Leprosy  
That it alonely he esteems true glory.   

But time will come when at a just Tribunal  
The just man's misery, and the miser's glee  
Will come in Coram, and be doomed for all:  
Then mourning good shall mount to Majesty,  
And sin-polluted glory down descend  
T'irreparable dolour without end.   

Then vae to guilty glory, glorious guilt,  
Vae to suppress of virtue, advance of vice;  
The rascals tower on virtues tuines built  
Must then adown, and he repent the price:  
Oh, far more happy than disgraced good,  
Then Vice advanced to skowndrell altitud.   

But thou wilt say it is Detraction,  
It is thy name defamed among the just  
Thy life belied through misconstruction  
That more than all thy glory in the dust  
Be-hels' and tortureth thy manly mind,  
It being a mischief of a worser kind.   

Be't so (Elizian-man) I do confess  
Detraction is indeed a monstrous evil,  
Fowl Harpy of honour, Night of righteousness  
And the uncivil tongues most venym-drivell,  
Much more I do confess it is a spite  
To be of honest men a villain hight.   

But on the other side, when thou consider  
The sand-blind errors even of justest men,  
How much from God's intuitie they differ  
And oft when most they judge, are most mistaken;  
Despair not at their dooms, but in thy heart  
Bless God who sees thee inly what thou art.   

Oft-times the good man credits with his ears  
Not with his eyes: therehence if injury  
Redound to thee; the fault being wholly theirs,  
far be it from thy heart's synderisie:  
Yea rather with a bolt-up countenance  
Give it the Lie, and hardy sufferance.   

Much more the villains obloquy disdain it  
As currish cravin against thy Innocence,  
His Viper-language cannot crack thy credit  
A blushless conscience pleading thy defence;  
His tongue against thy Souls secure estate  
Fares as a reed against a brazen gate.   

But if his obloquy be a true Echo  
Of thy mis-governance and guilty life,  
Then well I do aread it is a woe  
Unto thy honour, and a slaughter-knife;  
Whereas contrariwise if thou be sound  
It's but an airy, and an idle sound.   

Fair then aguize thee with a trim transcent  
Above all flesh and hell's indignity,  
Embossed with gentle Patience, and Content  
Lamblike repinelesse at adversity,  
For, sooth I say, and heaven will witness it  
The just man's misery is a haughty merit.   

And first please God in his commandments,  
Next, with a true Satrapick-sufferance  
Grace me that face of thine, those lineaments  
Against Detraction and hell's mis-valiance,  
Show that thou art the image of thy God  
In patiented portage of his penal rod.   

So, nor despair, nor yet revenge thy woe  
But with the prudent Serpent in distress  
Safeguard thy head; let die the rest below:  
Thy head in heaven, thy heel in heaviness  
Is merry matter, if thou well consider  
That death rejoins them both in bless together.   

Hast thou not noted this effect in Nature.  
How chill-cold winter calefies the water  
Anteperistezing her powers together  
Whereby it fair resists her yeie ire?  
So, in thy winter of Adversity  
Create thyself a sommer-Iubilie.   

Give place to fury as the humble Snail  
Retreating in his horns 'gainst misadventure,  
In time all violence will selfelie quail  
If vnprouok'd with currish misdemeanour:  
The chillest winter and the darkest night  
Redound at last to Summer, and broad daylight.   

See how the Marigold against the Son  
Displays and shuts itself at his dominion  
Lessening at night her spread proportion  
But near disculloring her gold-complexion,  
So to the sovereignty of God above  
With Fortune's night diminish not thy love.   

But think misfortune is the flail of grace,  
The clarifying Furnace of thy soul  
Wherewith God strips away thy chaffe-disgrace  
And makes thee pure mettle with such controwlle  
'tis honourable manhood to obey thy God,  
Be't in his mercy, or his justice-rod.   

Wilt thou submit thy mind to Fortune's Impostes  
Faithless of God's benignity and care?  
Ah, rather do disdain her bales and boasts  
As Crocadyle-deceipts, and crabbed ware●  
And to thy God alonely ply thy hest  
For such is pure duty, and the pure best.   

So doing, better bones than Fortune's baubles  
Will Spaniell-like attend upon thy merit,  
Good death, and after death th'immo●uables  
Of glory, and fame, and an in heavened spirit  
In everlasting lubilie and bless  
Far more than heart can think, or tongue express.   

So shalt thou swim away in Ver●●es flood,  
A happy burden to a happy Maine,  
God's flowerie-eter●itie garlanding thy good  
And his embrace lullabying all thy pain:  
Oh, happy thou when such adoption  
Shall fair befall thy tribulation.   

When all thy Crosses shall appear in heaven  
As ever-memorable Annalles of thy merit,  
Oras bright Trophies to thy Virtue given  
The Saints of glory all applauding it;  
When God with his serenest countenance  
Shall ever bright be-boone thy sufferance.   

Then wilt thou near repent the of thy woe  
But wish it had been twenty fold as much  
For jesus sake, who even in earth below  
Can frolic thy incinder with his touch  
And fair be-heaven thy bones in dreary grave,  
Above the glory and ease that Caesars have.   

And sooth to say, wherein hath jesus erred  
Or not deserved such sufferance at thy hands?  
Hath he not always in his life preferred  
Disgrace and dole to rid thee out of bands?  
Oh, was not he the man, the Lamb that died  
To show thee heaven in woe, and not in pride?   

He was Almighty to have saved his head  
If he had pleased; But for a precedent  
Of passive Fortitude, and Lamblihead  
He condescended unto woe and torment,  
And did erect the Cross a capital  
Ensign of honour, and renown to all.   

And since, what Saint did ever amount to bless  
That hath not more or less been crucified?  
Either with self zeale-doome, or by oppress  
Of tyranny by villains hands inflicted?  
The seed that must to flowery growth redound  
Mu first lie dead, and withered in the ground.   

Besides; oh what a monstrous thing it is  
To live delicious under a thorney head;  
Thy God to deign to die for thy amiss  
And thou repine to be dishonoured  
For virtues sake; Oh fond ingratitude  
So to permit thy Sense thy Soul delude.   

If so the flesh, the world, the devil could do  
More spite unto thy state then God can quail,  
Or that his grace could not transcend thy woe  
Be-cheering it with happy countervail,  
Then mightst thou with a just repine detest.  
To be by any fate of flesh oppressed.   

But God both can and will relieve his Plaintiff  
That doth with just petitions invoke him,  
Selfe-lovelesse and repinelesle at the grief  
That from his sovereign doom betides him;  
The loving mother's teat is not so prone  
Unto her Babe, as Christ to his dear one.   

So show'd his Pellican-content to die  
To give thee life, the gore adown his breast  
To wash away thy sin-impuritie;  
His dolour was thy everlasting rest,  
His bitter wounds the ever open gates  
Of grace, and glory to thy rankest fates.   

Lo, he thy paines-appease, true charter-warrant  
Of glory after gall: The bonny bright  
Whose crimson rays can fair propulse and daunt  
The dreadest Goblin of thy darkest night:  
Be thou the man of duty to thy dole,  
The rest let him alone for to control.   

Enshrine thy Patience in his Passion  
Thy Hope, thy Constance in his after-boones  
To his entire irradiation  
Submit thy night-shades and decreased Moons,  
He is the Son of Right, and will appay  
All virtues anguor with a Hollie-day.   

Behold his image yonder on the Cross,  
See how he droops and dies and damns Revenge  
Yielding his whole humanity in gross  
A pendular reproach on wooden hinge:  
Yea even his Deity he doth deject  
Unto a seeming shadowed defect,   

Be not a beast of desperation,  
A moody torment, traitor to thyself,  
'tis gross conceit and imperfection  
To ground thy Bark upon thy own shores shelf:  
Suffice it that extrinsical aggriefe  
Abound, sans that thou give it home-reliefe.   

Think that thy sins are greater than thy woe,  
Thy worldly griefs but Graces happy rescue  
From greater hells that to thy soul do grow;  
Or haply to enforce to manly virtue  
Thy youngling hests of grace; or to contain  
Thy present good from proving after vain.   

Time and thy grave did first salute thy Nature  
Even in her infancy and cradle-Rightes  
Inviting it to dusty Death's defeature,  
And therewithal thy Fortune's fierce despites:  
Death is the gulf of all: and then I say  
Thou art as good as Caesar in his clay.   

Death is the dreary Dad, and dust the Dame  
Of all flesh-frailtie, woe or majesty;  
All sinks to earth that surgeth from the same,  
Nature and Fortune must together die:  
Only fair Virtue scales eternity  
Above Earth's all-abating tyranny.   

Read in my front the ruin of my nature  
And therewithal perpend thy miseries,  
I do confess I were a cursed creature  
Were not God's grace above m'infirmities,  
So, thou in Faith to after-retribution  
Assuage thy woe and tribulation.   

Die in thy saviours wounds, and there an end,  
There prick the Period of thy moody wander,  
To him thy woe, and the revenge commend  
As to thy sovereign Liege and high commander,  
And think no error whispereth in thine ear  
For what I say is true, and that I swear.   

So said: the tears of zeal trilled down his cheeks  
Attesting truth unto his Catechism,  
When (lo) e●t soons unto the Crucifix  
Crooching adown, he said; Oh sacred Chrism,  
Oh sweet assuage of infelicity  
Witness that what I say is verity.   

Say, art not thou the image of our Lord  
The true Character of his sufferance?  
Was he not crowned, deluded, and abhorred  
Misuailed, and scourged with vile mis-valiance?  
Oh, was not he the holy Paschall-lambe  
That died repinelesse for the sins of man?   

Sweet (jesus) give me leave to kiss thy figure  
With thankful zeal to thy benignity,  
And let me pray thee by so great disfigure  
T'inspire this man of woe thy passive-glorie:  
That not all like a beast he droop and die  
Heartless and impious in his misery.   

Defend thy image from so black a blur  
With thy in-shine; Let not temptation foil  
So much thy Passions price all like a Cur,  
But as thou art a Precedent of toil  
To after-glorie; so let thy grace forego  
And fair accompany this man of woe.   

Without thy grace my speech is all but air  
And barren Marl; it batteneth not the ground:  
It is thy grace that foysoneth all affair  
That holy grace that floweth from thy wound;  
I speak in flesh, invested in my briar;  
There is no flame at all but from thy fire.   

Make it appear how good a God thou art  
And how thy wounds were not in vain inflicted,  
What Nature cannot do, let Grace impart  
To strengthen and inhearten the afflicted,  
Show that thy mercy is above the bound  
Of Fortune's topsy-turvy to confound.   

Let not the fancies of a lofty style  
And vain mundanitie transport thy creature  
As though alonely Fortunes lower or smile  
Were sovereign Glories gift and dread defeature,  
As though thy power were worn out of date  
And could no longer signiorize our fate.   

Disperse the terrors of his moody night  
That he may see thy shone Jerusalem  
And in this holy City Zions light  
Abide, and faithfully believe this Theme  
Happy they all that suffer for our Lord,  
For he to such his heaven will afford.   

With that he kissed the Crucifix again  
And with a strict embrace thereof he sounded;  
His Ghost amounted up to heavens domaine,  
His corpse lay trunke-like seeming dead confounded;  
Whiles I mean while internally infiered  
Did feel the wonders of God's grace inspired.   

Then 'gan I credit Catechrysius  
And hatefully abhor my former mood,  
Base Melancholy, black and impious  
That so distrayd me from eternal good:  
My heart exulted, and in zeal I swore,  
Now by our Lord, I'll be a beast no more.   

I will no longer grudge at virtues toil,  
But gladly will be crucified with jesus;  
No yron-fate shall hereafter foil  
My constancy unto the Christ-cross rew:  
I will account all dolour and mishap  
More dear than sweetest Lullaby in Fortune's lap.   

No longer will I wander up and down  
The desert of Revenge, and dread Despair,  
But here will stint me against misfortunes frown  
A land-man of this soil and happy air:  
From hence I will revive to pristin bliss  
Or else die here with jesus in distress.   

No sooner said I so, and gave consent  
To Grace's income, and our Lords attaint,  
But (lo) eftsoons from heavens high regiment  
Music resounded, and appeased my plaint.  
It was so sweet above my feeble frailty  
That down I fell as one content to die.   

Dying in so sweet solace and inheaven  
I was no more the man of earthly nature,  
God's Graces holy relish, and sweet leaven  
Had altered my flesh to a new transfigure:  
Figure of zeal to be in jesus arms,  
Condition to endure ten thousand harms.   

But God who saw & wrought this alteration,  
Fair interdicted Death his date-most deed,  
And sent an Angel from his holy region  
To cheer my frailty up to future speed:  
Whom when I saw and smelled his heavenly hue,  
It did eftsoons my death to life renew.   

He then out-stepping from his siluer-cloud  
Made toward me with a reverend peaceful pace,  
And as he marched ever and anon he bowed  
Unto the Crucifix was there in place,  
Whereto at last down humbled, he kissed it,  
And gave it me in hand, and thus inspeecht it.   

Hold here (Elizian-man) thy saviours image  
The typick Trophy of thy souls redeem,  
Be it thy life's eternal Appennage  
Thy hearts dear dainty, and thy choice-esteeme,  
Inconscience it within thy inmost hest  
For In hoc sign vinces is expressed.   

Be it thy Standard against all affrount,  
Under her shade tyre out Misfortunes weather,  
Be true to it, and make a sure account  
Heaven is thine own as sure as God lives ever:  
God lives for ever to protect and pay  
His Champion with a ioy-eternall day.   

And hither I come, sent from his Tabernacle  
To certify so much to thy poor frailty,  
And here have brought thee heaven-inchanted tackle  
To warfare flesh and bloods calamity:  
Lo I thy Angel of protection  
Against whatsoe'er foul and fell affection.   

With that he armed my Head with Reason's Helm,  
The Crest was Vigilance; the Plumes were twain  
Temperance against fair Fortunes overwhelm,  
And Patience against her angry vain:  
The Gorget was Content, and either Pouldron  
Was humble Prayer and Meditation.   

The corselet, it was Zeal of God's true honour,  
The Back piece, Hope to after-retribution,  
The Gauntlets, tackles to Charity's endeavour,  
The Vantbraces, Faith's deck and decoration,  
The March, he did enjoin was Penitence,  
The Combat, Courage against all sins offence.   

Then gave he me in hand a Shield of Gold  
All over-graven with Christ's Passion,  
And round about in-amilled I might behold  
Death-heads, and latter Resurrection  
To heaven or hell: The Cross in th'other hand  
Was all my Spear against whatsoe'er withstand.   

Thus armed; the Angel bright again inclouded  
Vpbounded from mine eye toward heaven away  
Leaving the place with spiced sweets suffused  
And all bestrewed with Crowns and wreaths of Bay,  
Spelles and demonstrances of future glory  
To well achieved war and victory.   

I then there all alone un-angelled,  
Began to view and glee me in mine Arms  
Wondering to see me so be-Championed  
Against th'assaults of sin & Fortune's harms:  
And thus I said: Oh shone Jerusalem  
What wonders are in thee to welfare men.   

I bless the God and Spirit of thy bounds,  
I bless thy Concord, and thy Monarchy,  
I bless the streams that tril from jesus wounds  
Into thy sevenfold Cisterns; and from thee  
Are vitally imparted unto all  
That live within thy Rampire and thy wall.   

Lo, I with Grace's furniture fair armed  
Within thy confines, humbly beseech thee  
Admit my Souldiour-ship as yet unharmed  
With any adverse wars, into thy city:  
And deign me there a stand against all evil,  
The flesh, the world, and fierce insulting devil.   

In thee I see how much I went amiss  
Ranging the desert of mundanitie,  
And in thy wisdom now I learn this  
That not in Fortune's false malignity  
But in sins guilt, and grim captivity  
Is only wrack, and black calamity.   

I see my miss in thy fair phisnomy,  
My wayless errors in thy unity,  
I feel the ardure of true Chivalry  
Inspired in me from thy Nobility:  
Hear live I then the remnant of my age  
Under thy haughty worth and Patronage.   

So said; a silver bell from high resounded  
Summoning that Region round about to sacring,  
When (lo) eftsoons Catechrysius un-swounded  
His soul's return did give him new reviving,  
Oh sacred summon, sweet enchanting peal  
That so from heaven to earth couldst souls repeal.   

His face like Phoebus in his Noony-shine  
Daunted my feeble eye at prime aspect,  
His soul's regress had made it so divine,  
Bebrightning clean away all frail defect,  
As had not zeal in heartened my frailty,  
I had not had the power t'abide such glory.   

He then uprising toward me advanced  
And kissed the Crucifix I had in hand,  
So done; he said: Sweet jesus be thou thanked  
That hast vouchsafed my prayer to understand;  
Confirm him in thy grace for now and ever  
That from thy love and laud he vary never.   

With that he embraced me with a front of glee  
And called me brother, and Coparcener  
Of Christ's Domain, and therewithal he gave me  
A golden ring; the poesy was Persever:  
So, forth we went unto the Temple-ward  
'twas sacring time, and music much we heard.   

Along as up the Rock we footed it  
He did congratulate my shone in-armor  
And did expound unto me every whit  
How I might use it to God's greatest honour  
And then concluded: O Elysian  
See what it is to be a Christian.   

Wouldst thou have thought in thy mundanitie  
That ever Fortune's heel had had the might  
To spurn th' away to such an after-glorie?  
Or that thy sorry iourneyment all night  
Would ever have brought thee to sweet repose  
As now thou feelest far above thy woes?   

The ball out-banded from the court of game,  
Falls not of force into the dirty kennel,  
But mark, and often shalt thou see the same  
Fly in at Pallace-windowes, and there revel  
Upon the royal Mats, and rich embroader;  
Such grace of God hath blown thy frailty hither.   

Not all the flush of thy fore-frollicke state,  
The worship of thy birth, thy rich revenue,  
Thy country's high applaud and estimate  
And all that fair Elysium can yield you,  
Is of the worth to countervayle this hap  
Fallen from fair Fortune into Grace's lap.   

Say that Eliza is the Lords dear dainty,  
The Phoenix of true Principality  
The feast of peace and sweet saturity  
Unto the people of her Empery;  
Say that she is both Grace and Nature's none-such  
I bend my knee; and say and think as much.   

For I have heard the wonders of her name  
Our coast is full of great Elizabeth,  
Yea, all the world is fertile of the same;  
Sweet Name that all men's tongues and pens enableth,  
Sweet Sound that all men's senses lullabieth,  
Sweet Marle that all the world imbatteneth.   

But such her glories are but eare-delightes  
And lip-sweets only to our far aways,  
For we are no Elizium-bred wights  
Nor have we any such like merry days;  
We have our joys in another kind  
Ghostly innated in our soul and mind.   

Whom angour of mishap or guilt of ill  
Drives to despair, and self misdoomfull deed,  
Lo, here th'unfraught of his woe-loaden will  
And reverend riches to his ghostly need;  
Lo, here the Ark against the inundation  
Of Sin and Fortune's funerall-temptation.   

Here (lo) the amity of men and Angels  
In uniform adore of one true God,  
Heer Peace and Piety together dwells,  
Here Schism, and Discords cloven-foot near trod,  
Here sacred Ceremonies are in ure  
As wedlocke-rightes twixt Faith and Souls insure.   

Here chantes the Nightingale incessant praise  
And prayer unto the Orient son of God,  
Heer Grace our uncouth Adamisme alleys  
Stepping her golden foot where guilt erst trod,  
Here Sacrifice and Sacrificer both  
Gods bless and good acceptance still foregoeth.   

Hewould have told me more to this pourport,  
But that his up-hill pace out-tyred his speech  
And now were also near the Temple port  
Where every sight I saw was so heavenly rich  
As had he uttered more mine eyes delight  
Had quite undone mine ears to do him right.   

Ah, now I want the Muse of Solomon  
To tell you a Temple-tale, a tale of truth  
All of the Architect and frame of Zion:  
To tell you of her age and of her youth  
And of her reverend reign and regiment  
And how Doblessa rues her high atchiuement.   

The ground was Faith; the meane-worke Charity  
The Top, a Hopeful apprehension  
Of heavens attain: All was of Unity  
A solid mettle hewn out of Christ his Passion:  
Yea Christ himself was fundamental stone,  
And all the Sowder was Devotion.   

There shined the Ruby and the Chrysolite  
The sparkling Diamond, and the Emeraud green,  
Each Sapphire in their several delight:  
There was the happy jacent to be seen  
The Topasse, Onyx, and many a fair gem,  
Coral, Amber, and Agates were trash among them.   

Which such bright rough-cast over all incrusted  
'Twas heaven to see what Rainbow rays it yielded  
Whiles every gem ambitiously contended  
T'out-stare each others starry neighbourhed:  
It was enough t'llumineillumine all the world  
But for the mists that false Doblessa hurled.   

Roses and flowers of all cullored kinds,  
The Marie-bush and pleasant Eglantine  
The Honey-suckle in her twisted twines  
Immixed with Ivy, and the Grape-full Vine,  
Did all grow up that starry spanglement  
Spousing her splendure with their spiced scent.   

Below these heaven-amounting swavities  
Grew over all the Temple-greene beside  
Sweet gilly-flowers and Primroses  
The Pink, and Gerisole (the Sun's dear bride;)  
The Molie, Violet, and the pleasant Daisy  
Balm, Margerum, and sweet Coast-marie.   

There grew the lofty Cedar, and the Pine,  
The peaceful Olive, and the martial Fir  
The verdant Laurel in her shadie-shine,  
The patiented Palm, and penitential Myrrh:  
The Elm, the Poplar, and the Cypress tree  
And all trees else that pleasant are to see.   

All kinds of fruits were there perpetual  
The Date, the Almond, & the sauceful Citron,  
The Fig, the Orange, and Pomegranate royal,  
The Quince, the Abricock, and the musk-Mellon  
The Plum, the Cherie, and the pleasant Pear  
The filbert and the Mulberry grew there.   

Amid these trees, these fruits, these flowery sweets  
Ran in a Maze-like wile a crystal stream  
Of heavenly Nectar; in whose sweet floods and fleets  
Swom shoals of fishes, every fishes gleam  
Brighter than Titan in his Southern stage:  
This stream was strong against prime guilts enrage.   

Her silent murmur was so musical  
As it dissolved the Rock to sand and gravel  
Whereby it might more in especial  
With multiplicity of ears incell  
Her musick-sweets: yea even the earth below  
Did open, and eruct her bowels thereto.   

There sat the Mavis and the Nightingale  
Carrolling their Lays unto th'eternal spring  
The little Lark high hovering over all:  
There every bird did either play or sing,  
The Parrot for his plumes did most excel  
But Phoenix bore away the triumph-bell.   

There was no savage shape, no Laruall hue  
No Bug, no bale, nor horrid Owlerie  
But all that there was, was sincere and true,  
Her sweets, her spendure, & her music-glee;  
Yea even the Angels of Divinity  
Were of that league, and confraternity.   

Whiles thus with sacred follace I surveyed  
The Temples outward majesty, and heaven,  
So long on that imparadise I stayed  
That now the Temple-clocke did strike eleven:  
It was the instant time of high Oblation  
We might no longer linger, but begun.   

Estsoons we did so peacefully advance  
That to the Temple-dore we strait arrived,  
o'er which was graven, una, Militans  
Astile from Unity, and War derived;  
The gate was all of pure beaten gold,  
The Portch a sunny Zodiac to behold.   

Then in we entered, (oh, we entered in)  
Please God I never may come forth again:  
What saw I there? Oh my eyes were dim  
My soul, my substance all was poor, and vain  
To comprehend so high magnificence;  
Yet what I can I will you it dispense.   

I Spanield after Catechrysius foot  
A happy shadow to good a substance:  
All like a flower as yet but in thee root  
Tending to future growth, and shone advance:  
The Temple-porter was a reverend man  
And was t'admit in no Elysian.   

Then asked he Catechrisius who I was  
Who answered a Catecumen he,  
With that he greeted me, and let me pass,  
Such was my entry to felicity:  
The Temple gates were four and this was it  
Which none but Europe-spirits might admit.   

There on my knees my heart was full of fire,  
Fire of the grace of God (dear grace of God)  
Which strong bemettled my zeals aspire  
To view the glory of that shone abode:  
It was a Pigeon from the Temple-top  
Which all that frame, and glory did up prop.   

A Pigeon whiter than the whitest Pigeon  
Solely subsistant of his own pure Esse,  
His Posse was Sanctification,  
And Graces bounteous liberality;  
What jesus erst had planted with his blood  
This Pigeon gave it graceful livelihood.   

The beams which issued from his brightsome brist  
Were such as none but Zion ever saw  
Nor ever could Doblessa's dreary mist  
Indarken, or resemble, or withdraw;  
Love, Peace, and Magnanimity in good  
Patience, and Prudence above all flesh and blood.   

justice, and Temperance, and Benignity,  
Zeal, and internal Consolation,  
Pity, and hopeful longanimity,  
Obedience, and brotherly Correction,  
Devotion, and Mortification  
And firm affiance in our Lord's Salvation.   

Such were the Pigeons rays from Temple-top  
Which like a heaven of light illumined all,  
It being thereto a more secure upprop  
Then any lime and stone, or brazen wall:  
Oh Zion, Zion happy City thou  
So holie-ghosted against all overthrow.   

Then looking down unto the residue  
I might discern a reverend ministery  
Of men and Angels chanting unto jesus  
Incessant Hymns of praise and jubilee;  
The high Sacrificator at the Altar  
Victiming with holy rites his makar.   

What shall I say of all the majesty  
Of all the reverend rites and ceremonies  
The rich adorn, the heavenly melody,  
The lustre, and the precious swavities  
That there I saw, felt, heard, and understood?  
Oh, they transcended far poor flesh and blood.   

For, what the goodness and the power of God  
In their immensity could jointly do  
Was there in force sans bound or period,  
His grace and glory both did tend thereto:  
The meanest object there unto my sense  
Was more than all the world's magnificence.   

There saw I sacred imposition  
Of hands; and grace abundantly imparted,  
Chrism, and authentic Sanctification  
And Exorcism of such as were possessed:  
Their credence and their language was alike  
All Babell-Biblers they did dead dislike.   

There was no scambling for the gospels bread  
But what a public Unity diliured  
The same a prompt Credulity received;  
Their humbleness was so beholie-ghosted  
As Pride had not the power to entice  
The wisest of them all to a new device.   

Casting my eye aside, I might descry  
Selected troops of people from the rest  
Dooming themselves with great austerity  
Both men and women in discullored vest;  
They were the people of vows, and high aspire  
Endued with Graces more especial fire.   

On no hand could I cast my liquorish eye  
From heavenly miracles and mysteries;  
Some schooled their Pupils frail infirmity  
dispensing them Gods sacramental graces,  
Some raised the dead, and some expulsed the devil,  
Yet nought could make Doblessa see her evil.   

How many Sionits' of choice esteem  
Brave men of wonders have been sent from thence  
To teach Doblessa (Errors dreary Queen)  
Their Temple's sanctimony and innocence?  
How many worthies have dispensed their blood  
To do th'unkind Doblessa so much good.   

But she, oh she accursed Sorceress  
Would never yet believe, nor 'gree their grace  
But still persisteth in her wretchedness  
Warfaring with bloody broil this happy place,  
Yea, had she might according to her malice  
Zion had been a ruin long ere this.   

She was a Witch, and Queen of all the Desert  
From Babell-mount unto the pit of Hell,  
She forced nor God, nor any good desert,  
She could do any thing save doing well:  
Her law was Liberty, her lust was Pride  
And all good awe and order she defied.   

Erst ere this Temple was established  
She had no being at all above the earth  
But ever lay in deepest hell abyssed;  
Why did not God confound her in her birth?  
Oh, 'twas because his Temple might attain  
Through her assaults to be more sovereign.   

God's Lamb was now both bred and dead outright  
To ransom all the world from sins enthrall,  
And to secure it in more happy plight  
Had built this Sanctuary sacramental:  
It shined so shone unto Gentility  
That it began to see, and 'gree her glory.   

And as the merry river to the Main  
Or the in-ayred stone down to his Centre  
Fleets and descends as to their due domain,  
So it to Zion confluently bend her:  
Yea, had this hag not been so timely bred  
The world had all ere this been Sioned.   

For she could quaintly mask in Zions guise  
And suck out venom from the Flower of life.  
And so retail it with her subtleties  
For purest honey: Such was her deed of strife;  
Her wolvish nature in a lamblie hue  
She could disguise, and seem of Zions crew.   

Like Ensigns she opposed to Zions Ensigns,  
Like her pretence of grace, and Gods high honour,  
Like Grapes she did contend grew up her Vines,  
And as good Gold as Zions seemed her Coppor;  
It was but seeming so, not so indeed,  
Her seeming-flower was a very weed.   

For why, the spirit which she did pretend  
Was not authentic from the holy Ghost,  
On no authority she did depend  
Not had she certain being in any coast;  
Her own behest she did Idolatrize,  
And Hydra-like renewed her Fallacies.   

She had no Altar, nor no Sacrament  
No Ceremony, nor Oblation,  
Her school was Cavil, & truthless babblement  
Riot her Reign, her end damnation;  
This was the haggard whore of Babylon  
Whose cup inveighed all that drunk thereon.   

And this was she which now this holie-day  
Whiles all the Temple was in deep devotions  
And high adore of Christ's nativity  
Came with her barbarous Babellonians  
To bid it battle, and assault the place;  
But (oh the fool) she came against God's grace.   

She came with peaceful Olive in her hand  
Pretending mutual honour of that feast:  
And all her rabble-rout she did command  
As much in outward feigning to protest,  
But underneath their plausible attire  
They all bare balls of venom and wildfire.   

She was more crafty than Gentility  
Which thought of yore with massacre to quell  
The propagation of Sionrie:  
For well she witted that Zion was as a bell  
And Persecution but as a clapper  
That made her siluer-sound more far to scatter.   

She therefore to beguile with friendly seeming  
Came thus addressed; and privily intempled  
Her special Bout-fieux to prepare her coming  
With seeds and weeds of jealousy and falsehood:  
Mean while she stood without the Temple gate  
Protesting zeal and duty to her state.   

But God whose spirit ever Argus eyed  
The weal of Zion as th'apple of his eye,  
Saw from his high enthrone, and did deride  
The Harlot's complot; and did by and by  
Inspire his Templars pregnant jealousy  
And valour against her sly hostility.   

Efts might you hear a battle-bell peal out  
Religious Larums over all the Region  
And see a solemn confluence about  
The high Sacrificators holy Oblation:  
Each one was on his knees for Confirmation  
In grace against so vile prevarication.   

Amongst the rest was I a Catecumen  
As yet ungraced with his alhallowed hand,  
Until such time as Catechrysius then  
Presented me, and gave him t'understand  
My Name, my Nation, and Conversion  
And how I craved to be a man of Zion.   

Then took he me by the hand, and did applaud  
Such my Primitiae toward so high resolve,  
Blessing my ongate from doblessa's fraud  
And sanctifying me with a holy salve;  
He wept for joy that an Elysian  
Would come to be of his Metropolitan.   

And for he saw me absolutely armed  
Already to the wars; he said no more  
But only blest me, and with his breath becharmed  
My Constancy against the Babell-whore:  
And for I was an English-Ilander  
He pricked me down under Saint George's banner.   

Then Catechrysius took me by the hand  
And led me to my Colours; and as we went  
He briefly told me and gave me t'understand  
How all Doblessa's dorrs I might prevent,  
And then concluded. Oh, that Eliza were  
A Sionite to day to see this gear.   

By this Doblessa seeing all her guile  
Detected and Alarmed over all,  
Was in a pelting chafe, and 'gan revile  
The name of Zion, and to scale the wall:  
Lo, thus began the holy wars of Zion  
Against the rampant Hag and whore of Babylon.   

Then might you see whole Legions of Angels  
Descend adown in amity of war  
To Zion, against Doblessa and her devils:  
The war was like as when proud Lucifar  
Tumulting all the Court of heaven was thrown  
He, and his complices to hell adown.   

eftsoon the high Sacrificator seeing  
The upshot brunt of all doblessa's broil  
Came personally himself unto the bickering  
To cheer his men of war in all their toil:  
And thus bespoke them from the holy Tower,  
His speech and gest was full of grace and power.   

Oh men of Zion, happy Machabies,  
Whom Temples honour in your souls engrafted  
Highly demeans to God's benignities;  
Dismay not at the number of the dead  
But thinking who he is for whom you fight  
Redouble your prowess, and your manly might.   

You combat for the high Jerusalem  
A region of Peace and Immortality  
Fore-spelled, and promised only unto them  
That strain in her behalf their upshot constancy:  
Nor fear ye any wounds or any dying  
So good a death tends to a better reviving.   

See, how confusedly Doblessa fights  
Without all discipline or good array,  
Her Camp abandoned to intestine spites  
And every one contending to bear sway;  
Their own disorder will confound their power  
The frame of Discord dures not an hour.   

On then like gallants of the holy-Ghost  
Fight in Unity, and for a Crown  
Against a rascal and tumultuous Host:  
Near let the strumpet pull the Temple down,  
No, never shall the strumpet pull it down  
For God is God, and it is all his own.   

Rememorate the glory of her Age,  
And of her Reign, and of her pristin Wars  
How often hath she quelled doblessa's rage  
Attempting to assail her holy Rampiars?  
Hath she not been a Nurse unto ye all  
A Shelter, and a feast most festival?   

Besides, hath God not promised of yore  
That hell shall near prevail against her gates?  
And hath not he vouchsafed to die therefore  
Establishing her glory against all Fates?  
Yea, is not he her fundamental stone  
Her daily Sacrifice and high Oblation?   

What will ye more? Oh Sionites no more,  
But to your tackle stand like men of honour  
Like men of Zion, one to twenty score  
Such Babell-hildings; mortify their rancour  
With constant and imperious resistance,  
God and his Angels are in your assistance.   

So said, he blessed them, and dismissed them all;  
Who strait in troops unto the Rampires ran  
And happy he could get upon the wall:  
There than a second skirmish fresh began,  
Doblessa still persisting in th'assault  
And Zion fierce supplying all default.   

It was a heaven to see the good array  
And unity of Zion in this conflict,  
How every one was willing to obey  
His Officers encharge though near so strict,  
The holy-Ghost was in and over all  
Cheering their combat with his cordial.   

Mean while the high Sacrificator, he  
Attended to the Temples Sacrifice  
Offering it up for peace and victory,  
He chanted Hymns, and Laudes, and Litanies,  
And in Pontifical Procession  
He and his Clergy made their intercession.   

Some in their studies commented the Text  
Conferring place with place, and with traditions  
Ov'ring the fraud wherewith Doblessa vexed  
Their gospels peace; some others in her stations  
Boldly adventured their lives to tell  
The Babellonians of all her hell.   

Some they persuaded, those were very few  
And of those few not one of ten persisted,  
But still as fear and fraud their frailties drew  
They started back again like men agasted:  
Oh, what it is to be too secular,  
It was self-love that all their weal did mar.   

And of such brave adventurous Sionites  
As Doblessa could by hook or crook entrap  
They died the death, and suffered all the spites  
That rage and rascal wit could jointly rap,  
Subject they were to dreadful persecution  
By public edict, and false brethren's treason.   

What sacring, and what sacramenting was  
In Zion all this while for Zions safety  
Was more than all the strength of stone and brass  
In her defence; God not in enmity  
But for her greater glories sake permitting  
Doblessa thus to bid it bale and bickring.   

Contrariwise, Doblessa rued the fate  
Of her attempt; her mood began to quail,  
For God now seeing the prefixed date  
Of Zions patience in her last avail  
Did on the sudden so enlarge his grace  
That th'whore retired, and gave back apace.   

And then to show her latest trumpery  
(Now that our Lord's permission failed her power)  
She 'gan with Magicke-spels and sorcery  
Fair Virginlike to falsify her figure,  
Thereby to seem as gracious as she could  
To Zions eye; such was her guise of old.   

But when she saw that all her fallaces  
And fierce assaults to Zion were in vain,  
And feeling now withal God's heavy furies  
Shower down upon her like a flood of rain,  
She could no longer bide the brunt of Zion  
But back she reeled to hell and Babylon.   

And fearing lest her daunted enterprise  
Might haply alien her people's hearts  
From her obeisance: She so bewitched their eyes  
With mists of falsed glory, and high deserts,  
That they besotted in their disaster  
Betook them to their heels, and fled with her.   

And as they fled, Oh, mark their vanity,  
They did so cravin-cockadoodle it  
As though they had run away victory  
And left fair Zion in her dying fit,  
Such hoops, such clangor, and such symphony  
And all was but doblessa's policy.   

She nuzzled them in so proud Peacockrie  
To th'end they might not see their damned state,  
But still persever as the Bumble-Bee  
Repinelesse in their dung, and desperate:  
Oh, cursed and unkind captivity  
To be so willing drudge to Falsity.   

Yet some whom Zions more especial beam  
Had bright apaid to see her dignity  
Fled from the witch, as waked from out a dream  
Of Fairy, and chimerical Imagery,  
Such Zion intromitted in her gate  
Applauding them with dear congratulate.   

Contrariwise whatsoever Sionite  
Doblessa could with slight or fight enthrall  
She led away into eternal night  
Blind-folding their eyes to make them fall  
Into a thousand hells and offendickles,  
Thrice fatal lapse from Grace into such pickles.   

Nor was the holy Temple thus acquitted  
For ever after from her hostile trouble  
But still as Hydra-like she had renewed  
One head upon the others stump and stubble  
She came again, and made a braggard-show,  
But still she bore away the Palsie-blow.   

Such being the ancient league of God to Zion  
Necessiting her Peace to such temptation  
And yet withal protesting his protection  
Thereto: against all hell and Babylon:  
What greater safety than so good assurance?  
The word of God is of eternal durance.   

Thus Zion triumphed over mood and tumult  
caboching her Peace in perfect unity  
Against whatsoever future-Scismes insult:  
And seeing now no more hostility  
But all the Region clear: She fell arifling  
doblessa's spoils, the Honours of her fight.   

And in her warlike wardrobe there she placed them  
Amongst a world of former pillages  
And spoils of Babel: high Jerusalem  
sisterly applauding such her victories,  
And thinking long the day to honour her  
With her embrace, and everlasting cheer.   

Then (to conclude) the high Sacrificator  
Came forth in place, and blest the Combatants,  
Bidding them give to God th'eternal honour  
Of so high hap: And thereupon he descants  
A large discourse of God's protection  
How prompt he always was to succour Zion.   

So done: he efts dismissed the multitude  
T'attend unto the burial of their brethren  
Whom Zions' honour had that day endued  
With zeal to die for her like valiant men;  
Their graves resented Immortality  
Sweeter than all the scents of Arabi●.   

And for it was a special victory  
Archived even on the very walls of Zion,  
There was proclaimed a general jubilee  
To be sollemnized throughout all the region  
The Octave after: in feastful reference  
And thanks to God for such his high defence.   

In which mean while the holy Sacrificer  
Progressing the Province, visited his flock  
And with his pastoral care, and Crozier  
Out-weeded and retrenched from the stock  
Whatsoever venom weed, or graft of Error  
Doblessa had sown, or set with guile, or terror.   

Namelie● he did especially dispose  
To careful cure the wownded Combatantes;  
And such as brunt of war had slain; all those  
H'Incallendred to Fame's remembrance:  
Lastly, he did repair and fortify  
Each ruin against all future enemy.   

By this the Octave-day of victory  
Was come; when (lo) the Temple's silver bells  
Selfely out-pealed to festivity;  
Then might you see both Sionits' and Angels  
Troop to the Temple-ward like swarms of Bees  
And hand in hand down falling on their knees.   

You may imagine, no you are to frail  
To comprehend so high magnificence:  
There saw I heaven and earth in joint-entayle  
Homaging to God's benevolence  
A world of praise and hallelujah,  
Hallowing the air with so thankful phrase.   

I saw the high Procession pass along  
In intermixed ranks of men and Angels  
The holy-ghost ouer-hov'ring their song:  
There sounded Musick-instruments and Bells;  
Yea, birds consorted with their warbling lays  
T'enter-common also in this days praise.   

Along as thus we marched about the Temple  
In rich array, in sweets, and melody,  
A sudden Zephire-gale blew from the steeple  
Soliciting our eyes supernally,  
And what it was; Oh, there I bend my knee  
It was a Virgin in bright majesty.   

The sky did open, and adown descended  
Upon a siluer-cloud this solemn sight  
A Mayden-Nymph most shone-satellited  
With all the Angell-court of heaven outright.  
She was invested in as Orient splendour  
As God's omnipotence and Love could lend her.   

She was the Genium of high Jerusalem  
The Patroness of Zion, and the Advocate  
Of grace and mercy unto mortal men;  
Her coming was for to congratulate  
This triumph-day and grateful jubilee  
Of Zion unto God for victory.   

Which such her presence stinted our Procession  
Rapting us all into a sweet admire  
Of so shone figure: her irradiation  
Flaming our spirits with a mighty fire  
Of Seraphin-affection and zeal  
To die in vision of her sweet reveal.   

I may not be so impious and profane  
As to compare this heavenly spectacle  
To any earthly pomp, or jolly vain  
Of Caesar's Bride: whose pride is but a cackle  
Or as a shadow in comparison  
Of so triumphant and most Virgin-vision.   

There on the Temple-pinacle she rested  
Gracing, and doubling our solemn feast  
With her inheaven; And all the while she attested  
Both with her gleefull countenance and gest  
God's everlasting love unto the place  
And eke her own against doblessa's race.   

At last she 'gan to wave and wend about  
Our solemn multitude with all her train  
Suspending us in a delicious doubt  
Of some sweet sequel: Our doubt was not in vain,  
For on the sudden hovering over us  
She showered down Roses most odoriferous.   

Roses both red and white adown she shewred  
From out her virgin-lap, so sweet resenting  
As all our senses into sent adjured:  
So done; she vanished, leaving us a scambling  
For such her sweets; I for my part was one  
That never would give over till all had done.   

And still I called upon Eliza's name  
Thinking those Roses hers, that figure hers,  
Until such time as Catechrysius came  
And pointing me unto his faithful tears  
(Tears of the zeal he bore t' Eliza's name)  
He told me No; she was an Eastern Dame.   

With that I cast mine eye into the East  
Where yet I might discern the region bright,  
Much like as when the Sun down in the West  
Newly descended, leaves us of his light  
Some Rubie-rellickes after: Oh, dear God  
Why made she not with us more long abode.   

Rapt with these wonders, wrapped in virgin-Roses  
And fair be-Sioned against misfortune,  
I suddenly was gone from these reposes  
Solicited with an especial importune  
Of homeward zeal, and of Eliza's name,  
Whereto I bend, and say; God bless the same.   
FINIS.