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 Social Sciences & Humanities Library 
 
 University of California, San Diego 
 Please Note: This item is subject to recall. 
 
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 UCSD Lib.
 
 THE COMPLETE WORKS 
 
 R. SOUTHWELL, S.J, 
 
 
 WITH LIFE AND DEATH. 
 
 NEW EDITION. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 D. STEWART, WARWICK CHAMBERS, 
 
 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.G. 
 
 1876.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PREFACE ....... v 
 
 Memorial Introduction ; The Life . . vii 
 
 SAINT PETER'S COMPLAINT .... 7 
 
 Mary Magdalen's Blush ...... 43 
 
 Mary Magdalen's Complaint at Christ's Death . 45 
 
 Times go by Turns ....... 47 
 
 Look Home ........ 49 
 
 Fortune's Falsehood . . . . . .51 
 
 Scorn not the Least ....... 53 
 
 A Child my Choice ....... 55 
 
 Content and Rich ....... 57 
 
 Loss iii Delay ........ 60 
 
 Love's Servile Lot ....... 62 
 
 Life is but Loss ....... 66 
 
 I die alive ........ 68 
 
 What Joy to Live ....... 69 
 
 Life's Death, Love's Life ...... 71 
 
 At Home in Heaven ...... 73 
 
 Lewd Love is Loss ....... 75 
 
 Love's Garden Grief ...... 77 
 
 From Fortune's Reach ...... 79 
 
 A Fancy turned to a Sinner's Complaint , . 81 
 David's Peccavi ...... .88 
 
 Sin's Heavy Load . ...... 90 
 
 Joseph's Amazement ........ 92 
 
 New Prince, New Pomp ...... 96 
 
 The Burning Babe ....... 98 
 
 New Heaven, new War ...... 100 
 
 103 
 
 ..... 105 
 
 Conception of Our Lady
 
 iv CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Our Lady's Nativity 106 
 
 Our Lady's Espousals .107 
 
 Our Lady's Salutation 108 
 
 The Visitation 109 
 
 The Nativity of Christ 110 
 
 The Circumcision 112 
 
 The Epiphany 113 
 
 The Presentation 115 
 
 The Flight into Egypt 116 
 
 Christ's return out ef Egypt 117 
 
 Christ's Childhood 118 
 
 Christ's Bloody Sweat 119 
 
 Christ's Sleeping Friends 121 
 
 The Virgin Mary to Christ on the Cross . . .123 
 Saint Thomas of Aquines Hyme Read on Corpus 
 
 Christy Daye 125 
 
 Saint Peter's Afflicted Mind 129 
 
 Saint Peter's Remorse . . . . . .131 
 
 Man to the Wound in Christ's Side . . . .134 
 
 Upon the Image of Death .136 
 
 A Vale of Tears 139 
 
 The Prodigal Child's Soul Wrack . . . .143 
 
 Man's Civil War 146 
 
 Seek Flowers of Heaven . . . . . .148 
 
 ADDITIONAL POEMS. 
 Decease, Release. Dum Morior, Orior . . . 153 
 
 I die without Desert 155 
 
 Of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar . . .157 
 
 The Death of Our Lady 161 
 
 The Assumption of Our Lady 162 
 
 Verses appended to the "Triumphs over Death" . 163 
 VERSES PREFIXED TO "SHORT RULES OF GOOD LIFE." 
 
 1. To the Christian Reader . . . . lf>5 
 
 2. A Preparative to Prayer . . . .166 
 
 3. The Effects of Prayer 167 
 
 4. Ensamples of our Saviour . . . .168 
 
 APPENDIX.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 tN presenting to the public the first cheap edition 
 of the Poems of the meek and holy martyr, 
 Robert Southwell, very few words of preface 
 are necessary. 
 
 The work has long been known and appreciated 
 by Scholars and Critics. 
 
 The Poems of Father Southwell are however 
 eminently adapted for general use. 
 
 His touching aphorisms, his sweet quaint images, 
 should make them familiar in every Christian 
 household. 
 
 The Bard of Bards, Shakspeare himself, never 
 gave a more wholesome lesson, than is couched 
 in these simple lines : 
 "A chance may -win, that by mischance was lost ; 
 
 The well that holds no great, takes little fish ; 
 
 In some things all, in all things none are crossed, 
 
 Few all they need, but none have all they wish ; 
 
 Unmeddled joys here to no man befall, 
 
 Who least hath some, who most hath never all." 
 
 Let the children lisp the Poetry of Southwell, 
 and lay it to their hearts. It has uses for this 
 world, as well as for the next.
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. ROBERT 
 SOUTHWELL, S.J. 
 
 OBERT SOUTHWELL, the third son of 
 Richard Southwell, Esq., of Horsham St. 
 Faith's,* in the county of Norfolk, a gentle- 
 man of ancient family, and ancestor of the present 
 Viscount Southwell, was born there about the year 
 1562.f While an infant yet in the cradle, he was 
 stolen by a gipsy or vagrant, who substituted for 
 him her own child : but the theft was speedily 
 discovered, and the woman, apprehended at a short 
 distance from his parental mansion, confessed to 
 have been prompted to the crime for the sake of 
 
 * The site of the Benedictine priory of Horsham St. Faith's, 
 about five miles from Norwich, with the lordship, lands, &c., 
 were granted circa 36 Hen. VIII. to Sir Richard Southwell 
 of Wood Rising in com. Norfolk, and Edw. Ebrington. In 
 1588 it was held by Richard Southwell (father of the poet), 
 and by him sold to Sir Henry Hobart, afterwards Chief 
 Justice of the Common Pleas. Blomefield'sHistory of Nor/oik, 
 by Parkin, x. 441. 
 
 f Pits (who is followed by Fuller) erroneously says that he 
 was born in Suffolk : but he adds : "Romae mihi familiariter 
 notus erat. In philosophia atque etiam in theologia non 
 pcenitendos fecerat progressus. Elegantiam maternse lingua 
 turn prosa, turn versu satis avido sectabatur. Et in patriam
 
 viii MEMOIR OF THE 
 
 gain. This circumstance Southwell gratefully re- 
 membered in after years. " What," says he, " if 
 I had remained with the vagrant ? how abject ! 
 how destitute of the knowledge or reverence of 
 God ! in what debasement of vice, in what great 
 peril of crimes, in what indubitable risk of a miser- 
 able death and eternal punishment I should have 
 been !" And his first care upon entering upon his 
 mission was to convert to the Church the female 
 who had been the instrument of detecting the 
 theft.* At the age of fifteen he was sent to Paris 
 for education, and his religious instruction was 
 superintended by Father Thomas Darbyshire, 
 (nephew to the celebrated Bishop Bonner), one of 
 the earliest Englishmen who became members of 
 the Society of Jesus. From his example, he pro- 
 bably derived the ardent zeal and desire to enter 
 that distinguished order, which is manifested in 
 his beautiful complaint of the delay in his admis- 
 sion, " divulsum ab illo corpore, in quo posita sunt 
 mea vita, mens amor, to turn cor meum, omnesqne 
 effectus," and which may be seen in the History 
 of the English Mission by Father Henry More.f 
 
 missus illud talentum suum et in concionibus et in libris scrip 
 tis exercuisse non illaudabiliter dicitur." De Illust. An<ilin- 
 Scriptor, ed. 1619, p. 794. 
 
 * Mori, Hist. Prov. Angl. Soc. Jesu, p. 172. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 173. Tanner (Soc. Jesu Martyr, p. 30) thus 
 speaks of bis love for the Order: "Nescio an quis alius 
 unquam post sanctissimum Parent em ejus Ignatium, majorem 
 de Societate Jesu sensum, majorem vocationis sute foverit 
 sestimationem, quam llobertus Southwellus Scripsit
 
 REV. ROBERT SOUTHWELL. ix 
 
 It is stated by Bishop Chaloner, in his Memoirs 
 of Missionary Priests, that Southwell was for some 
 time an alumnus of the English College at Douay. 
 He could not however have long studied there, 
 since he went to Borne, and was received into the 
 Society on the Vigil of St. Luke (17th October), 
 1578, ere he had completed his seventeenth year. 
 
 After his reception, he spent a considerable por- 
 tion of his noviciate at Tournay, in Belgium, lest, 
 being unused to the extreme warmth of Italy, his 
 ardent zeal, united to the influence of the atmos- 
 phere, might have affected or destroyed his consti- 
 tution.* From Tournay, returning to Borne, he 
 entered upon the course of philosophy and theology ; 
 in which he acquitted himself so brilliantly, that, 
 after completing his studies, he was appointed 
 Prefect of the English College there.f 
 
 aliquando in sua ad socios Romam epistola S. Xaverius, seter- 
 num animte suse exitium irnpiecans, si unquam ab amore 
 dilectissimse suae religionis descisceret : si oblitus, inquit, fuero 
 tui, Socittas Jesu, oblivioni detur dextera mea. Sed an non 
 sublimesejusdehocordineconceptusadsequarit, si non superaret 
 Robertas, clarissimo in Anglia gentis Southwellite natus san- 
 guine, ex bis sua propria manu consignavit, patebit." 
 
 " Ne videlicet ardentem sanctis desideriis juvenem, 
 immoderatis Italia: sestibus nondum parem, duo in uno corpore 
 calores opprimerent, utque tarn prieclaris dotibus ornato, et qui 
 per ardorem quaerendi spem excitaverat eximia quasdam adipis 
 cendi, non sola Roma nobilitaretnr." fbid. p. 177. 
 
 + " Romam Tornaco rursus vocatus ad philosophos, theo- 
 logosque audiendos, iieque ingenio, neque industria, neque 
 laude studiorum, aut fructu, neque vita cum virtute acta 
 cuiquam se passus est esse inferiorem. Et ingenii quidem et 
 industrias laus in univer&as philosophise decretis proptignandis
 
 x MEMOIR OF THE 
 
 Having been ordained priest in 1584, his earnest 
 desire to devote himself to the cure of souls in 
 England was exemplified in a letter to the General, 
 of 20th Feb. in the following year, wherein his 
 future martyrdom seems rather to have been an- 
 ticipated, than merely referred to as a simple 
 possibility. The same dauntless devotion to duty 
 is expressed in another letter to his late spiritual 
 director, from Porto, 5th July, 1586, while on his 
 way to discharge these earnestly-sought functions, 
 to which in that year he had been appointed with 
 Father Henry Garnet (himself the well known 
 subsequent martyr), and in company with whom 
 he had left Rome, on the 8th of May previously. 
 These may be seen in Father More's History, so 
 frequently referred to.* Southwell and his com- 
 panion reached England on the 7th July following. 
 
 The advent of these distinguished men was dur- 
 ing a most disturbed period, when the course of 
 political intrigues, for and against the unfortunate 
 Queen of Scots^ had established a reign of terror 
 over the Catholic community, f Already 1 had 
 
 e&ituit ; turn etiam, cum post decursum theologize stadium, 
 aliorum studiis est praefectus in Anglicano de urbe Seminario ; 
 in quo juventus id temporis eopioaissima, et ingeniorum 
 varietate, et splendore florentissima non facile nisi ab omnibus 
 doctrinse praesidiis ornato atque instructo ducebatur." Ibid. 
 V . 179. 
 
 * Pp. 182, 18S 
 
 t As Father More truly says : " Ea enim erant tempora 
 in quibus inalitia vires omnes suas intendebat ad perniciem, 
 et quidquid vel potentia vel arte poterat, id omne et aubdole 
 uiachinabatur, et furore percita exequebatur."
 
 REV. ROBERT SOUTHWELL. xi 
 
 seventy priests been banished ; Francis Throck- 
 morton and Dr. Parry had fallen on the scaffold, 
 the confederacy of Babington and his friends was 
 rapidly leading them to a similar fate, and Philip, 
 Earl of Arundel, was a prisoner in the Tower. 
 Great, therefore, was the danger which these holy 
 men incurred by landing ; yet they fortunately at 
 that time escaped, arid were hospitably received 
 and entertained for some months in the house of 
 William, 3rd Lord Vaux of Harrowden,* when the 
 confessor of the Countess of Arundel (wife of 
 Philip aforesaid) chancing to die, Father Southwell 
 was appointed domestic chaplain and confessor to 
 her ladyship in his place. It was while in her 
 family that he composed for the Earl's use the 
 " Consolation for Catholics," and the two following 
 letters, painfully illustrative of the period and 
 written shortly before his own sufferings, which 
 are translated from the History of the Persecutions 
 in England, by Didacus Yepes, Bishop of Tarra- 
 zona, lib. v. cap. 6, p. 647. 
 
 I. 
 
 " As yet we are alive and well, being unworthy, 
 it seems, of prisons. We have oftener sent than 
 received letters from your parts, though they are 
 not sent without difficulty ; and some, we know, 
 have been lost. 
 
 At Hackney.
 
 xii MEMOIR OF THE 
 
 "The condition of Catholic recusants here is the 
 same as usual, deplorable and full of fears and dan- 
 gers, more especially since our adversaries have 
 looked for wars. As many of ours as are in chains 
 rejoice, and are comforted in their prisons ; and 
 they that are at liberty set not their hearts upon it, 
 nor expect it to be of long continuance. All, by 
 the great goodness and mercy of God, arm them- 
 selves to suffer any thing that can come, how hard 
 soever it may be, as it shall please our Lord ; for 
 whose greater glory and the salvation of their souls, 
 they are more concerned than for any temporal 
 losses. 
 
 "A little while ago they apprehended two priests, 
 who have suffered such cruel usages in the prison 
 of Bridewell as can scarce be believed. What was 
 given them to eat was so little in quantity, and 
 withal, so filthy and nauseous, that the very sight 
 of it was enough to turn their stomachs. The 
 labours to which they obliged them were continual 
 and immoderate, and no less in sickness than in 
 health ; for with hard blows and stripes they forced 
 them to accomplish their task, how weak soever 
 they were. Their beds were dirty straw, and their 
 prison most filthy. 
 
 " Some are there hung up, for whole days, by 
 the hands, in such a manner that they can but just 
 touch the ground with the tops of their toes. In 
 fine, they that are kept in that prison truly live in 
 lacu miseries et in luto feeds, Psalm xxxix. This 
 purgatory we are looking for every hour, in which
 
 REV. ROBERT SOUTHWELL. xiii 
 
 Topcliffe and Young, the two executioners of the 
 Catholics, exercise all kinds of torments. But 
 come what pleaseth God, we hope we shall be able 
 to bear all in Sim that strengthens us. In the 
 mean time we prey, that they may be put to con- 
 fusion who work unjustly : and that the Lord may 
 speak peace to His people, Psalms xxiv. and Ixxxiv, 
 that, as the royal prophet says, His glory may dwell 
 in our land. I most humbly recommend myself to 
 the holy sacrifices of your Reverence and of all our 
 friends. January 16, 1590." 
 
 II. 
 
 " We have written many letters, but, it seems, 
 few have come to your hands. We sail in the 
 midst of these stormy waves with no small danger; 
 from which, nevertheless, it has pleased our Lord 
 hitherto to deliver us. 
 
 " We have altogether, with much comfort, re- 
 newed the Yows of the Society, according to our 
 custom, spending some days in exhortations and 
 spiritual conferences. Aperuimus ora, et attraximus 
 ISpiritum. It seems to me that I see the beginning 
 of a religious life set on foot in England, of which 
 we now sow the seeds with tears, that others here- 
 after may with joy carry in the sheaves to the 
 heavenly granaries. 
 
 " We have sung the Canticles of the Lord in a 
 strange land, and in this desert we have sucked 
 honey from the rock, and oil from the hard stone. 
 But these our joys ended in sorrow, and sudden
 
 xiv MEMOIR OF THE 
 
 fears dispersed us into different places : but, in fine, 
 we were more afraid than hurt, for we all escaped. 
 I, with another of ours, seeking to avoid Scylla, 
 had like to have fallen into Charybdis ; but, by 
 the mercy of God, we passed betwixt them both 
 without being shipwrecked, and are now sailing in 
 a safe harbour. 
 
 "In another of mine I gave an account of the 
 late martyrdoms of Mr. Bayles and Mr. Horner,* 
 and of the edification which the people received 
 from their holy ends. With such dews as these 
 the Church is watered, ut in stilhcidiis hujusmodi 
 laetetur germinans, Psal. Ixiv. We also look for the 
 time (if we are not unworthy of so great a glory) 
 when our day (like that of the hired servant) shall 
 come. In the meanwhile I recommend myself very 
 much to your Reverence's prayers, that the Father 
 of Lights may enlighten us, and confirm us with 
 His principal Spirit. Given March 8, 1590." 
 
 One of his earliest cares, upon entering on his 
 mission, was to bring back his own father to his 
 religious duties. Mr. Southwell, a gentleman of 
 opulence, had married a lady of the Court, for- 
 merly according to More the instructress of 
 Queen Elizabeth in the Latin language ; and this 
 connection, as well as his wealth (which seldom 
 pays the turnpike to heaven), appears to have made 
 him a time-server, and, although a believer in the 
 
 * See Bp. Chaloner's Memoirs of Missionary Priests, i. 249, 
 ed. 1741.
 
 REV. ROBERT SOUTHWELL. xv 
 
 doctrines of the Church, an absentee from its 
 observations. From this state of enslavement 
 to expediency and mammon, Father Southwell 
 naturally sought to emancipate his parent ; and 
 his desire was happily fulfilled, through the in- 
 strumentality f inter alia) of a letter printed at the 
 end of this Volume. That which follows it, ad- 
 dressed to his brother, shews that he also had re- 
 quired and received the spiritual -attentions of the 
 future martyr. 
 
 Although fully engaged with his sacerdotal 
 duties, yet, by his accurate and strict distribution 
 of time, Father Southwell was enabled to make his 
 abilities conducive both to the intellectual recrea- 
 tion and to the spirtual edification of his country- 
 men ; as the contents of the present volume and 
 his other works amply shew. These were all com- 
 posed during his residence with Lady Arundel. 
 
 He had in this manner, for six years, pursued, 
 with very great success, the objects of his mission, 
 when these were abruptly terminated by his foul 
 betrayal into the hands of his enemies in 1592. The 
 circumstances were as follow : 
 
 There was resident at Uxendon,* near Harrow 
 
 * "The manor of Woxindon, now called Uxendon, in this 
 parish, was formerly the property of the Travers family, from 
 whom it passed to Sir Nicholas Brembre, about the year 1376. 
 Some years afterwards, in consequence of a judgment against 
 this Sir Nicholas in parliament, it became forfeited to the 
 crown, and was grantsd by King Richard, anno 1394, in con- 
 sideration of the sum of 40 to Thomas Godelac and Joan his 
 wife. It seems probable that it passed from the family of
 
 xvi MEMOIR OF THE 
 
 on the Hill, in Middlesex, a Catholic family of the 
 name of Bellamy, whom Southwell was in the 
 habit of visiting and providing with religious in- 
 struction when he exchanged his ordinary close 
 confinement for a purer atmosphere. One of the 
 daughters, Ann, had in her early youth exhibited 
 marks of the most vivid and unshakeable piety ; 
 but, having been committed to the Gatehouse of 
 Westminster, her faith gradually departed, and 
 along with it her virtue For, having formed, an 
 intrigue with the Keeper of the prison, she sub- 
 sequently married him, and by this step forfeited 
 all claim which she had by law or favour upon her 
 father. In order, therefore, to obtain some fortune, 
 she resolved to take advantage of the Act of 27 
 Elizabeth, which made the harbouring of a priest 
 treason, with confiscation of the offender's goods. 
 Accordingly she sent a messenger to Southwell, 
 
 Godelac to that of Bellamy " (see Appendix V.), " in conse- 
 quence of an intermarriage ; for it appears that the Bellamys 
 of Uxendon, who were for many years proprietors of this and 
 other large estates in Harrow, quartered the arms of Godelac. 
 " It is related in the chronicles, that Babington, who, with 
 other conspirators, had laid a plot against Queen Elizabeth 
 and the state, in the year 1586, when he found that the con- 
 spiracy was detected, being a very handsome man, disfigured 
 his face with the juice of green walnuts, and wandered about 
 in that disguise with his associates till they were half starved, 
 in which condition they were received at Bellamy's house near 
 Harrow, where they were at length discovered, and being 
 brought to London, were executed with circumstances of un- 
 usual severity. Jerome Bellamy suffered death also for con- 
 cealing them ; his brother destroyed himself in prison. Th e 
 manor of Uxendon was aliened by the Bellamys to the Page
 
 REV. ROBERT SOUTHWELL xvii 
 
 urging him to meet her on a certain day and hour 
 at her father's house, whither he, either in ignor- 
 ance of what had happened, or under the impres- 
 sion that she sought his spiritual assistance through 
 motives of penitence, went at the appointed time. 
 In the meanwhile, having apprised her husband of 
 this, as also of the place of concealment in her 
 father's house and the mode of access, he conveyed 
 the information to Topcliffe,* an implacable per- 
 secutor and denouncer of the Catholics, who, with 
 a band of his satellites, surrounded the premises, 
 broke open the house, arrested his .Reverence, and 
 carried him off in open day exposed to the gaze of the 
 populace. He was taken in the first instance to 
 Topcliffe's house, where during a few weeks he 
 was put to the torture ten times with such dread- 
 ful severity, that Southwell, complaining of it to 
 his judges, declared in the name of God that death 
 would have been more preferable. The manner in 
 which he was agonized may be seen in Tanner's 
 
 family in the early part of the last century, and is now (1795) 
 the property of Richard Page, Esq., of Wimbley." (Lysons* 
 Environs, ii. 565.) At present (1856) it belongs to Henry 
 Young, Esq. , of Sudbury : no vestige of the mansion exists. 
 
 * See notice of this bloodhound in Lodge's Illustrations of 
 British History, ii. p. 125, octavo edition. The miscreant had 
 permission from the Queen's Council to torture in any manner, 
 and to any extent short of death, the unfortunate victims of 
 his generally too successful search. He was frequently heard 
 to say that nothing gave him greater delight than the torturing 
 and butchering of Catholics ; and that, if his power was equal 
 to his will, his dearest pleasure would be to blow every Jesuit 
 to powder in the air.
 
 xviii MEMOIR OF THE 
 
 " Societas Jesu Martyr." But all was to no pur- 
 pose ; the sufferer maintained an inflexible silence ; 
 nothing could shake his constancy, and the tor- 
 mentors affirmed that he resembled a post rather 
 than a man.* He was then transferred to the 
 same Gatehouse which was kept by the husband of 
 the wretch who had betrayed him ;f and after 
 being confined there for two months, was removed 
 to the Tower, and thrown into a dungeon so filthy 
 and noisome, that, when brought forth at the end 
 of a month to be examined, his clothes were 
 covered with vermin. Whereupon his father pre- 
 sented a petition to Elizabeth, humbly entreating 
 that if his son had committed anything for which 
 by the laws he had deserved it, he might suffer 
 death ; if not, as he was a gentleman, he hoped her 
 Majesty would be pleased to order that he should 
 be treated as such, and not be confined in that 
 
 * As to his fortitude we have the admiring testimony of 
 Cecil : " Let antiquity boast of its Roman heroes, and the 
 patience of captives in torments : our own age is not inferior 
 to it, nor do the minds of the English cede to the Romans. 
 There is at present confined one Southwell, a Jesuit, who, 
 thirteen times most cruelly tortured, cannot be induced to 
 confess anything, not even the colour of the horse, whereon on a 
 certain day he rode, lesb from such indication his adversaries 
 might conjecture in what house, or in company of what 
 Catholics, he that day was." MORE, ut supra, p. 193. 
 
 f- What portion this vile woman received of her father's 
 escheated property does not appear ; but Father More states 
 that he had seen the poor old man in Belgium, exiled and 
 beggared, and dragging out a precarious existence on some 
 miserable pittance. This seems somewhat at variance with 
 what is said by Lysons in a previous note, p. xxiii.
 
 REV. ROBERT SOUTHWELL xix 
 
 filthy hole.* The Queen, in consequence, ordered 
 that he should be better lodged, and gave his father 
 permission to supply him with clothing, necessaries, 
 and books ; of which latter, the only ones which he 
 asked for were the Bible and the works of St. 
 Bernard. During all his protracted confinement, 
 although his sister Mary, who was married to a 
 gentleman of the name of Bannister, had occasional 
 access to him, he never discoursed on anything but 
 religion. f 
 
 After three years' close detention in the Tower, 
 Father Southwell wrote to the Lord Treasurer, 
 Cecil, humbly entreating that he might either be 
 brought to trial, to answer for himself, or, at least, 
 that his friends might have permission to come 
 to see him. Whereupon, it is said, that Cecil 
 replied to the effect that " if he was in so much 
 haste to be hanged, he should have his desire." 
 Be this as it may, on the 18th of February, 1594-5, 
 he was taken from the Tower to Newgate, and 
 
 * Chaloner's Memoirs of Missionary Priests, i. 325, ed. 1741. 
 
 t From a letter of one John Danyell, addressed to Sir 
 Robert Cecil, 5 Aug. 1595 (State Paper Office, Domestic, No. 
 200), it would seem that he was one of the diabolical emissaries of 
 the time. He says : " At the arraymentof Yorke, Williams 
 and Southwell the Jesuite, John Danyell was nomynated to 
 have been the first discoverer of these late practizes intended 
 against her hyghness and her dominions, myself standing by. 
 I refere me to the reports of my veray good lo. yo r . father, the 
 lievetenant of the Tower, Mr. Toplyffe and Mr. Justice 
 Young yf he were alyve, how reddy I was sins my coming to 
 dely ver my knowledge of all such as came or weare to come 
 for any illentent, and will so contynue while I lyve with' respect
 
 xx MEMOIR OF THE 
 
 thrown into a subterraneous dungeon there, (called 
 Limbo from its darkness and offensiveness,) where 
 he was detained three days and then removed to 
 Westminster for trial. On the 21st he was placed 
 at the bar, before Chief Justice Popham, Justice 
 Owen, Baron Evans, and Sergeant Daniel ; Sir 
 Edward Coke, Solicitor General, appearing for the 
 prosecution. To the usual question Father South- 
 well, of course, pleaded not guilty to the charge of 
 treason, but fully and distinctly admitted (his only 
 crime) that he was a priest, and had returned to 
 his own country simply to administer the Sacra- 
 ments to those of his religion who might desire 
 them, and perform the ordinary duties of a 
 clergyman of the Church of Rome. The Chief 
 Justice and Coke having, in their accustomed 
 style, addressed the Jury, a verdict of guilty, 
 necessarily in accordance with the existing statute, 
 was returned. A succinct report of the proceed- 
 ings may be seen in the Memoirs of Bishop Chaloner 
 previously referred to : the prisoner's noble defence 
 in the history of Father More. 
 
 to persons. In case that old George Herbert who was with 
 Charles Arrondell beyond the seas be (as I hear say) appre- 
 hended and comytted to the Tower, he can discover as moche 
 as Holt the Jesuite, S. WilT. Taylor and Hughe Owen ; yf 
 he bathe or will not of himself e like a good subject delivir his 
 knowledge plainlie and truelie, and that her Matie and y r . 
 honors be not sufficientlie instructed to examyne him uppon 
 certaine points I will deliver y r . honor in writing by way of 
 Interrogatory so moche as I know, and will confront him or 
 any other for her Maties' service. I was never a traytor in 
 any country nor beyond the seas," &c. &c. &c.
 
 REV. ROBERT SOUTHWELL. xxi 
 
 At daybreak of the 22nd the chief jailor ap- 
 prised him that he was to die that morning. 
 Southwell embraced him, and said, "You could not 
 bring me more joyful tidings. I regret that I 
 have nothing left of greater value, but accept this 
 nightcap as evidence of my gratitute." This gift 
 the jailor held in such estimation that, while he 
 lived, nothing could induce him to part with it. 
 Being placed upon a hurdle, he was drawn to the 
 place of Execution at Tyburn. On arriving there, 
 when unbound, he wiped from his face the mud 
 which the jolting of the sledge had cast upon it, 
 with a neckerchief, which he threw to one of the 
 Society whom he recognized in the crowd, by whom 
 it was given to Father Garnet, from whose hands 
 it passed to Acquaviva, at that time General of the 
 Order. He then, after making the sign of the 
 Cross, addressed the multitude, who, by their 
 silence and decorum, testified their admiration of 
 the martyr, in the following words, beginning with 
 those of the Apostle : 
 
 " ' Whether we live, we live unto the Lord ; or 
 whether we die we die unto the Lord. Therefore, 
 whether we live or whether we die, we are the 
 Lord's.' Of which most clement God and Father 
 of Mercies, through the blood of Jesus Christ, I in 
 the first place crave forgiveness for all things 
 wherein I may have offended since my infancy. 
 Then as regards the Queen (to whom I have never 
 done nor wished any evil), I have daily prayed 
 for her, and now with all my heart do pray, that
 
 xxii MEMOIR OF THE 
 
 from. His great mercy, through the wounds and 
 most worthy merits of Christ His son, He may 
 grant that she may use the ample gifts and endow- 
 ments wherewith He has endowed her, to the im- 
 mortal glory of His name, the prosperity of the 
 whole nation, and the eternal welfare of her soul 
 and body. For my most miserable and with all 
 tears to be pitied country, I pray the light of truth, 
 whereby the darkness of ignorance being dispelled, 
 it may learn in and above all things to praise God, 
 and seek its eternal good in the right way. And 
 since I perceive that I am not permitted to speak 
 at greater length, I deliver my soul into the hands 
 of God my Creator, earnestly beseeching Him that 
 He may preserve and strengthen it with His grace, 
 and grant it to continue faithful in this final con- 
 flict. For what may be done to my body I have 
 no care. But since death, in the admitted cause 
 for which I die, cannot be otherwise than most 
 happy and desirable, I pray the God of all comfort 
 that it may be to me the complete cleansing of my 
 sins and a real solace and increase of faith and 
 constancy to others. For I die because I am a 
 Catholic priest, elected into the Society of Jesus 
 in my youth ; nor has any other thing, during the 
 last three years in which I have been imprisoned, 
 been charged against me. This death, therefore,' 
 although it may now seem base and ignominious, 
 can to no rightly-thinking person appear doubtful 
 but that it is beyond measure an eternal weight of 
 glory to be wrought in us, who look not to the
 
 REV. ROBERT SOUTHWELL. xxiii 
 
 things which are visible, but to those which are 
 unseen." 
 
 This speech, firmly delivered, moved the 
 audience to much commiseration, notwithstanding 
 the interruptions of some of the teachers of Pro- 
 testant opinions among them, whom Southwell 
 rebuked. "Whatever," said he, pointing to them, 
 " these men may say or do, I live and die a Catho- 
 lic : this, you who are Catholics here, I take to 
 witness." Then recollecting himself, he prepared 
 for his approaching end, frequently ejaculating, 
 " Holy Mary, Mother of God, and all saints pray 
 for me ;" and, signing himself with the cross, 
 " Into thy hands, Lord, I commend my spirit ; 
 thou hast redeemed me, Lord God of truth, my 
 God and all ; God be merciful to me a sinner," &c. 
 At length, the horses being started and the car 
 removed from under his feet, he continued to beat 
 his breast and make the sign of the cross, until the 
 executioner, who had so awkwardly applied the 
 noose as to prevent his speedy strangulation, pulled 
 him by the legs to ease his agony. The matyr's 
 behaviour had such an effect on the spectators, 
 that when, in terms of his sentence, the executioner 
 wished to cut him down alive, neither they nor the 
 magistrate who superintended the judicial murder 
 would permit him to do so. When he was dead, 
 his countenance exhibited no change, neither did 
 the halter leave its ordinary marks of discoloration ; 
 and when his body was partitioned, the heart 
 leaped from the dissector's hand, and, by its
 
 xxiv MEMOIR. 
 
 throbbing, seemed to repel the flames, as if ex- 
 pressing with the Psalmist, " My heart and my 
 flesh shall exult in the living God." Lord Monnt- 
 joy,* who happened to be present, was so struck 
 by the martyr's constancy, that he exclaimed, 
 '' May my soul be with this man's !" and he assisted 
 in restraining those who would have cut the rope 
 while he was still in life. 
 
 So perished Father Southwell, at thirty-three 
 years of age, and so unhappily have perished many 
 of the wise and virtuous of the earth, conscious of 
 suffering in the best of causes. He seemed to have 
 met death without terror ; to have received the 
 Crown of Martyrdom, not only with resignation, 
 but with joy. 
 
 Indeed, persecution and martyrdom, torture ! and 
 death ! must have been frequent subjects of his 
 contemplation. His brethren of the priesthood 
 were falling around him, and he himself assumed 
 the character of a comforter and encourager to 
 those who remained. Life's uncertainty and the 
 world's vanity, the crimes and follies of humanity, 
 and the consolations and glories of religion, are the 
 constant themes of his writings, both in prose and 
 verse ; and the kindliness and benignity of his 
 nature, and the moral excellence of his character are 
 diffused alike over both. 
 
 * Charles Blount, 8th Baron Mount joy.
 
 THE AUTHOR TO HIS LOVING COUSIN, 
 
 |n)OETS, by abusing their talents, and making 
 the follies and feignings of love the cus- 
 tomary subject of their base endeavours, 
 have .so discredited this faculty, that a poet, a 
 lover, and a liar, are by many reckoned but three 
 words of one signification. But the vanity of 
 men cannot counterpoise the authority of God, 
 who delivered many parts of Scripture in verse, 
 and, by his apostle willing us to exercise our 
 devotion in hymns and spiritual songs, warrant- 
 eth the art to be good and the use allowable. 
 And therefore not only among the heathens, 
 whose Gods were chiefly canonized by their poets, 
 and their paynim divinity oracled in verse ; but 
 even in the Old and New Testament it hath been 
 used by men of the greatest piety in matters of 
 most devotion. Christ himself, by making an 
 hymn the conclusion of his last supper, and the 
 prologue to the first pageant of his passion, gave 
 his Spouse a method to imitate, as in the office of 
 the Church it appeareth ; and to all men a pat- 
 tern, to know the true use of this measured style. 
 But the devil, as he affecteth deity and seeketh 
 to have all the compliments of divine honour 
 applied to his service, so hath he among the rest
 
 2 THE AUTHOR, ETC. 
 
 possessed also most Poets with his idle fancies. 
 For in lieu of solemn and devout matters, to 
 which in duty they owe their abilities, they now 
 busy themselves in expressing such passions as 
 serve only for testimonies to what unworthy 
 affections they have wedded their wills. And, 
 because the best course to let them see the error 
 of their works is to weave a new web in their own 
 loom, I have here laid a few coarse threads 
 together to invite some skilfuller wits to go 
 forward in the same, or to begin some finer piece, 
 wherein it may be seen how well verse and virtue 
 suit together. 
 
 Blame me not, good Cousin, though I send you 
 a blame-worthy present, in which the most that 
 can be commended is the good will of the writer ; 
 neither art nor invention giving it any credit. If 
 in me this be a fault, you cannot be faultless that 
 did importune me to commit it, and therefore you 
 must bear part of the penance when it shall please 
 sharp censures to impose it. In the mean time, 
 with many good wishes, I send you these few 
 ditties ; add you the tunes, and let them, I pray 
 you, be still a part in all your music.
 
 TO THE READER. 
 
 EAR eye, that dost peruse my muses still, 
 With easy censure deem of my delight ; 
 Grive sob'rest cotmt'nance leave sometime 
 to smile, 
 
 And gravest wits to take a breathing flight : 
 Of mirth to make a trade may be a crime, 
 But tired sprites for mirth must have a time. 
 
 The lofty eagle soars not still above, 
 
 High flights will force her from the wing to stoop- 
 
 And studious thoughts at times men must remove, 
 
 Lest by excess before the time they droop : 
 
 In coarser studies 'tis a sweet repose, 
 
 With poets pleasing vein to temper prose. 
 
 Prophane conceits and feigned fits I fly ; 
 
 Such lawless stuff doth lawless speeches fit, 
 
 With David, verse to virtue I apply, 
 
 Whose measure best with measured words doth fit; 
 
 It is the sweetest note that man can sing 
 
 When grace in virtue's key tunes nature's string.
 
 RURSUS AD EUNDEM. 
 
 ^jT~N EAR eye, that deigiiest to let fall a look 
 ^1 ^/ On these sad memories of Peter's plaints, 
 Muse not to see some mud in clearest brook; 
 They once were brittle mould that now are saints. 
 Their weakness is no warrant to offend ; 
 Learn by their faults what in thine own to mend. 
 
 If Justice' even hand the balance held, 
 
 Where Peter's sins and ours were made the 
 
 weights, 
 Ounce for his drachm, pound for his ounce we 
 
 yield, 
 His ship would groan to feel some sinners' 
 
 freights. 
 
 So ripe is vice, so green is virtue's bud, 
 The world doth wax in ill, but wane in good. 
 
 This makes my mourning muse dissolve in tears, 
 This themes my heavy pen, too plain in prose ; 
 Christ's thorn is sharp, no head his garland 
 
 wears ; 
 
 Still finest wits are 'stilling Venus' rose : 
 In paynim toys the sweetest veins are spent ; 
 To Christian works few have their talents lent.
 
 6 RURSUS AD EUNDEM. 
 
 Licence my single pen to seek a phere ; 
 You heavenly sparks of wit shew native light, 
 Cloud not with misty loves your orient clear, 
 Sweet nights you shoot, learn once to level right. 
 Favour my wish, well-wishing works no ill ; 
 I move the suit, the grant rests in your will.
 
 SAINT PETEE'S COMPLAINT, 
 
 MARY MAGDALEN'S TEARS, 
 
 WITH OTHER WORKS OF 
 
 THE AUTHOR 
 
 R. S. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY J. HAVILAND, AND 
 
 SOLD BY ROBERT ALLOTT. 
 
 1634.
 
 SAINT PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 forth, my soul, into a main of 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 tears, 
 
 Full fraught with grief, the traffic of thy 
 mind ; 
 Torn sails will serve thoughts rent with guilty 
 
 fears, 
 
 Give care the stern, use sighs instead of wind : 
 Remorse thy pilot, thy misdeed thy card, 
 Torment thy haven, shipwreck thy best reward. 
 
 Shun not the shelf of most deserved shame, 
 Stick in the sands of agonizing dread ; 
 
 Content thee to be storms' and billows' game, 
 Divorced from grace, thy soul to penance wed : 
 
 Fly not from foreign ills, fly from the heart, 
 
 Worse than the worst of ills is that thou art. 
 
 Give vent unto the vapours of thy breast, 
 That thicken in the brims of cloudy eyes ; 
 
 Where sin was hatch' d, let tears now wash the 
 
 nest, 
 Where life was lost, recover life with cries ; 
 
 Thy trespass foul, let not thy tears be few, 
 
 Baptize thy spotted soul in weeping dew.
 
 10 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 Fly mournful plaints, the echoes of my rnth, 
 When screeches in my frightened conscience 
 ring, 
 
 Sob out my sorrows, fruits of mine untruth, 
 Report the smart of sin's infernal sting ; 
 
 Tell hearts that languish in the sorriest plight, 
 
 There is on earth a far more sorry wight. 
 
 A sorry wight, the object of disgrace, 
 
 The monument of fear, the map of shame, 
 
 The mirror of mishap, the stain of place, 
 The scorn of time, the infamy of fame, 
 
 An excrement of earth, to jhjeaven hateful, 
 
 To man injurious, to God ungrateful. 
 
 Ambitious heads, dream yon of Fortune's pride, 
 Fill volumes with your forged goddess' praise ; 
 
 You Fancy's drudges, plunged in Folly's tide, 
 Devote your fabling wits to lovers' lays : 
 
 Be you, sharpest griefs that ever rung ! 
 
 Text to my thoughts, theme to my plaining tongue. 
 
 Sad subject of my sin hath stored my mind, 
 With everlasting matter of complaint ; 
 
 My themes an endless alphabet do find, 
 
 Beyond the pangs which Jeremy doth paint ; 
 
 That eyes with errors may just measure keep, 
 
 Most tears I wish, that have most cause to weep.
 
 57*. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 11 
 
 All weeping eyes resign your tears to me, 
 A sea will scantly rinse my ordured sonl ; 
 
 Huge horrors in high tides must drowned be ; 
 Of every tear my crime exacteth toll ; 
 
 These stains are deep, few drops take out no such ; 
 
 Even salve with sore, and most is not too much. 
 
 I fear'd with life to die, by death to live ; 
 
 I left my guide, now left, and leaving God ; 
 To breathe in bliss I fear'd my breath to give, 
 
 I fear'd for heavenly sign an earthly rod ; 
 These fears I fear'd, fears feeling no mishaps, 
 Oh ! fond, oh ! faint, oh ! false, oh ! faulty lapse ! 
 
 How can I live, that thus my life denied ? 
 
 What can I hope, that lost my hope in fear ? 
 What trust in one, that truth itself defied ? 
 
 What good in him, that did his God forswear ? 
 sin of sins ! of ills the very worst ; 
 O matchless wretch ! O caitiff most accurst ! 
 
 Vain in my vaunts, I vow'd, if friends had fail'd, 
 Alone Christ's hardest fortunes to abide : 
 
 Giant in talk, like dwarf in trial quail'd, 
 Excelling none but in untruth and pride. 
 
 Such distance is between high words and deeds ! 
 
 In proof, the greatest vaunter seldom speeds.
 
 12 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 Ah ! rashness, hasty rise to murdering leap, 
 Lavish in vowing, blind in seeing what ; 
 
 Soon sowing shames that long remorse must reap, 
 Nursing with tears that over-sight begat ; 
 
 Scout of repentance, harbinger of blame, 
 
 Treason to wisdom, mother of ill name. 
 
 The born-blind beggar, for received sight, 
 Fast in his faith and love to Christ remain'd ; 
 
 He stooped to no fear, he fear'd no might, 
 
 No change his choice, no threats his truth 
 distain'd : 
 
 One wonder wrought him in his duty sure, 
 
 I, after thousands, did my Lord abjure. 
 
 Could servile fear of rend'ring Nature's due, 
 Which growth in years was shortly like to claim, 
 
 So thrall my love, that I should thus eschew 
 A vowed death, and miss so fair an aim ? 
 
 Die, die disloyal wretch, thy life detest ; 
 
 For saving thine, thou hast forsworn the best. 
 
 Ah ! life, sweet drop, drown'd in a sea of sours, 
 A flying good, posting to doubtful end ; 
 
 Still losing months and years to gain new hours, 
 Fain times to have and spare, yet forced to spend ; 
 
 Thy growth, decrease ; a moment all thou hast, 
 
 That gone ere known ; the rest, to come, or past.
 
 57. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 13 
 
 Ah ! life, the maze of countless straying ways, 
 Open to erring steps and strew'd with baits, 
 
 To bind weak senses into endless strays, 
 
 Aloof from Virtue's rough, unbeaten straits 
 
 A flower, a play, a blast, a shade, a dream, 
 
 A living death, a never-turning stream. 
 
 And could I rate so high a life so base ? 
 
 Did fear with love cast so uneven account, 
 That for this goal I should run Judas' race, 
 
 And Caiaphas' rage in cruelty surmount ? 
 Yet they esteemed thirty pence his price ; 
 I, worse than both, for nought denied him thrice. 
 
 The mother-sea, from overflowing deep, 
 Sends forth her issue by divided veins, 
 
 Yet back her offspring to their mother creep, 
 To pay the purest streams with added gains. 
 
 But I, that drank the drops of heavenly flood, 
 
 Bemired the Giver with returning mud ! 
 
 Is this the harvest of his sowing toil ? 
 
 Did Christ manure thy heart to breed him briers ? 
 Or doth it need this nnaccustom'd soil, 
 
 With hellish dung to fertile heaven's desires ? 
 No, no, the marl that perjuries do yield, 
 May spoil a good, not fat a barren field.
 
 14 51. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 Was this for best deserts the direst meed ? 
 
 Are highest worths well waged with spiteful 
 
 hire ? 
 Are stoutest vows repeal'd in greatest need? 
 
 Should friendship, at the first affront, retire ? 
 Blush, craven sot, lurk in eternal night ; 
 Crouched in the darkest cave from loathed light 1 
 
 Ah ! wretch, why was I named son of a Dove, 
 Whose speeches voided spite and breathed gall ? 
 
 No kin I am unto the bird of love, 
 
 My stony name much better suits my fall : 
 
 My oaths were stones, my cruel tongue the sling, 
 
 My God the mark at which my spite did fling ! 
 
 Were all the Jewish tyrannies too few 
 
 To glut thy hungry looks with his disgrace ? 
 
 That these more hateful tyrannies must shew, 
 And spit thy poison in thy Maker's face ? 
 
 Didst thou to spare his foes put up thy sword, 
 
 To brandish now thy tongue against thy Lord ? 
 
 Ah ! tongue, that didst his praise and Godhead 
 
 sound, 
 How wert thou stain'd with such detesting 
 
 words, 
 That every word was to his heart a wound, 
 
 And lanced him deeper than a thousand swords ?
 
 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 15 
 
 What rage of man, yea what Infernal sprite, 
 Could have disgorged more loathsome dregs of 
 spite ? 
 
 Why did the yielding sea, like marble way, 
 
 Support a wretch more wavei'ing than the waves? 
 
 Whom doubt did plunge, why did the waters stay, 
 Unkind in kindness, murdering while it saves ? 
 
 Oh that this tongue had then been fishes' food, 
 
 And T devonr'd, before this cursing mood ! 
 
 These surges, depths and seas, unfirm by kind, 
 Rough gusts, and distance both from ship and 
 shore, 
 
 Were titles to excuse my staggering mind ; 
 Stout feet might falter on that liquid floor. 
 
 But here no seas, no blasts, no billows were, 
 A puff of woman's wind bred all my fear. 
 
 O coward troops, far better arm'd than hearted ! 
 Whom angry words, whom blows could not 
 
 provoke ; 
 Whom though I taught how sore my weapon 
 
 smarted, 
 
 Yet none repaid me with a wounding stroke. 
 Oh no ! that stroke could but one moiety kill ; 
 T was reserved both halves at once to spill. 
 
 Ah ! whither was forgotten love exiled ; 
 
 Where did the truth of pledged promise sleep ?
 
 16 57. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 What in my thoughts begat this ugly child, 
 That conld through rented souls thus fiercely 
 
 creep ? 
 
 O viper, fear their death by whom thou livest ; 
 All good thy ruins wreck, all ills thou givest ! 
 
 Threats threw me not, torments I none assay'd ; 
 
 My fray with shades ; conceits did make me 
 
 yield, 
 Wounding my thoughts with fears ; selfly dismay'd, 
 
 I neither fought nor lost, I gave the field : 
 Infamous foil ! a maiden's easy breath 
 Did blow me down, and blast my soul to death. 
 
 Titles I make untruths : am I a rock, 
 
 That with so soft a gale was overthrown ? 
 
 Am I fit pastor for the faithful flock, 
 
 To guide their souls that murder'd thus mine 
 own ? 
 
 A rock of ruin ! not a rest to stay; 
 
 A pastor, not to feed, but to betray. 
 
 Fidelity was flown when fear was hatch'd, 
 Brood incompatible in Virtue's nest ! 
 
 Courage can less with cowardice be match'd, 
 Prowess nor love lodged in divided breast. 
 
 O Adam's child, cast by a silly Eve, 
 
 Heir to thy father's foils, and born to grieve !
 
 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 17 
 
 In Thabor's joys I eager was to dwell, 
 
 An earnest friend while pleasures' light did 
 shine ; 
 
 But when eclipsed glory prostrate fell, 
 These zealous heats to sleep I did resign ; 
 
 And now, my mouth hath thrice his name defiled, 
 
 That cried so loud three dwellings there to build. 
 
 When Christ, attending the distressful hour, 
 With His surcharged breast did bless the ground, 
 
 Prostrate in pangs, raining a bleeding shower, 
 Me, like myself, a drowsy friend He found. 
 
 Thrice, in His care, sleep-closed by careless eye, 
 
 Presage how Him my tongue should thrice deny. 
 
 Parting from Christ my fainting force declined, 
 With lingering foot I follow'd him aloof ; 
 
 Base fear out of my heart his love unearined, 
 Huge in high words, but impotent in proof. 
 
 My vaunts did seem hatch'd under Samson's locks, 
 
 Yet woman's words did give me murdering knocks. 
 
 So fare lukewarm desires in crazy love, 
 
 Far off, in need, with feeble foot they train ; 
 
 In tides they swim, low ebbs they scorn to prove ; 
 They suck their friends' delights, but shun their 
 pain. 
 
 Hire of an hireling mind is earned shame : 
 
 Take now thy due, bear thy begotten blame.
 
 18 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 Ah ! cool remissness, virtue's quartan fever, 
 Pining of love, consumption of grace ; 
 
 Old in the cradle, languor dying ever, 
 
 Soul's wilful famine, sin's soft-stealing pace ; 
 
 The undermining ill of zealous thought, 
 
 Seeming to bring no harms, till all be brought ! 
 
 O portress of the door of my disgrace, 
 
 Whose tongue uulock'd the truth of vowed mind ; 
 
 Whose words from coward's heart did courage 
 
 chase, 
 And let in deathfnl fears my soul to blind ; 
 
 Oh, hadst thou been the portress to my tomb, 
 
 When thou wert portress to that cursed room ! 
 
 Yet love was loath to part, fear loath to die ; 
 
 Stay, danger, life, did counterplead their causes ; 
 I, favouring stay and life, bade danger fly, 
 
 But danger did except against these clauses : 
 Yet stay and live I would, and danger shun, 
 And lost myself, while I my verdict won. 
 
 I staid, yet did my staying farthest part ; 
 
 I lived, but so, that saving life I lost it ; 
 Danger I shnnn'd, but to my sorer smart, 
 
 I gained nought, but deeper danger crossed it. 
 What danger, distance, death, is worse than this, 
 That runs from God and spoils his soul of bliss ?
 
 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 19 
 
 O John, my guide unto this earthly hell, 
 Too well acquainted in so ill a court, 
 
 (Where railing mouths with blasphemies did swell, 
 With tainted breath infecting all resort,) 
 
 Why didst thou lead me to. this hell of evils, 
 
 To show myself a fiend among the devils ? 
 
 Ill precedent, the tide that wafts to vice ; 
 
 Dumb orator, that woos with silent deeds, 
 Writing in works lessons of ill advice ; 
 
 The doing tale that eye in practice reads. 
 Taster of joys to unacquainted hunger, 
 With leaven of the old seasoning the younger. 
 
 It seems no fault to do that all have done ; 
 
 The number of offenders hides the sin ; 
 Coach drawn with many horse doth easily run, 
 
 Soon followeth one where multitudes begin. 
 Oh, had I in that Court much stronger been, 
 Or not so strong as first to enter in ! 
 
 Sharp was the weather in that stormy place, 
 Best suiting hearts benumb'd with hellish frost, 
 
 Whose crusted malice could admit no grace : 
 Where coals are kindled to the warmers' cost ; 
 
 Where fear my thoughts candied with icy cold, 
 
 Heat did my tongue to perjuries unfold.
 
 20 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 O hateful fire (ah ! that I ever saw it) ! 
 
 Too hard my heart was frozen for thy force ; 
 Far hotter flames it did require to thaw it, 
 
 Thy hell-resembling heat did freeze it worse. 
 Oh that I rather had congeal'd to ice, 
 Than bought thy warmth at such a damning price I 
 
 O wakeful bird ! proclaimer of the day, 
 
 Whose piercing note doth daunt the lion's rage ; 
 
 Thy crowing did myself to me bewray, 
 
 My frights and brutish heats it did assuage. 
 
 But oh ! in this alone, unhappy cock, 
 
 That thon to count my foils wert made the clock I 
 
 bird ! the just rebnker of my crime, 
 The faithful waker of my sleeping fears, 
 
 Be now the daily clock to strike the time, 
 
 When stinted eyes shall pay their task of tears ; 
 
 Upbraid my ears with thine accusing crow, 
 
 To make me rue what first it made me know. 
 
 O mild revenger of aspiring pride ! 
 
 Thon can'st dismount high thoughts to low 
 
 effects ; 
 Thou madest a cock me for my fault to chide, 
 
 My lofty boasts this lowly bird corrects. 
 Well might a cock correct me with a crow, 
 Whom hennish cackling first did overthrow.
 
 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 21 
 
 Weak weapons did Goliah's fumes abate, 
 
 Whose storming rage did thunder threats in 
 vain ; 
 
 His body huge, harness'd with massy plate, 
 
 Yet David's stone brought death into his brain ; 
 
 With staff and sling as to a dog he came, 
 
 And with contempt did boasting fury tame. 
 
 Yet David had with bear and lion fought, 
 His skilful might excused Goliah's foil ; 
 
 The death is eased that worthy" hand hath wrought ; 
 Some honour lives in honourable spoil. 
 
 But I, on whom all infamies must light, 
 
 Was hiss'd to death with words of woman's spite. 
 
 Small gnats enforced th' Egyptian King to stoop, 
 Yet they in swarms, and arm'd with piercing 
 
 stings, 
 Smart, noise, annoyance, made his courage 
 
 droop ; 
 
 Xo small incumbrance such small vermin brings : 
 I quail' d at words that neither bit nor stung, 
 And those deliver'd from a woman's tongue. 
 
 Ah fear ! abortive imp of drooping mind ; 
 
 Self-overthrow, false friend, root of remorse ; 
 Sighted in seeing ills, in shunning blind, 
 
 Foil'd without field, by fancy not by force ; 
 Ague of valour, frenzy of the wise, 
 Fine honour's stain, love's frost, the mint of lies.
 
 22 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 Can virtue, wisdom, strength, by woman spill'd 
 In David's, Solomon's, and Samson's falls, 
 
 With semblance of excuse my error gild, 
 Or lend a marble gloss to muddy walls ? 
 
 O no ! their fault had show of some pretence, 
 
 No veil can hide the shame of my offence. 
 
 The blaze of beauty's beams allured their looks ; 
 
 Their looks, by seeing oft, conceived love ; 
 Love, by effecting, swallow'd pleasure's hooks ; 
 
 Thus beauty, love, and pleasure them did move. 
 These Syrens' sugar'd tunes rock'd them to sleep, 
 Enough to damn, yet not to damn so deep. 
 
 But gracious features dazzled not mine eyes ; 
 
 Two homely droils were authors of my death ; 
 Not love, but fear, my senses did surprise, 
 
 Not fear of force, but fear of woman's breath ; 
 And those unarm'd, ill-graced, despised, unknown : 
 So base a blast my truth hath overthrown ! 
 
 O women ! woe to men ; traps for their falls ; 
 
 Still actors in all tragical mischances ; 
 Earth's necessary ills, captiving thralls, 
 
 Now murdering with your tongues, now with 
 
 your glances ; 
 
 Parents of life and love, spoilers of both, 
 The thieves of hearts, false, do you love or loath !
 
 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 23 
 
 In time, Lord ! thine eyes with mine did meet, 
 In them I read the ruins of my fall ; 
 
 Their cheering rays, that made misfortune sweet, 
 Into my guilty thoughts pour'd floods of gall : 
 
 Their heavenly looks, that bless'd where they 
 beheld, 
 
 Darts of disdain and angry checks did yield. 
 
 sacred eyes ! the springs of living light, 
 
 The earthly heavens where angels joy to dwell, 
 
 How could you deign to view my deathful plight, 
 Or let your heavenly beams look on my hell ? 
 
 But those unspotted eyes encounter'd mine, 
 
 As spotless sun doth on the dunghill shine. 
 
 Sweet volumes, stored with learning fit for saints, 
 Where blissful quires imparadise their minds ; 
 
 Wherein eternal study never faints, 
 
 Still finding all, yet seeking all it finds : 
 
 How endless is your labyrinth of bliss, 
 
 Where to be lost the sweetest finding is ! 
 
 Ah wretch ! how oft have I sweet lessons read 
 In those dear eyes, the registers of truth ! 
 
 How oft have I my hungry wishes fed, 
 
 And in their happy joys redress'd my ruth ! 
 
 Ah ! that they now are heralds of disdain, 
 
 That erst were ever pi tiers of my pain !
 
 24 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 Yon flames divine, that sparkle out your heats, 
 And kindle pleasing fires in mortal hearts ; 
 
 You nectar'd ambries of soul-feeding meats ; 
 You graceful quivers of love's dearest darts ; 
 
 You did vouchsafe to warm, to wound, to feast, 
 
 My cold, my stony, my now famish'd breast. 
 
 The matchless eyes, match'd only each by other, 
 Were pleased on my ill matched eyes to glance ; 
 
 The eye of liquid pearl, the purest mother, 
 
 Broach'd tears in mine to weep for my 
 mischance ; 
 
 The cabinets of grace unlock'd their treasure, 
 
 And did to my misdeed their mercies measure. 
 
 These blazing comets, lightning flames of love, 
 Made me their warming influence to know ; 
 
 My frozen heart their sacred force did prove, 
 Which at their looks did yield like melting snow : 
 
 They did not joys in former plenty carve, 
 
 Yet sweet are crumbs where pined thoughts do 
 starve. 
 
 O living mirrors ! seeing whom you show, 
 
 Which equal shadow worths with shadow'd 
 things, 
 
 Yea, make things nobler than in native hue, 
 By being shaped in those life-giving springs ; 
 
 Much more my image in those eyes was graced, 
 
 Than in myself whom sin and shame defaced !
 
 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT: 25 
 
 All-seeing eyes, more worth than all you see, 
 Of which one is the other's only price ; 
 
 I worthless am, direct your beams on me, 
 With quickening virtue cure my killing vice. 
 
 By seeing things yon make things worth the sight, 
 
 You seeing, salve, and being seen, delight ! 
 
 Oh ! pools of Hesebon, the baths of grace, 
 Where happy spirits dive in sweet desires ; 
 
 Where saints delight to glass their glorious face, 
 Whose banks make echo to the angel quires ; 
 
 An echo sweeter in the sole rebound, 
 
 Than angels' music in the fullest sound ! 
 
 Oh eyes ! whose glances are a silent speech, 
 In cipher'd works high mysteries disclosing ; 
 
 Which, with a look, all sciences can teach, 
 
 Whose texts to faithful hearts need little glosing ; 
 
 Witness unworthy I, who in a look 
 
 Learned more by rote, than all the scribes by book ! 
 
 Though malice still possess'd their harden'd minds, 
 I, though too hard, learned softness in thine eye, 
 
 Which iron knots of stubborn will unbinds, 
 
 Offering them love, that love with love will buy. 
 
 This did I learn, yet they could not discern it ; 
 
 But woe, that I had now such need to learn it !
 
 26 57. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 O suns ; all but yourselves in light excelling, 
 Whose presence day, whose absence causeth 
 
 night ; 
 Whose neighbour-course brings Summer, cold 
 
 expelling, 
 
 Whose distant periods freeze away delight. 
 Ah ! that I lost your bright and fostering beams, 
 To plunge my soul in these congealed streams ! 
 
 Oh ! gracious spheres, where love the centre is, 
 A native place for our self-laden souls ; 
 
 The compass, love., a cope that none can miss, 
 The motion, love, that round about us rolls : 
 
 Oh ! spheres of love, whose centre, cope and motion, 
 
 Is love of us, love that invites devotion ! 
 
 Oh ! little worlds, the sums of all the best, 
 
 Whose glory, heaven ; God, sun ; all virtues, stars ; 
 
 Whose fire, a love that next to heaven doth rest ; 
 Air, light of life that no distemper mars ; 
 
 Whose water grace, whose seas, whose springs, 
 whose showers, 
 
 Clothe Nature's earth with everlasting flowers ! 
 
 What mixtures these sweet elements do yield, 
 Let happy worldings of these worlds expound ; 
 
 But simples are by compounds far excelled, 
 
 Both suit a place where all best things abound ; 
 
 And if a banish'd wretch guess not amiss, 
 
 All but one compound frame of perfect bliss.
 
 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 27 
 
 I, cast-out from these worlds, exiled roam, 
 
 Poor saint fromheaven, from fire cold salamander ! 
 
 Lost fish from those sweet waters' kindly home. 
 From land of life stray'd pilgrim still I wander. 
 
 I know the cause : these worlds had never hell, 
 
 In which my faults have best deserved to dwell. 
 
 Oh Bethlem-cisterns ! David's most desire, 
 
 From which my sins like fierce Philistines keep ; 
 
 To fetch your drops what champion should I hire, 
 That I therein my wither'd heart may steep ? 
 
 I would not shed them like that holy king : 
 
 His were but types, these are the figured thing. 
 
 Oh ! turtle twins all bathed in virgin's milk, 
 Upon the margin of full-flowing banks, 
 
 Whose graceful plume surmounts the finest silk, 
 Whose sight enamoureth heaven's most happy 
 ranks : 
 
 Could I forswear this heavenly pair of doves, 
 
 That caged in care for me were groaning loves ! 
 
 Twice Moses' hand did strike the stubborn rock, 
 Ere stony veins would yield their crystal blood ; 
 
 Thine eyes, one look, served as an only knock 
 To make my heart gush out a weeping flood, 
 
 Wherein my sins, as fishes, spawn their fry, 
 
 To show their inward shames, and then to die.
 
 28 57. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 But oh ! how long demur I on his eyes, 
 
 Whose look did pierce my heart with healing 
 wound ! 
 
 Lancing imposthumed sore of perjnred lies, 
 
 Which these two issues of mine eyes have found; 
 
 Where run it must till death the issues stop, 
 
 And penal life hath purged the final drop. 
 
 Like solest swan, that swims in silent deep, 
 And never sings but obsequies of death, 
 
 Sigh out thy plaints, and sole in secret weep, 
 In suing pardon spend thy perjured breath ; 
 
 Attire thy soul in sorrow's mourning weed, 
 
 And at thine eyes let guilty conscience bleed. 
 
 'Still in the 'leinbic of thy doleful breast 
 
 Those bitter fruits that from thy sins do grow ; 
 
 For fuel, self -accusing thoughts be best ; 
 Use fear as fire, the coals let penance blow ; 
 
 And seek none other quintessence but tears, 
 
 That eyes may shed what enter'd at ihine ears. 
 
 Come sorrowing tears, the offspring of my grief, 
 Scant not your parent of a needful aid ; 
 
 In you I rest the hope of wish'd relief, 
 
 By you my sinful debts must be defray'd : 
 
 Your power prevails, your sacrifice is grateful, 
 
 By love obtaining life to men most hateful.
 
 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 29 
 
 Come good effect of ill-deserving cause, 
 
 111 gotten imps, yet virtuously brought forth ; 
 
 Self-blaming probates of infringed laws, 
 
 Yet blamed faults redeeming with your worth ; 
 
 The signs of shame in you each eye may read, 
 
 Yet, while you guilty prove, you pity plead. 
 
 O beams of mercy ; beat on sorrow's cloud, 
 
 Pour suppling showers upon my parched ground ; 
 
 Bring forth the fruit to your due service vow'd, 
 Let good desires with like deserts be crown'd : 
 
 Water young blooming virtue's tender flow'r, 
 
 Sin did all grace of riper growth devour. 
 
 Weep balm and myrrh, you sweet Arabian trees, 
 With purest gums perfume and pearl your rine 
 
 Shed on your honey-drops, you busy bees, 
 I, barren plant, must weep unpleasant brine : 
 
 Hornets I hive, salt drops their labour plies, 
 
 Suck'd out of sin, and shed by showering eyes. . 
 
 If David, night by night, did bathe his bed, 
 Esteeming longest days too short to moan ; 
 
 Tears inconsolable if Anna shed, 
 
 Who in her son her solace had forgone ; 
 
 Then I to days and weeks, to months and years,. 
 
 Do owe the hourly rent of stintless tears.
 
 30 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 If love, if loss, if fault, if spotted fame, 
 
 If danger, death, if wrath, or wreck of weal, 
 
 Entitle eyes true heirs to earned blame, 
 That due remorse in such events conceal : 
 
 That want of tears might well enrol my name, 
 
 As chiefest saint in kalendar of shame. 
 
 Love, where I loved, was due and best deserved ; 
 
 No love could aim at more love-worthy mark ; 
 No love more loved than mine of him I served ; 
 
 Large use he gave, a flame for every spark. 
 This love I lost, this loss a life must rue ; 
 Yea, life is short to pay the ruth is due. 
 
 I lost all that I had, who had the most, 
 
 The most that will can wish, or wit devise : 
 
 I least perform'd that did most vainly boast, 
 I stain'd my fame in most infamous wise. 
 
 What danger then, death, wrath, or wreck can 
 move 
 
 More pregnant cause of tears than this I prove ? 
 
 If Adam sought a veil to scarf his sin, 
 
 Taught by his fall to fear a scourging hand ; 
 
 If men shall wish that hills should wrap them in, 
 When crimes in final doom come to be scann'd ; 
 
 What mount, what cave, what centre can conceal 
 
 My monstrous fact, which even the birds reveal ?
 
 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 31 
 
 Come shame, the livery of offending mind, 
 The ugly shroud that overshadoweth blame ; 
 
 The mulct at which fonl faults are justly fined ; 
 The damp of sin, the common slime of fame, 
 
 By which imposthumed tongues their humours 
 purge ; 
 
 Light shame on me, I best deserved the scourge. 
 
 Cain's murdering hand imbrued in brother's blood, 
 More mercy than my impious tongue may crave ; 
 
 He kill'd a rival with pretence of good, 
 In hope God's doubled love alone to have. 
 
 But fear so spoil'd my vanquish'd thoughts of love, 
 
 That perjured oaths my spiteful hate did prove. 
 
 Poor Agar from her sphere enforced to fly, 
 
 In wilds Barsabian wandering alone, 
 Doubting her child through helpless drought would 
 
 die, 
 
 Laid it aloof, and set her down to moan : 
 The heavens with prayers, her lap with tears she 
 
 filled ; 
 A mother's love in loss is hardly still'd. 
 
 But, Agar, now bequeath thy tears to me ; 
 
 Fears, not effects, did set afloat thine eyes. 
 But, wretch ! I feel more than was fear'd by thee ; 
 
 Ah ! not my son, my soul it is that dies. 
 It dies for drought, yet hath a spring in sight : 
 Worthy to die, that would not live, and might.
 
 32 57. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 Fair Absalom's foul faults compared with mine, 
 Are brightest sands to mud of Sodom's lake ; 
 
 High aims, young spirits, birth of royal line, 
 Made him play false where kingdoms were the 
 stake : 
 
 He gazed on golden hopes, whose lustre wins, 
 
 Sometimes, the gravest wits to grievous sins. 
 
 But I, whose crime cuts off the least excuse, 
 A kingdom lost, but hoped no mite of gain ; 
 
 My highest mark was but the worthless use 
 Of some few lingering hours of longer pain. 
 
 Ungrateful child, his parent he pursued, 
 
 I, giants' war with God himself renew'd ! 
 
 Joy, infant saints, whom in the tender flower 
 A happy storm did free from fear of sin ! 
 
 Long is their life that die in blissful hour ; 
 Joyful such ends as endless joys begin : 
 
 For long they live that live till they be nought : 
 
 Life saved by sin, is purchase dearly bought ! 
 
 This lot was mine ; your fate was not so fierce, 
 Whom spotless death in cradle rock'd asleep ; 
 
 Sweet roses, mix'd with lilies, strew'd your hearse, 
 Death virgin- white in martyrs' red did steep ; 
 
 Your downy heads both pearls and rubies i-rown'd, 
 
 My hoary locks did female fears confound.
 
 SI*. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 33 
 
 You bleating ewes, that wail this wolvish spoil 
 Of sucking lambs new bought with bitter throes ; 
 
 To embalm your babes your eyes distil their oil, 
 Each heart to tomb her child wide rapture shows. 
 
 Rue not their death, whom death did but revive, 
 
 Yield ruth to me that lived to die alive, 
 
 With easy loss sharp wrecks did he eschew, 
 That sindonless aside did naked slip : 
 
 Once naked grace no outward garment knew ; 
 Such are his robes whom sin did never strip. 
 
 I, rich in vaunts, display'd pride's fairest flags, 
 
 Disrobed of grace, am wrapp'd in Adam's rags. 
 
 When, traitor to the Son, in Mother's eyes 
 I shall present my humble suit for grace, 
 
 What blush can paint the shame that will arise, 
 Or write my inward feelings on my face ? 
 
 Might she the sorrow with the sinner see, 
 
 Though I'm despised, my grief might pitied be ! 
 
 But ah ! how can her ears my speech endure, 
 Or scent by breath still reeking hellish steam ? 
 
 Can Mother like what did the Son abjure, 
 Or heart deflower' d a Virgin's love redeem ? 
 
 The Mother nothing loves that Son doth loathe : 
 
 Ah ! loathsome wretch, detested of them both ! 
 
 O sister nymphs, the sweet renowned pair, 
 That bless Bethania bounds with your abode !
 
 34 ST. 'PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 Shall I infect that sanctified air, 
 
 Or stain those steps where Jesus breathed and 
 
 trod? 
 
 No, let your prayers perfume that sweeten'd place ; 
 Turn me with tigers to the wildest chace. 
 
 Could I revived Lazarus behold, 
 
 The third of that sweet trinity of saints, 
 
 Would not astonish'd dread my senses hold ? 
 Ah, yes ! my heart even with his naming faints : 
 
 I seem to see a messenger from hell, 
 
 That my prepared torments comes to tell. 
 
 O John ! James ! we made a triple cord 
 Of three most loving and best loved friends ; 
 
 My rotten twist was broken with a word, 
 Fit now to fuel fire among the fiends. 
 
 It is not ever true though often spoken, 
 
 That triple-twisted cord is hardly broken. 
 
 The devils dispossess'd, that out I threw 
 In Jnsns' name, now impiously forsworn, 
 
 Triumph to see me caged in their mew, 
 
 Trampling my ruins with contempt and scorn. 
 
 My perjuries were music to their dance, 
 
 And now they heap disdain on my mischance. 
 
 Our rock, say they, is riven ; oh, welcome hour 
 Our eagle's wings are clipp'd that wrought so 
 high;
 
 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 35 
 
 Our thundering cloud made noise, but cast no 
 
 shower ; 
 
 He prostrate lies that would have scaled the sky ; 
 In woman's tongue our rubber found a rub, 
 Our cedar now is shrunk into a shrub. 
 
 These scornful words upbraid my inward thought, 
 Proofs of their damned prompters' neighbour- 
 voice : 
 
 Such ugly guests still wait upon the naught, 
 Fiends swarm to souls that swerve from virtue's 
 
 choice : 
 
 For breach of plighted truth this true I try ; 
 Ah ! that my deed thus gave my word the lie ! 
 
 Once, and but once, too dear a once to twice it ! 
 A heaven in earth, saints near myself I saw : 
 Sweet was the sight, but sweeter loves did spice it, 
 But sights and loves did my misdeed withdraw. 
 From heaven and saints, to hell and devils 
 
 estranged, 
 
 Those sights to frights, those loves to hates are 
 changed. 
 
 Christ, as my God, was templed in my thought, 
 As man, He lent mine eyes their dearest light ; 
 
 But sin His temple hath to ruin brought, 
 
 And now he lighteneth terror from His sight. 
 
 N'ow of my late unconsecrate desires, 
 
 Profaned wretch ! I taste the earned hires.
 
 3(> . ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 Ah ! sin, the nothing that doth all things file, 
 Outcast from heaven, earth's curse, the cause of 
 hell; 
 
 Parent of death, author of our exile, 
 
 The wreck of souls, the wares that fiends do sell ; 
 
 That men to monsters, angels turns to devils, 
 
 Wrong of all rights, self-ruin, root of evils. 
 
 A thing most done, yet more than God can do : 
 Daily new done, yet ever done amiss ; 
 
 Friended of all, yet unto all a foe ; 
 
 Seeming an heaven, yet banishing from bliss ; 
 
 Served with toil, yet paying nought but pain, 
 
 Man's deepest loss, though false- esteemed gain. 
 
 Shot, without noise ; wound, without present smart ; 
 
 First seeming light, proving in fine a load ; 
 Entering with ease, not easily won to part, 
 
 Far in effects from that the shows abode ; 
 Indorsed with hope, subscribed with despair, 
 Ugly in death, though life did feign it fair. 
 
 Oh ! forfeiture of heaven ! eternal debt, 
 A moment ! s joy ending in endless fires ; 
 
 Our nature's scum, the world's entangling net, 
 Night of our thoughts, death of all good desires. 
 
 Worse than all this, worse than all tongues can say, 
 
 Which man could owe, but only God defray.
 
 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 37 
 
 This fawning viper, dumb till he had wounded, 
 With many mouths doth now upbraid my harms ; 
 
 My sight was veil'd till I myself confounded, 
 Then did I see the disenchanted charms : . 
 
 Then could I cut the anatomy of sin, 
 
 And search with lynxes' eyes what lay within. 
 
 Bewitching ill, that hides death in deceits, 
 
 Still borrowing lying shapes to mask thy face; 
 
 Now know I the deciphering of thy sleights ; 
 A cunning dearly bought with loss of grace : 
 
 Thy sugar'd poison now hath wrought so well, 
 
 That thon hast made me to myself a hell. 
 
 My eyes read mournful lessons to my heart, 
 
 My heart doth to my thought the grief expound ; 
 
 My thought the same doth to my tongue impart, 
 My tongue the message in the ears doth sound ; 
 
 My ears back to my heart their sorrows send ; 
 
 Thus circling griefs run round without an end. 
 
 My guilty eye still seems to see my sin, 
 All things are characters to spell my fall ; 
 
 What eye doth read without, heart rues within, 
 What heart doth rue, to pensive thought is gall, 
 
 Which when the thought would by the tongue 
 digest, 
 
 The ear conveys it back into the breast.
 
 38 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 Thus gripes in all my parts do never fail, 
 
 Whose only league is now in bartering pains ; 
 
 What I engross they traffic by retail, 
 
 Making each others' miseries their gains : 
 
 All bound for ever prentices to care, 
 
 Whilst I in shop of shame trade sorrow's ware. 
 
 Pleased with displeasing lot I seek no change ; 
 
 I wealthiest am when richest in remorse ; 
 To fetch my ware no seas nor lands I range ; 
 
 For customers to buy I nothing force : 
 My home-bred goods at home are bought and sold, 
 And still in me my interest I hold. 
 
 My comfort now is comfortless to live 
 In orphan state, devoted to mishap ; 
 
 But from the root that sweetest fruit did give, 
 I scorn'd to graff in stock of meaner sap. 
 
 No juice can joy me but of Jesse's flower, 
 
 Where heavenly root hath true reviving power. 
 
 At Sorrow's door I knock'd, they craved my name : 
 I answer'd, one unworthy to be known. 
 
 What one ? say they. One worthiest of blame. 
 But who ? a wretch, not God's, nor yet his own. 
 
 A man ? Oh no ! a beast ; much worse. What 
 creature ? 
 
 A rock. How call'd ? the rock of scandal, Peter I
 
 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 39 
 
 From whence ? From Caiaphas' house. Ah ! dwell 
 
 yon there ? 
 
 Sin's farm I rented there, bnt now wonld leave it. 
 
 What rent ? my sonl. What gain ? unrest and fear. 
 
 Dear purchase ! Ah ! too dear ; will yon receive it ? 
 
 What shall we give ? Fit tears and times to plain 
 
 me. 
 Come in, they say. Thus griefs did entertain me. 
 
 With them I rest true prisoner in their jail, 
 Chain'd in the iron links of basest thrall ; 
 
 Till Grace, vouchsafing captive soul to bail, 
 In wonted see degraded loves install. 
 
 Days pass in plaints, the night without repose ; 
 
 I wake to sleep ; I sleep in waking woes. 
 
 Sleep, Death's ally, oblivion of tears, 
 
 Silence of passions, blame of angry sore, 
 
 Suspense of loves, security of fears, 
 
 Wrath's lenity, heart's ease, storm's calmest 
 shore ; 
 
 Senses' and souls' reprieval from all cumbers, 
 
 Benumbing sense of ill with quiet slumbers. 
 
 Not such my sleep, but whisperer of dreams, 
 Creating strange chimeras, feigning frights ; 
 
 Of day-discourses giving fancy themes, 
 
 To make dumb-show with worlds of antic sights ; 
 
 Casting true griefs in fancy's forged mould, 
 
 Brokenly telling tales rightly foretold.
 
 40 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT, 
 
 This sleep most fitly sniteth sorrow's bed, 
 Sorrow, the smart of ill, Sin's eldest child ; 
 
 Best, when unkind in killing whom it bred ; 
 A rack for guilty thoughts, a bit for wild ; 
 
 The scourge that whips, the salve that cures offence ; 
 
 Sorrow, my bed and home, while life hath sense. 
 
 Here solitary muses nurse their griefs, 
 In silent loneness burying worldly noise ; 
 
 Attentive to rebukes, deaf to reliefs, 
 
 Pensive to foster cares, careless of joys ; 
 
 Ruing life's loss under death's dreary roofs, 
 
 Solemnizing my funeral behoofs. 
 
 A self -contempt the shroud, my soul the corse, 
 The bier, an humble hope, the hearse-cloth, fear; 
 
 The mourners, thoughts, in black of deep remorse, 
 The hearse, grace, pity, love and mercy bear : 
 
 My tears, my dole, the priest, a zealous will, 
 
 Penance, the tomb, and doleful sighs the knell. 
 
 Christ ! health of f ever'd soul, heaven of the mind, 
 Force of the feeble, nurse of infant loves, 
 
 Guide to the wandering foot, light to the blind, 
 Whom weeping wins, repentant sorrow moves ; 
 
 Father in care, mother in tender heart, 
 
 Revive and save me, slain with sinfnl dart.
 
 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 41 
 
 If King Manasses, sunk in depth of sin, 
 
 With plaints and tears recover'd grace and crown, 
 
 A. worthless worm some mild regard may win, 
 And lowly creep, where flying threw it down. 
 
 A poor desire I have to mend my ill, 
 
 I should, I would, I dare not say, I will. 
 
 I dare not say I will, but wish I may ; 
 
 My pride is check'd, high words the speaker 
 
 spilt. 
 
 My good, O Lord ! Thy gift, Thy strength mistay, 
 Give what Thou bidst, and then bid what Thou 
 
 wilt. 
 
 Work with me what of me thou dost request, 
 Then will I dare the worst and love the best. 
 
 Prone look, cross'd arms, bent knee and contrite 
 
 heart, 
 Deep sighs, thick sobs, dew'd eyes and prostrate 
 
 pray'rs, 
 Most humbly beg release of earned smart, 
 
 And saving shroud in mercy's sweet repairs. 
 If justice should my wrongs with rigour wage, 
 Fears would despairs, ruth breed a hopeless rage. 
 
 Lazar at pity's gate I ulcer'd lie, 
 
 Craving the refuse crumbs of children's plate ; 
 My sores I lay in view to Mercy's eye, 
 
 My rags bear witness of my poor estate :
 
 42 ST. PETER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 The worms of conscience that within me swarm, 
 Prove that my plaints are less than is my harm. 
 
 With mildness, Jesu, measure mine offence ; 
 
 Let true remorse Thy due revenge abate ; 
 Let tears appease when trespass doth increase ; 
 
 Let pity temper Thy deserved hate ; 
 Let grace forgive, let love forget my fall : 
 With fear I crave, with hope I humbly call. 
 
 Redeem my lapse with ransom of Thy love, 
 
 Traverse th' indictment, rigour's doom suspend ; 
 
 Let frailty favour, sorrows succour move, 
 
 Be Thou Thyself, though changeling I offend. 
 
 Tender my suit, cleanse this defiled den, 
 
 Cancel my debts, sweet Jesu, say Amen !
 
 MARY MAGDALEN'S BLUSH. 
 
 fTrhHE signs of shame that stain my blushing face 
 "i^F Rise from the feeling of my ravirtg fits, 
 
 Whose joy annoy, whose guerdon is disgrace, 
 Whose solace flies, whose sorrow never flits ; 
 Bad seed I sow'd, worse seed is now my gain, 
 Soon-dying mirth begat long-living pain. 
 
 Now pleasure ebbs, revenge begins to flow ; 
 One day doth work the wrath that many wrought ; 
 Remorse doth teach my guilty thoughts to know 
 How cheap I sold that Christ so dearly bought : 
 Faults long unfelt doth conscience now bewray, 
 Which cares must cure and tears must wash away. 
 
 All ghostly dints that grace at me did dart, 
 Like stubborn rock I forced to recoil ; 
 To other flights an aim I made my heart 
 Whose wounds, then welcome, now have wrought 
 
 my foil. 
 
 Woe worth the bow, woe worth the archer's might, 
 That draw such arrows to the mark so right !
 
 44 MARY MAGDALEN'S BLUSH. 
 
 To pull them out, to leave them in is death, 
 One to this world, one to the world to come ; 
 Wounds may I wear and draw a doubtful breath, 
 But then my wounds will work a dreadful doom ; 
 And for a world whose pleasures pass away, 
 I lose a world whose joys are past decay. 
 
 O sense ! O soul ! O hap ! O hoped bliss ! 
 Yon woo, you win, you draw, you drive me back ; 
 Your cross encount'ring like their combat is, 
 That never end but with some deadly wrack ; 
 When sense doth win, the soul doth lose the field, 
 And present haps make future hopes to yield. 
 
 O heaven ! lament, sense robbeth thee of saints, 
 Lament, O souls ! sense spoileth you of grace ; 
 Yet sense doth scarce deserve these hard complaints, 
 Love is the chief, sense but the entering place ; 
 Yet grant I must, sense is not free from sin, 
 For thief he is that thief admitteth in.
 
 MARY MAGDALEN'S COMPLAINT AT 
 CHRIST'S DEATH. 
 
 ITH my life from life is parted, 
 Death come take thy portion, 
 Who survives when life is murder 'd 
 Lives by mere extortion : 
 All that live and not in God, 
 Couch their life in death's abode. 
 
 Silly stars must needs leave shining 
 
 When the sun is shadowed, 
 Borrow'd streams refrain their running 
 
 When head springs are hindered : 
 One that lives by other's breath, 
 Dieth also by his death. 
 
 O true life ! sith Thou hast left me, 
 
 Mortal life is tedious ; 
 Death it is to live without Thee, 
 
 Death of all most odious : 
 Turn again or take me to Thee, 
 Let me die or live Thou in me !
 
 46 MARY MAGDALEN'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 Where the truth once was and is not, 
 
 Shadows are but vanity ; 
 Showing want that help they cannot, 
 
 Signs, not salves, of misery. 
 Painted meat no hunger feeds, 
 Dying life each death exceeds. 
 
 With my love my life was nestled 
 In the sun of happiness ; 
 
 From my love my life is wrested 
 To a world of heaviness : 
 
 Oh ! let love my life remove, 
 
 Sith I live not where I love ! 
 
 O my soul ! that did unloose thee 
 From thy sweet captivity, 
 
 God, not I, did still possess thee, 
 His, not mine, thy liberty : 
 
 Oh ! too happy thrall thou wert, 
 
 When thy prison was his heart. 
 
 Spiteful spear that break'st this prison, 
 
 Seat of all felicity, 
 Working thus with double treason 
 
 Love's and life's delivery : 
 Though my life thou draw'st away, 
 Maugre thee my love shaft stay.
 
 47 
 
 TIMES GO BY TURKS. 
 
 'tjp^HE lopped tree in time may grow again ; 
 r hJL\ Most naked plants renew both fruit and 
 
 flower ; 
 
 The sorest wight may find release of pain, 
 The driest soil suck in some moistening shower ; 
 Times go by turns and chances change by course, 
 From foul to fair, from better hap to worse. 
 
 The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow, 
 She draws her favours to the lowest ebb ; 
 Her time hath equal times to come and go, 
 Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web ; 
 No joy so great but runneth to an end, 
 No hap so hard but may in fine amend. 
 
 Not always fall of leaf nor ever spring, 
 No endless night yet not eternal day ; 
 The saddest birds a season find to sing, 
 The roughest storm a calm may soon allay ; 
 Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all, 
 That man may hope to rise yet fear to fall.
 
 48 
 
 TIMES GO BY TURNS. 
 
 A chance may win that by mischance was lost ; 
 The well that holds no great, takes little fish ; 
 In some things all, in all things none are cross'd, 
 Few all they need, bat none have all they wish ; 
 Unmeddled joys here to no man befall, 
 Who least hath some, who most hath never all.
 
 LOOK HOME. 
 
 ETIRBD thoughts enjoy their own delights, 
 As beauty doth in self -beholding eye ; 
 Man's mind a mirror is of heavenly sights, 
 A brief wherein all marvels summed lie, 
 Of fairest forms and sweetest shapes the store, 
 Most graceful all, yet thought may grace them 
 more. 
 
 The mind a creature is, yet can create, 
 To nature's patterns adding higher skill ; 
 Of finest works wit better could the state 
 If force of wit had equal power of will : 
 Device of man in working hath no end ; 
 What thought can think another thought can 
 mend. 
 
 Man's soul of endless beauties image is, 
 Drawn by the work of endless skill and might ; 
 This skilful might gave many sparks of bliss, 
 And to discern this bliss a native light ; 
 To frame God's image as His worths required, 
 His might. His skill, His word and will conspired.
 
 50 
 
 LOOK HOME. 
 
 All that he had His image should present,. 
 All that it should present he could afford, 
 To that he could afford his will was bent, 
 This will was follow'd with performing word ; 
 Let this suffice, by this conceive the rest, 
 He should, he could, he would, he did the best.
 
 FORTUNE'S FALSEHOOD. 
 
 worldly merriments lurketh much misery, 
 Fly fortune's subtleties in baits of happiness ; 
 Shroud hooks that swallowed without 
 
 recovery, 
 Murder the innocent with mortal heaviness. 
 
 She sooth eth appetites with pleasing vanities, 
 Till they be conquered with cloaked tyranny ; 
 Then changing countenance with open enmities, 
 She triumphs over them, scorning their slavery. 
 
 "With fawning flattery death's door she openeth, 
 Alluring passengers to bloody destiny ; 
 In offers bountiful in proof she beggareth, 
 Man's ruins regist'ring her false felicity. 
 
 Her hopes are fastened in bliss that vanisheth, 
 Her smarts inherited with sure possession ; 
 Constant in cruelty she never altereth, 
 But from one violence to more oppression. 
 
 To those that follow her favours are measured, 
 As easy premises to hard conclusions ;
 
 52 FORTUNE'S FALSEHOOD. 
 
 With bitter corrosives her joys are seasoned, 
 Her highest benefits are but illusions. 
 
 Her ways a labyrinth of wand'ring passages, 
 Fools' common pilgrimage to cursed deities ; 
 Whose fond devotion and idle menages 
 Are waged with weariness in fruitless drudgeries. 
 
 Blind in her favourites' foolish election, 
 Chance in her arbiter in giving dignities, 
 Her choice of vicious shows most discretion, 
 Sith wealth the virtuous might wrest from piety. 
 
 To humble suppliants tyrant most obstinate, 
 She suitors answereth with contrarieties ; 
 Proud with petition, untaught to mitigate 
 Rigour with clemency in hardest cruelties. 
 
 Like tiger fugitive from the ambitious, 
 Like weeping crocodile to scornful enemies, 
 Suing for amity where she is odious, 
 But to her followers forswearing courtesies. 
 
 No wind so changeable, no sea so wavering, 
 As giddy fortune in reeling vanities ; 
 Now mad, now merciful, now fierce, naw favouring, 
 In all things mutable but mutabilities.
 
 SCORN NOT THE LEAST. 
 
 WHERE wards are weak and foes encount- 
 'riug strong, 
 
 Where mightier do assault than do defend, 
 The feebler part puts up enforced wrong, 
 And silent sees that speech could not amend. 
 Yet higher powers must think though they repine, 
 When sun is set, the little stars will shine. 
 
 While pike doth range the silly tench doth fly, 
 And crouch in privy creeks with smaller fish ; 
 Yet pikes are caught when little fish go by, 
 These fleet afloat while those do fill the dish. 
 There is a time even for the worms to creep, 
 And suck the dew while all their foes do sleep. 
 
 The martin cannot ever soar on high, 
 
 Nor greedy greyhound still pursue the chase ; 
 
 The tender lark will find a time to fly, 
 
 And fearful hare to run a quiet race. 
 
 He that the growth on cedars did bestow, 
 
 Gave also lowly mushrooms leave to grow.
 
 54 SCORN NOT THE LEAST. 
 
 In Aman's pomp poor Mardochens wept, 
 
 Yet God did turn his fate upon his foe ; 
 
 The Lazar pined while Dives' feast was kept, 
 
 Yet he to heaven, to hell did Dives go. 
 
 We trample grass and prize the flowers of May, 
 
 Yet grass is green when flowers do fade away.
 
 55 
 
 A CHILD MY CHOICE. 
 
 <d)ET folly praise that fancy loves, 
 
 I praise and love that child 
 Whose heart no thought, whose tongue 
 no word, 
 Whose head no deed defiled ; 
 
 I praise him most, I love him best, 
 
 All praise and love is his ; 
 While him I love, in him I live, 
 And cannot live amiss. 
 
 Love's sweetest mark, land's highest theme, 
 
 Man's most desired light, 
 To love him life, to leave him death, 
 
 To live in him delight. 
 
 He mine by gift, I him by debt, 
 
 Thus each to other due, 
 First friend he was, best friend he is, 
 
 All times will try him true.
 
 SO A CHILD MY CHOICE. 
 
 Though young, yet wise ; though small, yet 
 strong ; 
 
 Though man, yet God he is ; 
 As wise he knows, as strong he can, 
 
 As God he loves to bless. 
 
 His knowledge rules, his strength defends, 
 
 His love doth cherish all ; 
 His birth our joy, his life our light, 
 
 His death our end of thrall. 
 
 Alas ! he weeps, he sighs, he pants, 
 
 Yet doth his angels sing ; 
 Out of his tears, his sighs and throbs, 
 
 Doth bud a joyful spring. 
 
 Almighty babe, whose tender arms 
 
 Can force all foes to fly, 
 Correct my faults, protect my life, 
 
 Direct me when I die !
 
 CONTENT AND RICH. 
 
 bf. 
 
 DWELL in Grace's court, 
 
 Enrich 'd with Virtue's rights ; 
 
 Faith guides my wit, Love leads my will, 
 Hope all my mind delights. 
 
 In lowly vales I mount 
 
 To pleasure's highest pitch ; 
 My silly shroud true honour brings, 
 
 My poor estate to rich. 
 
 My conscience is my crown, 
 
 Contented thoughts my rest ; 
 My heart is happy in itself, 
 
 My bliss is in my breast. 
 
 Enough I reckon wealth ; 
 
 A mean the surest lot, 
 That lies too high for base contempt, 
 
 Too low for envy's shot. 
 
 My wishes are but few, 
 
 All easy to fulfil, 
 I make the limits of my power 
 
 The bounds unto my will.
 
 58 CONTENT AND RICH. 
 
 I have no hope but one, 
 
 Which is of heavenly reign ; 
 
 Effects attend, or not desire, 
 All lower hopes refrain. 
 
 I feel no care of coin, 
 
 Well-doing is my wealth ; 
 My mind to me an empire is, 
 
 While grace affordeth health. 
 
 I clip high-climbing thoughts, 
 The wings of swelling pride ; 
 
 Their fall is worst, that from the height, 
 Of greatest honours slide. 
 
 Sith sails of largest size 
 
 The storm doth soonest tear, 
 
 I bear so low and small a sail 
 As freeth me from fear. 
 
 I wrestle not with rage. 
 
 While fury's flame doth burn ; 
 
 It is in vain to stop the streams 
 Until the tide doth turn. 
 
 But when the flame is out, 
 And ebbing wrath doth end, 
 
 I turn a late enlarged foe 
 Into a quiet friend.
 
 CONTENT AND RICH. 
 
 And taught with often proof, 
 A temper'd calm I find 
 
 To be most solace to itself, 
 Best cure for angry mind. 
 
 Spare diet is my fare, 
 
 My clothes more fit than fine ; 
 I know I feed and clothe a foe 
 
 That pamper'd would repine. 
 
 I envy not their hap, 
 
 Whom favour doth advance ; 
 I take no pleasure in their pain, 
 
 That have less happy chance. 
 
 To rise by others' fall 
 
 I deem a losing gain ; 
 All states with others' ruins built, 
 
 To ruin run amain. 
 
 No chance of Fortune's calms 
 Can cast my comforts down ; 
 
 When fortune smiles, I smile to think 
 How quickly she will frown. 
 
 And when in froward mood 
 
 She proves an angry foe, 
 Small gain I found to let her come, 
 
 Less loss to let her go.
 
 LOSS IN DELAY. 
 
 HUN delays, they breed remorse ; 
 
 Take thy time while time is lent thee ; 
 Creeping snails have weakest force, 
 Fly their fault lest thou repent thee. 
 Good is best when soonest wrought, 
 Linger'd labours come to nought. 
 
 Hoist up sail while gale doth last, 
 
 Tide and wind stay no man's pleasure ; 
 
 Seek not time when time is past, 
 Sober speed is wisdom's leisure. 
 
 After- wits are dearly bought, 
 
 Let thy forewit guide thy thought. 
 
 Time wears all his locks before, 
 Take thy hold upon his forehead ; 
 
 When he flies he turns no more, 
 And behind his scalp is naked. 
 
 Works adjourn'd have many stays; 
 
 Long demurs breed new delays.
 
 LOSS IN DELAY. 
 
 Seek thy salve while sore is green, 
 Fester'd wounds ask deeper lancing ; 
 
 After-cures are seldom seen, 
 
 Often sought scarce ever chancing. 
 
 Time and place give best advice, 
 
 Out of season, out of price. 
 
 61 
 
 Crush the serpent in the head, 
 
 Break ill eggs ere they be hatch'd ; 
 
 Kill bad chickens in the tread, 
 
 Fledged, they hardly can be catch'd. 
 
 In the rising stifle ill, 
 
 Lest it grow against thy will. 
 
 Drops do pierce the stubborn flint, 
 Not by force but often falling ; 
 
 Custom kills with feeble dint, 
 
 More by use than strength and vailing. 
 
 Single sands have little weight, 
 
 Many make a drawing freight. 
 
 Tender twigs are bent with ease, 
 Aged trees do break with bending ; 
 
 Young desires make little prease, 
 
 Growth doth make them past amending. 
 
 Happy man, that soon doth knock 
 
 Babel's babes against the rock !
 
 LOVE'S SERVILE LOT. 
 
 O--9 
 
 JT/oi) OVE mistress is of many minds, 
 >l|-'5j Yet few know whom they serve ; 
 They reckon least how little love 
 Their service doth deserve. 
 
 The will she robbeth from the wit, 
 The sense from reason's lore ; 
 
 She is delightful in the rind, 
 Corrupted in the core. 
 
 She shroudeth vice in virtue's veil, 
 
 Pretending good in ill ; 
 She offereth joy, affordeth grief, 
 
 A kiss, where she doth kill. 
 
 A honey-shower rains from her lips, 
 Sweet lights shine in her face ; 
 
 She hath the blush of virgin's mind, 
 The mind of viper's race. 
 
 She makes thee seek, yet fear to find ; 
 
 To find but not enjoy ; 
 In many frowns st>me gliding smiles, 
 
 She yields, to more annoy.
 
 LOVE'S SERVILE LOT. 
 
 She woos thee to come near her fire, 
 Yet doth draw it from thee ; 
 
 Far oil she makes thy heart to fry, 
 And yet to freeze in thee. 
 
 She letteth fall some luring baits, 
 
 For fools to gather up ; 
 To sweet, to sour, to every taste 
 
 She tempereth her cup. 
 
 Soft souls she binds in tender twist, 
 Small flies in spinner's web ; 
 
 She sets afloat some luring streams, 
 But makes them soon to ebb. 
 
 Her watery eyes have burning force, 
 Her floods and flames conspire ; 
 
 Tears kindle sparks, sobs fuel are, 
 And sighs do blow her fire. 
 
 May never was the month of love, 
 For May is full of flowers ; 
 
 But rather April, wet by kind, 
 For love is full of showers. 
 
 63 
 
 Like tyrant, cruel wounds she gives, 
 Like surgeon, salves she lends ; 
 
 But salve and sore have equal force, 
 For death is both their ends.
 
 04 LOVE'S SERVILE LOT. 
 
 With soothed words enthralled souls 
 She chains in servile bands ; 
 
 Her eye in silence hath a speech, 
 Which eye best understands. 
 
 Her little sweet hath many sours ; 
 
 Short hap immortal harms ; 
 Her loving looks are murdering darts, 
 
 Her songs, bewitching charms. 
 
 Like winter rose and summer ice, 
 Her joys are still untimely ; 
 
 Before her hope, behind remorse, 
 Fair first, in fine unseemly. 
 
 Moods, passions, fancies, jealous fits, 
 
 Attend upon her train ; 
 She yieldeth rest without repose, 
 
 A heaven in hellish pain. 
 
 Her house is sloth, her door deceit, 
 And slippery hope her stairs ; 
 
 Unbashful boldness bids her guests, 
 And every vice repairs. 
 
 Her diet is of such delights 
 As please, till they be past ; 
 
 But then, the poison kills the heart 
 That did entice the taste.
 
 LOVE'S SERVILE LOT. 
 
 Her sleep in sin doth end in wrath, 
 
 Remorse rings her awafce ; 
 Death calls her up, shame drives her out, 
 
 Despairs her upshot make. 
 
 Plough not the seas, sow not the sands, 
 
 Leave off your idle pain ; 
 Seek other mistress for your minds, 
 
 Love's service is in vain.
 
 LIFE IS BUT LOSS. 
 
 I Y force I live, in will I wish to die ; 
 
 In plaints I pass the length of ling'ring 
 
 days; 
 Free would my soul from, mortal body fly, 
 
 And tread the track of death's desired ways : 
 Life is but loss where death is deemed gain. 
 And loathed pleasures breed displeasing pain. 
 
 Who would not die to kill all murd'ring grieves ? 
 
 Or who would live in never-dying fears ? 
 Who would not wish his treasure safe from thieves, 
 
 And quit his heart from pangs, his eyes from 
 
 tears ? 
 
 Death parteth but two ever-fighting foes, 
 Whose civil strife doth work our endless woes. 
 
 Life is a wandering course to doubtful rest ; 
 
 As oft a cursed rise to damning leap, 
 As happy race to win a heavenly crest ; 
 
 None being sure what final fruits to reap : 
 And who can like in such a life to dwell, 
 Whose ways are strict to heaven, but wide to hell ?
 
 LIFE IS BUT LOSS. 67 
 
 Come, cruel death, why lingerest thou so long ? 
 
 What doth withhold thy dint from fatal stroke ? 
 Now prest I am, alas! thou dost me wrong, 
 
 To let me live more anger to provoke : 
 'Thy right is had when thou hast stopp'd my breath, 
 Why shouldst thou stay to work my double death V 
 
 If Saul's attempt in falling on his blad 
 As lawful were as eth to put in ure, 
 
 If Samson's lean a common law were made, 
 Of Abel's lot if all that would were sure, 
 
 Then, cruel death, thou shouldst the tyrant play 
 
 With none but such as wished for delay. 
 
 Where life is loved thou ready art to kill, 
 
 And to abridge with sudden pangs their joys ; 
 
 Where life is loathed thou wilt not work their will, 
 But dost adjourn their death to their annoy. 
 
 To some thou art a fierce unbidden guest, 
 
 But those that crave thy help thou helpest least. 
 
 A vaunt, O viper-! I thy spite defy : 
 
 There is a God that overrules thy force, 
 
 Who can thy weapons to His will apply, 
 And shorten or prolong our brittle course, 
 
 I on His mercy, not thy might, rely ; 
 
 To Him I live, for Him I hope to die.
 
 08 
 
 I DIE ALIVE. 
 
 LIFE ! what lets thee from a quick decease? 
 death ! what draws thee from a present 
 
 prey? 
 
 My feast is done, my soul would be at ease, 
 My grace is said, O death ! come take away. 
 
 I live, but such a life as ev r er dies ; 
 
 I die, but such a death as never ends ; 
 My death to end my dying life denies, 
 
 And life my loving death no whit amends. 
 
 Thus still I die, yet still I do remain ; 
 
 My living death by dying life is fed ; 
 Grace more than nature keeps my heart alive, 
 
 Whose idle hopes and vain desires are dead. 
 
 Not where I breathe, but where I love, I live ; 
 
 Not where I love, Irat where I am, I die ; 
 The life I wish must future glory give, 
 
 The death I feel in present dangers lie.
 
 GO 
 
 WHAT JOY TO LIVE. 
 
 - 
 
 fWAGrE no war, yet peace I none enjoy ; 
 I hope, I fear, I fry in freezing cold ; 
 I mount in mirth, still prostrate in annoy ; 
 If all the world embrace yet nothing hold. 
 All wealth is want where chiefest wishes fail, 
 Yea life is loathed where love may not prevail. 
 
 For that I love I long, but that I lack ; 
 
 That other love I loath, and that I have ; 
 All worldly freights to me are deadly wrack, 
 
 Men present hap, I future hopes do crave : 
 They, loving where they live, long life require, 
 To live where best I love, I death desire. 
 
 Here loan is lent for love of filthy gain ; 
 
 Most friends befriend themselves with friend- 
 ship's show ; 
 Here plenty peril, want doth breed disdain ; 
 
 Cares common are, joys faulty, short and few ; 
 Here honour envied, meanness is despised ; 
 
 Sin deemed solace, virtue little prized.
 
 70 WHAT JOY TO LIVE. 
 
 Here beauty is a bait that, swallow'd, choke&>. 
 
 A treasure sought still in the owner's harms ; 
 A light that eyes to murdering sights provokes, 
 
 A grace that souls enchants with mortal charms :; 
 A luring gain to Cupid's fiery slights, 
 A baleful bliss that damns where it delights. 
 
 Oh ! who would live so many deaths to try ? 
 
 Where will doth wish that wisdom doth reprove, 
 Where nature craves that grace must needs deny, 
 
 Where sense doth like that reason cannot love, 
 Where best in show in final proof is worst, 
 Where pleasures upshot is to die accurst ?
 
 71 
 
 LIFE'S DEATH, LOVE'S LIFE. 
 
 HO lives in love, loves least to live, 
 
 And long delays doth rue, 
 If Him he love by whom he lives, 
 To whom all love is due. 
 
 Who for our love did choose to live, 
 
 And was content to die ; 
 Who loved our love more than His life, 
 
 And love with life did buy. 
 
 Let us in life, yea with our life, 
 
 Requite His living love ; 
 For best we live when best we love, 
 
 If love our life remove. 
 
 Where love is hot life hateful is, 
 Their grounds do not agree ; 
 
 Love where it loves, life where it lives, 
 Desireth most to be. 
 
 And sith love is not where it lives, 
 
 Nor liveth where it loves, 
 Love liateth life that holds it back, 
 
 And death it best approves.
 
 72 LIFE'S DEATH, LOVE'S LIFE, 
 
 For seldom is He won in life 
 "Whom love doth most desire ; 
 
 If won in love, yet not enjoy'd,. 
 Till mortal life expire. 
 
 Life out of earth hath no abode, 
 In earth lore hath no place ; 
 
 Love settled hath her joys in heaven, 
 In earth life all her grace. 
 
 Mourn, therefore, no true lover's death, 
 
 Life only him annoys ; 
 And when he taketh leave of life, 
 
 Then love begins his joys.
 
 AT HOME IN HEAVEN. 
 
 1 AIR soul ! how long shall veils thy graces 
 
 shroud ? 
 
 How long shall this exile withhold thy right ? 
 When will thy sun disperse his mortal cloud, 
 
 And give thy glories scope to blaze their light ? 
 Oh that a star, more fit for angel's eyes, 
 Should pine in earth, not shine above the skies ! 
 
 Thy ghostly beauty offer 'd force to Grod ; 
 
 It chained Him in links of tender love ; 
 It won His will with man to make abode ; 
 
 It stay'd His sword, and did His wrath remove 
 It made the vigour of His justice yield, 
 And crowned Mercy empress of the field. 
 
 This lull'd our heavenly Samson fast asleep, 
 And laid Him in our feeble nature's lap ; 
 
 This made Him under mortal load to creep, 
 And in our flesh His Godhead to enwrap ; 
 
 This made Him sojourn with us in exile, 
 
 And not disdain our titles in His style.
 
 74 AT HOME IN HEAVEN. 
 
 This brought Him from the ranks of heavenly 
 quires 
 
 Into this vale of tears and cursed soil ; 
 From flowers of grace into a world of briars, 
 
 From life to death, from bliss to baleful toil. 
 This made Him wander in our pilgrim weed, 
 And taste our torments to relieve our need. 
 
 O soul ! do not thy noble thoughts abase, 
 To lose thy loves in any mortal wight ; 
 
 Content thy eye at home with native grace, 
 Sith God Himself is ravish'd with thy sight ; 
 
 If on thy beauty God enamoured be, 
 
 Base is thy love of any less than He. 
 
 Give not assent to muddy-minded skill, 
 That deems the feature of a pleasing face 
 
 To be the sweetest bait to lure the will ; 
 
 Not valuing right the worth of ghostly grace ; 
 
 Let God's and angels' censure win belief, 
 
 That of all beauties judge our souls the chief. 
 
 Queen Hester was of rare and peerless hue, 
 And Judith once for beauty bare the vaunt ; 
 
 But he that could our souls' endowments view, 
 Would soon to souls the crown of beauty grant. 
 
 O soul ! out of thyself seek God alone : 
 
 Grace more than thine, but God's, the world hath 
 none.
 
 75 
 
 LEWD LOVE IS LOSS. 
 
 ISDEEMING eye! that stoopest to the lore 
 Of mortal worths, not worth so worthy 
 
 love ; 
 All beauties base, all graces are impure, 
 
 That do thy erring thoughts from God remove. 
 Sparks to the fire, the beams yield to the sun, 
 All grace to God, from whom all graces run. 
 
 If picture move, more should the pattern please ; 
 
 No shadow can with shadow'd thing compare, 
 And fairest shapes, whereon our loves do seize, 
 
 But folly signs of God's high beauty are. 
 Go, starving sense, feed thou on earthly mast ; 
 True love is heaven, seek thou thy sweet repast. 
 
 Glean not in barren soil these offal ears, 
 
 Sith reap thou may 'st whole harvests of delight 
 
 Base joys in griefs, bad hopes do end in fears, 
 Lewd love in loss, evil peace in deadly fight : 
 
 God's love alone doth end in endless ease, 
 
 Whose joys in hope, whose hope concludes in peace.
 
 76 LEWD LOVE IS LOSS. 
 
 Let not the luring train of fanc} T 's trap, 
 
 Or gracious features, proofs of Nature's skill, 
 
 Lull Reason's force asleep in Error's lap, 
 Or draw thy wit to bent of wanton will. 
 
 The fairest flowers have not the sweetest smell ; 
 
 A seeming heaven proves oft a damning hell. 
 
 Self-pleasing souls, that play with beauty's bait, 
 In shining shroud may swallow fatal hook ; 
 
 Where eager sight on semblant fair doth wait, 
 A lock it proves, that first was but a look : 
 
 The fish with ease into the net doth glide, 
 
 But to get out the way is not so wide. 
 
 So long the fly doth dally with the flame, 
 Until his singed wings do force his fall ; 
 
 So long the eye doth follow fancy's game, 
 Till love hath left the heart in heavy thrall. 
 
 Soon may the mind be cast in Cupid's jail, 
 
 But hard it is imprison'd thoughts to bail. 
 
 Oh ! loathe that love whose final aim is lust, 
 Moth of the mind, eclipse of reason's light ; 
 
 The grave of grace, the mole of Nature's rust, 
 The wrack of wit, the wrong of every right. 
 
 In sum, an ill whose harms no tongue can tell ; 
 
 In which to live is death, to die is hell.
 
 77 
 
 LOVE'S GARDEN GRIEF. 
 
 fAIN loves, avannt ! infamous is your pleasure, 
 Your joys deceit ; 
 Your jewels jests, and worthless trash your 
 
 treasure, 
 
 Fools' common bait. 
 Your palace is a prison that allnreth 
 To sweet mishap, and rest that pain procureth. 
 
 Your garden grief hedged in with thorns of envy 
 
 And stakes of strife ; 
 Your allies error gravel'd with jealousy 
 
 And cares of life ; 
 Your branches seats enwrapp'd with shades of 
 
 sadness ; 
 Your arbours breed rough fits of raging madness. 
 
 Your beds are sown with seeds of all iniquity 
 
 And poisoning weeds, 
 
 Whose stalks ill thoughts, whose leaves words full 
 of vanity, 
 
 Whose fruits misdeeds ; 
 
 Whose sap is sin, whose force and operation, 
 To banish grace and work the soul's damnation.
 
 78 LOVE'S GARDEN GRIEF. 
 
 Your trees are dismal plants of pining corrosives, 
 
 Whose root is ruth, 
 
 Whose bark is bale, whose timber stubborn 
 fantasies, 
 
 Whose pith untruth ; 
 
 On which in lieu of birds whose voice delighteth, 
 Of guilty conscience screeching note affrighteth. 
 
 Your coolest summer gales are scalding sighings, 
 
 Your showers are tears ; 
 Your sweetest smell the stench of sinful living, 
 
 Your favours fears ; 
 
 Your gard'ner Satan, all you reap is misery, 
 Your gain remorse and loss of all felicity.
 
 7'.' 
 
 FROM FORTUNE'S REACH. 
 
 o, . ' 
 
 )ET fickle Fortune run her blindest race, 
 
 I settled have an unremoved mind ; 
 I scorn to be [the] game of Fancy's chase, 
 Or vane to show the change of every wind. 
 Light giddy humours, stinted in no rest, 
 Still change their choice, yet never choose the best. 
 
 My choice was guided by foresightful heed, 
 It was averred with approving will ; 
 
 It shall be follow'd with performing deed, 
 
 And seal'd with vow, till death the chooser kill. 
 
 Yet death, though final date of vain desires, 
 
 Ends not my choice, which with no time expires. 
 
 To beauty's fading bliss I am no thrall ; 
 
 I bury not my thoughts in metal mines ; 
 I aim "not at such fame as feareth fall ; 
 
 I seek and find a light that ever shines : 
 Whose glorious beams display such heavenly sights, 
 As yield my soul the snm of all delights.
 
 80 FROM FORTUNE'S REACH. 
 
 My light to love, my love to light doth guide, 
 To life that lives by love, and loveth light ; 
 
 By love to one, to whom all loves are tied 
 By duest debt, and never equall'd right ; 
 
 Eyes' light, heart's love, soul's truest life He is, 
 
 Consorting in three joys one perfect bliss.
 
 81 
 
 A FANCY TURNED TO A 
 COMPLAINT.* 
 
 SINNER'S 
 
 "E that his mirth hath lost, 
 
 Whose comfort is to rue ; 
 Whose hope is salve, whose faith is 
 crazed, 
 Whose trust is found untrue ; 
 
 If he have held them dear, 
 
 And cannot cease to moan, 
 Come let him take his place by me, 
 
 He shall not rue alone. 
 
 But if the smallest sweet 
 
 Be mix'd with all his sour ; 
 If in the day, the month, the year, 
 
 He feel one lighting hour ; 
 
 Then rest he with himself, 
 
 He is no mate for me, 
 Whose time in tears, whose race in rath, 
 
 Whose life in death must be. 
 
 * In MS. "Master Dier's Fancy turned to a Sinner's 
 Complaint. "
 
 82 A FANCY TURNED TO 
 
 Yet not the wished death, 
 That feels in plaint or lack, 
 
 That making free the better part 
 Is only nature's wrack. 
 
 Oh no ! that were too well ; 
 
 My death is of the mind, 
 That always yields extreraest pangs, 
 
 Yet threatens worse behind. 
 
 As one that lives in show, 
 
 And inwardly doth die, 
 Whose knowledge is a bloody field, 
 
 Where virtue slain doth lie ; 
 
 Whose heart the altar is, 
 
 And host a God to move, 
 From whom my evil fears revenge, 
 
 His good doth promise love. 
 
 My fancies are like thorns 
 
 In which I go by night ; 
 My frighted wits are like a host 
 
 That force hath put to flight. 
 
 My sense is passion's spy, 
 My thoughts like ruins old, 
 
 Which show how fair the building was 
 While grace did it uphold.
 
 A SINNER'S COMPLAINT. 83 
 
 And still before mine eyes 
 
 My mortal fall they lay ; 
 Whom grace and virtue once advanced, 
 
 Now sin hath cast away. 
 
 Oh thoughts ! no thoughts but wounds, 
 
 Sometime the seat of joy, 
 Sometimes the store of quiet rest, 
 
 But now of all annoy. 
 
 I sow'd the soil of peace, 
 
 My bliss was in the spring ; 
 And day by day the fruit I eat 
 
 That virtue's tree did bring. 
 
 To nettles now my corn, 
 
 My field is turned to flint, 
 Where I a heavy harvest reap 
 
 Of cares that never stint. 
 
 The peace, the rest, the life, 
 
 That I enjoy'd of yore, 
 Were happy lot, but by their loss 
 
 My smart doth sting the more. 
 
 So to unhappy men, 
 
 The best frames to the worst ; 
 Oh time ! oh place ! where thus I fell ; 
 
 Dear then, but now accurst.
 
 84 A FANCY TURNED TO 
 
 In was stands my delight, 
 
 In is and shall my woe ; 
 My horror fasten 'd in the yea, 
 
 My hope hang'd in the no. 
 
 Unworthy of relief, 
 
 That craved it too late, 
 Too late I find, I find too well,. 
 
 Too well stood my estate. 
 
 Behold, such is the end 
 
 That pleasure doth procure, 
 
 Of nothing else but care and plaint 
 Can she the mind assure. 
 
 Forsaken first by grace, 
 
 By pleasure now forgotten ; 
 
 Her pain I feel, but grace's wage 
 Have others from me gotten. 
 
 Then grace where is the joy 
 
 That makes thy torments sweet ? 
 
 Where is the cause that many thought 
 Their deaths through thee but meet ? 
 
 Where thy disdain of sin, 
 
 Thy secret sweet delight ? 
 Thy sparks of bliss, thy heavenly rays r 
 
 . That shined erst so bright ?
 
 A SINNER'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 Oh ! that they were not lost, 
 
 Or I conld it excuse ; 
 Oh ! that a dream of feigned loss 
 
 My judgment did abuse ! 
 
 O frail inconstant flesh ! 
 
 Soon wrapt in every gin, 
 Soon wrought thus to betray thy soul, 
 
 And plunge thyself in sin. 
 
 Yet have I bnt the fault, 
 
 And not the faulty one, 
 Nor can I rid from me the mate 
 
 That forceth me to moan. 
 
 85 
 
 To moan a sinner's case, 
 
 Than which was never worse, 
 
 In prince or poor, in young or old, 
 In bliss or full of curse. 
 
 Yet God's must I remain, 
 
 By death, by wrong, by shame ; 
 
 I cannot blot out of my heart 
 
 That grace wrought in His name. 
 
 I cannot set at nought 
 
 Whom I have held so dear ; 
 
 I cannot make Him seem afar 
 That is indeed so near.
 
 86 A FANCY TURNED TO 
 
 Not that I look henceforth 
 For love that erst I found ; 
 
 Sith that I brake my plighted troth 
 To build on fickle ground. 
 
 Yet that shall never fail 
 
 Which my faith has in hand ; 
 
 I gave my vow, my vow gave me, 
 Both vow and gift shall stand. 
 
 But since that I have sinn'd, 
 And scourge none is too ill, 
 
 I yield me captive to my curse, 
 My hard fate to fulfil. 
 
 The solitary wood 
 
 My city shall become ; 
 The darkest dens shall be my lodge, 
 
 In which I rest or come. 
 
 A sandy plot my board, 
 
 The worms my feast shall be, 
 
 Wherewith my carcase shall be fed, 
 Until they feed on me. 
 
 My tears shall be my wine, 
 
 My bed a craggy rock ; 
 My harmony the serpent's hiss, 
 
 The screeching owl my clock.
 
 A SINNER'S COMPLAINT, 
 
 My exercise, remorse 
 
 And doleful sinners' lays ; 
 My book, remembrance of my crimes, 
 
 And faults of former days. 
 
 My walk, the path of plaint, 
 
 My prospect into hell 
 Where Judas and his cursed crew 
 
 In endless pain do dwell. 
 
 And though I seem to use 
 
 The feigning poets style, 
 To figure forth my careful plight, 
 
 My fall and my exile. 
 
 Yet is my grief not feign'd, 
 Wherein I starve and pine ; 
 
 Who feeleth most shall think it least, 
 If his compare with mine. 
 
 87
 
 DAVID'S PECCAVL* 
 
 3^. 
 
 fN eaves sole sparrow sits not more alone, 
 Nor mourning pelican in desert wild, 
 Than silly I that solitary moan, 
 From highest hopes to hardest hap exiled : 
 Sometime, oh, blissful time ! was virtue's meed 
 Aim to my thoughts, guide to my word and deed. 
 
 But fears now are my feres, grief my delight, 
 My tears my drink, my famish'd thoughts my 
 bread ; 
 
 Day full of dumps, nurse of unrest the night, 
 My garments give a bloody field my bed ; 
 
 My sleep is rather death than death's ally, 
 
 Yet kill'd with murdering pangs I cannot die. 
 
 This is the change of my ill charged choice, 
 Ruth for my rest, for comforts care I find ; 
 
 To pleasing tunes succeed a plaining voice, 
 The doleful echo of my wailing mind ; 
 
 Which, taught to know the worth of virtue's joys, 
 
 Doth hate itself, for loving fancy's toys. 
 
 * In Douay Edition, " St. Peter's."
 
 DAVID'S PEC C AVI. 89 
 
 If wiles of wit had overwrought my will, 
 Or subtle trains misled my steps away, 
 
 My foil had found excuse in want of skill, 
 111 deed I might, though not ill doom deny. 
 
 But wit and will must now confess with shame, 
 
 Both deed and doom to have deserved blame. 
 
 In fancy, deern'd fit guide to lead my way, 
 And as I deem'd I did pursue her track, 
 
 Wit lost his aim and will was fancy's prey ; 
 The rebel won, the ruler went to wrack. 
 
 But now sith fancy did with folly end, 
 
 Wit bought with loss, will taught by wit will 
 mend.
 
 SIN'S HEAVY LOAD. 
 
 LORD ! my sins doth overcharge thy 
 
 breast, 
 
 The poise thereof doth force thy knees to 
 bow ; 
 Tea, flat thou fallest with my faults oppress'd, 
 
 And bloody sweat runs trickling from thy brow : 
 But had they not to earth thus pressed thee, 
 Much more they would in hell have pester'd me. 
 
 This globe of earth doth thy one finger prop, 
 The world thou dost within thy hand embrace ; 
 
 Yet all this weight of sweat drew not a drop, 
 Nor made thee bow, much less fall on thy face ; 
 
 But now thou hast a load so heavy found, 
 
 That makes thee bow, yea fall flat to the ground. 
 
 O Sin ! how huge and heavy is thy weight, 
 That weighest more than all the world beside ; 
 
 Of which when Christ had taken in His freight, 
 The poise thereof His flesh could not abide. 
 
 Alas ! if God Himself sink under sin, 
 
 What will become of man -that dias therein ?
 
 SIN'S HEAVY LOAD. 
 
 91 
 
 First flat thou fell'st where earth did thee receive, 
 In closet pure of Mary's virgin breast ; 
 
 And now thou fail'st of earth to take thy leave, 
 Thou kissest it as cause of thy unrest : 
 
 O loving Lord ! that so dost love thy foe 
 
 As thus to kiss the ground where he doth go. 
 
 Thou, minded in thy heaven our earth to wear, 
 Doth prostrate now thy heaven our earth to 
 bless ; 
 
 As God to earth thou often wert severe, 
 
 As man thon seal'st a peace with bleeding kiss : 
 
 For as of souls thou common father art, 
 
 So is she mother of man's other part. 
 
 She shortly was to drink the dearest blood, 
 And yield thy soul away to Satan's cave ; 
 
 She shortly was thy corse in tomb to shroud, 
 And with them all thy diety to have ; 
 
 Now then in one thou jointly yieldest all, 
 
 That several to earth should shortly fall. 
 
 O prostrate Christ ! erect my crooked mind ; 
 
 Lord ! let thy fall my flight from earth obtain ; 
 Or if I still must needs in earth be shrined, 
 
 Then, Lord! on earth come fall yet once again ; 
 And either yield with me in earth to lie, 
 Or else with thee to take me to the sky !
 
 92 
 
 JOSEPH'S AMAZEMENT. 
 
 WHEN Christ, by growth, disclosed His 
 descent 
 
 Into the pure receipt of Mary's breast, 
 Poor Joseph, stranger yet to God's intent, 
 
 With doubts of jealous thoughts was sore 
 
 oppress'd ; * 
 
 And, wrought with divers fits of fear and love, 
 He neither can her free nor faulty prove. 
 
 Now sense, the wakeful spy of jealous mind, 
 By strong conjectures deemeth her defiled ; 
 
 But love, in doom of things best loved blind, 
 Thinks rather sense deceived than her with 
 child ; 
 
 Yet proofs so pregnant were, that no pretence 
 
 Could cloke a thing so clear and plain in sense. 
 
 Then Joseph, daunted with a deadly wound, 
 Let loose the reigns to undeserved grief ; 
 
 His heart did throb, his eyes in tears were drown'd, 
 His life a loss, death seem'd his best relief ; 
 
 The pleasing relish of his former love 
 
 In gallish thoughts to taste doth bitter prove.
 
 JOSEPH'S AMAZEMENT. '.1 
 
 One foot he often setteth forth of door, 
 
 Bnt t'other's loath uncertain ways to tread ; 
 
 He takes his fardel for his needful store, 
 
 He casts his inn where first he means to bed ; 
 
 But still ere he can frame his feet to go, 
 
 Love winneth time till all conclude in no. 
 
 Sometime, grief adding force, he doth depart, 
 He will, against his will, keep on his pace ; 
 
 But straight remorse so racks his ruing heart, 
 That hasting thoughts yield to a pausing space ; 
 
 Then mighty reasons press him to remain, 
 
 She whom he flies doth win him home again. 
 
 But when his thought, by sight of his abode, 
 Presents the sign of misesteemed shame, 
 
 Repenting every step that back he trod, 
 
 Tears drown the guides, the tongue the feet 
 doth blame ; 
 
 Thus warring with himself a field he fights, 
 
 Where every wound upon the giver lights. 
 
 And was my love, quoth he, so lightly prized ? 
 
 Or was our sacred league so soon forgot ? 
 Could vows be void, could virtues be despised ? 
 
 Could such a spouse be stain'd with such a spot ? 
 wretched Joseph ! that hast lived so long, 
 Of faithful love to reap so grievous wrong !
 
 94 JOSEPH'S AMAZEMENT. 
 
 Could such a worm breed in so sweet a wood ? 
 
 Could in so chaste demeanour lurk untruth ? 
 Could vice lie hid where virtue's image stood ? 
 
 Where hoary sageness graced tender youth ? 
 Where can affiance rest to rest secure ? 
 In virtue's fairest seat faith is not sure. 
 
 All proofs did promise hope a pledge of grace, 
 Whose good might have repaid the deepest ill ; 
 
 Sweet signs of purest thoughts in saintly face 
 Assured the eye of her unstained will. 
 
 Yet in this seeming lustre seem to lie 
 
 Such crimes for which the law condemns to die. 
 
 But Joseph's word shall never work her woe : 
 1 wish her leave to live, not doom to die ; 
 
 Though fortune mine, yet am I not her foe, 
 She to herself less loving is than I : 
 
 The most I will, the less I can, is this, 
 
 Sith none may salve, to shun that is amiss. 
 
 Exile my home, the wilds shall be my walk, 
 Complaints my joy, my music mourning lays ; 
 
 With pensive griefs in silence will I talk, 
 
 Sad thoughts shall be my guides in sorrow's 
 ways : 
 
 This course best suits the care of careless mind, 
 
 That seeks to lose what most it joy'd to find.
 
 JOSEPH'S AMAZEMENT. 95 
 
 Like stocked tree whose branches all do fade, 
 Whose leaves do fall and perish'd fruit decay ; 
 
 Like herb that grows in cold and barren shade, 
 Where darkness drives all quick'ning heat away ; 
 
 So must I die, cut from my root of joy, 
 
 And thrown in darkest shades of deep annoy. 
 
 But who can fly from that his heart doth feel ? 
 
 What change of place can change implanted 
 
 pain ? 
 Removing moves no hardness from the steel ; 
 
 Sick hearts, that shift no fits, shift rooms in vain. 
 Where thought can see, what helps the closed eye ? 
 Where heart pursues, what gains the foot to fly ? 
 
 Yet still I tread a maze of doubtful end ; 
 
 I go, I come, she draws, she drives away ; 
 She wounds, she heals, she doth both mar and 
 mend, 
 
 She makes me seek and shun, depart and stay ; 
 She is a friend to love, a foe to loathe, 
 And in suspense I hang between them both.
 
 NEW PRINCE, NEW POMP. 
 
 [5)EHOLD a silly tender babe, 
 In freezing winter night, 
 In homely manger trembling lies; 
 Alas ! a piteous sight. 
 
 The inns are full, no man will yield 
 
 This little pilgrim bed ; 
 But forced he is with silly beasts 
 
 In crib to shroud his head. 
 
 Despise him not for lying there, 
 
 First what he is enquire ; 
 An orient pearl is often found 
 
 In depth of dirty mire. 
 
 Weigh not his crib, his wooden dish, 
 Nor beast that by him feed ; 
 
 Weigh not his mother's poor attire, 
 Nor Joseph's simple weed. 
 
 This stable is a prince's court, 
 
 The crib his chair of state ; 
 The beasts are parcel of his pomp, 
 
 The wooden dish his plate.
 
 NEW PRINCE, NEW POMP. 97 
 
 The persons in that poor attire 
 
 His royal liveries wear ; 
 The Prince Himself is come from heaven, 
 
 This pomp is praised there. 
 
 With joy approach, Christian wight ! 
 
 Do homage to thy King ; 
 And highly praise this humble pomp 
 
 Which He from heaven doth bring.
 
 98 
 
 THE BURNING BABE. 
 
 S I in hoary winter's night stood shivering 
 
 in the snow, 
 
 Surprised I was with sudden heat which 
 made my heart to glow ; 
 And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was 
 
 near, 
 A pretty babe all burning bright did in the air 
 
 appear, 
 Who scorched with exceeding heat such- floods of 
 
 tears did shed, 
 As though His floods should quench His flames 
 
 with what His tears were fed ; 
 Alas ! quoth He, but newly born in fiery heats of 
 
 %, 
 Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my 
 
 fire but I ! 
 My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding 
 
 thorns ; 
 Love is the fire and sighs the smoke, the ashes 
 
 shame and scorns ; 
 The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the 
 
 coals ; 
 The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled 
 
 souls ' r
 
 THE BURNING BABE. 99 
 
 For which, as now on fire I am, to work them to 
 
 their good, 
 So will I melt into a bath, to wash them in my 
 
 blood : 
 With this He vanish'd out of sight, and swiftly 
 
 shrunk away, 
 And straight I called unto mind that it was 
 
 Christmas-day.
 
 100 
 
 NEW HEAVEN, NEW WAE. 
 
 y , OME to jour heaven, you heavenly quires ! 
 
 N ' Earth hath the heaven of your desires ; 
 
 Remove your dwelling to your God, 
 A stall is now His best abode ; 
 Sith men their homage doth deny, 
 Come, angels, all their faults supply. 
 
 His chilling cold doth heat require, 
 Come, seraphim, in lieu of fire ; 
 This little ark no cover hath, 
 Let cherubs' wings his body swathe ; 
 Come, Raphael, this babe must eat, 
 Provide our little Toby meat. 
 
 Let Gabriel be now His groom, 
 That first took up His earthly room : 
 Let Michael stand in His defence, 
 Whom love hath link'd to feeble sense ; 
 Let graces rock when He doth cry, 
 And angels sing this lullaby.
 
 NEW HEAVEN, NEW WAR. 101 
 
 The same you saw in heavenly seat, 
 Is He that now sucks Mary's teat ; 
 Agnize your King a mortal wight, 
 His borrow'd weed lets not your sight ; 
 Come, kiss the manger where He lies ; 
 That is your bliss above the skies. 
 
 This little babe so few days old, 
 
 Is come to rifle Satan's fold ; 
 
 All hell doth at His presence quake, 
 
 Though He Himself for cold do shake ; 
 
 For in this weak unarmed wise 
 
 The gates of hell He will surprise. 
 
 With tears He fights and wins the field, 
 His naked breast stands for a shield, 
 His battering shot are babish cries, 
 His arrows, looks of weeping eyes, 
 His martial ensigns, cold and need, 
 And feeble flesh His warrior's steed. 
 
 His camp is pitched in a stall, 
 
 His bulwark but a broken wall, 
 
 His crib His trench, hay -stalks His stakes, 
 
 Of shepherds He His muster makes ; 
 
 And thus, as sure His foe to wound, 
 
 The angels' trumps alarum sound.
 
 102 NEW HEAVEN, NEW WAR. 
 
 My soul, with Christ join thou in fight ; 
 Stick to the tents that He hath pight ; 
 Within His crib is surest ward, 
 This little babe will be thy guard ; 
 If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy, 
 Then flit not from this heavenly boy.
 
 OR CERTAIN EXCELLENT POEMS 
 
 AND SPIRITUAL HYMNS, 
 COMPOSED BY 
 
 R. S. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY J. HAVILAND, 
 1634,
 
 105 
 
 THE VIRGIN MARY'S CONCEPTION. 
 
 UR second Eve puts on her mortal shroud, 
 Earth breeds a heaven for God's new 
 
 dwelling-place ; 
 Now riseth up Ellas' little cloud, 
 
 That growing shall distil the showers of grace ; 
 Her being now begins, who, ere she ends, 
 Shall bring our good that shall our evil mend. 
 
 Both grace and nature did their force unite 
 To make this babe the sum of all their best ; 
 
 Our most her least, our million but her mite, 
 She was at easiest rate worth all the rest : 
 
 What grace to men or angels God did part, 
 
 Was all united in this infant's heart. 
 
 Four only wights bred without fault are named, 
 And all the rest conceived were in sin ; 
 
 Without both man and wife was Adam framed, 
 Of man, but not of wife, did Eve begin ; 
 
 Wife without touch of man Christ's mother was, 
 
 Of man and wife this babe was bred in grace.
 
 106 
 
 HER NATIVITY. 
 
 pOY in the rising of our orient star 
 
 That shall bring forth the sun that lent her 
 
 light; 
 
 Joy in the peace that shall conclude our war. 
 And soon rebate the edge of Satan's spite ; 
 Loadstar of all engulf 'd in worldly waves, 
 The card and compass that from shipwreck saves. 
 
 The patriarchs and prophets were the flowers 
 Which time by course of ages did distil, 
 
 And call'd into this little cloud the showers 
 
 Whose gracious drops the world with joy shall 
 fill; 
 
 Whose moisture suppli'th every soul with grace, 
 
 And bringeth life to Adam's dying race. 
 
 For God in earth she is the royal throne, 
 The chosen cloth to make His mortal weed ; 
 
 The quarry to cut out our corner-stone, 
 Soil full of, yet free from, all mortal seed ; 
 
 For heavenly flower she is the Jesse rod, 
 
 The child of man, the parent of a God.
 
 107 
 
 HER ESPOUSALS. 
 
 WIFE did she live, yet virgin did she die, 
 Untouch'd of man, yet mother of a son ; 
 To save herself and child from fatal lie, 
 To end the web whereof the thread was spun, 
 In marriage knots to Joseph she was tied, 
 Unwonted works with wonted veils to hide. 
 
 God lent His paradise to Joseph's care, 
 Wherein he was to plant the tree of life ; 
 
 This Son of Joseph's child the title bare, 
 
 Just cause to make the mother Joseph's wife. 
 
 Oh ! blessed man, betroth'd to such a spouse, 
 
 More bless'd to live with such a child in house ! 
 
 No carnal love this sacred league procured, 
 All vain delights were far from their assent ; 
 
 Though both in wedlock bands themselves assured, 
 Yet chaste by vow they seal'd their chaste 
 intent : 
 
 Thus had she virgins', wives', and widows' crown, 
 
 And by chaste childbirth doubled her renown.
 
 108 
 
 THE VIRGIN'S SALUTATION. 
 
 PELL Eva back and Ave shall you find, 
 The first began, the last reversed our 
 
 harms : 
 
 An angel's witching words did Eva blind, 
 An angel's Ave disenchants the charms : 
 Death first by woman's weakness enter'd in, 
 In woman's virtue life doth now begin. 
 
 O virgin breast ! the heavens to thee incline, 
 
 In thee their joy and sovereign they agnize ; 
 Too mean their glory is to match with thine, 
 Whose chaste receipt God more than heaven 
 
 did prize. 
 Hail ! fairest heaven, that heaven and earth did 
 
 bless, 
 Where virtue's star God's sun of justice is ! 
 
 With haughty mind to Godhead man aspired, 
 And was by pride from place of pleasure chased ; 
 
 With loving mind our manhood God desired, 
 And as by love in greater pleasure placed ; 
 
 Man labouring to ascend procured our fall, 
 
 God yielding to descend cut off our thrall.
 
 109 
 
 THE VISITATION. 
 
 AIMED queen and mother of a God, 
 The light of earth, the sovereign of saints, 
 With pilgrim foot up tiring hills she trod, 
 And heavenly style with handmaids' toil ac- 
 quaints : 
 
 Her youth to age, herself to sick she lends, 
 Her heart to God, to neighbour hand she bends. 
 
 A prince she is, and mightier prince doth bear, 
 Yet pomp of princely train she would not have ; 
 
 But doubtless heavenly quires attendant were, 
 Her child from harm, herself from fall to save : 
 
 Word to the voice, song to the tune she brings, 
 
 The voice her word, the tune her ditty sings. 
 
 Eternal lights enclosed in her breast 
 
 Shot out such piercing beams of burning Iove r 
 That when her voice her cousin's ears possess'd, 
 
 The force thereof did force her babe to move : 
 With secret signs the children greet each other, 
 But open praise each leaveth to his mother.
 
 110 
 
 THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST.* 
 
 [BEHOLD the father is his daughter's son, 
 
 The bird that built the nest is hatch'd 
 
 therein, 
 The old of years an hour hath not outrun, 
 
 Eternal life to live doth now begin, 
 The word is dumb, the mirth of heaven doth weep, 
 Might feeble is, and force doth faintly creep. 
 
 O dying souls ! behold your living spring ! 
 
 dazzled eyes ! behold your son of grace ! 
 Dull ears attend what word this word doth bring ! 
 
 Up, heavy hearts, with joy your joy embrace ! 
 From death, from dark, from deafness, from 
 
 despairs, 
 This life, this light, this word, this joy repairs. 
 
 Gift better than Himself God doth not know, 
 Gift better than his God no man can see ; 
 
 This gift doth here the giver given bestow, 
 Gift to this gift let each receiver be : 
 
 God is my gift, Himself he freely gave me, 
 
 God's gift am I, and none but God shall have me. 
 
 * Transferred from the Edition of 
 plaint " of 1634. 
 
 St, Peter's Com-
 
 THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Man alter'd was by sin from man to beast ; 
 
 Beast's food is hay, hay is all mortal flesh ; 
 Now God is flesh, and lives in manger press'd, 
 
 As hay the brutest sinner to refresh : 
 Oh happy field wherein this fodder grew, 
 Whose taste doth us from beasts to men renew !
 
 112 
 
 HIS CIRCUMCISION. 
 
 fHE head is lanced to work the body's cure, 
 With ang'ring salve it smarts to heal our 
 
 wound ; 
 To faultless Son, from all offences pure, 
 
 The faulty vassel's scourges do redound ; 
 The judge is cast, the guilty to acquit, 
 The sun defaced, to lend the star his light. . 
 
 The vein of life distilleth drops of grace, 
 Our rock gives issue to a heavenly spring ; 
 
 Tears from his eyes, blood streams from wounded 
 
 place, 
 With showers to heaven of joy a harvest bring : 
 
 This sacred dew let angels gather up, 
 
 Such dainty drops best fit their nectar'd cup. 
 
 With weeping eyes His mother rued His smart, 
 If blood from him, tears came from her as fast ; 
 
 The knife that cut His flesh did pierce her heart, 
 The pain that Jesu felt did Mary taste : 
 
 His life and her's hung by one fatal twist, 
 
 No blow that hit the Son the mother miss'd.
 
 THE EPIPHANY. 
 
 blaze the rising of this glorious sun 
 A glittering star appeareth in the east, 
 Whose sight to pilgrim toils three sages won 
 To seek the light they long had in request ; 
 And by this star to nobler star they pass, 
 Whose arms did their desired sun embrace. 
 
 Stall was the sky wherein these planets shined, 
 And want the cloud that did eclipse their rays : 
 
 Yet through this cloud their light did passage find, 
 And pierced these sages' hearts by secret ways, 
 
 Which made them know the Ruler of the skies, 
 
 By infant's tongue and looks of babish eyes. 
 
 Heaven at her light, earth blusheth at her pride, 
 
 And of their pomp these peers ashamed be ; 
 Their crowns, their robes, their trains they set 
 
 aside, 
 When God's poor cottage clouts and crew they 
 
 see ; 
 
 All glorious things their glory now despise, 
 Sith God contempt doth more than glory prize.
 
 114 THE EPIPHANY. 
 
 Three gifts they brought, three gifts they bear 
 
 away ; 
 For incense, mirth and gold, faith, hope and 
 
 love ; 
 And with their gifts the givers' hearts do stay, 
 
 Their mind from Christ no parting can remove ; 
 His humble state, his stall, his poor retinue, 
 They fancy more than all their rich revenue.
 
 115 
 
 THE PRESENTATION. 
 
 be redeem'd the world's Redeemer brought, 
 Two silly turtle-doves for ransom pays' ; 
 Oh ! ware with empires worthy to be bought, 
 This easy rate doth sound, not drown thy praise ! 
 For sith no price can to'thy worth amount, 
 A dove, yea love, due price thou dost account. 
 
 Old Simeon cheap pennyworth and sweet 
 
 Obtain'd, when Thee in arms he did embrace ; 
 
 His weeping eyes Thy smiling looks did meet, 
 Thy love his heart, Thy kisses bless'd his face ; 
 
 O eyes ! O heart ! mean sights and loves avoid, 
 
 Base not yourselves, your best you have enjoy'd ! 
 
 O virgin pure ! thou dost these doves present 
 As due to law, not as an equal price ; 
 
 To buy such ware thou wouldst thyself have spent ; 
 The world to reach His worth could not suffice ; 
 
 If God were to be bought, not worldly pelf, 
 
 Bat thou wert fittest price next God Himself.
 
 lit; 
 
 THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 
 
 onr Day is forced to fly by night ! 
 Light without light, and sun by silent 
 
 shade. 
 nature, blush ! that sufferest such a wight, 
 
 That in thy sun this dark eclipse hath made ; 
 Day to his eyes, light to his steps deny, 
 That hates the light which graceth every eye. 
 
 Sun being fled the stars do less their light, 
 
 And shining beams in bloody streams they 
 
 di'ench ; 
 A cruel storm of Herod's mortal spite 
 
 Their lives and lights with bloody showers doth 
 
 quench : 
 
 The tyrant to be sure of murdering one, 
 For fear of sparing Him doth pardon none. 
 
 O blessed babes ! first flowers of Christian spring, 
 Who though untimely cropp'd fair garlands 
 frame, 
 
 With open throats and silent mouths you sing 
 His praise whom age permits you not to name ; 
 
 Your tunes are tears, your instruments are swords, 
 
 Your ditty death, and blood in lieu of words !
 
 117 
 
 CHRIST'S RETURN OUT OF EGYPT. 
 
 'HEN Death and Hell their right in Herod 
 
 claim, 
 
 Christ from exile returns to native soil ; 
 There with His life more deeply Death to maim ; 
 
 Than Death did life by all the infants spoil. 
 He show'd the parents, that their babes did moan, 
 That all their lives were less than His alone. 
 
 But hearing Herod's son to have the crown ; 
 
 An impious offspring of a bloody sire ; 
 To Nazareth, of heaven beloved town, 
 
 Flower to a flower He fitly doth retire ; 
 For flower He is and in a flower He bred, 
 And from a throne now to a flower He fled. 
 
 And well deserved this flower His fruit to view> 
 Where He invested was in mortal weed ; 
 
 Where first unto a tender bud He grew, 
 
 In virgin branch unstain'd with mortal seed : 
 
 Young flower, with flowers in flower well may He be, 
 
 Ripe fruit, He must with thorns hang on a tree.
 
 118 
 
 CHRIST'S CHILDHOOD.* 
 
 tlLL twelve years' age, how Christ His child- 
 hood spent 
 All earthly pens unworthy were to write ; 
 Such acts to mortal eyes He did present, 
 
 Whose worth not men but angels must recite : 
 No nature's blots, no childish faults denied, 
 Where grace was guide, and God did play the child. 
 
 In springing locks lay crouched hoary wit, 
 In semblant young, a grave and ancient port ; 
 
 In lowly looks high majesty did sit, 
 
 In tender tongue sound sense of sagest sort : 
 
 Nature imparted all that she could teach, 
 
 And God supplied where nature could not reach. 
 
 His mirth of modest mien a mirror was ; 
 
 His sadness temper'd with a mild aspect ; 
 His eye to try each action was a glass, 
 
 Whose looks did good approve and bad correct ; 
 His nature's gifts, His grace, His word and deed, 
 Well showed that all did from a God proceed. 
 
 '* Transferred from the Edition of " St. Peter's Com- 
 plaint " of 1634.
 
 Ill) 
 
 CHRIST'S BLOODY SWEAT. 
 
 i AT soil, full spring, sweet olive, grape of 
 
 bliss, 
 
 That yields, that streams, that pours, that 
 doth distil, 
 
 Untill'd, undrawn, unstamp'd, untouch'd of press, 
 Dear fruit, clear brooks, fair oil, sweet wine at 
 
 will, 
 
 Thus Christ unforced prevents, in shedding blood, 
 The whips, the thorns, the nails, the spear and rood. 
 
 He pelican's, he phoenix' fate doth prove, 
 
 Whom flames consume, whom streams enforce 
 to die ; 
 
 How burneth blood, how bleedeth burning love ? 
 Can one in flame and stream both bathe and fry ? 
 
 How could He join a phoenix' fiery pains 
 
 In fainting pelican's still bleeding veins ? 
 
 Elias once, to prove God's sovereign power, 
 By prayer procured a fire of wond'rons force, 
 
 That blood and water and wood did devour, 
 
 Yea stones and dust beyond all nature's course : 
 
 Such fire is love that, fed with gory blood, 
 
 Doth burn no less than in the driest wood.
 
 CHRIST'S BLOODY SWEAT. 
 
 sacred fire ! come show thy force on me T 
 That sacrifice to Christ I may return : 
 
 If wither'd wood for fuel fittest be, 
 
 If stones and dust, if flesh and blood will burn, 
 
 1 wither'd am and stony to all good, 
 
 A sack of dust, a mass of flesh and blood.
 
 12L 
 
 CHRIST'S SLEEPING FRIENDS. 
 
 c) 
 
 Christ with care and pangs of death 
 oppress'd, 
 From frighted flesh a bloody sweat did 
 
 And, full of fear, without repose or rest, 
 In agony did pray and watch in pain ; 
 Three sundry times He His disciples finds 
 With heavy eyes, but far more heavy minds. 
 
 With mild rebuke He warned them to wake, 
 Yet sleep did still their drowsy senses hold ; 
 
 As, when the sun the brightest shew doth make, 
 In darkness shrouds the night-birds them enfold ; 
 
 His foes did watch to work their cruel spite, 
 
 His drowsy friends slept in His hardest plight. 
 
 As Jonas sailed once from Joppa's shore 
 
 A boisterous tempest in the air did broil, 
 The waves did rage, the thundering heavens did 
 
 roar, 
 The storms, the rocks, the lightnings threaten 'd 
 
 spoil ; 
 
 The ship was billows' game and chance's prey, 
 Yet careless Jonas mute and sleeping lay.
 
 122 CHRIST'S SLEEPING FRIENDS. 
 
 So now, though Judas, like a blust'ring gust, 
 Do stir the furious sea of Jewish ire, 
 
 Though storming troops, in quarrels most unjust, 
 Against the "back of all our bliss conspire, 
 
 Yet these disciples sleeping lie secure, 
 
 As though their wonted calm did still endure. 
 
 So Jonas once, his weary limbs to rest, 
 Did shroud himself in pleasant ivy shade, 
 
 But lo ! while him a heavy sleep opprest, 
 
 His shadowy bower to wither'd stalks did fade ; 
 
 A canker-worm had gnawn the root away, 
 
 And brought the glorious branches to decay. 
 
 O gracious plant ! O tree of heavenly spring ! 
 
 The paragon for leaf, for fruit and flower, 
 How sweet a shadow did Thy branches bring 
 
 To shroud these souls that chose Thee for their 
 
 bower ! 
 
 But now while they with Jonas fall asleep, 
 To spoil their plant an envious worm doth creep. 
 
 Awake, ye slumbering wights ! lift up your eyes, 
 Mark Judas, how to tear your root he strives ; 
 
 Alas ! the glory of your arbour dies, 
 
 Arise and guard the comfort of your lives ; 
 
 No Jonas' ivy, no Zaccheus' tree, 
 
 Were to the world so great a loss as He.
 
 123 
 
 THE VIRGIN MARY TO CHRIST ON 
 THE CROSS. 
 
 WHAT mist hath dimm'd that glorious 
 face? 
 
 What seas of grief my sun doth toss ? 
 The golden rays of heavenly grace 
 Lie now eclipsed on the cross. 
 
 Jesus, my love, my Son, my God, 
 Behold Thy mother wash'd in tears : 
 
 Thy bloody wounds be made a rod 
 To chasten these my later years. 
 
 You cruel Jews, come work your ire 
 Upon this worthless flesh of mine, 
 
 And kindle not eternal fire 
 
 By wounding Him who is divine. 
 
 Thou messenger that didst impart 
 His first descent into my womb, 
 
 Come help me now to cleave my heart, 
 That there I may my Son entomb.
 
 124 MARY TO CHRIST ON THE CROSS. 
 
 You angels, all that present were 
 To show His birth with harmony, 
 
 Why are yon not now ready here, 
 To make a mourning symphony ? 
 
 The cause I know you wail alone, 
 And shed your tears in secrecy, 
 
 Lest I should moved be to moan, 
 By force of heavy company. 
 
 But wail, my soul, thy comfort dies, 
 My woeful womb, lament thy fruit ; 
 
 My heart give tears unto mine eyes, 
 Let sorrow string my heavy lute.
 
 125 
 
 A HOLY HYMN.* 
 
 AISE, Sion ! praise thy Saviour, 
 Praise thy captain and thy pastor, 
 With hymns and solemn harmony. 
 
 What power affords perform in deed ; 
 
 His worths all praises far exceed, 
 No praise can reach his dignity. 
 
 A special theme of praise is read, 
 A living and life-giving bread, 
 
 Is on this day exhibited ; 
 Which in the supper of our Lord, 
 To twelve disciples at His board 
 
 None doubts was delivered. 
 
 Let our praise be loud and free, 
 Full of joy and decent glee, 
 
 With minds' and voices' melody ; 
 For now solemnize we that day, 
 Which doth with joy to us display 
 
 The prince of this mystery. 
 
 * Version of the " Lauda Syon Salvatorem " 
 Thomas Aquinas. 
 
 of St.
 
 126 A HOLY HYMN. 
 
 At this board of our new ruler, 
 Of new law, new paschal order 
 
 The ancient rite abolisheth ; 
 Old decrees be new annulled, 
 Shadows are in truths fulfilled, 
 
 Day former darkness finisheth. 
 
 That at supper Christ performed. 
 To be done He straitly charged 
 
 For His eternal memory. 
 Guided by His sacred orders. 
 Bread and wine upon our altars 
 
 To saving host we sanctify. 
 
 Christians are by faith assured 
 That to flesh the bread is changed, 
 
 The wine to blood most precious : 
 That no wit nor sense conceiveth, 
 Firm and grounded faith believeth, 
 
 In strange effects not curious.* 
 
 * The following twenty-four lines are omitted in the 
 edition of 1630, and in their place are substituted, 
 
 " As staff of bread thy heart sustains, 
 And cheerful wine thy strength regains, 
 
 By power and virtue natural ; 
 So doth this consecrated food, 
 The symbol of Christ's flesh and blood, 
 
 By virtue supernatural. 
 
 The ruins of thy soul repair, 
 Banish sin, horror and despair, 
 
 And feed faith, by faith received : 
 Angel's bread," &c.
 
 A HOLY HYMN. 127 
 
 Under kinds two in appearance, 
 Two in show but one in substance, 
 
 Lie things beyond comparison ; 
 Flesh is meat, blood drink most heavenly, 
 Yet is Christ in each kind wholly, 
 
 Most free from all division. 
 
 None that eateth Him doth chew Him, 
 None that takes Him doth divide Him, 
 
 Received He whole perse vereth. 
 Be there one or thousands hosted, 
 One as much as all received, 
 
 He by no eating perisheth. 
 
 Both the good and bad receive Him, 
 But effects are diverse in them, 
 
 True life or due destruction. 
 Life to the good, death to the wicked, 
 Mark how both alike received 
 
 With far unlike conclusion. 
 
 When the priest the host divideth, 
 Know that in each part abideth 
 
 All that the whole host covered. 
 Form of bread, not Christ is broken, 
 Not of Christ, but of His token, 
 
 Is state or stature altered.
 
 1-28 A HOLY HYMN. 
 
 Angels' bread made pilgrim's feeding. 
 Trnly bread for children's eating, 
 
 To dogs not to be offered. 
 Signed by Isaac on the altar, 
 By the lamb and paschal snpper, 
 
 And in the manna figured. 
 
 Jesu, food and feeder of us, 
 
 Here with mercy feed and friend us, 
 
 Then grant in heaven felicity ! 
 Lord of all, whom here Thou feedest, 
 Fellows, heirs, guests with Thy dearest, 
 
 Make us in heavenly company ! Amen.
 
 SAINT PETER'S AFFLICTED MIND. 
 
 F that the sick may groan, 
 Or orphan mourn his loss : 
 
 s~i 
 
 If wounded wretch may rue his harms, 
 Or caitiff show his cross ; 
 
 If heart consumed with care, 
 
 May utter signs of pain ; 
 Then may my breast be sorrow's home, 
 
 And tongue with cause complain. 
 
 My malady is sin, 
 
 And languor of the mind ; 
 My body but a Lazar's conch 
 
 Wherein my soul is pined. 
 
 The care of heavenly kind 
 
 Is dead to my relief : 
 Forlorn, and left like orphan child, 
 
 With sighs I feed my grief. 
 
 My wounds, with mortal smart 
 
 My dying soul torment, 
 And, prisoner to my own mishaps, 
 
 My folly I repent.
 
 130 ST. PETER'S AFFLICTED MIND. 
 
 My heart is but the haunt 
 Where all dislike doth keep ; 
 
 And who can blame so lost a wretch, 
 Though tears of blood he weep ?
 
 131 
 
 SAINT PETER'S REMORSE. 
 
 EMORSE upbraids my faults ; 
 
 Self-blaming conscience cries ; 
 Sin claims the host of humbled thoughts 
 And streams of weeping eyes : 
 
 Let penance, Lord, prevail ; 
 
 Let sorrow sue release ; 
 Let love be umpire in my cause, 
 
 And pass the doom of peace. 
 
 If doom go by desert, 
 
 My least desert is death ; 
 That robs from soul's immortal joys, 
 
 From body mortal breath. 
 
 But in so high a God, 
 
 So base a worm's annoy 
 Can add no praise unto Thy power, 
 
 No bliss unto Thy joy. 
 
 Well may I fry in flames, 
 
 Due fuel to hell-fire ! 
 But on a wretch to wreak Thy wrath 
 
 Cannot be worth Thine ire.
 
 ST. PETER'S REMORSE: 
 
 Yet sith so vile a worm 
 
 Hath wrought his greatest spite, 
 Of highest treasons well Thou may'st 
 
 In rigour him indite. 
 
 But Mercy may relent, 
 
 And temper Justice' rod, 
 For mercy doth as much belong 
 
 As justice to a God. 
 
 If former time or place 
 
 More right to mercy win, 
 Thou first were author of myself, 
 
 Then umpire of my sin. 
 
 Did Mercy spin the thread 
 To weave in Justice' loom, 
 
 Wert then a father to conclude 
 With dreadful judge's doom. 
 
 It is a small relief 
 
 To say I was Thy child, 
 If, as an ill-deserving foe, 
 
 From grace I am exiled. 
 
 I was, I had, I could, 
 
 All words importing want ; 
 
 They are but dust of dead supplies,. 
 Where needful helps are scant.
 
 ST. PETER'S REMORSE. 133 
 
 Once to have been in bliss 
 
 That hardly can return, 
 Doth but bewray from whence I fell, 
 
 As wherefore now I mourn. 
 
 All thoughts of passed hopes 
 
 Increase my present cross ; 
 Like ruins of decayed joys, 
 
 They still upbraid my loss. 
 
 mild and mighty Lord ! 
 Amend that is amiss ; 
 
 My sin my sore, Thy love my salve, 
 Thy cure my comfort is. 
 
 Confirm thy former deed, 
 Reform that is defiled ; 
 
 1 was, I am, I will remain 
 
 Thy charge, Thy choice, Thy child.
 
 134 
 
 MAN TO THE WOUND IN CHRIST'S 
 SIDE. 
 
 PLEASANT spot ! O place of rest ! 
 
 royal rift ! O worthy wound ! 
 Come harbour me, a weary guest, 
 That in the world no ease have found ! 
 
 I lie lamenting at Thy gate, 
 
 Yet dare I not adventure in : 
 I bear with me a troublous mate, 
 
 And cnmber'd am with heaps of sin. 
 
 Discharge me of this heavy load, 
 That easier passage I may find, 
 
 Within this bower to make abode, 
 
 And in this glorious tomb be shrined. 
 
 Here must I live, here must I die, 
 Here would I utter all my grief ; 
 
 Here would I all those pains descry, 
 Which here did meet for my relief. 
 
 Here would I view that bloody sore, 
 Which dint of spiteful spear did breed :
 
 MAN TO THE WOUND, ETC. 135 
 
 The bloody wounds laid there in store, 
 Would force a stony heart to bleed. 
 
 Here is the spring of trickling tears, 
 The mirror of all mourning wights, 
 
 With doleful tunes for dumpish ears, 
 And solemn shows for sorrow'd sights. 
 
 Oh, happy soul, that flies so high 
 
 As to attain this sacred cave ! 
 Lord, send me wings, that I may fly, 
 
 And in this harbour quiet have !
 
 UPON THE IMAGE OF DEATH. 
 
 EFORE iny face the picture hangs, 
 
 That daily should put me in mine? 
 Of those cold names and bitter pangs> 
 That shortly I am like to find : 
 But yet, alas ! full little I 
 Do think hereon that I must die. 
 
 I often look upon a face 
 
 Most ugly, grisly, bare and thin ; 
 I often view the hollow place, 
 
 Where eyes and nose had sometime been : 
 I see the bones across that lie, 
 Yet little think that I must die. 
 
 I read the label underneath, 
 
 That telleth me whereto I must ; 
 
 I see the sentence eke that saith, 
 Remember, man, thou art but dust : 
 
 But yet, alas ! but seldom I 
 
 Do think indeed that I must die. 
 
 Continually at my bed's head 
 
 An hearse doth hang, which doth me tell
 
 UPON THE IMAGE OF DEATH. 137 
 
 That I ere morning may be dead, 
 
 Though now I feel myself fall well : 
 Bnt yet, alas ! for all this I 
 Have little mind that I must die. 
 
 The gown which I do use to wear, 
 The knife wherewith I cut my meat, 
 
 And eke that old and ancient chair 
 Which is my only usual seat : 
 
 All these do tell me I must die, 
 
 And yet my life amend not I. 
 
 My ancestors are turned to clay, 
 And many of my mates are gone ; 
 
 My youngers daily drop away, 
 And can I think to 'scape alone ? 
 
 No, no, I know that I must die, 
 
 And yet my life amend not I. 
 
 Not Solomon, for all his wit, 
 
 Nor Samson, though he were so strong, 
 No king nor person ever yet 
 
 Could 'scape, but Death laid him along : 
 Wherefore I know that I must die, 
 
 And yet my life amend not I. 
 
 Though all the East did quake to hear 
 Of Alexander's dreadful name, 
 
 And all the West did likewise fear ' 
 To hear of Julius Caesar's fame,
 
 138 UPON THE IMAGE OF DEATH. 
 
 Yet both by Death in dust now lie ; 
 Who can then 'scape, but he must die ? 
 
 If none can 'scape Death's dreadful dart, 
 If rich and poor his beck obey ; 
 
 If strong, if wise, if all do smart, 
 Then I to 'scape shall have no way. 
 
 Oh ! grant me grace, God ! that I 
 
 My life may mend, sith I must die.
 
 139 
 
 A VALE OF TEARS. 
 
 VALE there is, enwrapt with dreadful 
 
 shades, 
 
 Which thick of mourning pines shrouds 
 from the sun, 
 Where hanging cliffs yield short and dumpish 
 
 glades, 
 And snowy flood with broken streams doth run. 
 
 Where eye-room is from rock to cloudy sky, 
 From thence to dales with stony ruins strew'd, 
 
 Then to the crushed water's frothy fry, 
 
 Which tumbleth from the tops where snow is 
 thaw'd. 
 
 Where ears of other sound can have no choice, 
 But various blust'ring of the stubborn wind 
 
 In trees, in caves, in straits with divers noise ; 
 Which now doth hiss, now howl, now roar by 
 kind. 
 
 Where waters wrestle with enconnt'ring stones, 
 That break their streams and turn them into 
 foam,
 
 140 A VALE OF TEARS. 
 
 The hollow clouds full fraught with thund'ring 
 
 groans, 
 
 With hideous thumps discharge their pregnant 
 womb. 
 
 And in the horror of this fearful quire 
 Consists the music of this doleful place ; 
 
 All pleasant birds from thence their tunes retire, 
 Where none but heavy notes have any grace. 
 
 Resort there is of none but pilgrim wights, 
 
 That pass with trembling foot and panting heart, 
 
 With terror cast in cold and shivering frights, 
 They judge the place to terror framed by art. 
 
 Yet nature's work it is, of art untouch'd, 
 So strait indeed, so vast unto the eye, 
 
 With such disorder'd order strangely couch'd, 
 And with such pleasing horror low and high, 
 
 That who it views must needs remain aghast, 
 Much at the work, more at the Maker's might ; 
 
 And muse how nature such a plot could cast 
 Where nothing seemeth wrong, yet no thing right. 
 
 A place for mated minds, an only bower 
 
 Where everything do soothe a dumpish mood ; 
 
 Earth lies forlorn, the cloudy sky doth lower, 
 The wind here weeps, here sighs, here cries aloud.
 
 A VALE OF TEARS. 
 
 Ul 
 
 The straggling flood between the marble groans, 
 Then roaring beats upon the craggy sides ; 
 
 A little off, amidst the pebble stones, 
 
 With bubbling streams and purling noise it glides. 
 
 The pines thick set, high gr,own and ever green, 
 Still clothe the place with sad and mourning veil ; 
 
 Here gaping cliff, there mossy plain is seen, 
 
 Here hope doth spring, and there again doth quail. 
 
 Huge massy stones that hang by tickle stays, 
 Still threaten fall, and seem to hang in fear ; 
 
 Some wither'd trees, ashamed of their decays, 
 Bereft of green are forced grey coats to wear. 
 
 Here crystal springs crept out of secret vein, 
 Straight find some envious hole that hides their 
 grace ; 
 
 Here seared tufts lament the want of rain, 
 
 There thunder- wrack gives terror to the place. 
 
 All pangs and heavy passions here may find 
 A thousand motives suiting to their griefs, 
 
 To feed the sorrows of their troubled mind, 
 And chase away dame Pleasure's vain reliefs. 
 
 To plaining thoughts this vale a rest may be, 
 To which from worldly joys they may retire ; 
 
 Where sorrow springs from water, stone and tree ; 
 Where everything with mourners doth conspire.
 
 142 A VALE OF TEARS. 
 
 Set here, my soul, main streams of tears afloat, 
 Here all thy sinful foils alone recount ; 
 
 Of solemn tunes make thou the doleful note, 
 That, by thy ditties, dolour may amount. 
 
 When echoes shall repeat thy painful cries, 
 Think that the very stones thy sins bewray, 
 
 And now accuse thee with their sad replies, 
 As heaven and earth shall in the latter day. 
 
 Let former faults be fuel of thy fire, 
 
 For grief in limbeck of thy heart to still 
 
 Thy pensive thoughts and dumps of thy desire, 
 And vapour tears up to thy eyes at will. 
 
 Let tears to tunes, and pains to plaints be press'd, 
 And let this be the burden of thy song, 
 
 Come, deep remorse, possess my sinful breast ; 
 Delights, adieu! I harbour' d you too long.
 
 143 
 
 THE PRODIGAL CHILD'S SOUL WRACK. 
 
 ,ISANCHOR'D from a blissful shore, 
 
 And launch'd into the main of cares ; 
 Grown rich in vice, in virtue poor, 
 From freedom fall'n in fatal snares ; 
 
 I found myself on every side 
 
 Enwrapped in the waves of woe, 
 
 And, tossed with a toilsome tide, 
 Could to no port for refuge go. 
 
 The wrestling winds with raging blasts, 
 
 Still held me in a cruel chase ; 
 They broke my anchors, sails and masts, 
 
 Permitting no reposing place. 
 
 The boisterous seas, with swelling floods, 
 On every side did work their spite, 
 
 Heaven, overcast with stormy clouds, 
 Denied the planets' guiding light. 
 
 The hellish furies lay in wait 
 
 To win my soul into their power, 
 
 To make me bite at every bait, 
 Wherein my bane I might devour.
 
 144 THE PRODIGAL CHILD'S 
 
 Thus heaven and earth, thus sea and land. 
 
 Thus storms and tempests did conspire, 
 With just revenge of scourging hand, 
 
 To witness God's deserved ire. 
 
 I plunged in this heavy plight, 
 
 Found in my faults just cause of fear ; 
 
 By darkness taught to know my light, 
 The loss thereof enforced tears. 
 
 I felt my inward bleeding sores, 
 
 My fester'd wounds began to smart, 
 
 Stept far within death's fatal doors, 
 The pangs thereof were near my heart. 
 
 I cried a truce, I craved a peace, 
 
 A league with death I would conclude ; 
 
 But vain it was to sue release, 
 Subdue I must or be subdued. 
 
 Death and deceit had pitch'd their snares, 
 And put their wicked proofs in ure, 
 
 To sink me in despairing cares, 
 
 Or make me stoop to pleasure's lure. 
 
 They sought by their bewitching charms 
 So to enchant my erring sense, 
 
 That when they sought my greatest harms, 
 I might neglect my best defence.
 
 SOUL WRACK. 
 
 My dazzled eyes could take no view, 
 No heed of their deceiving shifts, 
 
 So often did they alter hue, 
 
 And practise new devised drifts. 
 
 With Syren's song they fed my ears, 
 Till, lull'd asleep in Error's lap, 
 
 I found these tunes turn'd into tears, 
 And short delights to long mishap. 
 
 For I enticed to their lore, 
 
 And soothed with their idle toys, 
 
 Was trained to their prison door, 
 The end of all such flying joys. 
 
 Where chain'd in sin I lay in thrall, 
 Next to the dungeon of despair, 
 
 Till Mercy raised me from my fall, 
 And Grace my ruins did repair. 
 
 145
 
 146 
 
 MAN'S CIVIL WAR. 
 
 hovering thoughts would fly to heaven, 
 And quiet nestle in the sky ; 
 Fain would my ship in virtue's shore 
 Without remove at anchor lie ; 
 
 But mounting thoughts are haled down 
 With heavy poise of mortal load ; 
 
 And blustering storms deny my ship 
 In virtue's haven secure abode. 
 
 When inward eye to heavenly sights 
 Doth draw my longing heart's desire, 
 
 The world with jesses of delights 
 
 Would to her perch my thoughts retire. 
 
 Fond Fancy trains to Pleasure's lure, 
 Though Reason stiffly do repine ; 
 
 Though Wisdom woo me to the saint, 
 Yet Sense would win me to the shrine. 
 
 Where wisdom loathes, there fancy loves, 
 
 And overrules the captive will ; 
 Foes senses are to virtue's lore, 
 
 They draw the wit their wish to fill.
 
 MAN'S CIVIL WAR. 147 
 
 Need craves consent of soul to sense, 
 Yet divers bents breed civil fray ; 
 
 Hard hap where halves must disagree, 
 Or truce of halves the whole betray ! 
 
 O cruel fight ! where fighting friend 
 With love doth kill a favouring foe ; 
 
 Where peace with sense is war with God, 
 And self-delight the seed of woe ! 
 
 Dame Pleasure's drugs are steep'd in sin, 
 Their sugar'd taste doth breed annoy ; 
 
 fickle Sense ! beware her gin, 
 Sell not thy soul for brittle joy !
 
 148 
 
 SEEK FLOWERS OF HEAVEN. 
 
 OAR up, my soul, unto thy rest, 
 Cast off this loathsome load ; 
 Long is the death of thine exile, 
 Too long thy strict abode. 
 
 Graze not on worldly wither'd wood, 
 
 It fitteth not thy taste ; 
 The flowers of everlasting spring 
 
 Do grow for thy repast. 
 
 Their leaves are stain'd in beauty's dye, 
 
 And blazed with her beams, 
 Their stalks enamel'd with delight, 
 
 And limn'd with glorious. gleams. 
 
 Life-giving juice of living love 
 Their sugar'd veins doth fill, 
 
 And water'd with eternal showers 
 They nectar 'd drops distill. 
 
 These flowers do spring from fertile soil, 
 Though from unmanured field ; 
 
 Most glittering gold in lieu of glebe, 
 These fragrant flowers do yield.
 
 SEEK FLOWERS OF HEAVEN. -149 
 
 Whose sovereign scent surpassing sense 
 
 So ravisheth the mind, 
 That worldly weeds needs must he loathe 
 
 That can these flowers find.
 
 ADDITIONAL POEMS.
 
 153 
 
 DECEASE, RELEASE, DUM MORIOR, 
 ORIOR.* 
 
 [Addl. MSS. Brit. Mua. No. 10,422.] 
 
 fHE pounded spice both taste and scent doth 
 please, 
 In fading smoke the force doth incense 
 show ; 
 
 The perish'd kernel springeth with increase, 
 The lopped tree doth best and soonest grow. 
 
 God's spice I was, and pounding was my due, 
 In fading breath my incense favour'd best ; 
 
 Death was my mean my kernel to renew, 
 By lopping shot I up to heavenly rest. 
 
 Some things more perfect are in their decay, 
 Like spark that going out gives clearest light ; 
 
 Such was my hap whose doleful dying day 
 Began my joy, and termed Fortune's spite. 
 
 * On the Death of the martyred Mary Stuart, Queen of 
 Scots.
 
 154 DECEASE, RELEASE. 
 
 Alive a Qneen, now dead I am a Saint ; 
 
 Once Mary call'd, my name now Martyr is ; 
 From earthly reign debarred by restraint, 
 
 In lieu whereof I reign in heavenly bliss. 
 
 My life my grief, my death hath wrought my joy, 
 My friends my foil, my foes my weal procured ; 
 
 My speedy death hath scorned long annoy, 
 And loss of life and endless life assured. 
 
 My scaffold was the bed where ease I found, 
 
 The block a pillow of eternal rest ; 
 My headman cast me in a blissful swound, 
 
 His axe cut off my cares from cumber'd breast. 
 
 Rue not my death, rejoice at my repose ; 
 
 It was no death to me, but to my woe ; 
 The bud was open'd to let out the rose, 
 
 The chains unloosed to let the captive go. 
 
 A prince by birth, a prisoner by mishap, 
 
 From crown to cross, from throne to thrall I fell ; 
 
 My right my ruth, my titles wrought my trap, 
 My weal my woe, my worldly heaven my hell. 
 
 By death from prisoner to a prince enhanced, 
 From cross to crown, from thrall to throne again ; 
 
 My ruth my right, my trap my style advanced 
 From woe to weal, from hell to heavenly reign.
 
 155 
 
 I DIE WITHOUT DESERT.* 
 [Addl. MSS. Brit. Mus. No. 10,422.] 
 
 F orphan child, enwrapt in swathing bands, s 
 Doth move to mercy when forlorn it lies ; 
 If none without remorse of love withstands 
 The piteous noise of infant's silly cries ; 
 Then hope, my helpless heart, some tender cares 
 Will rue thy orphan state and feeble tears. 
 
 . 
 
 21- 
 f 
 
 Relinquish'd lamb, in solitary wood, 
 
 With dying bleat doth move the toughest mind ; 
 The gasping pangs of new engender'd brood, 
 
 Base though they be, compassion use to find : 
 Why should I then of pity doubt to speed, 
 Whose hap would force the hardest heart to bleed ? 
 
 Left orphan-like in helpless state I rue, 
 
 With only sighs and tears I plead my case ; 
 
 My dying plaints I daily do renew, 
 
 And fill with heavy noise a desert place : 
 
 Some tender heart will weep to hear my moan 
 
 Men pity may, but help me God alone ! 
 
 * Presumed to be on the same subject.
 
 156 / DIE WITHOUT DESERT. 
 
 Baiii down, ye heavens, your tears this case 
 requires ; 
 
 Man's eyes unable are enough to shed ; 
 If sorrows could have place in heavenly quires, 
 
 A juster ground the world hath seldom bred : 
 For right is wrong, and virtue waged with blood ; 
 The bad are bless'd, God murder'd in the good. 
 
 A gracious plant for fruit, for leaf and flower, 
 A peerless gem for virtue, proof, and price, 
 
 A noble peer for prowess, will, and power, 
 A friend to truth, a foe I was to vice ; 
 
 And lo ! alas ! now innocent I die, 
 
 A case that might make even the stones to cry. 
 
 Thus fortune's favours still are bent to flight, 
 Thus worldly bliss in final bale doth end ; 
 
 Thus virtue still pursued is with spite, 
 
 But let my fate though rueful none offend : 
 
 God doth sometimes crop first the sweetest flower, 
 
 And leave the weed till time do it devour.
 
 157 
 
 OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT OF 
 THE ALTAR. 
 
 [Addl. MSS. Brit. Mus. No. 10,422.] 
 
 fN paschal feast, the end of ancient rite, 
 An entrance to never-ending grace, 
 Types to the truth, dim gleams to the light, 
 Performing deed presaging signs did chase : 
 Christ's final meal was fountain of our good, 
 For mortal meat He gave immortal food. 
 
 That which He gave He was, oh, peerless gift ! 
 
 Both Grod and man He was, and both He gave. 
 He in His hands Himself did truly lift, 
 
 Far off they see whom in themselves they have ; 
 Twelve did He feed, twelve did their feeder eat, 
 He made, He dress'd, He gave, He was their meat. 
 
 They saw, they heard, they felt Him sitting near, 
 Unseen, unf elt, unheard, they Him received ; 
 
 No diverse thing, though diverse it appear, 
 Though senses fail, yet faith is not deceived ; 
 
 And if the wonder of their work be new, 
 
 Believe the worker 'cause His word is true.
 
 158 OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 
 
 Here truth belief, belief inviteth love, 
 So sweet a truth love never yet enjoy'd ; 
 
 What thought can think, what will doth best 
 
 approve, 
 Is here obtain' d where no desire is void : 
 
 The grace, the joy, the treasure here is such, 
 
 No wit can wish, nor will embrace so much. 
 
 Self-love here cannot crave more than it finds ; 
 
 Ambition to no higher worth aspire ; 
 The eagerest famine of most hungry minds 
 
 May fill, yea far exceed, their own desire : 
 In sum here is all in a sum express'd, 
 Of which the most of every good the best. 
 
 To ravish eyes here heavenly beauties are ; 
 
 To win the ear sweet music's sweetest sound ; 
 To lure the taste the angels' heavenly fare ; 
 
 To soothe the scent divine perfumes abound ; 
 To please the touch He in our hearts doth bed, 
 Whose touch doth cure the deaf, the dumb, the 
 dead. 
 
 Here to delight the will true wisdom is ; 
 
 To woo the will of every good the choice ; 
 For memory a mirror showing bliss, 
 
 Here all that can both sense and soul rejoice ; 
 And if to all, all this it doth not bring, 
 The fault is in the men, not in the thing.
 
 OF THE ALTAR. 
 
 159 
 
 Though blind men see no light, the sun doth shine ; 
 
 Sweet cates are sweet, though fever'd tastes 
 
 deny it ; 
 Pearls precious are, though trodden on by swine ; 
 
 Each truth is true, though all men do not try it ; 
 The best still to the bad doth work the worst ; 
 Things bred to bliss do make the more accursed. 
 
 The angels' eyes, whom veils cannot deceive, 
 Might best disclose that best they did discern ; 
 
 Men must with sound and silent faith receive 
 More than they can by sense or reason learn ; 
 
 God's power our proofs, His works our wit exceed, 
 
 The doer's might is reason of His deed. 
 
 A body is endow 'd with ghostly rights ; 
 
 A nature's work from nature's law is free ; 
 In heavenly sun lie hid eternal lights, 
 
 Lights clear and near, yet them no eye can see : 
 Dead forms a never-dying life do shroud : 
 A boundless sea lies in a little cloud. 
 
 The God. of hosts in slender host doth dwell, 
 Tea, God and man with all to either due ; 
 
 That God that rules the heavens and rifled hell, 
 That man whose death did us to life renew ; 
 
 That God and man that is the angels' bliss, 
 
 In form of bread and wine our nature is.
 
 1GO OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 
 
 Whole may His body be in smallest bread, 
 
 Whole in the whole, yea whole in every crumb ; 
 
 With which be one or [even] ten thousand fed, 
 All to each one, to all but one doth come ; 
 
 And though each one as much as all receive, 
 
 Not one too much, nor all too little have. 
 
 One soul iu man is all in every part ; 
 
 One face at once in many mirrors shines ; 
 One fearful noise doth make a thousand start ; 
 
 One eye at once of countless things defines ; 
 If proofs of one in many Nature frame, 
 God may in stronger sort perform the same. 
 
 God present is at once in every place, 
 Yet God in every place is ever one ; 
 
 So may there be by gifts of ghostly grace, 
 One man in many rooms, yet filling none ; 
 
 Sith angels may effects of bodies show, 
 
 God angels' gifts on bodies may bestow. 
 
 What God as author made He alter may ; 
 
 No change so hard as making all of nought ; 
 If Adam framed were of slimy clay, 
 
 Bread may to Christ's most sacred flesh be 
 
 wrought : 
 
 He may do this that made with mighty hand 
 Of water wine, a snake of Moses's wand.
 
 THE DEATH OF OUR LADY. 
 
 [Addl. MSS. Brit. Mus. No. 10,422.] 
 
 WEEP, living things, of life the mother 
 dies; 
 
 The world doth lose the sum of all her 
 bliss, 
 The queen of earth, the empress of the skies ; 
 
 By Mary's death mankind an orphan is : 
 Let nature weep, yea let all graces moan, 
 Their glory, grace, and gifts die all in one. 
 
 It was no death to her, but to her woe, 
 
 By which her joys began, her griefs did end ; 
 
 Death was to her a friend, to us a foe, 
 
 Life of whose lives did on her life depend : 
 
 Not prey of death, but praise to death she was, 
 
 Whose ugly shape seem'd glorious in her face. 
 
 Her face a heaven, two planets were her eyes, 
 Whose gracious light did make our clearest day ; 
 
 But one such heaven there was and lo ! it dies, 
 Death's dark eclipse hath dimmed every ray : 
 
 Such eyed the light thy beams untimely shine, 
 
 True light sith we have lost, we crave not thine.
 
 162 
 
 THE ASSUMPTION OF OUR LADY. 
 
 [Addl. MSS. Brit. Mus. No. 10,422.] 
 
 sin be captive, grace must find release ; 
 
 From curse of sin the innocent is free ; 
 
 Tomb prison is for sinners that decease, 
 
 No tomb but throne to guiltless doth agree : 
 
 Though thralls of sin lie lingering in the grave, 
 
 Yet faultless corse with soul reward must have. 
 
 The dazzled eye doth dimmed light require, 
 And dying sights repose in shrouding shades ; 
 But eagles' eyes to brightest light aspire, 
 
 And living looks delight in lofty glades : 
 Faint- winged fowl by ground do faintly fly, 
 Our princely eagle mounts unto the sky. 
 
 Gem to her worth, spouse to her love ascends, 
 Prince to her throne, queen to her heavenly 
 King, 
 
 Whose court with solemn pomp on her attends, 
 And quires of saints with greeting notes do sing j 
 
 Earth rendereth up her undeserved prey, 
 
 Heaven claims the right, and bears the prize away.
 
 163 
 
 VERSES APPENDED TO " THE TRIUMPHS 
 OVER DEATH." 
 
 LARA ducnm soboles, superis nova sedibas 
 
 hospes, 
 
 Clansit inoffenso tramite purse diein : 
 Dotibus ornavit, superavit moribus ortum, 
 
 Omnibus una prior, parfnit una sibi : 
 Lux genus ingenio, generi lux inclita virtus 
 
 Virtutisque fuit mens generosa decns. 
 Mors muta at properatse dies orbemque relinquit, 
 
 Prolem matre verum conjuge flore genus, 
 Occidit a se alium tnlit hie occasus in ortum, 
 Vivat, ad occiduas non reditura vices. 
 
 Of Howard's stem a glorious branch is dead, 
 Sweet lights eclipsed were at her decease ; 
 
 In Buckhurst' line she gracious issue spread, 
 She heaven with two, with four did earth 
 increase. 
 
 Fame, honour, grace, gave air unto her breath, 
 
 Rest, glory, joys, were sequels of her death. 
 
 Death aim'd too high, he hit too choice a wight, 
 Renowned for birth, for life, for lovely parts ;
 
 164 VERSES. 
 
 He kill'd her cares, he brought her worths to light, 
 He robb'd oar eyes, but hath enrich'd our hearts : 
 Lot .let out of her ark a Noah's dove, 
 But many hearts were arks unto her love. 
 
 Grace, Nature, Fortune, did in her conspire 
 To show a proof of their united skill : 
 
 Sly Fortune, ever false, did soon retire, 
 
 But double grace supplied false Fortune's ill. 
 
 And though she wrought not unto Fortune's pitch, 
 
 In grace and virtue few were found so rich. 
 
 Heaven of this heavenly pearl is now possess'd, 
 Whose lustre was the blaze of honour's light, 
 
 Whose substance pure of every good the best, 
 Whose price the crown of [every] highest right; 
 
 Whose praise, to be herself ; whose greatest bliss. 
 
 To live, to love, to be where now she is.
 
 165 
 
 VERSES PREFIXED TO " SHORT RULES 
 
 OF GOOD LIFE," ADDRESSED TO 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN READER. 
 
 I. 
 
 F Virtue be thy guide, 
 
 True comfort is thy path, 
 And thou secure from erring 
 That lead to vengeance wrath. 
 
 Not widest open door, 
 
 Nor spacious ways she goes ; 
 
 To straight and narrow gate and way, 
 She calls, she leads, she shows. 
 
 She calls, the fewest come ; 
 
 She leads the humble sprited, 
 She shows them rest at race's end, 
 
 Souls' rest to heaven invited. 
 
 'Tis she that offers most ; 
 
 'Tis she that most refuse ; 
 'Tis she prevents the broad way plagues, 
 
 Which most do wilful choose.
 
 166 VERSES PREFIXED TO 
 
 Do choose the wide, the broad, 
 The left-hand way and gate : 
 
 These Vice applauds, these Virtue loathes, 
 And teacheth hers to hate. 
 
 Her ways are pleasant ways, 
 Upon the right-hand side ; 
 
 And heavenly happy is that soul 
 Takes Virtue for her guide. 
 
 II. 
 
 A PREPARATIVE TO PRAYER. 
 
 "T~1TT~HEN thou dost talk with God, (by prayer 
 V V I mean,) 
 
 Lift up pure hands, lay down all lust's desires, 
 Fix thoughts on heaven, present a conscience clear ; 
 
 Such holy blame to mercy's throne aspires. 
 Confess faults' guilt, crave pardon for thy sin ; 
 Tread holy paths, call grace to guide therein. 
 
 It is the spirit with reverence must obey 
 
 Our Maker's will, to practise what He taught ; 
 
 Make not the flesh thy counsel when thou pray, 
 'Tis enemy to every virtuous thought ;
 
 "SHORT RULES OF GOOD LIFE." 167 
 
 It is the foe we daily feed and clothe, 
 It is the prison that the soul doth loathe. 
 
 Even as Elias, mounting to the sky, 
 
 Did cast his mantle to the earth behind, 
 
 So, when the heart presents the prayer on high, 
 Exclude the world from traffic with the mind. 
 
 Lips near to God, and ranging heart within, 
 
 Is but vain babbling and converts to sin. 
 
 Like Abraham, ascending up the hill 
 
 To sacrifice, his servant left below, 
 That he might act the great Commander's will, 
 
 Without impeach to his obedient blow ; 
 Even so the soul, remote from earthly things, 
 Should mount salvation's shelter, mercy's wings. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE EFFECTS OF PRAYER. 
 
 THE sun by prayer did cease his course and 
 staid ; 
 
 The hungry lions fawn'd upon their prey ; 
 A walled passage through the sea it made ; 
 From furious fire it banish'd heat away ; 
 It shut the heavens three years from giving rain, 
 It open'd heavens, and clouds pour'd down again.
 
 168 VERSES. 
 
 IV. 
 
 ENSAMPLES or OUR SAVIOUR. 
 
 OUR Saviour, (pattern of trne holiness,) 
 Continual pray'd, us by ensample teaching-, 
 When he was baptized in the wilderness, 
 
 In working miracles and in his preaching, 
 Upon the mount, in garden groves of death, 
 At his last supper, at his parting breath. 
 
 Oh ! fortress of the faithful, sure defence, 
 
 In which doth Christians' cognizance consist ; 
 
 Their victory, their triumph conies from thence, 
 So forcible, hell-gates cannot resist : 
 
 A thing whereby both angels, clouds and stars, 
 
 At man's request fight God's revengeful wars. 
 
 Nothing more grateful in the highest eyes, 
 Nothing more firm in danger to protect us, 
 
 Nothing more forcible to pierce the skies, 
 Ard not depart till mercy do respect us : 
 
 And, as the soul life to the body gives, 
 
 So prayer revives the soul, by prayer it lives.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 To the worshipful Ms very good father Mr. R. 8. 
 his dutiful son R. S. wisheth all happiness. 
 
 IN children of former ages it hath been thought 
 so behoveful a point of duty to their parents, 
 in presence by servicable offices, in absence by 
 other effectual significations, to yield proof of their 
 thankful minds, that neither any child could omit 
 it without touch of ungratefulness, nor the parents 
 forbear it without nice displeasure. But now we 
 are fallen into sore calamity of times, and the 
 violence of heresy hath so crossed this course both of 
 virtue and nature, that these ingrafted laws, never 
 infringed by the most savage and brute creatures, 
 cannot of God's people without peril be observed. 
 I am not of so unnatural a kind, of so wild an 
 education, or so unchristian a spirit, as not to 
 remember the root out of which I branched, or 
 to forget my secondary maker and author of my 
 being. It is not the carelessness of a cold affec- 
 tion, nor the want of a due and reverent respect 
 that has made me such a stranger to my native 
 home, and so backward in defraying the debt of a
 
 ii APPENDIX. 
 
 thankful mind, but only the iniquity of these days, 
 that maketh my presence perilous, and the dis- 
 charge of my duties an occasion of danger. I was 
 loth to inforce an unwilling courtesy upon any, or, 
 by seeming officious, to become offensive ; deeming 
 it better to let time digest the fear that my return 
 into the realm had bred in my kindred, than 
 abruptly to intrude myself, and to purchase their 
 danger, whose good will I so highly esteem. I 
 never doubted but that the belief, which to all my 
 friends by descent and pedigree is, in a manner, 
 hereditary, framed in them a right persuasion of 
 my present calling, not suffering them to measure 
 their censures of me by the ugly terms and odious 
 epithets wherewith heresy hath sought to discredit 
 my functions, but rather by the reverence of so 
 worthy a sacrament, and the sacred usages of all 
 former ages. Yet, because I might easily perceive 
 by apparent conjectures, that many were more 
 willing to hear of me than from me, and readier 
 to praise than to use my endeavours, I have 
 hitherto bridled my desire to see them by the 
 care and jealousy of their safety ; and banishing 
 myself from, the scene of my cradle in my own 
 country, I have lived like a foreigner, finding 
 among strangers that which, in my nearest blood, 
 I presumed not to seek. But now, considering 
 that delay may have qualified fear, and knowing 
 my person only to import danger to others, and 
 my persuasion to none but to myself, I thought it 
 high time to utter my sincere and dutiful mind,
 
 APPENDIX. in 
 
 and to open a vent to my zealous affection, which 
 I have so long smothered and suppressed in silence. 
 For not only the original law of nature written in 
 all children's hearts, and derived from the breast 
 of their mother, is a continual solicitude urging me 
 in your behalf, but the sovereign decree enacted 
 by the Father of heaven, ratified by His Son, and 
 daily repeated by the instinct of the Holy Grhost, 
 bindeth every child in the due of Christianity to 
 tender the state and welfare of his parents, and is 
 a motive that alloweth no excuse, but of necessity 
 presseth to performance of duty. Nature by grace 
 is not abolished, nor destroyed, but perfected ; 
 neither are the impressions razed or annulled, but 
 suited to the ends of grace and nature. And if its 
 affections be so forcible, that even in hell, where 
 rancour and despite, and all feelings of goodness are 
 overwhelmed by malice, they moved the rich glutton 
 by experience of his own misery, to have compas- 
 sion of his kindred, how much more in the Church 
 of God, where grace quickeneth, charity inflameth, 
 and nature's good inclinations are abetted by 
 supernatural gifts, ought the like piety to prevail. 
 And, who but those more merciless than damned 
 creatures, would see their dearest friends plunged 
 in the like perils, and not be wounded by deep 
 remorse at their lamentable and imminent hazard ? 
 If in beholding a mortal enemy wrought and tor- 
 tured with deadly pains, the strongest heart 
 softeneth with some sorrows ; if the most frozen 
 and fierce mind cannot but thaw and melt with pity
 
 iv APPENDIX. 
 
 even when it knows such person to suffer his 
 deserved torments ; how much less can the heart 
 of a child consider those that bred him into this 
 world, to be in the fall to far more bitter extremi- 
 ties, and not bleed with grief at their uncomfortable 
 case. Surely, for mine own part, though I chal- 
 lenge not the prerogative of the best disposition, 
 yet am I not of so harsh and churlish a humour, 
 but that it is a continual corrective and cross unto 
 me, that, whereas my endeavours have reclaimed 
 many from the brink of perdition, I have been less 
 able to employ them, where they were most due ; 
 and was barred from affording to my dearest friends 
 that which hath been eagerly sought and bene- 
 ficially obtained by mere strangers. Who hath 
 more interest in the grape than he who planted the 
 vine ? who more right to the crop than he who 
 sowed the corn ? or where can the child owe so 
 great service as to him to whom he is indebted for 
 his very life and being ? With young Tobias I have 
 travelled far, and brought home a freight of 
 spiritual substance to enrich you, and medicinable 
 receipts against your ghostly maladies. I have, 
 with Esau, after long toil in pursuing a long and 
 painful chace, returned with the full prey, yon 
 were wont to love ; desiring thereby to insure your 
 blessing. I have in this general famine of all true 
 and Christian food, with Joseph, prepared abund- 
 ance of the bread of angels for the repast of your 
 soul. And now my desire is that my drugs may 
 cure you, my prey delight you, and my provision
 
 APPENDIX. v 
 
 feed yon, by whom I have been cured, enlightened, 
 and fed myself ; that your courtesies may, in part, 
 be countervailed, and my duty, in some sort, per- 
 formed. Despise not, good Sire, the youth of your 
 son, neither deem your God measureth his endow- 
 ments by number of years. Hoary senses are often 
 couched under youthful locks, and some are riper 
 in the spring, than others in the autumn of their 
 age. God chose not Esau himself, nor his eldest 
 son, but young David to conquer Goliah and to rule 
 his people : not the most aged person, but Daniel, 
 the most innocent youth, delivered Susannah from 
 the iniquity of the judges. Christ, at twelve years 
 of age, was found in the temple questioning with 
 the greatest doctors. A true Elias can conceive, 
 that a little cloud may cast a large and abundant 
 shower ; and the scripture teacheth. us, that God 
 unveileth to little ones that which He concealeth 
 from the wisest sages. His truth is not abashed 
 by the minority of the speaker ; for out of the 
 months of infants and sucklings He can perfect 
 His praises. Timothy was young, and yet a prin- 
 cipal pastor : St. John, a youth, and yet an apostle ; 
 yea, and the angels by appearing in youthful 
 semblance, gave us a proof that many glorious 
 gifts may be shrouded under tender shapes. All 
 this, I say, not to claim any privileges surmounting 
 the rate of usual abilities, but to avoid all touch of 
 presumption in advising my elders ; seeing that it 
 hath the warrant of scripture, the testimony of 
 example, and sufficient grounds both in grace and
 
 vi APPENDIX. 
 
 nature. There is a diversity in the degrees of 
 carnal consanguinity ; and the pre-eminence 
 appertaineth unto yon, as superior over your child : 
 yet if you consider our alliance in the chief portion, 
 I mean the soul, which differeuceth man from 
 inferior creatures, we are of equal proximity to our 
 heavenly Father, both descended from the same 
 parent, and with no other distance in our degrees, 
 but that you are the eldest brother. Seeing, 
 therefore, that your superiority is founded on flesh 
 and blood, think it, I pray you, no dishonour to 
 your age, nor disparagement to your person, if, 
 with all humility, I offer my advice unto you. 
 One man cannot be perfect in all qualities, neither 
 is 'it a disgrace to the goldsmith if he be ignorant 
 of the carpenter's trade ; many are deep lawyers, 
 and yet small divines : many very clever in feats 
 of body, and curious in external accomplishments, 
 yet little experienced in matters of mind. For these 
 many years I have studied and practised spiritual 
 medicine, acquainting myself with the beating and 
 temper of every pulse, and travailing in the cure 
 of maladies incident to souls. If, therefore, I 
 proffer yon the fruit of my long studies, and make 
 you a present of my profession, I hope yon will 
 construe it rather as a dutiful part, than as any 
 point of presumption. He may be a father to the 
 soul that is a son to the body, and requite the benefit 
 of his temporal life by reviving his parent from a 
 spiritual death. And to this effect did Christ say, 
 My mother and brethren are they that do the will of
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Til 
 
 my Father which is in heaven : upon which words 
 St. Climacus shows on what kindred a Christian 
 ought chiefly to rely. " Let him," he says, " be 
 thy Father, that both can and will disburthen thee 
 of the weight of thy sins." Such a Father as this 
 Saint speaketh of, may you have in your own son, 
 to enter your family in the pre-recited affinity ; of 
 which happily it was a significant presage, a boding 
 of the future event, that, even from, my infancy, 
 you were wont, in merriment, to call me your 
 father : now this is the customary style allotted to 
 my present estate.* Now, therefore, to join issue 
 and to come to the principal drift of my discourse ; 
 most humbly and earnestly I am to beseech you, 
 that, both in respect of the honour of God, your 
 duty to His Church, the comfort of your children, 
 and the redress of your own soul, you would 
 seriously consider the terms you stand in, and 
 weigh yourself in a Christian balance, taking for 
 your counterpoise the judgments of God. Take 
 heed in time, that the word Thekel, written of old 
 against Balthazar and interpreted by young Daniel, 
 be not verified in you ; remember the exposition, 
 " you have been weighed in the balance and found 
 wanting." Remember that you are in the balance, 
 that the date of your pilgrimage is well nigh 
 expired, and that it now behoveth you to look 
 forward to your country. Your strength languish- 
 eth, your senses become impaired, and your body 
 
 * Being "a Father of the Society of Jesus.
 
 viii APPENDIX. 
 
 droopeth, and on every side the ruinous cottage of 
 your faint and feeble flesh threateneth a fall. 
 Having so many harbingers of death, to pre- 
 admonish you of your end, how can you but 
 prepare for so dreadful a stranger. The young 
 may die quickly, but the old cannot live long. The 
 young man's life by casualty may be abridged, but 
 the old man's life can by no physic be long aug- 
 mented. And, therefore, if green years must 
 sometimes think of the grave, the thoughts of sere 
 age should continually dwell on the same. The 
 prerogative of infancy is innocency ; of childhood, 
 reverence ; of manhood maturity, and of age 
 wisdom ; and seeing that the chief property of 
 wisdom is to be mindful of things past, careful of 
 things present, and provident of things to come, 
 use now the privilege of nature's talent to the 
 benefit of your soul, and strive hereafter to be wise 
 in well-doing, and watchful in foresight of future 
 harms. To serve the world you are now unable, 
 and, though you were able, you have little wish to 
 do so, seeing that it never gave you. but an 
 unhappy welcome, a hurtful entertainment, and 
 now doth abandon you with an unfortunate fare- 
 well. You have long sowed in a field of flint 
 which could bring you nothing forth but a crop 
 of cares and afflictions of spirit, rewarding your 
 labours with remorse, and for your pains repaying 
 you with eternal damages. It is now more than a 
 seasonable time to alter your course of so un- 
 thriving a husbandry, and to enter into the fields
 
 APPENDIX. ix 
 
 of God's Church ; in which, sowing the seed of 
 repentant sorrow, and watering it with the tears 
 of humble contrition, you may reap a more bene- 
 ficial harvest, and gather the fruit of everlasting 
 consolation. Remember, I pray you, that your 
 spring is spent, and your summer overpast ; you 
 are now arrived at the fall of the leaf, yea the 
 winter-colours have already stained your hoary 
 head. 
 
 Be not careless, saith St. Augustine, though our 
 loving Lord bear long with offenders ; for the 
 longer He stayeth without finding amendment, the 
 sorer will He punish when He cometh to judgment ; 
 His patience, in so long expecting, is only to lend 
 us respite to repent, not any way to enlarge our 
 leisure to sin. He that is tossed with variety of 
 storms, and cannot reach his destined port, maketh 
 not much way, but is sore turmoiled ; so he that 
 passeth many years and purchaseth little profit, 
 hath had a long being, but a short life : for life is 
 more to be measured by merit than by number of 
 days, seeing that most men by many days do but 
 procure many deaths, while others in short space 
 attain a life of infinite ages. What is the body 
 without the soul, but a mass of corruption ; and 
 what the soul without God but a sepulchre of sin ? 
 If God be the way, the truth and the life, he that 
 goeth without Him, stray eth, he that liveth without 
 Him dieth, and he that is not taught by Him 
 erreth. Well saith St. Augustine, that God is our 
 true and chief life, from whom to revolt is to fall,
 
 x APPENDIX. 
 
 and to return is to rise. Be not you, therefore, of 
 the number of those who begin not to live until 
 they be ready to die, and then alter a foe's desert, 
 come to crave of God a friend's entertainment. 
 Some think to share heaven in a moment, which 
 the best scarce attain in the godliness of many 
 years : and when they have glutted themselves with 
 worldly delights, they would fain pass at once from 
 the diet of Dives to the crown of Lazarus, and 
 from the servitude of Satan to the freedom of the 
 Saints. But be you well assured, God is nob so 
 penurious of friends as to hold Himself and His 
 kingdom for the refuse and reversion of their lives, 
 who have sacrificed the principal thereof to His 
 enemies and their own brutal appetites ; then only 
 ceasing to offend, when the ability of offending is 
 taken from them. True it is that a thief may be 
 saved upon the cross and find mercy at the last 
 gasp, but well, saith St. Augustine, that though it 
 be possible, yet is it scarce credible, that his death 
 should find favour whose whole life hath deserved 
 wrath ; and that his repentance should be accepted, 
 which more through fear of hell and love of himself 
 than love of God, or hatred of sin, crieth for mercy. 
 Wherefore, good Sire, make no longer delay, but 
 being so near the breaking up of your mortal house, 
 take time, before straitened by extremity, to satisfy 
 God's justice. Though you suffered the bud to be 
 blasted, and the flower to fade ; though you per- 
 mitted the fruit to perish and the leaves to wither 
 away ; yea, though you let the boughs decay, and
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 XI 
 
 the very trunk corrupt, yet, alas ! keep life in the 
 root for fear the whole become fuel for the fire. 
 Death hath already spoiled you of the better part 
 of your natural force, and hath left you now to the 
 last lease of your expiring days ; the remainder 
 whereof, as it cannot be long, so doth it warn you 
 speedily to ransom your former losses. What is 
 age but a kaleudar of death, and what doth your 
 present weakness import, but an earnest of your 
 approaching dissolution ? You are now embarked 
 on your final voyage, and not far off from the stinted 
 period of your course, therefore, be not dispurveyed 
 of such proper provisions as are behoveful in so 
 perplexed and perilous a journey. Death in itself 
 is very fearful, but much more terrible in regard of 
 the judgment that it summoneth us unto. If you 
 were stretched on your departing bed, burtliened 
 with the heavy load of your former trespasses and 
 gored with the sting of a festered conscience ; if 
 you felt the hand of Death grasping your heart's- 
 strings and ready to make the rueful divorce 
 between body and soul ; if you lay panting for 
 breath and bathed in a cold and fatal sweat, wearied 
 with struggling against the pangs of death, oh, how 
 much would you give for one hour of repentance, 
 at what a rate would you value one day's contrition ! 
 Worlds would then be worthless in respect of a 
 little respite ; a short time would seem more 
 precious than the treasures of empires. Nothing 
 would be so much esteemed as a moment of time, 
 which is now by months and years so lavishly
 
 ili APPENDIX. 
 
 misspent. Oh ! how deeply would it wound your 
 heart, when looking back into yourself, you consider 
 many faults committed and not confessed, many 
 good works omitted or not recovered, your service 
 to God promised but never performed. How 
 intolerable will be your case ! your friends are 
 fled, your servants frightened, your thoughts 
 amazed, your memory distracted, your whole mind 
 aghast and unable to perform what it would, only 
 your guilty conscience will continually upbraid you 
 with most bitter accusations. What will be your 
 thoughts, when, stripped of your mortal body, and 
 turned both out of the service and house-room of 
 this world, you are forced to enter into uncouth 
 and strange paths, and with unknown and ugly 
 company to be carried before a most severe judge, 
 carrying in your own conscience your judgment 
 written, and a perfect register of all your misdeeds ; 
 when you shall see Him prepared to pass the 
 sentence upon you, against whom you have trans- 
 gressed ; he is to be the umpire, whom by so many 
 offences you have made your enemy ; when not 
 only the devils, but even the angels will plead 
 against you, and yourself, in spite of your will, be 
 your own sharpest impeacher. What would you 
 do in these dreadful exigencies, when you saw the 
 ghastly dungeon and huge gulf of hell breaking out 
 with most fearful flames ? when you heard the 
 weeping and gnashing of teeth, the rage of those 
 hellish monsters, the horror of the place, the rigour 
 of the pain, the terror of the company, and the
 
 APPENDIX. xiii 
 
 eternity of the punishments ? Would you then 
 think them wise that would delay in such weighty 
 matters, and idly play away a time allotted to 
 prevent such intolerable calamities ? Would you 
 then account it secure to nurse in your bosom a, 
 brood of serpents, or suffer your soul to entertain 
 so many accusers ? Would not you, then, think a 
 whole life too little to do penance for so many 
 iniquities ? Why then do you not, at least, devote 
 the small remnant and surplus of these your latter 
 days in seeking to make an atonement with Grod, 
 and in freeing your conscience from the corruption 
 that, by your treason and fall, has crept into it ; 
 whose very eyes that read this discourse, and very 
 understanding that conceiveth it, shall be cited as 
 certain witnesses of what I describe. Tour soul 
 will then experience the most terrible fears, if you 
 do not recover yourself into the fold and family of 
 God's Church. What have you gained by being 
 so long enslaved to the world ? What interest have 
 you reaped that can equal your detriment in grace 
 and virtue ? You cannot be now inveigled with 
 the passions of youth to make a partial estimate of 
 things, and set no difference between counterfeit 
 and current, for they are now either worn out by 
 the touch of time, or falling into reproof by the 
 trial of their own folly. It cannot be fear that 
 leadeth you amiss, seeing it were so unfitting a 
 thing that any craven cowardice of flesh and blood 
 should daunt the prowess of an intelligent man, 
 who, by his wisdom, cannot but discern how much
 
 xiv APPENDIX. 
 
 more cause there is to fear God than man, and to 
 stand in more awe of perpetual than of temporal 
 penalties. An ungrounded presumption on the 
 mercy of God, and the hope of His assistance at 
 the last plunge the ordinary device of the devil 
 is too palpable a collusion to mislead a sound and 
 sensible man. Who would trust eternal affairs 
 upon the gliding slipperiness and shifting current 
 of an uncertain life ? or who, but one of distempered 
 mind, would attempt to cheat the decipherer of all 
 thoughts, with whom we may dissemble, but whom 
 to deceive is impossible ? Shall we esteem it 
 cunning to rob the time from Him and bestow 
 it on His enemies, who keepeth account of the last 
 moment of life, and will examine in the end how 
 that moment hath been employed ? It is a pre- 
 posterous policy to attempt to fight against God. 
 It were a strange piece ' of art, and a device of 
 exorbitant folly, while the ship is sound, the 
 pilot well, the sailors strong, the gale favourable, 
 to lie idle in the roads ; yet when the ship leaked, 
 the pilot lay sick, the mariners faint, the storm 
 boisterous, and the sea in a tumult of outrageous 
 surges, then to launch forth, to hoist up sail, and 
 to set out for a voyage into far countries ; yet such 
 is the skill of those cunning repenters, whose 
 thoughts in soundness of health, and in the perfect 
 use of reason, cannot resolve to cut the cables and 
 weigh the anchors that withhold them from God. 
 Nevertheless they feed themselves with a fond 
 presumption that, when their senses are astounded,
 
 APPENDIX. xv 
 
 their minds distracted, their understanding con- 
 fused, and both their body and mind racked and 
 tormented with the throbs of a mortal sickness, 
 that then, forsooth, they will think of the weightiest 
 matters, and become sndden saints, when they are 
 scarce able to behave themselves like reasonable 
 creatures. If neither the canon, civil, nor common 
 law alloweth a man, punished in judgment, to 
 make any testament or bequest of his temporal 
 substance, being. then presumed to be less than a 
 man ; how can he that is distracted with an 
 unsettled conscience, distrained with the fits of his 
 dying flesh, and maimed in all his faculties, be 
 thought of such due discretion as to dispose of his 
 chiefest inheritance, the treasure of his soul, and 
 the concerns of a whole eternity in so short and 
 stormy a moment ? No, no : they that will loiter 
 in the seed time, and only begin to sow when 
 others reap ; they that will riot out their health, 
 and cast their accounts when they can scarcely 
 speak ; they that will slumber out the day, and 
 enter on their journey when the light faileth them, 
 let them blame their own folly if they die in debt, 
 and fall headlong into the lapse of endless perdition. 
 0, dear Sire, remember that the scripture terms 
 it a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the 
 living God, who is able to crush the proud spirit 
 of the obstinate, and to make His enemies the 
 footstool of His feet. Wrestle no longer against 
 the struggles of your own conscience, and the 
 forcible admonitions that God doth send you.
 
 xvi APPENDIX. 
 
 Embrace His mercy before the time of rigour, and 
 return to His Church, lest He debar you His 
 kingdom. He cannot have God for his father 
 that refuseth to possess the Catholic Church for 
 his mother ; neither can he attain to the Church 
 triumphant in heaven, who is not a member of the 
 Church militant upon earth. You have been, 
 alas ! too long an alien in the tabernacles of sinners, 
 and strayed too far from the folds of God's Church. 
 Turn now the bias of your heart towards the 
 sanctuary of salvation and the city of refuge, 
 seeking the recovery of your wandering steps from 
 the paths of error. Return with a swift force, and 
 hasten with jealous progress to Christian perfec- 
 tion ; redeeming the time because the days are 
 evil. The full of your spring-tide is now fallen, 
 and the stream of your life waneth to a low ebb ; 
 your tired bark beginneth to leak, and grateth oft 
 upon the gravel of the grave ; therefore it is high 
 time for you to strike sail and put into harbour, 
 lest, remaining in the scope of the winds and 
 waves of this wicked time, some unexpected gust 
 should dash you upon the rock of eternal ruin. 
 Tender the pitiful state of your poor soul, and 
 henceforth be more fearful of hell than of persecu- 
 tion, and more eager of heaven than of worldly repose . 
 Had the pen that wrote this letter been dipped in 
 the wounds of the Saviour, and His precious blood 
 been used instead of ink ; had one of the highest 
 seraphims come in the most solemn embassy to 
 deliver it unto you, do you not think that it would
 
 APPENDIX. xvii 
 
 have strained your heart, and wrought upon your 
 mind to fulfil the contents, and alter your course 
 according to the tenor thereof ? Doubtless yon 
 will not deny it. Then, good Sire, let it now take 
 the same effect, seeing the difference has been in 
 the ceremonies and not in the substance ; and that 
 very God, who should then have invited you to 
 your correction, saith of such as I am, though 
 most unworthy, He that heareth you, heareth Me ; 
 and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me ! I exhort 
 you, therefore, as the vicegerent of God, and I 
 humbly request you as a dutiful child that you 
 would surrender your assent, and yield your soul 
 a happy captive to God's merciful inspirations, 
 proceeding from an infinite >love, and tending to 
 your assured good. I have expressed not only my 
 own, but the earnest desire of your other children, 
 whose humble wishes are here written with my 
 pen. For it is a general grief that filleth all our 
 hearts, whom it hath pleased God to shroud under 
 His merciful wing, to see our dearest Father, to 
 whom both nature hath bound and your merits 
 fastened our affection, dismembered from the body 
 to which we are united, to be in hazard of a 
 farther and more grievous separation. O, good 
 Sire, shall so many of your branches enjoy the 
 quickening sap of God's Church, and, shooting up 
 higher towards heaven, bring forth the flowers 
 and fruits of salvation ; and, you that are the root 
 of us, lie barren and fruitless ? Shall the beams 
 be bright, and the sun eclipsed ? Shall the brooks
 
 xviii APPENDIX. 
 
 be clear, and the head-spring troubled ? Your lot 
 hath no such affinity with the nature of a phoenix 
 that you should reap your offspring from your own 
 ruins ; you are not so tied in the straits of the 
 pelican as to revive your issue by murdering your- 
 self ; neither we a generation of vipers that cannot 
 come to life but by our parent's destruction. Tea, 
 rather it is the thing we have chiefly in request, 
 that we may be as near linked in spiritual, as we 
 are in natural consanguinity ; and, that living with 
 you in the compass of our Church, we may, to our 
 unspeakable comfort, enjoy in heaven your most 
 desired company. Blame me not, good Father, if 
 zeal of your recovery has carried me beyond the 
 limits of a letter. So important a truth cannot 
 be too much avowed, nor too many means used to 
 draw a soul out of the misery of schism. How- 
 soever, therefore, the soft gales of your morning 
 pleasures lulled yon in slumbers ; howsoever the 
 violent heat of noon might awake affections, yet 
 now in the cool and calm of the evening retire to 
 a Christian rest, and close up the day of your life 
 with a clear sunset ; that leaving all darkness 
 behind you, and carrying in your conscience the 
 light of grace, you may escape the horror of 
 eternal night, and pass from the day of mortality 
 to the Sabbath of everlasting rest : and humbly 
 desiring that my sincere affection may find excuse 
 of my boldness, I here conclude.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 XIX 
 
 II. 
 
 Letter written to his Brother. 
 
 -ryNDERSTANDING that yon were resolved 
 \^_) upon a course which most nearly toucheth 
 the salvation of your sonl, I received such content- 
 ment as a sincere and most faithful love feeleth in 
 the long desired happiness of so dear a friend. 
 But hearing since, that you. will dwell in danger 
 and linger in new delays, my hopes hang in sus- 
 pense, and my heart in grief, angry with the 
 chains that thus enthral you, and sorry to see you 
 captive to your own fears. Shrine not any longer 
 a dead sonl in a living body : bail reason out of 
 senses' prison, that after so long a bondage in sin, 
 you may enjoy your former liberty in God's 
 Church, and free your thought from the servile 
 awe of uncertain perils. If all should take effect, 
 that your timorous surmises suggest, yet could not 
 even the misery of your present estate, with the 
 loss of your patronage, and keeping yon in this 
 disfavour of God, have either left yon any greater 
 benefit to lose, or any deeper infelicity to incur. 
 Weigh with yourself at how easy a price yon rate 
 God, whom yon are content to sell for the use of 
 your substance, yea, and for the preventing a loss 
 which haply will never ensue. Have yon so little 
 need of Him, that you can so long forbear Him ? 
 or is He so worthless in your estimation that you
 
 xx APPENDIX. 
 
 will venture nothing for Him ? Adjourn not, I 
 pray you, a matter of such importance. Remember 
 that one sin begetteth another, and when you 
 yield to nurse daily this venomous brood in your 
 breast, what can you look for, but, that like vipers, 
 they should compass your destruction. Custom 
 soon groweth to a second nature, and being once 
 master of the mind, it can hardly be cast out of 
 possession. If to-day you find yourself faint, 
 fainter you are like to be to-morrow, if you lan- 
 guish in the same distaste without cure, and suffer 
 the corrosive of sin to consume you without 
 opposing its violence. How can you flatter your- 
 self with an ungrounded hope of mercy, since to 
 continue in it so long, is the surest way to stop 
 the fountain of it for ever ? The more you offend 
 God, the less you deserve His favour ; and to be 
 deaf when He calleth you, is to close His ears 
 against all cries in the time of your necessity. If 
 you mean to surrender your heart to Him, why do 
 you lend so much leisure to the devil to strengthen 
 his hold ; and why stop up the passages with mire 
 by which the pure waters of grace must flow into 
 your soul ? Look if you can upon a crucifix without 
 blushing ; do but count the five wounds of Christ 
 once over without a bleeding conscience. Bead 
 your sins in those characters, and examine your 
 thoughts whether the sight do please them. Alas! 
 if that innocent blood move you not, or if you 
 can find still in your heart to open afresh such 
 undeserved wounds, I would I might send you the
 
 APPENDIX. xxi 
 
 sacrifice of my dearest veins, to try whether nature 
 could awake remorse, and prepare a way for 
 grace's entrance. Sorrow puts me to silence, and 
 therefore, Brother, I must end, desiring you to 
 have pity on yourself, whose harms make so bitter 
 an impression on Ager's mind. God of His 
 infinite goodness strengthen you in all your good 
 designments. 
 
 III. ' 
 
 STATE PAPER OFFICE, DONCASTER. No. 190. 
 
 Endorsed : Mr. Topcliffe about Mr. 
 Bellamy, Septem. 1592. 
 
 IT may please yo r Lo. At my retorne out of the 
 cuntrie this night, I did heare y' Mr. Bellamyes 
 too dowghters are comitted to the gayt howse. 
 But the old hene that hatched these chickens (the 
 worst that ever was) is yett at a lodginge : Lett 
 her be sent to the prison there at the gayt howse, 
 and severd from her dowghters, and her spous 
 Thomas Bellamy e comitted to S. Katheryns, And 
 yow shall heare prooved cause enough, and see it 
 woorke a straundge example (hereaboutts). 
 
 But ne r Younge nor other comyssyoner must 
 knowe that I do knowe the rest, or am a doer in 
 this devyce. Nor by my will other than his 
 Lordship that was w* yow when yow did concluyde 
 what should be done at grenwidge last.
 
 xxii APPENDIX. 
 
 Lett them feele a day or too impresonment, And 
 then your Lo : shall see me play the partt of a trew 
 man, wt charity in the end, to the honor of the 
 stayt ; and so in hast at mydnight this fryday, 
 Y r Lo : at comandement, 
 Ric : TOPCLYFFE. 
 
 To the right honor, my Lorde 
 Sir John Puckering, Lorde 
 Keeper of the Great Scale 
 of Englande. 
 
 IV. 
 
 STATE PAPER OFFICE, DONCASTER. No. 197. 
 
 Endorsed: The exaiation of Mrs. Bel- 
 lamye and her three children. 
 
 rpHEXAMINATION of Katheryne Bellamye 
 _J_ wiffe of Richard Bellamye of harrowehill 
 taken before me Richard Yonge the xviij" 1 day of 
 Julye 1594. 
 
 The said ex' saieth that she dothe goe to 
 chnrche, and dothe heare dyvine service and ser- 
 mons, but she saieth that she hath not receyved 
 the communyon. 
 
 Itm, she saieth that she hathe twoe sonnes, one 
 ffaithe, and thother Thomas, and they doe goe to 
 churche everye Sondaye.
 
 APPENDIX. xxiii 
 
 Itm, she saieth that she hath twoe dawghters, 
 one called Awdrye, thother Marye, and they be in 
 howse w' her, but they doe not goe to churche. 
 
 Itm, she saieth that Mr. Willm. Page* her uncle 
 dothe lodge at her howse and dothe not goe to 
 churche. 
 
 Thomas Bellamye off thage of 22 or 23 years 
 exaied saith that he goeth to churche, and heareth 
 dy vyne service, and sermons alsoe. And althonghe 
 he did not receyve the comunyon the last Easter, 
 yet nowe he is willinge ; he saith also that Mr. 
 Willm. Page lyeth at his ffather's, but goeth not 
 to churche. 
 
 Awdrye Wylford wydowe exaied saieth, that 
 she remayneth w' her mother Mrs. Bellayme, and 
 beinge asked whether she goeth to Churche, 
 answereth noe, and saith that her conscience will 
 not give her to goe to churche, and (so farr as she 
 can remember) she was nev r at churche in alle her 
 lyfe tyme, and refuseth also now to goe, or to 
 have conference. 
 
 Marye Bellamye of thage of 27 years exaied 
 saith, that she hath dwelt alwaies w' her Mother, 
 and hathe not been at churche these 14 
 yeares ; And being asked why ? saith that 
 
 * Two members of the Page family, Antony and 
 Francis, both priests and the latter S. J. were executed ; 
 the former in 1593, the latter in 1692. Vide Chaloner's 
 Memoirs of Missionary Priests.
 
 XXIV 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 her conscience will not suffer her, neither will 
 she nowe goe to churche, or yet admytte anye 
 conference. 
 
 Endorsed : the exaiacon of Mrs. Bellamye 
 and her three children. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 PRINTED BY BRASH BROS., LANCASTER.
 
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