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Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant,
(The only harmless great thing) the giant
Of beasts; who thought none had, to make him wise,
But to be just and thankful, loth t' offend
(Yet Nature hath giv'n him no knees to bend)
Himself he up-props, on himself relies,
And, foe to none, suspects no enemies,
Still sleeping stood; vext not his fantasy
Black dreams, like an unbent bow carelessly
His sinewy proboscis did remissly lie.

In which, as in a gallery, this mouse

Walk'd, and survey'd the rooms of this vast house;
And to the brain, the soul's bed-chamber, went,
And gnaw'd the life-cords there: like a whole town
Clean undermin'd, the slain beast tumbled down;
With him the murd'rer dies, whom envy sent
To kill, not 'scape (for only he, that meant
To die, did ever kill a man of better room)
And thus he made his foe his prey and tomb:
Who cares not to turn back, may any whither come.

Next hous'd this soul a wolf's yet unborn whelp,
Till the best midwife, Nature, gave it help
To issue: it could kill, as soon as go.
Abel, as white and mild, as his sheep were,
(Who, in that trade, of church and kingdoms there
Was the first type) was still infested so
With this wolf, that it bred his loss and woe;
And yet his bitch, his centinel, attends
The flock so near, so well warms and defends,
That the wolf (hopeless else) to corrupt her intends.

He took a course, which since successfully
Great men have often taken, to espy
The counsels, or to break the plots of foes;
To Abel's tent he stealeth in the dark,

On whose skirts the bitch slept: ere she could bark,
Attach'd her with strait gripes, yet he call'd those
Embracements of love; to love's work he goes,
Where deeds move more than words; nor doth she
show,

Nor much resist, nor needs he straiten so

His prey, for were she loose, she would not bark nor go.

He bath engag'd her; his she wholly bides:
Who not her own, none other's secrets hides.
If to the flock he come, and Abel there,
She feigns hoarse barkings, but she biteth not;
Her faith is quite, but not her love forgot.
At last a trap, of which some every where
Abel had plac'd, ends all his loss and fear,
By the wolf's death; and now just time it was,
That a quick soul should give life to that mass
Of blood in Abel's bitch, and thither this did pass.

Some have their wives, their sisters some begot;
But in the lives of emperors you shall not
Read of a lust, the which may equal this:
This wolf begot himself, and finished,
What he began alive, when he was dead.
Son to himself, and father too, he is

A riding lust, for which schoolmen would miss
A proper name. The whelp of both these lay
In Abel's tent, and with soft Moaba,

His sister, being young, it us'd to sport and play.

He soon for her too harsh and churlish grew,
And Abel (the dam dead) would use this new

For the field; being of two kinds thus made,
He, as his dam, from sheep drove wolves away,
And, as his sire, he made them his own prey.
Five years he liv'd, and cozen'd with his trade;
Then, hopeless that his faults were hid, betray'd
Himself by flight, and, by all followed,
From dogs a wolf, from wolves a dog he fled;
And, like a spy to both sides false, he perished.

It quick'ned next a toyful ape, and so
Gamesome it was, that it might freely go
From tent to tent, and with the children play;
His organs now so like theirs he doth find,
That, why he cannot laugh and speak his mind,
He wonders. Much with all, most he doth stay
With Adam's fifth daughter, Siphatecia:
Doth gaze on her, and, where she passeth, pass,
Gathers her fruits, and tumbles on the grass;
And, wisest of that kind, the first true lover was.

He was the first, that more desir'd to have
One than another; first, that e'er did crave
Love by mute signs, and had no power to speak;
First, that could make love-faces, or could do
The vaulter's sombersalts, or us'd to woo
With hoiting gambols, his own bones to break,
To make his mistress merry; or to wreak
Her anger on himself. Sins against kind
They eas❜ly do, that can let feed their mind
With outward beauty, beauty they in boys and
beasts do find.

By this misled, too low things men have prov'd,
And too high; beasts and angels have been lov'd:
This ape, though else through-vain, in this was wise;
He reach'd at things too high, but open way
There was, and he knew not she would say nay.
His toys prevail not, likelier means he tries,
He gazeth on her face with tear-shot eyes,
And up-lifts subtily with his russet paw
Her kid-skin apron without fear or awe
Of nature; nature hath no goal, though she hath
law.

First she was silly, and knew not what he meant:
That virtue, by his touches chaft and spent,
Succeeds an itchy warmth, that melts her quite;
She knew not first, nor cares not what he doth,
And willing half and more, more than half wrath,
She neither pulls nor pushes, but out-right
Now cries, and now repents; when Thelemite,
Her brother, enter'd, and a great stone threw
After the ape, who thus prevented flew.

This house thus batter'd down, the soul possess'd a

new.

And whether by this change she lose or win,
She comes out next, where th' ape would have gone
in.

Adam and Eve had mingled bloods, and now,
Like chymic's equal fires, her temperate womb
Had stew'd and form'd it: and part did become
A spungy liver, that did richly allow,
Like a free conduct on a high hill's brow,
Like-keeping moisture unto every part;
Part hard'ned itself to a thicker heart,
Whose busy furnaces life's spirits do impart.

Another part became the well of sense,

The tender well-arm'd feeling brain, from whence

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In prison, in thy womb; and though he there
Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet he 'll wear,
Taken from thence, flesh, which death's force may
Ere by the spheres time was created, thou
Wast in his mind, who is thy Son, and brother,
Whom thou conceiv'st conceived; yet thou 'rt now
Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother,
Thou hast light in dark, and shutt'st in little room
Immensity, cloister'd in thy dear womb.

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Seest thou, my soul, with thy faith's eye, how he,
Which fills all place, yet none holds him, doth lie?
Was not his pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee?
Kiss him, and with him into Egypt go,
With his kind mother, who partakes thy woe.

IV. TEMPLE.

With his kind mother, who partakes thy woe,
Joseph, turn back; see where your child doth sit
Blowing, yea, blowing out those sparks of wit,
Which himself on the doctors did bestow;
The world but lately could not speak, and lo
It suddenly speaks wonders: whence comes it,
That all which was, and all which should be writ,
A shallow-seeming child should deeply know?
His godhead was not soul to his manhood,
Nor had time mellow'd him to this ripeness;
But as for one, which hath a long task, 't is good
With the Sun to begin his business,

He in his age's morning thus began,
By miracles exceeding power of man.

V. MIRACLES.

By miracles exceeding power of man
He faith in some, envy in some begat;
For, what weak spirits admire, ambitious hate;
In both affections many to him ran:

But oh! the worst are most, they will and can,
Alas! and do unto th' immaculate,
Whose creature Fate is, now prescribe a fate,
Measuring self-life's infinite to span,

Nay, to an inch. Lo, where condemned be
Bears his own cross with pain; yet by-and-by,
When it bears him, he must bear more and die.
Now thou art lifted up, draw me to thee,
And, at thy death giving such liberal dole,
Moist with one drop of thy blood my dry soul.

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Moist with one drop of thy blood, my dry soul
Shall (though she now be in extreme degree
Too stony hard, and yet too fleshly) be
Freed by that drop, from being starv'd, hard or foul;
And life, by this death abled, shall control
Death, whom thy death slew; nor shall to me
Fear of first or last death bring misery,
If in thy life's-book my name thou enroll:
Flesh in that long sleep is not putrified,
But made that there, of which, and for which 't was;
Nor can by other means be glorified.
May then sins sleep, and death soon from me pass,
That, wak'd from both, I again risen may
Salute the last and everlasting day.

VII. ASCENSION.

Salute the last and everlasting day,
Joy at th' uprising of this Sun, and Son,
Ye, whose true tears or tribulation
Have purely wash'd or burnt your drossy clay;
Behold the highest, parting hence away,
Lightens the dark clouds, which he treads upon,
Nor doth he by ascending show alone,
But first he, and he first, enters the way.

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THOU hast made me, and shall thy work decay?
Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste;
I run to death, and death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday.
I dare not move my dim eyes any way;
Despair behind, and death before doth cast
Such terrour, and my feeble flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it t'wards Hell doth weigh.
Only thou art above, and when t'wards thee
By thy leave I can look, I rise again;
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
That not one hour myself I can sustain ;
Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art,
And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.

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On! might these sighs and tears return again
Into my breast and eyes, which I have spent,
That I might in this holy discontent

Mourn with some fruit, as I have mourn'd in vain;
In mine idolatry what show'rs of rain

Mine eyes did waste? what griefs my heart did rent?

That sufferance was my sin I now repent;
'Cause I did suffer, I must suffer pain.
Th' hydreptic drunkard, and night-scouting thief,
The itchy lecher, and self-tickling proud,
Have th' remembrance of past joys, for relief
Of coming ills. To poor me is allow'd

No ease; for long, yet vehement, grief hath been
Th' effect and cause, the punishment and sin.

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IV.

By Sickness, Death's herald and champion;
OH! my black soul, now thou art summoned
Thou 'rt like a pilgrim, which abroad hath done
Treason, and durst not turn to whence he is fled;
Or like a thief, which till death's doom be read,
Wisheth himself delivered from prison;
But damn'd and hawl'd to execution,
Wisheth that still he might b' imprisoned:
Yet grace, if thou repent, thou canst not lack;
But who shall give thee that grace to begin?
Oh, make thyself with holy mourning black,
And red with blushing, as thou art with sin;
Or wash thee in Christ's blood, which hath this might,
That, being red, it dies red souls to white.

V.

I AM a little world, made cunningly
Of elements and an angelic spright;

But black sin hath betray'd to endless night
My world's both parts, and, oh! both parts must die.
You, which beyond that Heav'n, which was most high,
Have found new spheres, and of new land can write,
Pour new seas in miue eyes, that so I might
Drown my world with my weeping earnestly;
Or wash it, if it must be drown'd no more:
But oh it must be burnt; alas! the fire
Of lust and envy burnt it heretofore,
And made it fouler: let their flames retire,
And burn me, O Lord, with a fiery zeal

Of thee and thy house, which doth in eating heal.

VI.

THIS is my play's last scene, here Heavens appoint
My pilgrimage's last mile; and my race,
Idly yet quickly run, hath this last pace,
My span's last inch, my minute's latest point;
And gluttonous Death will instantly unjoint
My body and soul, and I shall sleep a space;
But my ever-waking part shall see that face,
Whose fear already shakes my every joint:
Then as my soul to Heav'n, her first seat, takes flight,
And earth-born body in the Earth shall dwell,
So fall my sins, that all may have their right,
To where they're bred, and would press me to Hell.
Impute me righteous, thus purg'd of evil;
For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the Devil.

VII.

Ar the round Earth's imagin'd corners blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go,
All, whom th' flood did, and fire shall overthrow;
All, whom war, death, age, ague's tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance hath slain; and you, whose eyes
Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.
But let them sleep, lord, and me mourn a space;
For, if above all these my sins abound,
"T is late to ask abundance of thy grace,
When we are there. Here on this holy ground
Teach me how to repent; for that 's as good,
As if thou had'st seal'd my pardon with thy blood.

VIII.

If faithful souls be alike glorifi'd

As angels, then my father's soul doth see,
And adds this ev'n to full felicity,

That valiantly I Hell's wide mouth o'erstride:
But if our minds to these souls be descry'd
By circumstances and by signs, that be
Apparent in us not immediately,

How shall my mind's white truth by them be try'd?
They see idolatrous lovers weep and mourn,
And style blasphemous conjurers to call
On Jesus' name, and pharisaical
Dissemblers feign devotion. Then turn,
O pensive soul, to God; for he knows best
Thy grief, for he put it into my breast.

IX.

If poisonous minerals, and if that tree,
Whose fruit threw death on (else immortal) us,
If lecherons goats, if serpents envious,
Cannot be damn'd, alas! why should I be?
Why should intent or reason, born in me,
Make sins, else equal, in me more heinous ?
And mercy being easy and glorious

To God, in his stern wrath why threatens he?
But who am I, that dare dispute with thee!
O God, oh! of thine only worthy blood,
And my tears, make a heav'nly Lethean flood,
And drown in it my sin's black memory:
That thou remember them, some claim as debt;
I think it mercy, if thou wilt forget.

X.

DEATH, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow:
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. [men,
Thou 'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally;
And death shall be no more, death, thou shalt die.

XI.

SPIT in my face, you Jews, and pierce my side,
Buffet and scoff, scourge and crucify me:
For I have sinn'd, and sinn'd; and only he,
Who could do no iniquity, hath dy'd:
But by my death cannot be satisfi'd
My sins, which pass the Jews' impiety:
They kill'd once an inglorious man, but I
Crucify him daily, being now glorifi'd.
O let me then his strange love still admire:
Kings pardon, but he bore our punishment;
And Jacob came, cloth'd in vile harsh attire,
But to supplant, and with gainful intent:
God cloth'd himself in vile man's flesh, that so
He might be weak enough to suffer woe.

XII.

WHY are we by all creatures waited on?
Why do the progidal elements supply
Life and food to me, being more pure than I,
Simpler, and further from corruption?
Why brook'st thou, ignorant horse, subjection?
Why do you, bull and boar, so sillily

Dissemble weakness, and by one man's stroke die,
Whose whole kind you might swallow and feed upon?
Weaker I am, woe's me! and worse than you;
You have not sinn'd, nor need be timorous,
But wonder at a greater, for to us
Created nature doth these things subdue;
But their Creator, whom sin, nor nature ty'd,
For us, his creatures, and his foes, hath dy'd.

XIII.

WHAT if this present were the world's last night?
Mark in my heart, O soul, where thou dost dwell,
The picture of Christ crucifi'd, and tell
Whether his countenance can thee affright;
Tears in his eyes quench the amazing light, [fell.
Blood fills his frowns, which from his pierc'd head
And can that tongue adjudge thee unto Hell,
Which pray'd forgiveness for his foe's fierce spight?
No, no; but as in my idolatry

I said to all my profane mistresses,
Beauty of pity, foulness only is

A sign of rigour: so I say to thee;
To wicked spirits are horrid shapes assign'd,
This beauteous form assumes a piteous mind.

XIV.

BATTER my heart, three-person'd God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow m', and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to another due,
Labour t' admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, we should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue;
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy:
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me; for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free;
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

XV.

WILT thou love God, as he thee? then digest,
My soul, this wholesome meditation,
How God the spirit, by angels waited on
In Heav'n, doth make his temple in thy breast;
The Father having begot a Son most bless'd,
And still begetting, (for he ne'er begun)
Hath deign'd to choose thee by adoption,
Coheir to his glory, and sabbath's endless rest.
And as a robb'd man, which by search doth find
His stol'n stuff sold, must lose or buy 't again:
The Sun of glory came down, and was slain,
Us, whom h' had made, and Satan stole, t' unbind.
'T was much, that man was made like God before;
But, that God should be made like man, much more.

XVI.

FATHER, part of his double interest
Unto thy kingdom thy Son gives to me;
His jointure in the knotty Trinity

He keeps, and gives to me bis death's conquest. This Lamb, whose death with life the world hath bless'd,

Was from the world's beginning slain; and he
Hath made two wills, which, with the legacy
Of his and thy kingdom, thy sons invest:
Yet such are these laws, that men argue yet,
Whether a man those statutes can fulfil;
None doth; but thy all-healing grace and spirit
Revive again, what law and letter kill:
Thy law's abridgment and thy last command
Is all but love; O let this last will stand!

ON THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. IN that, O queen of queens, thy birth was free From that, which others doth of grace bereave, When in their mother's womb they life receive, God, as his sole-born daughter, loved thee.

To match thee like thy birth's nobility,

He thee his Spirit for his spouse did leave, By whom thou didst his only Son conceive, And so wast link'd to all the Trinity.

Cease then, O queens, that earthly crowns do wear,
To glory in the pomp of earthly things;
If men such high respects unto you bear,

Which daughters, wives, and mothers are of kings,
What honour can unto that queen be done,
Who had your God for father, spouse, and son?

These for extracted chymic medicine serve,
And cure much better, and as well preserve;
Then are you your own physic, or need none,
When still'd or purg'd by tribulation:
For, when that cross ungrudg'd unto you sticks,
Then are you to yourself a crucifix.

But that away, which hid them there, do take:
As perchance carvers do not faces make,
Let crosses so take what hid Christ in thee,
And be his image, or not his, but he.
But as oft alchymists do coiners prove,
So may a self-despising get self-love,
And then as worst surfeits of best meats be,
So is pride, issued from humility;
For 't is no child, but monster: therefore cross
Your joy in crosses, else 't is double loss;
And cross thy senses, else both they and thou
Must perish soon, and to destruction bow.
For if th' eye see good objects, and will take
No cross from bad, we cannot 'scape a snake.
So with harsh, hard, sour, stinking cross the rest,
Make them indifferent all; nothing best.
But most the eye needs crossing, that can roam
And move to th' others objects must come home,
And cross thy heart: for that in man alone
Pants downwards, and hath palpitation.
Cross those detorsions, when it downward tends,
And when it to forbidden heights pretends.
And as the brain though bony walls doth vent
By sutures, which a cross's form present:
So when thy brain works, e'er thou utter it,
Cross and correct concupiscence of wit.
Be covetous of crosses, let none fall:
Cross no man else, but cross thyself in all.
Then doth the cross of Christ work faithfully
Within our hearts, when we love harmlessly
The cross's pictures much, and with more care
That cross's children, which our crosses are.

THE CROSS.

SINCE Christ embrac'd the cross itself, dare I,
His image, th' image of his cross deny ?
Would I have profit by the sacrifice,
And dare the chosen altar to despise ?
It bore all other sins, but is it fit
That it should bear the sin of scorning it?
Who from the picture would avert his eye,
How would he fly his pains, who there did die?
From me no pulpit, nor misgrounded law,
Nor scandal taken shall this cross withdraw;
It shall not, for it cannot; for the loss
Of this cross were to me another cross;
Better were worse, for no affliction,

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PSALM CXXXVII.

By Euphrates' flow'ry side
We did bide,

From dear Juda far absented,
Tearing the air with our cries,
And our eyes

With their streams his stream augmented.

When poor Sion's doleful state,
Desolate,

Sacked, burned, and inthrall'd;
And the temple spoil'd, which we
Ne'er should see,

To our mirthless minds we call'd:

Our mute harps, untun'd, unstrung,
Up we hung

On green willows near beside us ;
Where we sitting all forlorn,
Thus in scorn

Our proud spoilers 'gan deride us.

"Come, sad captives, leave your moans, And your groans

Under Sion's ruins bury;
Tune your harps, and sing us lays
In the praise

Of your God, and let's be merry."

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