To Mr Christopher Brooke
Thou which art I (’tis nothing to be so),
Thou which art still thyself, by these shalt know
Part of our passage; and a hand or eye
By Hilliard drawn is worth a history
By a worse painter made; and (without pride)
When by thy judgement they are dignified,
My lines are such. ’Tis the pre-eminence
Of friendship only to’impute excellence.
England, to whom we’owe what we be and have,
[10] Sad that her sons did seek a foreign grave
(For Fate’s or Fortune’s drifts none can soothsay;
Honour and misery have one face and way.)
From out her pregnant entrails sighed a wind
Which at th’air’s middle marble room did find
Such strong resistance that itself it threw
Downward again; and so when it did view
How in the port our fleet dear time did leese,
Withering like prisoners which lie but for fees,
Mildly it kissed our sails, and fresh and sweet,
[20] As to a stomach starved, whose insides meet,
Meat comes, it came; and swelled our sails, when we
So joyed, as Sara’her swelling joyed to see.
But ’twas but so kind as our countrymen,
Which bring friends one day’s way, and leave them then.
Then like two mighty kings, which dwelling far
Asunder, meet against a third to war,
The south and west winds joined, and as they blew,
Waves like a rolling trench before them threw.
Sooner than you read this line, did the gale,
[30] Like shot not feared till felt, our sails assail;
And what at first was called a gust, the same
Hath now a storm’s, anon a tempest’s name.
Jonah, I pity thee, and curse those men
Who, when the storm raged most, did wake thee then;
Sleep is pain’s easiest salve, and doth fulfil
All offices of death, except to kill.
But when I waked, I saw that I saw not.
I and the sun which should teach me’had forgot
East, west, day, night, and I could only say,
[40] If’the world had lasted, now it had been day.
Thousands our noises were, yet we ’amongst all
Could none by his right name, but thunder call;
Lightning was all our light, and it rained more
Than if the sun had drunk the sea before;
Some coffined in their cabins lie,’equally
Grieved that they are not dead, and yet must die.
And as sin-burdened souls from graves will creep
At the last day, some forth their cabins peep,
And tremblingly’ask what news, and do hear so,
[50] As jealous husbands, what they would not know.
Some sitting on the hatches would seem there,
With hideous gazing, to fear away fear.
Then note they the ship’s sicknesses, the mast
Shaked with this ague, and the hold and waist
With a salt dropsy clogged, and all our tacklings
Snapping, like too-high-stretched treble strings.
And from our tattered sails, rags drop down so,
As from one hanged in chains a year ago.
Even our ordnance, placed for our defence,
[60] Strive to break loose, and ’scape away from thence.
Pumping hath tired our men, and what’s the gain?
Seas into seas thrown, we suck in again;
Hearing hath deaf’d our sailors; and if they
Knew how to hear, there’s none knows what to say.
Compared to these storms, death is but a qualm,
Hell somewhat lightsome, the’Bermudas calm.
Darkness, light’s elder brother, his birthright
Claims o’er this world, and to heaven hath chased light.
All things are one, and that one none can be,
[70] Since all forms uniform deformity
Doth cover, so that we, except God say
Another Fiat, shall have no more day.
So violent, yet long, these furies be,
That though thine absence starve me,’I wish not thee.
Our storm is past, and that storm’s tyrannous rage,
A stupid calm, but nothing it doth ’suage.
The fable is inverted, and far more
A block afflicts now than a stork before.
Storms chafe, and soon wear out themselves, or us;
In calms heaven laughs to see us languish thus.
As steady’as I can wish that my thoughts were,
Smooth as thy mistress’ glass or what shines there,
The sea is now. And as the isles which we
[10] Seek when we can move, our ships rooted be.
As water did in storms, now pitch runs out,
As lead when a fired church becomes one spout.
And all our beauty and our trim decays,
Like courts removing or like ended plays.
The fighting place now seamen’s rags supply;
And all the tackling is a frippery.
No use of lanterns; and in one place lay
Feathers and dust, today and yesterday.
Earth’s hollownesses, which the world’s lungs are,
[20] Have no more wind than the’upper vault of air.
We can nor lost friends nor sought foes recover,
But meteor-like, save that we move not, hover.
Only the calenture together draws
Dear friends which meet dead in great fishes’ jaws;
And on the hatches, as on altars, lies
Each one, his own priest and own sacrifice.
Who live, that miracle do multiply
Where walkers in hot ovens do not die.
If in despite of these we swim, that hath
[30] No more refreshing than our brimstone bath;
But from the sea into the ship we turn,
Like parboiled wretches on the coals to burn.
Like Bajazet encaged, the shepherds scoff,
Or like slack-sinewed Samson, his hair off,
Languish our ships. Now as a myriad
Of ants durst th’Emperor’s loved snake invade,
The crawling galleys, sea-jails, finny chips,
Might brave our pinnaces, now bed-rid ships.
Whether a rotten state and hope of gain,
[40] Or, to disuse me from the queasy pain
Of being beloved and loving, or the thirst
Of honour or fair death, out pushed me first,
I lose my end: for here as well as I
A desperate may live and a coward die.
Stag, dog, and all which from or towards flies,
Is paid with life, or pray, or doing dies.
Fate grudges us all, and doth subtly lay
A scourge, ’gainst which we all forget to pray;
He that at sea prays for more wind, as well
[50] Under the poles may beg cold, heat in hell.
What are we then? How little more, alas,
Is man now than before he was? He was
Nothing; for us, we are for nothing fit;
Chance or ourselves still disproportion it.
We have no power, no will, no sense; I lie,
I should not then thus feel this misery.
Here’s no more news than virtue;’I may as well
Tell you Calis or St Michael’s tale for news, as tell
That vice doth here habitually dwell.
Yet, as to’get stomachs, we walk up and down,
And toil, to sweeten rest, so may God frown,
If but to loathe both, I haunt court or town.
For here no one is from the’extremity
Of vice by any other reason free,
But that the next to’him still is worse than he.
[10] In this world’s warfare they whom rugged Fate
(God’s commissary) doth so throughly hate
As in’the court’s squadron to marshal their state,
If they stand armed with seely honesty,
With wishing prayers and neat integrity,
Like Indians ’gainst Spanish hosts they be.
Suspicious boldness to this place belongs,
And to’have as many ears as all have tongues,
Tender to know, tough to acknowledge wrongs.
Believe me, sir, in my youth’s giddiest days,
[20] When to be like the court was a play’s praise,
Plays were not so like courts, as courts’are like plays.
Then let us at these mimic antics jest,
Whose deepest projects and egregious gests
Are but dull morals of a game at chess.
But now ’tis incongruity to smile;
Therefore I end, and bid farewell a while,
At Court, though From Court were the better style.
Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls,
For thus friends absent speak. This ease controls
The tediousness of my life; but for these
I could ideate nothing which could please,
But I should wither in one day, and pass
To’a bottle’of hay, that am a lock of grass.
Life is a voyage, and in our life’s ways
Countries, courts, towns are rocks or remoras;
They break or stop all ships, yet our state’s such
[10] That, though than pitch they stain worse, we must touch.
If in the furnace of the even line,
Or under th’adverse icy poles thou pine,
Thou know’st two temperate regions girded in
Dwell there, but O, what refuge canst thou win,
Parched in the court and in the country frozen?
Shall cities built of both extremes be chosen?
Can dung or garlic be’a perfume? Or can
A scorpion or torpedo cure a man?
Cities are worst of all three; of all three
[20] (O knotty riddle)’each is worst equally.
Cities are sepulchres; they who dwell there
Are carcasses, as if no such there were,
And courts are theatres where some men play
Princes, some slaves, all to one end and of one clay.
The country is a desert where no good,
Gained as habits, not born, is understood.
There men become beasts and prone to more evils;
In cities, blocks, and in a lewd court, devils.
As in the first Chaos confusedly
[30] Each element’s qualities were in th’other three,
So pride, lust, covetise, being several
To these three places, yet all are in all,
And mingled thus, their issue’incestuous.
Falsehood is denizened. Virtue’is barbarous.
Let no man say there, Virtue’s flinty wall
Shall lock vice in me, I’ll do none, but know’all.
Men are sponges which to pour out, receive;
Who know false play, rather then lose, deceive.
For in best understandings, sin began;
[40] Angels sinned first, then devils, and then man.
Only perchance beasts sin not; wretched we
Are beasts in all but white integrity.
I think if men, which in these places live,
Durst look for themselves and themselves retrieve,
They would like strangers greet themselves, seeing then
Utopian youth grown old Italian.
Be thou thine own home, and in thyself dwell;
Inn anywhere, continuance maketh hell.
And seeing the snail, which everywhere doth roam
[50] Carrying his own house still, still is at home,
Follow (for he is easy paced) this snail,
Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy jail.
And in the world’s sea do not like cork sleep
Upon the water’s face, nor in the deep
Sink like a lead without a line, but as
Fishes glide, leaving no print where they pass
Nor making sound, so closely thy course go;
Let men dispute whether thou breathe or no.
Only’in this one thing, be no Galenist. To make
[60] Court’s hot ambitions wholesome, do not take
A dram of country’s dullness; do not add
Correctives, but as chemics, purge the bad.
But, sir, I’advise not you; I rather do
Say o’er those lessons which I learned of you,
Whom, free from German schisms, and lightness
Of France, and fair Italy’s faithlessness,
Having from these sucked all they had of worth,
And brought home that faith which you carried forth,
I throughly love. But if myself I’have won
To know my rules, I have, and you have,
[70] DONNE.
Went you to conquer? and have so much lost
Yourself that what in you was best and most
Respective friendship should so quickly die?
In public gain my share’is not such that I
Would lose your love for Ireland; better cheap
I pardon death (who though he do not reap,
Yet gleans he many of our friends away)
Than that your waking mind should be a prey
To lethargies. Let shots, and bogs, and skeins
[10] With bodies deal, as fate bids or restrains;
Ere sicknesses attack, young death is best,
Who pays before his death doth ’scape arrest.
Let not your soul (at first with graces filled,
And since and through crooked limbecks, stilled
In many schools and courts which quicken it)
Itself unto the Irish negligence submit.
I ask not laboured letters which should wear
Long papers out, nor letters which should fear
Dishonest carriage or a seer’s art,
[20] Nor such as from the brain come, but the heart.
After those reverend papers, whose soul is
Our good and great King’s loved hand and feared name,
By which to you he derives much of his,
And (how he may) makes you almost the same,
A taper of his torch, a copy writ
From his original, and a fair beam
Of the same warm and dazzling sun, though it
Must in another sphere his virtue stream,
After those learned papers which your hand
[10] Hath stored with notes of use and pleasures too,
From which rich treasury you may command
Fit matter whether you will write or do,
After those loving papers, where friends send
With glad grief, to your seaward steps, farewell,
Which thicken on you now, as prayers ascend
To heaven in troops at’a good man’s passing bell,
Admit this honest paper, and allow
It such an audience as you yourself would ask;
What you must say at Venice this means now,
[20] And hath for nature, what you have for task:
To swear much love, not to be changed before
Honour alone will to your fortune fit;
Nor shall I then honour your fortune more
Than I have done your honour wanting it.
But ’tis an easier load (though both oppress)
To want, than govern, greatness, for we are
In that our own and only business,
In this, we must for others’ vices care;
’Tis therefore well your spirits now are placed
[30] In their last furnace, in activity,
Which fits them (schools and courts and wars o’erpast)
To touch and test in any best degree.
For me (if there be such a thing as I)
Fortune (if there be such a thing as she)
Spies that I bear so well her tyranny
That she thinks nothing else so fit for me;
But though she part us, to hear my oft prayers
For your increase, God is as near me here;
And to send you what I shall beg, His stairs
[40] In length and ease are alike everywhere.
Like one who’in her third widowhood doth profess
Herself a nun, tied to retiredness,
So’affects my muse now a chaste fallowness,
Since she to few, yet to too many,’hath shown
How love-song weeds and satiric thorns are grown
Where seeds of better arts were early sown.
Though to use and love poetry, to me,
Betrothed to no’one art, be no’adultery,
Omissions of good, ill as ill deeds be.
[10] For though to us it seem’and be light and thin,
Yet in those faithful scales, where God throws in
Men’s works, vanity weighs as much as sin.
If our souls have stained their first white, yet we
May clothe them with faith and dear honesty
Which God imputes as native purity.
There is no virtue but religion:
Wise, valiant, sober, just are names which none
Want, which want not vice-covering discretion.
Seek we then ourselves in ourselves; for as
[20] Men force the sun with much more force to pass
By gathering his beams with a crystal glass,
So we, if we into ourselves will turn,
Blowing our sparks of virtue may out-burn
The straw which doth about our hearts sojourn.
You know, physicians, when they would infuse
Into any’oil the souls of simples, use
Places where they may lie still warm to choose.
So works retiredness in us; to roam
Giddily and be everywhere but at home,
[30] Such freedom doth a banishment become.
We are but termers of ourselves, yet may,
If we can stock ourselves and thrive, uplay
Much, much dear treasure, for the great rent day.
Manure thyself then, to thyself be’approved,
And with vain outward things be no more moved,
But to know that I love thee’and would be loved.
Zealously my muse doth salute all thee,
Enquiring of that mystic trinity
Whereof thou’and all to whom heavens do infuse
Like fire, are made: thy body, mind, and muse.
Dost thou recover sickness, or prevent?
Or is thy mind travailed with discontent?
Or art thou parted from the world and me
In a good scorn of the world’s vanity?
Or is thy devout muse retired to sing
[10] Upon her tender elegiac string?
Our minds part not, join then thy muse with mine,
For mine is barren thus divorced from thine.
Muse not that by thy mind thy body’is led,
For by thy mind, my mind’s distempered.
So thy care lives long, for I bearing part,
It eats not only thine, but my swoll’n heart.
And when it gives us intermission,
We take new hearts for it to feed upon.
But as a lay man’s genius doth control
Body and mind, the muse being the soul’s soul
Of poets, that methinks should ease our anguish,
[10] Although our bodies wither and minds languish.
Wright then, that my griefs, which thine got, may be
Cured by thy charming sovereign melody.
If, as mine is, thy life a slumber be,
Seem, when thou read’st these lines, to dream of me;
Never did Morpheus nor his brother wear
Shapes so like those shapes, whom they would appear,
As this my letter is like me, for it
Hath my name, words, hand, feet, heart, mind and wit;
It is my deed of gift of me to thee,
It is my will, myself the legacy.
So thy retirings I love, yea envy,
[10] Bred in thee by a wise melancholy,
That I rejoice, that unto where thou art,
Though I stay here, I can thus send my heart,
As kindly’as any’enamoured patient
His picture to his absent love hath sent.
All news I think sooner reach thee than me;
Havens are heavens, and ships, winged angels be,
The which both gospel and stern threat’nings bring;
Guiana’s harvest is nipped in the spring
I fear; and with us (me thinks) Fate deals so
[20] As with the Jew’s guide God did; he did show
Him the rich land, but barred his entry in.
O, slowness is our punishment and sin;
Perchance, these Spanish business being done,
Which as earth between the moon and sun
Eclipse the light which Guiana would give,
Our discontinued hopes we shall retrieve;
But if (as all th’All must) hopes smoke away,
Is not almighty virtue’an India?
If men be worlds, there is in every one
[30] Some thing to answer in some proportion
All the world’s riches; and in good men, this
Virtue our form’s form and our soul’s soul is.
Kindly’I envy thy song’s perfection,
Built of all th’elements as our bodies are.
That little’of earth that’is in it is a fair
Delicious garden where all sweets are sown.
In it is cherishing fire which dries in me
Grief which did drown me, and half quenched by it
Are satiric fires which urged me to have writ
In scorn of all, for now I admire thee.
And as air doth fulfill the hollowness
[10] Of rotten walls, so it mine emptiness,
Where tossed and moved it did beget this sound
Which as a lame echo’of thine doth rebound.
O, I was dead, but since thy song new life did give,
I recreated even by thy creature live.
All hail sweet poet, more full of more strong fire
Than hath or shall enkindle any spirit,
I loved what nature gave thee, but this merit
Of wit and art I love not but admire;
Who have before or shall write after thee,
Their works, though toughly laboured, will be
Like infancy or age to man’s firm stay,
Or early and late twilights to midday.
Men say, and truly, that they better be
[10] Which be envied than pitied; therefore I,
Because I wish thee best, do thee envy;
O would’st thou, by like reason, pity me,
But care not for me; I, that ever was
In nature’s, and in fortune’s gifts, alas
(Before thy grace got in the Muses’ school),
A monster and a beggar, am a fool.
O how I grieve, that late borne modesty
Hath got such root in easy waxen hearts,
That men may not themselves, their own good parts
[20] Extol, without suspect of surquedry,
For, but thyself, no subject can be found
Worthy thy quill, nor any quill resound
Thy worth but thine: how good it were to see
A poem in thy praise, and writ by thee.
Now if this song be too’harsh for rhyme, yet, as
The painter’s bad god made a good devil,
’Twill be good prose, although the verse be evil,
If thou forget the rhyme as thou dost pass.
Then write, that I may follow, and so be
[30] Thy debtor, thy’echo, thy foil, thy zany.
I shall be thought, if mine like thine I shape,
All the world’s Lyon, though I be thy ape.
Haste thee harsh verse as fast as thy lame measure
Will give thee leave, to him, my pain and pleasure.
I have given thee, and yet thou art too weak,
Feet and a reasoning soul and tongue to speak.
Plead for me, and so by thine and my labour,
I am thy Creator, thou my Saviour.
Tell him, all questions, which men have defended
Both of the place and pains of hell, are ended;
And ’tis decreed our hell is but privation
[10] Of him, at least in this earth’s habitation:
And ’tis where I am, where in every street
Infections follow, overtake, and meet.
Live I or die, by you my love is sent,
And you’are my pawns, or else my testament.
Pregnant again with th’old twins, Hope and Fear,
Oft have I asked for thee, both how and where
Thou wert, and what my hopes of letters were,
As in our streets sly beggars narrowly
Watch motions of the giver’s hand and eye,
And evermore conceive some hope thereby.
And now thy alms is given, thy letter’is read,
The body risen again, the which was dead,
And thy poor starveling bountifully fed.
[10] After this banquet my soul doth say grace,
And praise thee for’it, and zealously embrace
Thy love, though I think thy love in this case
To be as gluttons, which say ’midst their meat,
They love that best of which they most do eat.
At once, from hence, my lines and I depart,
I to my soft still walks, they to my heart,
I to the nurse, they to the child of art;
Yet as a firm house, though the carpenter
Perish, doth stand, as an ambassador
Lies safe, how e’er his king be in danger,
So, though I languish, pressed with melancholy,
My verse, the strict map of my misery,
Shall live to see that for whose want I die.
[10] Therefore I envy them, and do repent
That from unhappy me, things happy’are sent;
Yet as a picture, or bare sacrament,
Accept these lines, and if in them there be
Merit of love, bestow that love on me.
Thy friend, whom thy deserts to thee enchain,
Urged by this inexcusable’occasion,
Thee and the saint of his affection
Leaving behind, doth of both wants complain;
And let the love I bear to both sustain
No blot nor maim by this division.
Strong is this love which ties our hearts in one,
And strong that love pursued with amorous pain;
But though besides thyself I leave behind
[10] Heaven’s liberal and earth’s thrice-fairer sun,
Going to where stern winter aye doth won,
Yet, love’s hot fires, which martyr my sad mind,
Do send forth scalding sighs, which have the art
To melt all ice, but that which walls her heart.
Even as lame things thirst their perfection, so
The slimy rimes bred in our vale below,
Bearing with them much of my love and heart,
Fly unto that Parnassus, where thou art.
There thou o’ersee’st London. Here I have been,
By staying in London, too much overseen.
Now pleasures’ dearth our city doth possess,
Our theatres are filled with emptiness.
As lank and thin is every street and way
[10] As a woman delivered yesterday.
Nothing whereat to laugh my spleen espies
But bearbaitings or law exercise.
Therefore I’ll leave it, and in the country strive
Pleasure, now fled from London, to retrieve.
Do thou so too, and fill not like a bee
Thy thighs with honey, but as plenteously
As Russian merchants, thy self’s whole vessel load,
And then at winter retail it here abroad.
Bless us with Suffolk’s sweets, and as it is
[20] Thy garden, make thy hive and warehouse this.
O thou, which to search out the secret parts
Of the India, or rather paradise
Of knowledge, hast with courage and advice
Lately launched into the vast sea of arts,
Disdain not in thy constant travailing
To do as other voyagers, and make
Some turns into less creeks, and wisely take
Fresh water at the Heliconian spring.
I sing not, Siren-like, to tempt, for I
[10] Am harsh, nor as those schismatics with you,
Which draw all wits of good hope to their crew;
But seeing in you bright sparks of poetry,
I, though I brought no fuel, had desire
With these articulate blasts to blow the fire.
Of that short roll of friends writ in my heart
Which with thy name begins, since their depart,
Whether in the English provinces they be
Or drink of Po, Sequan, or Danubie,
There’s none that sometimes greets us not, and yet
Your Trent is Lethe; that past, us you forget.
You do not duties of societies,
If from the’embrace of a loved wife you rise,
View your fat beasts, stretched barns, and laboured fields,
[10] Eat, play, ride, take all joys which all day yields,
And then again to your embracements go.
Some hours on us, your friends, and some bestow
Upon your muse, else both we shall repent,
I that my love, she that her gifts on you are spent.
Blest are your north parts, for all this long time
My sun is with you, cold and dark’is our clime.
Heaven’s sun, which stayed so long from us this year,
Stayed in your north (I think) for she was there,
And hither by kind nature drawn from thence,
Here rages, chafes, and threatens pestilence.
Yet I, as long as she from hence doth stay,
Think this no south, no summer, nor no day.
With thee my kind and unkind heart is run,
[10] There sacrifice it to that beauteous sun.
And since thou art in paradise and need’st crave
No joy’s addition, help thy friend to save.
So may thy pastures with their flowery feasts,
As suddenly as lard, fat thy lean beasts.
So may thy woods oft polled, yet ever wear
A green and, when thee list, a golden hair.
So may all thy sheep bring forth twins, and so
In chase and race may thy horse all out go.
So may thy love and courage ne’er be cold,
[20] Thy son ne’er ward, thy lov’d wife ne’er seem old.
But may’st thou wish great things and them attain,
As thou tell’st her and none but her my pain.
Is not thy sacred hunger of science
Yet satisfied? Is not thy brain’s rich hive
Fulfilled with honey which thou dost derive
From the arts’ spirits and their quintessence?
Then wean thyself at last, and thee withdraw
From Cambridge, thy old nurse, and, as the rest,
Here toughly chew and sturdily digest
The’immense vast volumes of our common law;
And begin soon, lest my grief grieve thee too,
[10] Which is that, that which I should have begun
In my youth’s morning, now late must be done.
And I, as giddy travellers must do,
Which stray or sleep all day, and having lost
Light and strength, dark and tired must then ride post.
If thou unto thy muse be married,
Embrace her ever, ever multiply;
Be far from me that strange adultery
To tempt thee and procure her widowhood.
My muse (for I had one), because I’am cold,
[20] Divorced herself, the cause being in me
That I can take no new in bigamy,
Not my will only but power doth withhold.
Hence comes it that these rhymes, which never had
Mother, want matter, and they only have
A little form, the which their father gave.
They are profane, imperfect, O, too bad
To be counted children of poetry,
Except confirmed, and bishoped by thee.
See, sir, how as the sun’s hot masculine flame
Begets strange creatures on Nile’s dirty slime,
In me, your fatherly yet lusty rhyme
(For these songs are their fruits) have wrought the same.
But though the’engend’ring force from whence they came
Be strong enough, and nature do admit
Seven to be born at once, I send as yet
But six; they say the seventh hath still some maim.
I choose your judgement, which the same degree
[10] Doth with her sister, your invention, hold,
As fire these drossy rhymes to purify,
Or as elixir, to change them to gold.
You are that alchemist which always had
Wit, whose one spark could make good things of bad.
Who makes the past a pattern for next year
Turns no new leaf, but still the same things reads;
Seen things he sees again, heard things doth hear,
And makes his life but like a pair of beads.
A palace, when ’tis that, which it should be,
Leaves growing and stands such, or else decays;
But he which dwells there is not so, for he
Strives to urge upward, and his fortune raise;
So had your body’her morning, hath her noon,
[10] And shall not better; her next change is night;
But her fair larger guest, to’whom sun and moon
Are sparks and short lived, claims another right.
The noble soul by age grows lustier,
Her appetite and her digestion mend;
We must not starve, nor hope to pamper her
With women’s milk and pap unto the end.
Provide you manlier diet; you have seen
All libraries, which are schools, camps, and courts;
But ask your garners if you have not been
[20] In harvests too indulgent to your sports.
Would you redeem it? Then yourself transplant
A while from hence. Perchance outlandish ground
Bears no more wit than ours, but yet more scant
Are those diversions there which here abound.
To be a stranger hath that benefit,
We can beginnings, but not habits choke.
Go, whither? Hence, you get, if you forget;
New faults, till they prescribe in us, are smoke.
Our soul, whose country’is heaven, and God her father,
[30] Into this world, corruption’s sink, is sent;
Yet so much in her travail she doth gather
That she returns home wiser than she went.
It pays you well, if it teach you to spare,
And make you’ashamed, to make your hawk’s praise, yours,
Which when herself she lessens in the air,
You then first say that high enough she towers.
However, keep the lively taste you hold
Of God; love him as now, but fear him more,
And in your afternoons think what you told
[40] And promised him at morning prayer before.
Let falsehood like a discord anger you,
Else be not froward. But why do I touch
Things of which none is in your practice new,
And tables or fruit-trenchers teach as much;
But thus I make you keep your promise, sir;
Riding I had you, though you still stayed there,
And in these thoughts, although you never stir,
You came with me to Mitcham, and are here.
Since ev’ry tree begins to blossom now,
Perfuming and enamelling each bow,
Hearts should as well as they some fruits allow.
For since one old, poor sun serves all the rest,
You sev’ral suns that warm and light each breast,
Do, by that influence, all your thoughts digest.
And that you two may so your virtues move
On better matter than beams from above,
Thus our twin’d souls send forth these buds of love.
[10] As in devotions men join both their hands,
We make ours do one act, to seal the bands,
By which we’enthral ourselves to your commands.
And each for other’s faith and zeal stand bound,
As safe as spirits are from any wound,
So free from impure thoughts they shall be found.
Admit our magic then, by which we do
Make you appear to us, and us to you,
Supplying all the muses in you two.
We do consider no flower that is sweet,
[20] But we your breath in that exhaling meet,
And as true types of you, them humbly greet.
Here in our nightingales we hear you sing,
Who so do make the whole year through a spring,
And save us from the fear of autumn’s sting.
In anchors’ calm face we your smoothness see,
Your minds unmingled and as clear as she
That keeps untoucht her first virginity.
Did all St Edith nuns descend again
To honour Polesworth with their cloistered train,
[30] Compared with you each would confess some stain.
Or should we more bleed out our thoughts in ink
No paper (though it would be glad to drink
Those drops) could comprehend what we do think.
For t’were in us ambition to write
So, that because we two, you two unite,
Our letter should as you, be infinite.
Mad paper stay, and grudge not here to burn
With all those suns whom my brain did create;
At least lie hid with me till thou return
To rags again, which is thy native state.
What though thou have enough unworthiness
To come unto great place as others do,
That’s much (emboldens, pulls, thrusts I confess),
But ’tis not all; thou should’st be wicked too.
And that thou canst not learn, or not of me;
[10] Yet thou wilt go. Go, since thou goest to her
Who lacks but faults to be a prince, for she,
Truth, whom they dare not pardon, dares prefer.
But when thou com’st to that perplexing eye
Which equally claims love and reverence,
Thou wilt not long dispute it, thou wilt die;
And, having little now, have then no sense.
Yet when her warm redeeming hand, which is
A miracle, and made such to work more,
Doth touch thee (saple’s leaf), thou grow’st by this
[20] Her creature, glorified more than before.
Then, as a mother which delights to hear
Her early child misspeak half uttered words,
Or because majesty doth never fear
Ill or bold speech, she audience affords.
And then, cold speechless wretch, thou diest again,
And wisely; what discourse is left for thee?
For speech of ill, and her, thou must abstain,
And is there any good which is not she?
Yet may’st thou praise her servants, though not her,
[30] And wit, and virtue,’and honour her attend;
And since they’are but her clothes, thou shalt not err
If thou her shape and beauty’and grace commend.
Who knows thy destiny? When thou hast done,
Perchance her cabinet may harbour thee,
Whither all noble,’ambitious wits do run,
A nest almost as full of good as she.
When thou art there, if any whom we know
Were saved before, and did that heaven partake,
When she revolves his papers, mark what show
[40] Of favour, she, alone, to them doth make.
Mark, if to get them, she o’er skip the rest;
Mark, if she read them twice, or kiss the name;
Mark, if she do the same that they protest;
Mark, if she mark whether her woman came.
Mark, if slight things be’objected, and o’er blown;
Mark, if her oaths against him be not still
Reserved, and that she grieves she’s not her own,
And chides the doctrine that denies free will.
I bid thee not do this to be my spy,
[50] Nor to make myself her familiar;
But so much do I love her choice that I
Would fain love him that shall be loved of her.
Madame,
Reason is our soul’s left hand, faith her right,
By these we reach divinity, that’s you;
Their loves, who have the blessings of your light,
Grew from their reason, mine from fair faith grew.
But as, although a squint left-handedness
Be’ungracious, yet we cannot want that hand,
So would I, not to increase but to’express
My faith, as I believe, so understand.
Therefore I study you first in your saints,
[10] Those friends whom your election glorifies,
Then in your deeds, accesses, and restraints,
And what you read, and what yourself devise.
But soon the reasons why you’are loved by all
Grow infinite, and so pass reason’s reach,
Then back again to’implicit faith I fall,
And rest on what the catholic voice doth teach:
That you are good, and not one heretic
Denies it; if he did, yet you are so.
For rocks, which high-topped and deep-rooted stick,
[20] Waves wash, not undermine, nor overthrow.
In every thing there naturally grows
A balsamum to keep it fresh and new,
If’twere not injured by extrinsic blows;
Your birth and beauty are this balm in you.
But you of learning, and religion,
And virtue,’and such ingredients have made
A mithridate whose operation
Keeps off or cures what can be done or said.
Yet this is not your physic, but your food,
[30] A diet fit for you; for you are here
The first good angel, since the world’s frame stood,
That ever did in woman’s shape appear.
Since you are then God’s masterpiece, and so
His factor for our loves, do as you do,
Make your return home gracious, and bestow
This life on that; so make one life of two.
For so God help me,’I would not miss you there
For all the good which you can do me here.
Honour is so sublime perfection,
And so refined, that when God was alone
And creatureless at first, himself had none;
But as of the’elements, these which we tread
Produce all things with which we’are joyed or fed,
And those are barren both above our head;
So from low persons doth all honour flow;
Kings, whom they would have honoured, to us show,
And but direct our honour, not bestow.
[10] For when from herbs the pure part must be won
From gross, by stilling, this is better done
By despised dung, than by the fire or sun.
Care not then, Madame,’how low your praisers lie;
In labourers’ ballads oft more piety
God finds than in Te Deums’ melody.
And ordnance raised on towers so many mile
Send not their voice, nor last so long a while
As fires from th’earth’s low vaults in Sicil Isle.
Should I say I lived darker than were true,
[20] Your radiation can all clouds subdue,
But one, ’tis best light to contemplate you –
You, for whose body God made better clay,
Or took soul’s stuff such as shall late decay,
Or such as needs small change at the last day.
This, as an amber drop enwraps a bee,
Covering discovers your quick soul, that we
May in your through-shine front your heart’s thoughts see.
You teach (though we learn not) a thing unknown
To our late times, the use of specular stone,
[30] Through which all things within without were shown.
Of such were temples; so’and of such you are;
Being and seeming is your equal care,
And virtue’s whole sum is but know and dare.
But as our souls of growth and souls of sense
Have birthright of our reason’s soul, yet hence
They fly not from that, nor seek precedence.
Nature’s first lesson, so, discretion,
Must not grudge zeal a place, nor yet keep none,
Not banish itself, nor religion.
[40] Discretion is a wiseman’s soul, and so
Religion is a Christian’s, and you know
How these are one; her yea is not her no.
Nor may we hope to solder still and knit
These two, and dare to break them, nor must wit
Be colleague to religion, but be it.
In those poor types of God (round circles) so
Religion tips, the pieceless centres flow,
And are in all the lines which all ways go.
If either ever wrought in you alone
[50] Or principally, then religion
Wrought your ends, and your ways, discretion.
Go thither still, go the same way you went,
Who so would change, do covet or repent;
Neither can reach you, great and innocent.
Madame,
You have refined me, and to worthiest things
Virtue, art, beauty, fortune, now I see
Rareness or use, not nature, value brings;
And such, as they are circumstanced, they be.
Two ills can ne’er perplex us, sin to’excuse;
But of two good things, we may leave and choose.
Therefore at court, which is not virtue’s clime,
Where a transcendent height (as lowness me)
Makes her not be, or not show, all my rhyme
[10] Your virtues challenge which there rarest be;
For as dark texts need notes, there some must be
To usher virtue, and say, This is she.
So in the country’is beauty; to this place
You are the season (Madame), you the day,
’Tis but a grave of spices till your face
Exhale them, and a thick close bud display.
Widowed and reclused else, her sweets she’enshrines
As China when the sun at Brazil dines.
Out from your chariot morning breaks at night,
[20] And falsifies both computations so;
Since a new world doth rise here from your light,
We your new creatures, by new reck’nings go.
This shows that you from nature loathly stray,
That suffer not an artificial day.
In this you’have made the court the’antipodes,
And willed your delegate, the vulgar sun,
To do profane autumnal offices,
Whil’st here to you, we sacrificers run;
And whether priests or organs, you we’obey,
[30] We sound your influence, and your dictates say.
Yet to that deity which dwells in you,
Your virtuous soul, I now not sacrifice;
These are petitions and not hymns; they sue
But that I may survey the edifice.
In all religions as much care hath been
Of temples’ frames and beauty,’as rites within.
As all which go to Rome do not thereby
Esteem religions, and hold fast the best,
But serve discourse and curiosity,
[40] With that which doth religion but invest,
And shun th’entangling labyrinths of schools,
And make it wit to think the wiser fools;
So in this pilgrimage I would behold
You as you’are, virtue’s temple, not as she,
What walls of tender crystal her enfold,
What eyes, hands, bosom, her pure altars be;
And after this survey, oppose to all
Babblers of chapels, you th’Escuriall.
Yet not as consecrate, but merely’as fair;
[50] On these I cast a lay and country eye.
Of past and future stories which are rare,
I find you all record, all prophecy.
Purge but the book of fate that it admit
No sad nor guilty legends, you are it.
If good and lovely were not one, of both
You were the transcript and original,
The elements, the parent, and the growth,
And every piece of you is both their all,
So’entire are all your deeds and you that you
[60] Must do the same thing still; you cannot two.
But these (as nice, thin, school divinity
Serves heresy to further or repress)
Taste of poetic rage, or flattery,
And need not, where all hearts one truth profess;
Oft from new proofs and new phrase, new doubts grow,
As strange attire aliens the men we know.
Leaving then the busy praise and all appeal
To higher courts, sense’s decree is true,
The mine, the magazine, the commonweal,
[70] The story’of beauty’in Twicknam is, and you.
Who hath seen one, would both, as who had been
In paradise would seek the Cherubim.
T’have written then, when you writ, seemed to me
Worst of spiritual vices, simony,
And not t’have written then seems little less
Than worst of civil vices, thanklessness.
In this, my debt, I seemed loath to confess,
In that I seemed to shun beholdingness.
But ’tis not so; nothings, as I am, may
Pay all they have, and yet have all to pay.
Such borrow in their payments, and owe more,
[10] By having leave to write so, than before.
Yet since rich mines in barren grounds are shown,
May not I yield (not gold) but coal or stone?
Temples were not demolished though profane:
Here Peter Jove’s, there Paul hath Dian’s fane.
So whether my hymns you admit or choose,
In me you’have hallowed a pagan muse,
And denizened a stranger who, mistaught
By blamers of the times they marred, hath sought
Virtues in corners, which now bravely do
[20] Shine in the world’s best part, or all it, you.
I have been told that virtue’in courtiers’ hearts
Suffers an ostracism and departs.
Profit, ease, fitness, plenty, bid it go,
But whither, only, knowing you, I know;
Your (or you) virtue two vast uses serves,
It ransoms one sex, and one court preserves;
There’s nothing but your worth, which being true,
Is known to any other, not to you.
And you can never know it; to admit
[30] No knowledge of your worth is some of it.
But since to you, your praises discords be,
Stoop, others’ ills to meditate with me.
O! to confess we know not what we should
Is half excuse; we know not what we would.
Lightness depresseth us, emptiness fills,
We sweat and faint, yet still go down the hills;
As new philosophy arrests the sun,
And bids the passive earth about it run,
So we have dulled our mind, it hath no ends;
[40] Only the body’s busy and pretends;
As dead, low earth eclipses and controls
The quick, high moon, so doth the body, souls.
In none but us are such mixed engines found
As hands of double office: for the ground
We till with them, and them to heaven we raise;
Who prayer-less labours, or, without this, prays,
Doth but one half, that’s none; he which said, Plough
And look not back, to look up doth allow.
Good seed degenerates, and oft obeys
[50] The soil’s disease and into cockle strays.
Let the mind’s thoughts be but transplanted so
Into the body,’and bastardly they grow.
What hate can hurt our bodies like our love?
We, but no foreign tyrants, could remove
These not engraved but inborn dignities,
Caskets of souls, temples, and palaces,
For bodies shall from death redeemed be,
Souls but preserved, not naturally free;
As men to’our prisons, new souls to’us are sent,
[60] Which learn vice there and come in innocent.
First seeds of every creature are in us,
What ere the world hath bad or precious
Man’s body can produce; hence it hath been
That stones, worms, frogs, and snakes in man are seen;
But who e’er saw, though nature can work so,
That pearl, or gold, or corn in man did grow?
We’have added to the world Virginia,’and sent
Two new stars lately to the firmament;
Why grudge we us (not heaven) the dignity
[70] T’increase with ours, those fair souls’ company!
But I must end this letter, though it do
Stand on two truths, neither is true to you.
Virtue hath some perverseness, for she will
Neither believe her good, nor others ill.
Even in you, virtue’s best paradise,
Virtue hath some, but wise degrees of vice.
Too many virtues or too much of one
Begets in you unjust suspicion.
And ignorance of vice makes virtue less,
[80] Quenching compassion of our wretchedness.
But these are riddles; some aspersion
Of vice becomes well some complexion.
Statesmen purge vice with vice, and may corrode
The bad with bad, a spider with a toad,
For so ill thralls not them, but they tame ill
And make her do much good against her will;
But in your commonwealth, or world in you,
Vice hath no office or good work to do.
Take then no vicious purge, but be content
[90] With cordial virtue, your known nourishment.
This twilight of two years, not past nor next,
Some emblem is of me, or I of this,
Who meteor-like, of stuff and form perplexed,
Whose what and where in disputation is,
If I should call me anything, should miss.
I sum the years and me, and find me not
Debtor to th’old nor creditor to th’new,
That cannot say, My thanks I have forgot,
Nor trust I this with hopes, and yet scarce true,
[10] This bravery is since these times showed me you.
In recompense I would show future times
What you were, and teach them to’urge towards such.
Verse embalms virtue;’and tombs, or thrones of rhymes,
Preserve frail transitory fame as much
As spice doth bodies from corrupt air’s touch.
Mine are short-lived; the tincture of your name
Creates in them, but dissipates as fast
New spirits, for strong agents with the same
Force that doth warm and cherish us do waste;
[20] Kept hot with strong extracts, no bodies last.
So my verse, built of your just praise, might want
Reason and likelihood, the firmest base,
And made of miracle, now faith is scant,
Will vanish soon, and so possess no place,
And you, and it, too much grace might disgrace.
When all (as truth commands assent) confess
All truth of you, yet they will doubt how I,
One corn of one low anthill’s dust, and less,
Should name, know, or express a thing so high,
[30] And not an inch, measure infinity.
I cannot tell them, nor myself, nor you,
But leave, lest truth be’endangered by my praise,
And turn to God, who knows I think this true,
And useth oft, when such a heart mis-says,
To make it good, for such a praiser prays.
He will best teach you, how you should lay out
His stock of beauty, learning, favour, blood;
He will perplex security with doubt,
And clear those doubts; hide from you,’and show you good,
[40] And so increase your appetite and food;
He will teach you that good and bad have not
One latitude in cloisters and in court;
Indifference there the greatest space hath got;
Some pity’is not good there, some vain disport,
On this side, sin with that place may comport.
Yet he, as he bounds seas, will fix your hours,
Which pleasure and delight may not ingress,
And though what none else lost, be truliest yours,
He will make you, what you did not, possess,
[50] By using others, not vice, but weakness.
He will make you speak truths, and credibly,
And make you doubt that others do not so;
He will provide you keys and locks to spy
And ’scape spies, to good ends, and he will show
What you may not acknowledge, what not know.
For your own conscience, he gives innocence,
But for your fame, a discreet wariness,
And though to ’scape than to revenge offence
Be better, he shows both, and to repress
[60] Joy, when your state swells, sadness when ’tis less.
From need of tears he will defend your soul,
Or make a rebaptizing of one tear;
He cannot (that’s, he will not) dis-enrol
Your name; and when with active joy we hear
This private gospel, then ’tis our New Year.
Though I be dead and buried, yet I have
(Living in you) court enough in my grave,
As oft as there I think myself to be,
So many resurrections waken me.
That thankfulness your favours have begot
In me embalms me that I do not rot.
This season, as ’tis Easter, as ’tis spring,
Must both to growth and to confession bring
My thoughts disposed unto your influence, so
[10] These verses bud, so these confessions grow.
First I confess I have to others lent
Your stock and over prodigally spent
Your treasure, for since I had never known
Virtue or beauty but as they are grown
In you, I should not think or say they shine
(So as I have) in any other mine.
Next I confess this my confession,
For ’tis some fault thus much to touch upon
Your praise to you, where half rights seem too much,
[20] And make your mind’s sincere complexion blush.
Next I confess my’impenitence, for I
Can scarce repent my first fault, since thereby
Remote low spirits, which shall ne’er read you,
May in less lessons find enough to do
By studying copies, not originals,
You that are she, and you, that’s double she,
In her dead face, half of your self shall see.
She was the other part, for so they do,
Which build them friendships, become one of two;
So two that but themselves no third can fit,
Which were to be so, when they were not yet
Twins, though their birth Cusco and Musco take;
As diverse stars one constellation make,
Paired like two eyes, have equal motion, so
[10] Both but one means to see, one way to go.
Had you died first, a carcass she had been,
And we your rich tomb in her face had seen.
She like the soul is gone, and you here stay,
Not a live friend, but th’other half of clay,
And since you act that part, as men say, here
Lies such a prince, when but one part is there,
And do all honour, and devotion due
Unto the whole, so we all reverence you.
For such a friendship who would not adore
[20] In you, who are all what both were before,
Not all, as if some perished by this,
But so, as all in you contracted is.
As of this all, though many parts decay,
The pure which elemented them shall stay,
And though diffused and spread in infinite,
Shall recollect, and in one all unite;
So, madam, as her soul to heaven is fled,
Her flesh rests in the earth as in the bed.
Her virtues do, as to their proper sphere,
[30] Return to dwell with you, of whom they were;
As perfect motions are all circular,
So they to you, their sea, whence less streams are.
She was all spices, you all metals; so
In you two we did both rich Indies know,
And as no fire nor rust can spend or waste
One dram of gold, but what was first shall last,
Though it be forced in water, earth, salt, air,
Expansed in infinite, none will impair.
So to yourself you may additions take,
[40] But nothing can you less or changed make.
Seek not in seeking new to seem to doubt
That you can match her, or not be without,
But let some faithful book in her room be,
Yet but of Judith no such book as she.
Man is a lump where all beasts kneaded be,
Wisdom makes him an ark where all agree;
The fool, in whom these beasts do live at jar,
Is sport to others and a theatre,
Nor ’scapes he so, but is himself their prey;
All which was man in him is eat away,
And now his beasts on one another feed,
Yet couple’in anger, and new monsters breed;
How happy’is he which hath due place assigned
[10] To’his beasts, and disaforested his mind!
Impaled himself to keep them out, not in;
Can sow, and dares trust corn, where they have been;
Can use his horse, goat, wolf, and every beast,
And is not ass himself to all the rest.
Else man not only is the herd of swine,
But he’s those devils too which did incline
Them to a headlong rage, and made them worse,
For man can add weight to heaven’s heaviest curse.
As souls (they say) by our first touch take in
[20] The poisonous tincture of original sin,
So to the punishments which God doth fling,
Our apprehension contributes the sting.
To us, as to His chickens, He doth cast
Hemlock, and we as men, His hemlock taste.
We do infuse to what He meant for meat,
Corrosiveness, or intense cold or heat.
For, God no such specific poison hath
As kills we know not how; His fiercest wrath
Hath no antipathy, but may be good
[30] At least for physic, if not for our food.
Thus man, that might be’his pleasure, is his rod,
And is his devil, that might be his God.
Since then, our business is to rectify
Nature to what she was; we’are led awry
By them who man to us in little show;
Greater than due, no form we can bestow
On him; for man into himself can draw
All; all his faith can swallow,’or reason chaw.
All that is filled, and all that which doth fill,
[40] All the round world to man is but a pill,
In all it works not, but it is in all
Poisonous, or purgative, or cordial,
For knowledge kindles calentures in some,
And is to others icy opium.
As brave as true is that profession then
Which you do use to make, that you know man.
This makes it credible: you have dwelt upon
All worthy books, and now are such an one.
Actions are authors, and of those in you
[50] Your friends find every day a mart of new.
That unripe side of earth, that heavy clime
That gives us man up now, like Adam’s time
Before he ate; man’s shape, that would yet be
(Knew they not it, and feared beasts’ company)
So naked at this day, as though man there
From paradise so great a distance were,
As yet the news could not arrived be
Of Adam’s tasting the forbidden tree,
Deprived of that free state which they were in,
[10] And wanting the reward, yet bear the sin;
But, as from extreme heights who downward looks,
Sees men at children’s shapes, rivers at brooks,
And loseth younger forms, so to your eye
These (Madame), that without your distance lie,
Must either mist or nothing seem to be,
Who are at home but wit’s mere atomi.
But I, who can behold them move and stay,
Have found myself to you just their midway,
And now must pity them; for as they do
[20] Seem sick to me, just so must I to you,
Yet neither will I vex your eyes to see
A sighing ode, nor cross-armed elegy.
I come not to call pity from your heart,
Like some white-livered dotard that would part
Else from his slippery soul with a faint groan,
And faithfully (without you smiled) were gone.
I cannot feel the tempest of a frown,
I may be raised by love, but not thrown down.
Though I can pity those sigh twice a day,
[30] I hate that thing whispers itself away.
Yet since all love is fever, who to trees
Doth talk, doth yet in love’s cold ague freeze.
’Tis love, but with such fatal weakness made
That it destroys itself with its own shade.
Who first looked sad, grieved, pined, and showed his pain,
Was he that first taught women to disdain.
As all things were one nothing, dull and weak,
Until this raw disordered heap did break,
And several desires led parts away –
[40] Water declined with earth, the air did stay,
Fire rose, and each from other but untied,
Themselves unprisoned were and purified –
So was love first in vast confusion hid,
An unripe willingness which nothing did,
A thirst, an appetite which had no ease,
That found a want but knew not what would please.
What pretty innocence in those days moved?
Man ignorantly walked by her he loved;
Both sighed and interchanged a speaking eye,
[50] Both trembled and were sick, both knew not why.
That natural fearfulness that struck man dumb,
Might well (those times considered) man become.
As all discoverers whose first assay
Finds but the place, after, the nearest way,
So passion is to woman’s love, about,
Nay farther off, than when we first set out.
It is not love that sueth or doth contend;
Love either conquers, or but meets a friend.
Man’s better part consists of purer fire,
[60] And finds itself allowed ere it desire.
Love is wise here, keeps home, gives reason sway,
And journeys not till it find summer-way.
A weather-beaten lover but once known
Is sport for every girl to practise on.
Who strives through woman’s scorns, women to know,
Is lost, and seeks his shadow to outgo;
It must be sickness after one disdain,
Though he be called aloud to look again.
Let others sigh and grieve; one cunning slight
[70] Shall freeze my love to crystal in a night.
I can love first, and (if I win) love still,
And cannot be removed unless she will.
It is her fault if I unsure remain,
She only can untie, and bind again.
The honesties of love with ease I do,
But am no porter for a tedious woe.
But (Madame) I now think on you, and here
Where we are at our heights, you but appear;
We are but clouds, you rise from our noon-ray
[80] But a foul shadow, not your break of day.
You are at first hand all that’s fair and right,
And others’ good reflects but back your light.
You are a perfectness, so curious hit
That youngest flatteries do scandal it.
For what is more doth what you are restrain,
And though beyond, is down the hill again.
We’have no next way to you, we cross to it:
You are the straight line, thing praised, attribute,
Each good in you’s a light; so many’a shade
[90] You make, and in them are your motions made.
These are your pictures to the life. From far
We see you move, and here your zanies are,
So that no fountain good there is doth grow
In you, but our dim actions faintly show.
Then find I, if man’s noblest part be love,
Your purest lustre must that shadow move.
The soul with body is a heaven combined
With earth, and for man’s ease, but nearer joined.
Where thoughts the stars of soul we understand,
[100] We guess not their large natures but command.
And love in you that bounty is of light
That gives to all, and yet hath infinite.
Whose heat doth force us thither to intend,
But soul we find too earthly to ascend,
Till slow access hath made it wholly pure,
Able immortal clearness to endure.
Who dares aspire this journey with a stain
Hath weight will force him headlong back again.
No more can impure man retain and move
[110] In that pure region of a worthy love
Than earthly substance can unforced aspire,
And leave his nature to converse with fire;
Such may have eye and hand, may sigh, may speak,
But like swoll’n bubbles, when they’are high’st they break.
Though far-removed northern fleets scarce find
The sun’s comfort, others think him too kind.
There is an equal distance from her eye;
Men perish too far off, and burn too nigh.
But as air takes the sunbeam’s equal bright
[120] From the first rays to his last opposite,
So able men, blest with a virtuous love,
Remote or near, or howsoe’er they move,
Their virtue breaks all clouds that might annoy;
There is no emptiness, but all is joy.
He much profanes whom violent heats do move
To still his wandering rage of passion, love.
Love that imparts in everything delight,
Is feigned which only tempts man’s appetite.
Why love among the virtues is not known
[130] Is that love is them all contract in one.
Madame,
Man to God’s image, Eve to man’s, was made,
Nor find we that God breathed a soul in her;
Canons will not church functions you invade,
Nor laws to civil office you prefer.
Who vagrant transitory comets sees,
Wonders, because they’are rare; but a new star,
Whose motion with the firmament agrees,
Is miracle, for there no new things are;
In woman so perchance mild innocence
[10] A seldom comet is, but active good
A miracle, which reason ’scapes and sense;
For art and nature this in them withstood.
As such a star the Magi led to view
The manger-cradled infant, God below,
By virtue’s beams, by fame derived from you,
May apt souls – and the worst may – virtue know.
If the world’s age and death be argued well
By the sun’s fall, which now towards earth doth bend,
Then we might fear that virtue, since she fell
[20] So low as woman, should be near her end.
But she’s not stooped, but raised; exiled by men
She fled to heaven, that’s heavenly things, that’s you;
She was in all men thinly scattered then,
But now amassed, contracted in a few.
She gilded us, but you are gold, and she;
Us she informed, but transubstantiates you;
Soft dispositions which ductile be,
Elixir-like, she makes not clean, but new.
Though you a wife’s and mother’s name retain,
[30] ’Tis not as woman, for all are not so,
But virtue, having made you virtue,’is fain
T’adhere in these names, her and you to show,
Else, being alike pure, we should neither see,
As water being into air rarefied,
Neither appear, till in one cloud they be,
So, for our sakes you do low names abide;
Taught by great constellations, which being framed
Of the most stars, take low names, Crab and Bull,
When single planets by the gods are named,
[40] You covet not great names, of great things full.
So you, as woman, one doth comprehend,
And in the veil of kindred others see;
To some ye are revealed as in a friend,
And as a virtuous prince far off, to me.
To whom, because from you all virtues flow,
And ’tis not none to dare contemplate you,
I, which do so, as your true subject owe
Some tribute for that, so these lines are due.
If you can think these flatteries, they are,
[50] For then your judgement is below my praise,
If they were so, oft flatteries work as far
As counsels, and as far th’endeavour raise.
So my ill reaching you might there grow good,
But I remain a poisoned fountain still;
But not your beauty, virtue, knowledge, blood
Are more above all flattery, than my will.
And if I flatter any, ’tis not you
But my own judgement, who did long ago
Pronounce that all these praises should be true,
[60] And virtue should your beauty,’and birth outgrow.
Now that my prophecies are all fulfilled,
Rather than God should not be honoured too,
And all these gifts confessed, which he instilled,
Yourself were bound to say that which I do.
So I but your recorder am in this,
Or mouth, and speaker of the universe,
A ministerial notary, for ’tis
Not I, but you and fame, that make this verse;
I was your prophet in your younger days,
[70] And now your chaplain, God in you to praise.
Madame,
Here, where by all, all saints invoked are,
T’were too much schism to be singular,
And ’gainst a practice general to war;
Yet, turning to saints, should my’humility
To other saint, than you, directed be,
That were to make my schism heresy.
Nor would I be a convertite so cold
As not to tell it; if this be too bold,
Pardons are in this market cheaply sold.
[10] Where, because faith is in too low degree,
I thought it some apostleship in me,
To speak things which by faith alone I see:
That is, of you; who are a firmament
Of virtues, where no one is grown, nor spent;
They’are your materials, not your ornament.
Others, whom we call virtuous, are not so
In their whole substance, but their virtues grow
But in their humours, and at seasons show.
For when through tasteless flat humility,
[20] In dough-baked men, some harmlessness we see,
’Tis but his phlegm that’s virtuous, and not he.
So is the blood sometimes; who ever ran
To danger unimportuned, he was then
No better than a sanguine virtuous man.
So cloistral men who in pretence of fear,
All contributions to this life forbear,
Have virtue in melancholy, and only there.
Spiritual choleric critics, which in all
Religions, find faults, and forgive no fall,
[30] Have, through this zeal, virtue, but in their gall.
We’are thus but parcel-gilt; to gold we’are grown,
When virtue is our soul’s complexion;
Who knows his virtue’s name, or place, hath none.
Virtue is but aguish, when ’tis several;
By’occasion waked, and circumstantial;
True virtue is soul, always in all deeds all.
This virtue, thinking to give dignity
To your soul, found there no infirmity;
For your soul was as good virtue as she.
[40] She therefore wrought upon that part of you,
Which is scarce less than soul, as she could do,
And so hath made your beauty virtue too;
Hence comes it, that your beauty wounds not hearts
As others, with profane and sensual darts,
But, as an influence, virtuous thoughts imparts.
But if such friends, by the’honour of your sight
Grow capable of this so great a light,
As to partake your virtues, and their might,
What must I think that influence must do,
[50] Where it finds sympathy, and matter too,
Virtue, and beauty, of the same stuff, as you:
Which is, your noble worthy sister; she,
Of whom, if what in this my ecstasy
And revelation of you both, I see,
I should write here, as in short galleries
The master at the end large glasses ties,
So to present the room twice to our eyes,
So I should give this letter length, and say
That which I said of you, there is no way
[60] From either, but by th’other, not to stray.
May therefore this be’enough to testify
My true devotion, free from flattery.
He that believes himself, doth never lie.
To the Honourable lady the lady Carew.
Fair, great, and good, since seeing you, we see
What heaven can do, and what any earth can be.
Since now your beauty shines, now when the sun
Grown stale, is to so low a value run,
That his dishevelled beams and scattered fires
Serve but for ladies’ periwigs and ’tires
In lovers’ sonnets, you come to repair
God’s book of creatures, teaching what is fair.
Since now, when all is withered, shrunk, and dried,
[10] All virtues ebbed out to a dead low tide,
All the world’s frame being crumbled into sand,
Where every man thinks by himself to stand,
Integrity, friendship, and confidence
(Cements of greatness) being vapoured hence,
And narrow man being filled with little shares,
Court, city, church are all shops of small-wares,
All having blown to sparks their noble fire,
And drawn their sound gold-ingot into wire;
All trying by a love of littleness
[20] To make abridgements, and to draw to less
Even that nothing, which at first we were;
Since in these times, your greatness doth appear,
And that we learn by it, that man to get
Towards Him, that’s infinite, must first be great;
Since in an age so ill as none is fit
So much as to accuse, much less mend it,
(For who can judge or witness of those times
Where all alike are guilty of the crimes?)
Where he that would be good, is thought by all
[30] A monster, or at best fantastical;
Since now you durst be good, and that I do
Discern by daring to contemplate you,
That there may be degrees of fair, great, good,
Through your light, largeness, virtue understood;
If in this sacrifice of mine be shown
Any small spark of these, call it your own.
And if things like these have been said by me
Of others, call not that idolatry.
For had God made man first, and man had seen
[40] The third day’s fruits, and flowers, and various green,
He might have said the best that he could say
Of those fair creatures, which were made that day.
And when next day he had admired the birth
Of sun, moon, stars, fairer than late-praised earth,
He might have said the best that he could say,
And not be chid for praising yesterday.
So though some things are not together true,
As, that another is worthiest, and that you;
Yet, to say so, doth not condemn a man,
[50] If when he spoke them, they were both true then.
How fair a proof of this in our soul grows?
We first have souls of growth, and sense, and those,
When our last soul, our soul immortal, came,
Were swallowed into it and have no name.
Nor doth he injure those souls, which doth cast
The power and praise of both them, on the last.
No more do I wrong any; I adore
The same things now, which I adored before,
The subject changed, and measure; the same thing
[60] In a low constable and in the king
I reverence, his power to work on me;
So did I humbly reverence each degree
Of fair, great, good, but more, now I am come
From having found their walks, to find their home.
And as I owe my first soul’s thanks, that they
For my last soul did fit and mould my clay,
So am I debtor unto them, whose worth
Enabled me to profit, and take forth
This new great lesson, thus to study you,
[70] Which none, not reading others first, could do.
Nor lack I light to read this book, though I
In a dark cave, yea, in a grave do lie.
For as your fellow angels, so you do
Illustrate them who come to study you.
The first, whom we in histories do find
To have professed all arts, was one born blind.
He lacked those eyes beasts have as well as we,
Not those by which angels are seen and see.
So, though I’am born without those eyes to live,
[80] Which fortune, who hath none herself, doth give,
Which are fit means to see bright courts and you,
Yet may I see you thus, as now I do.
I shall by that, all goodness have discerned,
And though I burn my library, be learned.