Well died the world, that we might live to see
This world of wit, in his Anatomy:
No evil wants his good: so wilder heirs
Bedew their fathers’ tombs with forced tears,
Whose state requites their loss: whiles thus we gain,
Well may we walk in blacks, but not complain.
Yet, how can I consent the world is dead
While this muse lives? Which in his spirit’s stead
Seems to inform a world, and bids it be,
[10] In spite of loss, or frail mortality?
And thou the subject of this well-born thought,
Thrice noble maid, could’st not have found nor sought
A fitter time to yield to thy sad fate,
Than whiles this spirit lives; that can relate
Thy worth so well to our last nephew’s eyne,
That they shall wonder both at his and thine.
Admired match! Where strives in mutual grace
The cunning pencil, and the comely face.
A task, which thy fair goodness made too much
[20] For the bold pride of vulgar pens to touch;
Enough is us to praise them that praise thee,
And say that but enough those praises be,
Which had’st thou liv’d had hid their fearful head
From th’angry checkings of thy modest red.
Death bars reward and shame; when envy’s gone,
And gain, ’tis safe to give the dead their own.
As then the wise Egyptians wont to lay
More on their tomb than houses; these of clay,
But those of brass, or marble were; so we
[30] Give more unto thy ghost than unto thee.
Yet what we give to thee, thou gav’st to us,
And may’st but thank thy self, for being thus;
Yet what thou gav’st, and wert, O happy maid,
Thy grace professed all due, where ’tis repaid.
So these high songs that to thee suited been,
Serve but to sound thy maker’s praise in thine,
Which thy dear soul as sweetly sings to Him
Amid the choir of saints and seraphim,
As any angel’s tongue can sing of thee;
[40] The subjects differ, though the skill agree;
For as by infant-years men judge of age,
Thy early love, thy virtues, did presage
What an high part thou bear’st in those best songs
Whereto no burden, nor no end belongs.
Sing on, thou virgin soul, whose lossful gain
Thy love-sick parents have bewailed in vain;
Never may thy name be in our songs forgot
Till we shall sing thy ditty, and thy note.
The entry into the work.
When that rich soul which to her heaven is gone,
Whom all they celebrate, who know they have one
(For who is sure he hath a soul, unless
It see, and judge, and follow worthiness,
And by deeds praise it? He who doth not this,
May lodge an inmate soul, but ’tis not his),
When that queen ended here her progress time,
And, as to’her standing house, to heaven did climb,
Where, loath to make the saints attend her long,
[10] She’s now a part both of the choir and song,
This world in that great earthquake languished;
For in a common bath of tears it bled,
Which drew the strongest vital spirits out;
But succoured then with a perplexed doubt,
Whether the world did lose or gain in this
(Because since now no other way there is,
But goodness to see her, whom all would see,
All must endeavour to be good as she),
This great consumption to a fever turned,
[20] And so the world had fits; it joyed, it mourned.
And as men think that agues physic are,
And th’ague being spent, give over care,
So thou, sick world, mistak’st thyself to be
Well, when alas, thou’rt in a lethargy.
Her death did wound and tame thee then, and then
Thou might’st have better spared the sun or man;
That wound was deep, but ’tis more misery,
That thou hast lost thy sense and memory.
’Twas heavy then to hear thy voice of moan,
[30] But this is worse, that thou art speechless grown.
Thou hast forgot thy name thou hadst; thou wast
Nothing but she, and her thou hast o’erpast.
For as a child kept from the font until
A prince, expected long, come to fulfil
The cer’monies, thou unnamed hadst laid,
Had not her coming, thee her palace made;
Her name defined thee, gave thee form and frame,
And thou forget’st to celebrate thy name.
Some months she hath been dead (but being dead,
[40] Measures of times are all determined),
But long she’hath been away, long, long, yet none
Offers to tell us who it is that’s gone.
But as in states doubtful of future heirs,
When sickness without remedy impairs
The present prince, they’re loath it should be said,
The prince doth languish, or the prince is dead;
So mankind feeling now a general thaw,
A strong example gone equal to law,
The cement which did faithfully compact
[50] And glue all virtues, now resolved, and slacked,
Thought it some blasphemy to say she’was dead,
Or that our weakness was discovered
In that confession; therefore, spoke no more
Than tongues, the soul being gone, the loss deplore.
But though it be too late to succour thee,
Sick world, yea dead, yea putrified, since she,
Thy’intrinsic balm and thy preservative,
Can never be renewed, thou never live,
I (since no man can make thee live) will try
[60] What we may gain by thy anatomy.
Her death hath taught us dearly that thou art
Corrupt and mortal in thy purest part.
Let no man say, the world itself being dead,
’Tis labour lost to have discovered
The world’s infirmities, since there is none
Alive to study this dissection;
For there’s a kind of world remaining still,
What life the world hath still.
Though she which did inanimate and fill
The world be gone, yet in this last long night
[70] Her ghost doth walk: that is, a glimmering light,
A faint weak love of virtue and of good
Reflects from her on them which understood
Her worth. And though she have shut in all day,
The twilight of her memory doth stay,
Which, from the carcass of the old world free,
Creates a new world, and new creatures be
Produced. The matter and the stuff of this,
Her virtue, and the form, our practice is.
And though to be thus elemented, arm
[80] These creatures from home-born intrinsic harm
(For all assumed unto this dignity,
So many weedless paradises be,
Which of themselves produce no venomous sin,
Except some foreign serpent bring it in),
Yet, because outward storms the strongest break,
And strength itself by confidence grows weak,
This new world may be safer being told
The dangers and diseases of the old;
The sicknesses of the world.
For with due temper men do then forgo,
[90] Or covet things, when they their true worth know.
There is no health: physicians say that we,
Impossibility of health.
At best, enjoy but a neutrality.
And can there be worse sickness than to know
That we are never well, nor can be so?
We are born ruinous: poor mothers cry
That children come not right, nor orderly,
Except they headlong come, and fall upon
An ominous precipitation.
How witty’s ruin? How importunate
[100] Upon mankind? It laboured to frustrate
Even God’s purpose, and made woman, sent
For man’s relief, cause of his languishment.
They were to good ends, and they are so still,
But accessory, and principal in ill.
For that first marriage was our funeral:
One woman at one blow then killed us all,
And singly, one by one, they kill us now.
We do delightfully ourselves allow
To that consumption; and profusely blind,
[110] We kill ourselves to propagate our kind.
And yet we do not that, we are not men:
There is not now that mankind which was then
When as the sun and man did seem to strive
(Joint tenants of the world) who should survive
Shortness of life.
When stag, and raven, and the long-lived tree,
Compared with man, died in minority;
When, if a slow-paced star had stol’n away
From the observer’s marking, he might stay
Two or three hundred years to see’it again,
[120] And then make up his observation plain;
When, as the age was long, the size was great:
Man’s growth confessed, and recompensed the meat,
So spacious and large, that every soul
Did a fair kingdom and large realm control;
And when the very stature thus erect,
Did that soul a good way towards heaven direct.
Where is this mankind now? Who lives to age,
Fit to be made Methusalem his page?
Alas, we scarce live long enough to try
[130] Whether a new-made clock run right or lie.
Old grandsires talk of yesterday with sorrow,
And for our children we reserve tomorrow.
So short is life that every peasant strives
In a torn house, or field, to have three lives.
And as in lasting, so in length is man
Contracted to an inch, who was a span.
Smallness of stature.
For had a man at first in forests strayed,
Or shipwrecked in the sea, one would have laid
A wager that an elephant or whale
[140] That met him would not hastily assail
A thing so equal to him; now, alas,
The fairies and the pigmies well may pass
As credible; mankind decays so soon,
We’re scarce our fathers’ shadows cast at noon.
Only death adds to’our length, nor are we grown
In stature to be men, till we are none.
But this were light, did our less volume hold
All the old text; or had we changed to gold
Their silver; or disposed into less glass,
[150] Spirits of virtue, which then scattered was.
But ’tis not so: we’re not retired, but damped;
And as our bodies, so our minds are cramped:
’Tis shrinking, not close-weaving, that hath thus
In mind and body both be-dwarfed us.
We seem ambitious, God’s whole work to’undo;
Of nothing He made us, and we strive too
To bring ourselves to nothing back; and we
Do what we can to do’it so soon as He.
With new diseases on ourselves we war,
[160] And with new physic, a worse engine far.
Thus man, this world’s vice-emperor, in whom
All faculties, all graces are at home,
And if in other creatures they appear,
They’re but man’s ministers, and legates there,
To work on their rebellions, and reduce
Them to civility, and to man’s use.
This man, whom God did woo, and loath to’attend
Till man came up, did down to man descend,
This man, so great, that all that is, is His,
[170] O what a trifle and poor thing he is!
If man were anything, he’s nothing now;
Help, or at least some time to waste, allow
To’his other wants, yet when he did depart
With her whom we lament, he lost his heart.
She, of whom th’ancients seemed to prophesy
When they called virtues by the name of she;
She in whom virtue was so much refined
That for alloy unto so pure a mind
She took the weaker sex; she that could drive
[180] The poisonous tincture, and the stain of Eve,
Out of her thoughts and deeds, and purify
All by a true religious alchemy;
She, she is dead, she’s dead; when thou knowest this,
Thou know’st how poor a trifling thing man is.
And learn’st thus much by our anatomy:
The heart being perished, no part can be free.
And that except thou feed (not banquet) on
The supernatural food, religion,
Thy better growth grows withered and scant;
[190] Be more than man, or thou’rt less than an ant.
Then, as mankind, so is the world’s whole frame
Quite out of joint, almost created lame;
For, before God had made up all the rest,
Corruption entered and depraved the best;
It seized the angels, and then first of all
The world did in her cradle take a fall,
And turned her brains, and took a general maim,
Wronging each joint of th’universal frame.
The noblest part, man, felt it first; and then
[200] Both beasts and plants, cursed in the curse of man.
So did the world from the first hour decay,
Decay of nature in other parts.
The evening was beginning of the day,
And now the springs and summers which we see,
Like sons of women after fifty be.
And new philosophy calls all in doubt,
The element of fire is quite put out;
The sun is lost, and th’earth, and no man’s wit
Can well direct him where to look for it.
And freely men confess that this world’s spent,
[210] When in the planets and the firmament
They seek so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out again to his atomies.
’Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone;
All just supply and all relation,
Prince, subject, father, son, are things forgot,
For every man alone thinks he hath got
To be a phoenix, and that there can be
None of that kind, of which he is, but he.
This is the world’s condition now, and now
[220] She that should all parts to reunion bow,
She that had all magnetic force alone,
To draw and fasten sundered parts in one;
She whom wise nature had invented then
When she observed that every sort of men
Did in their voyage in this world’s sea stray,
And needed a new compass for their way;
She that was best, and first original
Of all fair copies, and the general
Steward to fate; she whose rich eyes and breast
[230] Gilt the West Indies and perfumed the East;
Whose having breathed in this world did bestow
Spice on those isles, and bade them still smell so,
And that rich Indie which doth gold inter
Is but as single money, coined from her;
She to whom this world must itself refer,
As suburbs, or the microcosm of her,
She, she is dead, she’s dead; when thou know’st this,
Thou know’st how lame a cripple this world is.
And learn’st thus much by our anatomy,
[240] That this world’s general sickness doth not lie
In any humour, or one certain part;
But, as thou saw’st it rotten at the heart,
Thou see’st a hectic fever hath got hold
Of the whole substance, not to be controlled;
And that thou hast but one way not to’admit
The world’s infection, to be none of it.
For the world’s subtlest immaterial parts
Feel this consuming wound and age’s darts.
[249] For the world’s beauty is decayed, or gone,
Beauty, that’s colour, and proportion.
Disformity of parts.
We think the heavens enjoy their spherical,
Their round proportion embracing all.
But yet their various and perplexed course,
Observed in diverse ages, doth enforce
Men to find out so many’eccentric parts,
Such diverse downright lines, such overthwarts,
As disproportion that pure form. It tears
The firmament in eight and forty shares,
And in those constellations there arise
[260] New stars, and old do vanish from our eyes,
As though heav’n suffered earthquakes, peace, or war,
When new towns rise, and old demolished are.
They have impaled within a zodiac
The free-born sun, and keep twelve signs awake
To watch his steps; the Goat and Crab control,
And fright him back, who else to either pole
(Did not these tropics fetter him) might run,
For his course is not round; nor can the sun
Perfect a circle, or maintain his way
[270] One inch direct; but where he rose today
He comes no more, but with a cozening line,
Steals by that point, and so is serpentine;
And seeming weary with his reeling thus,
He means to sleep, being now fallen nearer us.
So, of the stars which boast that they do run
In circle still, none ends where he begun.
All their proportion’s lame, it sinks, it swells.
For of meridians and parallels,
Man hath weaved out a net, and this net thrown
[280] Upon the heavens, and now they are his own.
Loath to go up the hill, or labour thus
To go to heaven, we make heaven come to us.
We spur, we rein the stars, and in their race
They’re diversely content to’obey our pace.
But keeps the earth her round proportion still?
Doth not a Tenerife, or higher hill,
Rise so high like a rock, that one might think
The floating moon would shipwreck there and sink?
Seas are so deep that whales, being struck today,
[290] Perchance tomorrow, scarce at middle way
Of their wished journey’s end, the bottom, die.
And men, to sound depths, so much line untie,
As one might justly think that there would rise
At end thereof one of the’antipodes;
If under all, a vault infernal be
(Which sure is spacious, except that we
Invent another torment, that there must
Millions into a strait hot room be thrust),
Then solidness and roundness have no place.
[300] Are these but warts and pockholes in the face
Of th’earth? Think so, but yet confess, in this
The world’s proportion disfigured is,
That those two legs whereon it doth rely,
Disorder in the world.
Reward and punishment, are bent awry.
And, O, it can no more be questioned
That beauty’s best, proportion, is dead,
Since even grief itself, which now alone
Is left us, is without proportion.
She by whose lines proportion should be
[310] Examined, measure of all symmetry,
Whom had that ancient seen, who thought souls made
Of harmony, he would at next have said
That harmony was she, and thence infer
That souls were but resultances from her,
And did from her into our bodies go,
As to our eyes the forms from objects flow;
She, who if those great doctors truly said
That th’ark to man’s proportions was made,
Had been a type for that, as that might be
[320] A type of her in this, that contrary
Both elements and passions lived at peace
In her, who caused all civil war to cease;
She, after whom, what form soe’er we see,
Is discord and rude incongruity;
She, she is dead, she’s dead; when thou know’st this,
Thou know’st how ugly a monster this world is;
And learn’st thus much by our anatomy,
That here is nothing to enamour thee,
And that, not only faults in inward parts,
[330] Corruptions in our brains, or in our hearts,
Poisoning the fountains, whence our actions spring,
Endanger us: but that if everything
Be not done fitly’and in proportion,
To satisfy wise and good lookers-on
(Since most men be such as most think they be),
They’re loathsome too, by this deformity.
For good, and well, must in our actions meet:
Wicked is not much worse than indiscreet.
But beauty’s other second element,
[340] Colour and lustre now is as near spent.
And had the world his just proportion,
Were it a ring still, yet the stone is gone.
As a compassionate turquoise which doth tell
By looking pale, the wearer is not well,
As gold falls sick being stung with mercury,
All the world’s parts of such complexion be.
When nature was most busy, the first week,
Swaddling the newborn earth, God seemed to like
That she should sport herself sometimes and play,
[350] To mingle and vary colours every day.
And then, as though she could not make enow,
Himself His various rainbow did allow.
Sight is the noblest sense of any one,
Yet sight hath only colour to feed on,
And colour is decayed: summer’s robe grows
Dusky, and like an oft-dyed garment shows.
Our blushing red, which used in cheeks to spread,
Is inward sunk, and only our souls are red.
Perchance the world might have recovered,
[360] If she whom we lament had not been dead;
But she, in whom all white, and red, and blue
(Beauty’s ingredients) voluntary grew
As in an unvexed paradise; from whom
Did all things verdure, and their lustre come;
Whose composition was miraculous,
Being all colour, all diaphanous
(For air, and fire but thick, gross bodies were,
And liveliest stones but drowsy and pale to her),
She, she is dead, she’s dead; when thou knowest this,
[370] Thou know’st how wan a ghost this our world is;
And learn’st thus much by our anatomy,
That it should more affright than pleasure thee.
And that, since all fair colour then did sink,
’Tis now but wicked vanity to think
To colour vicious deeds with good pretence,
Weakness in the want of correspondence of heaven and earth.
Or with bought colours to elude men’s sense.
Nor in ought more this world’s decay appears,
Than that her influence the heav’n forbears,
Or that the elements do not feel this,
[380] The father or the mother barren is.
The clouds conceive not rain, or do not pour
In the due birthtime down the balmy shower.
Th’air doth not motherly sit on the earth,
To hatch her seasons, and give all things birth.
Spring-times were common cradles, but are tombs;
And false conceptions fill the general wombs.
Th’air shows such meteors as none can see,
Not only what they mean, but what they be;
Earth such new worms, as would have troubled much
[390] Th’Egyptian mages to have made more such.
What artist now dares boast that he can bring
Heaven hither, or constellate anything,
So as the influence of those stars may be
Imprisoned in an herb, or charm, or tree,
And do by touch all which those stars could do?
The art is lost, and correspondence too.
For heav’n gives little, and the earth takes less,
And man least knows their trade and purposes.
If this commerce ’twixt heaven and earth were not
[400] Embarred, and all this traffic quite forgot,
She, for whose loss we have lamented thus,
Would work more fully’and pow’rfully on us.
Since herbs and roots by dying lose not all,
But they, yea ashes too, are medicinal,
Death could not quench her virtue so, but that
It would be (if not followed) wondered at,
And all the world would be one dying swan,
To sing her funeral praise, and vanish then.
But as some serpents poison hurteth not,
[410] Except it be from the live serpent shot,
So doth her virtue need her here to fit
That unto us, she working more than it.
But she, in whom to such maturity,
Virtue was grown, past growth, that it must die;
She from whose influence all impressions came,
But, by receivers’ impotencies, lame;
Who, though she could not transubstantiate
All states to gold, yet gilded every state,
So that some princes have some temperance,
[420] Some counsellors some purpose to advance
The common profit, and some people have
Some stay, no more than kings should give, to crave,
Some women have some taciturnity,
Some nunneries, some grains of chastity;
She that did thus much, and much more could do,
But that our age was iron, and rusty too,
She, she is dead, she’s dead; when thou knowest this,
Thou know’st how dry a cinder this world is.
And learn’st thus much by our anatomy,
[430] That ’tis in vain to dew or mollify
It with thy tears, or sweat, or blood: nothing
Is worth our travail, grief, or perishing,
But those rich joys which did possess her heart,
Of which she’s now partaker, and a part.
But as in cutting up a man that’s dead,
Conclusion.
The body will not last out to have read
On every part, and therefore men direct
Their speech to parts that are of most effect,
So the world’s carcass would not last if I
[440] Were punctual in this anatomy.
Nor smells it well to hearers if one tell
Them their disease, who fain would think they’re well.
Here therefore be the end: And, blessed maid,
Of whom is meant what ever hath been said,
Or shall be spoken well by any tongue,
Whose name refines coarse lines, and makes prose song,
Accept this tribute and his first year’s rent,
Who till his dark short taper’s end be spent,
As oft as thy feast sees this widowed earth,
[450] Will yearly celebrate thy second birth,
That is, thy death. For though the soul of man
Be got when man is made, ’tis born but then
When man doth die. Our body’s as the womb,
And as a midwife, death directs it home.
And you her creatures, whom she works upon
And have your last and best concoction
From her example and her virtue, if you
In reverence to her, do think it due
That no one should her praises thus rehearse,
[460] As matter fit for chronicle, not verse,
Vouchsafe to call to mind that God did make
A last and lasting’st piece, a song. He spake
To Moses to deliver unto all,
That song, because He knew they would let fall,
The law, the prophets, and the history,
But keep the song still in their memory.
Such an opinion (in due measure) made
Me this great office boldly to invade.
Nor could incomprehensibleness deter
[470] Me from thus trying to imprison her,
Which when I saw that a strict grave could do,
I saw not why verse might not do so too.
Verse hath a middle nature: heaven keeps souls,
The grave keeps bodies, verse the fame enrols.
’Tis lost, to trust a tomb with such a guest,
Or to confine her in a marble chest.
Alas, what’s marble, jet, or porphyry,
Prized with the chrysolite of either eye,
Or with those pearls and rubies which she was?
Join the two Indies in one tomb, ’tis glass,
And so is all to her materials,
Though every inch were ten escurials.
Yet she’s demolished. Can we keep her then
[10] In works of hands, or of the wits of men?
Can these memorials, rags of paper, give
Life to that name, by which name they must live?
Sickly, alas, short-lived, aborted be
Those carcass verses, whose soul is not she.
And can she, who no longer would be she,
Being such a tabernacle, stoop to be
In paper wrapped, or when she would not lie
In such a house, dwell in an elegy?
But ’tis no matter; we may well allow
[20] Verse to live so long as the world will now,
For her death wounded it. The world contains
Princes for arms, and counsellors for brains,
Lawyers for tongues, divines for hearts, and more:
The rich for stomachs, and for backs the poor,
The officers for hands, merchants for feet
By which remote and distant countries meet.
But those fine spirits, which do tune and set
This organ, are those pieces which beget
Wonder and love, and these were she. And she
[30] Being spent, the world must needs decrepit be.
For, since death will proceed to triumph still,
He can find nothing after her to kill
Except the world itself, so great as she.
Thus brave and confident may nature be;
Death cannot give her such another blow,
Because she cannot such another show.
But must we say she’s dead? May’t not be said
That, as a sundered clock is piecemeal laid,
Not to be lost, but by the maker’s hand
[40] Repolished, without error then to stand,
Or as the Afric Niger stream enwombs
Itself into the earth, and after comes
(Having first made a natural bridge to pass
For many leagues) far greater than it was,
May’t not be said that her grave shall restore
Her, greater, purer, firmer, than before?
Heaven may say this and joy in’t, but can we,
Who live and lack her, here this vantage see?
What is’t to us, alas, if there have been
[50] An angel made a throne or cherubim?
We lose by’t. And as aged men are glad,
Being tasteless grown, to joy in joys they had,
So now the sick starved world must feed upon
This joy that we had her who now is gone.
Rejoice then, nature, and this world, that you,
Fearing the last fires hast’ning to subdue
Your force and vigour ere it were near gone,
Wisely bestowed and laid it all on one,
One, whose clear body was so pure and thin,
[60] Because it need disguise no thought within.
’Twas but a through-light scarf her mind to’enrol,
Or exhalation breathed out from her soul.
One, whom all men who durst no more, admired,
And whom, who ere had worth enough, desired,
As, when a temple’s built, saints emulate
To which of them it shall be consecrate.
But, as when heaven looks on us with new eyes,
Those new stars ev’ry artist exercise,
What place they should assign to them they doubt,
[70] Argue, and agree not, till those stars go out,
So the world studied whose this piece should be
Till she can be nobody’s else, nor she.
But like a lamp of balsamum, desired
Rather to’adorn than last, she soon expired,
Clothed in her virgin white integrity,
For marriage, though it do not stain, doth dye.
To ’scape th’infirmities which wait upon
Woman, she went away before she’was one;
And the world’s busy noise to overcome,
[80] Took so much death as served for opium.
For though she could not, nor could choose to die,
She’hath yielded to too long an ecstasy.
He, which not knowing her sad history
Should come to read the book of destiny,
How fair and chaste, humble and high, she’had been,
Much promised, much performed, at not fifteen,
And measuring future things by things before,
Should turn the leaf to read, and read no more,
Would think that either destiny mistook
[90] Or that some leaves were torn out of the book.
But ’tis not so. Fate did but usher her
To years of reason’s use, and then infer
Her destiny to herself, which liberty
She took, but for thus much, thus much to die.
Her modesty not suffering her to be
Fellow-commissioner with destiny,
She did no more but die. If after her
Any shall live which dare true good prefer,
Every such person is her delegate
[100] To’accomplish that which should have been her fate.
They shall make up that book, and shall have thanks
Of fate and her, for filling up their blanks,
For future virtuous deeds are legacies,
Which, from the gift of her example rise.
And ’tis in heaven, part of spiritual mirth
To see how well the good play her on earth.
Two souls move here, and mine (a third) must move
Paces of admiration and of love.
Thy soul (dear virgin) whose this tribute is,
Moved from this mortal sphere to lively bliss,
And yet moves still, and still aspires to see
The world’s last day, thy glories’ full degree;
Like as those stars which thou o’erlookest far
Are in their place, and yet still moved are,
No soul (whiles with the luggage of this clay
[10] It clogged is) can follow thee half way,
Or see thy flight, which doth our thoughts outgo
So fast, that now the lightning moves but slow.
But now thou art as high in heaven flown
As heav’n’s from us; what soul besides thine own
Can tell thy joys, or say he can relate
Thy glorious journals in that blessed state?
I envy thee (rich soul), I envy thee,
Although I cannot yet thy glory see.
And thou (great spirit) which hers followed hast
[20] So fast, as none can follow thine so fast,
So far, as none can follow thine so far
(And if this flesh did not the passage bar
Had’st reached her), let me wonder at thy flight,
Which long agone had’st lost the vulgar sight
And now mak’st proud the better eyes, that they
Can see thee less’ned in thine airy way;
So while thou mak’st her soul’s high progress known,
Thou mak’st a noble progress of thine own,
From this world’s carcass having mounted high
[30] To that pure life of immortality,
Since thine aspiring thoughts themselves so raise
That more may not beseem a creature’s praise.
Yet still thou vow’st her more, and every year
Mak’st a new progress while thou wand’rest here.
Still upwards mount, and let thy maker’s praise
Honour thy Laura, and adorn thy lays.
And since thy muse her head in heaven shrouds,
O, let her never stoop below the clouds.
And if those glorious sainted souls may know
[40] Or what we do, or what we sing below,
Those acts, those songs shall still content them best
Which praise those awful powers that make them blest.
Nothing could make me sooner to confess
The entrance.
That this world had an everlastingness,
Than to consider that a year is run,
Since both this lower world’s and the sun’s sun,
The lustre and the vigour of this all
Did set; ’twere blasphemy to say, did fall.
But as a ship, which hath struck sail doth run,
By force of that force which before it won,
Or as sometimes in a beheaded man,
[10] Though at those two red seas, which freely ran,
One from the trunk, another from the head,
His soul be sailed to her eternal bed,
His eyes will twinkle, and his tongue will roll,
As though he beckoned and called back his soul,
He grasps his hands, and he pulls up his feet,
And seems to reach, and to step forth to meet
His soul. When all these motions which we saw
Are but as ice, which crackles at a thaw,
Or as a lute, which in moist weather rings
[20] Her knell alone by cracking of her strings,
So struggles this dead world, now she is gone,
For there is motion in corruption.
As some days are at the creation named,
Before the sun, the which framed days, was framed,
So after this sun’s set, some show appears,
And orderly vicissitude of years.
Yet a new deluge, and of Lethe flood,
Hath drowned us all, all have forgot all good,
Forgetting her, the main reserve of all.
[30] Yet in this deluge, gross and general,
Thou see’st me strive for life; my life shall be
To be hereafter praised for praising thee,
Immortal maid, who though thou would’st refuse
The name of mother, be unto my muse
A father, since her chaste ambition is
Yearly to bring forth such a child as this.
These hymns may work on future wits, and so
May great grandchildren of thy praises grow.
And so, though not revive, embalm and spice
[40] The world, which else would putrify with vice.
For thus, man may extend thy progeny,
Until man do but vanish and not die.
These hymns thy issue may increase so long,
As till God’s great Venite change the song.
Thirst for that time, O my insatiate soul,
A just disestimation of this world.
And serve thy thirst with God’s safe-sealing bowl.
Be thirsty still, and drink still till thou go
To th’only health, to be hydropic so.
Forget this rotten world; and unto thee
[50] Let thine own times as an old story be.
Be not concerned. Study not why nor when;
Do not so much as not believe a man.
For though to err be worst, to try truths forth,
Is far more business than this world is worth.
The world is but a carcass; thou art fed
By it, but as a worm, that carcass bred.
And why should’st thou, poor worm, consider more
When this world will grow better than before,
Than those thy fellow worms do think upon
[60] That carcass’s last resurrection.
Forget this world, and scarce think of it so,
As of old clothes, cast off a year ago.
To be thus stupid is alacrity;
Men thus lethargic have best memory.
Look upward; that’s towards her, whose happy state
We now lament not but congratulate.
She, to whom all this world was but a stage,
Where all sat hark’ning how her youthful age
Should be employed, because in all she did,
[70] Some figure of the golden times was hid.
Who could not lack, whate’er this world could give,
Because she was the form that made it live;
Nor could complain that this world was unfit
To be stayed in, then when she was in it.
She that first tried indifferent desires
By virtue, and virtue by religious fires,
She to whose person paradise adhered,
As courts to princes; she whose eyes ensphered
Starlight enough to’have made the South control
[80] (Had she been there) the star-full Northern pole.
She, she is gone; she’is gone; when thou knowest this,
What fragmentary rubbish this world is
Thou knowest, and that it is not worth a thought;
He honours it too much that thinks it nought.
Think then, my soul, that death is but a groom,
Contemplation of our state in our deathbed.
Which brings a taper to the outward room,
Whence thou spiest first a little glimmering light,
And after brings it nearer to thy sight,
For such approaches doth heaven make in death.
[90] Think thyself labouring now with broken breath,
And think those broken and soft notes to be
Division, and thy happiest harmony.
Think thee laid on thy deathbed, loose and slack,
And think that but unbinding of a pack,
To take one precious thing, thy soul, from thence.
Think thyself parched with fever’s violence;
Anger thine ague more by calling it
Thy physic; chide the slackness of the fit.
Think that thou hear’st thy knell, and think no more,
[100] But that, as bells called thee to church before,
So this, to the triumphant church, calls thee.
Think Satan’s sergeants round about thee be,
And think that but for legacies they thrust;
Give one thy pride, to’another give thy lust;
Give them those sins, which they gave thee before,
And trust th’immaculate blood to wash thy score.
Think thy friends weeping round, and think that they
Weep but because they go not yet thy way.
Think that they close thine eyes, and think in this,
[110] That they confess much in the world, amiss,
Who dare not trust a dead man’s eye with that,
Which they from God, and angels cover not.
Think that they shroud thee up, and think from thence
They reinvest thee in white innocence.
Think that thy body rots, and (if so low,
Thy soul exalted so, thy thoughts can go)
Think thee a prince, who of themselves create
Worms which insensibly devour their state.
Think that they bury thee, and think that rite
[120] Lays thee to sleep but a Saint Lucy’s night.
Think these things cheerfully, and if thou be
Drowsy or slack, remember then that she,
She whose complexion was so even made,
That which of her ingredients should invade
The other three, no fear, no art could guess,
So far were all removed from more or less.
But as in mithridate, or just perfumes,
Where all good things being met, no one presumes
To govern, or to triumph on the rest,
[130] Only because all were, no part was best.
And as, though all do know, that quantities
Are made of lines, and lines from points arise,
None can these lines or quantities unjoint
And say this is a line, or this a point.
So though the elements and humours were
In her, one could not say, this governs there,
Whose even constitution might have won
Any disease to venture on the sun,
Rather than her, and make a spirit fear,
[140] That he to disuniting subject were.
To whose proportions if we would compare
Cubes th’are unstable: circles, angular;
She who was such a chain as fate employs
To bring mankind, all fortunes it enjoys,
So fast, so even wrought, as one would think
No accident could threaten any link.
She, she embraced a sickness, gave it meat,
The purest blood and breath that e’er it eat,
And hath taught us that though a good man hath
[150] Title to heaven, and plead it by his faith,
And though he may pretend a conquest, since
Heaven was content to suffer violence,
Yea though he plead a long possession too
(For they’are in heaven on earth, who heaven’s works do),
Though he had right and power and place before,
Yet death must usher and unlock the door.
Think further on thyself, my soul, and think
Incommodities of the soul in the body.
How thou at first wast made but in a sink.
Think that it argued some infirmity,
[160] That those two souls, which then thou found’st in me,
Thou fed’st upon, and drew’st into thee both:
My second soul of sense, and first of growth.
Think but how poor thou wast, how obnoxious,
Whom a small lump of flesh could poison thus.
This curded milk, this poor unlittered whelp
My body could, beyond escape or help,
Infect thee with original sin, and thou
Could’st neither then refuse, nor leave it now.
Think that no stubborn sullen anchorite,
[170] Which fixed to a pillar, or a grave doth sit
Bedded and bathed in all his ordures, dwells
So foully as our souls in’their first built cells.
Think in how poor a prison thou did’st lie
After, enabled but to suck and cry.
Think, when ’twas grown to most, ’twas a poor inn,
A province packed up in two yards of skin,
And that usurped, or threatened with a rage
Of sicknesses, or their true mother, age.
But think that death hath now enfranchised thee,
Her liberty by death.
Thou hast thy’expansion now and liberty.
[181] Think that a rusty piece, discharged, is flown
In pieces, and the bullet is his own,
And freely flies; this to thy soul allow,
Think thy shell broke, think thy soul hatched but now.
And think this slow-paced soul, which late did cleave
To’a body,’and went but by the body’s leave,
Twenty, perchance, or thirty mile a day,
Dispatches in a minute all the way
’Twixt heaven and earth. She stays not in the air
[190] To look what meteors there themselves prepare.
She carries no desire to know, nor sense,
Whether th’air’s middle region be intense,
For th’element of fire, she doth not know,
Whether she passed by such a place or no.
She baits not at the moon, nor cares to try
Whether in that new world men live and die.
Venus retards her not, to’enquire how she
Can (being one star) Hesper and Vesper be.
He that charmed Argus’ eyes, sweet Mercury,
[200] Works not on her, who now is grown all eye;
Who, if she meet the body of the sun,
Goes through, not staying till his course be run;
Who finds in Mars his camp, no corps of guard,
Nor is by Jove, nor by his father barred,
But ere she can consider how she went,
At once is at, and through the firmament.
And as these stars were but so many beads
Strung on one string, speed undistinguished leads
Her through those spheres, as through the beads, a string,
[210] Whose quick succession makes it still one thing,
As doth the pith, which, lest our body’s slack,
Strings fast the little bones of neck and back;
So by the soul doth death string heaven and earth,
For when our soul enjoys this, her third birth
(Creation gave her one, a second, grace),
Heaven is as near and present to her face
As colours are, and objects in a room
Where darkness was before, when tapers come.
This must, my soul, thy long-short progress be,
[220] To’advance these thoughts; remember then that she,
She, whose fair body no such prison was,
But that a soul might well be pleased to pass
An age in her; she whose rich beauty lent
Mint age to others’ beauties, for they went
But for so much, as they were like to her;
She, in whose body (if we dare prefer
This low world to so high a mark as she),
The western treasure, eastern spicery,
Europe, and Afric, and the unknown rest
[230] Were easily found, or what in them was best.
And when we’have made this large discovery
Of all in her some one part then will be
Twenty such parts, whose plenty’and riches is
Enough to make twenty such worlds as this.
She, whom had they known, who did first betroth
The tutelar angels, and assigned one, both
To nations, cities, and to companies,
To functions, offices, and dignities,
And to each several man, to him, and him,
[240] They would have given her one for every limb.
She, of whose soul, if we may say, ’twas gold,
Her body was th’electrum, and did hold
Many degrees of that. We understood
Her by her sight; her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,
That one might almost say her body thought.
She, she, thus richly and largely housed, is gone,
And chides us slow-paced snails, who crawl upon
Our prison’s prison, earth, nor think us well
[250] Longer than whil’st we bear our brittle shell.
But ’twere but little to have changed our room,
Her ignorance in this life and knowledge in the next.
If, as we were in this our living tomb
Oppressed with ignorance, we still were so.
Poor soul, in this thy flesh what dost thou know?
Thou know’st thyself so little, as thou know’st not
How thou didst die, nor how thou wast begot.
Thou neither know’st how thou at first cam’st in,
Nor how thou took’st the poison of man’s sin.
Nor dost thou (though thou know’st, that thou art so)
[260] By what way thou art made immortal, know.
Thou art too narrow, wretch, to comprehend
Even thyself, yea though thou would’st but bend
To know thy body. Have not all souls thought
For many ages that our body’s wrought
Of air, and fire, and other elements?
And now they think of new ingredients.
And one soul thinks one, and another way
Another thinks, and ’tis an even lay.
Know’st thou but how the stone doth enter in
[270] The bladder’s cave and never break the skin?
Know’st thou how blood, which to the heart doth flow,
Doth from one ventricle to th’other go?
And for the putrid stuff, which thou dost spit,
Know’st thou how thy lungs have attracted it?
There are no passages, so that there is
(For ought thou know’st) piercing of substances.
And of those many opinions which men raise
Of nails and hairs, dost thou know which to praise?
What hope have we to know ourselves when we
[280] Know not the least things, which for our use be?
We see in authors, too stiff to recant,
A hundred controversies of an ant.
And yet one watches, starves, freezes, and sweats,
To know but catechisms and alphabets
Of unconcerning things, matters of fact,
How others on our stage their parts did act,
What Caesar did, yea, and what Cicero said.
Why grass is green, or why our blood is red,
Are mysteries which none have reached unto.
[290] In this low form, poor soul, what wilt thou do?
When wilt thou shake off this pedantry
Of being taught by sense, and fantasy?
Thou look’st through spectacles; small things seem great
Below, but up unto the watchtower get,
And see all things despoiled of fallacies.
Thou shalt not peep through lattices of eyes,
Nor hear through labyrinths of ears, nor learn
By circuit or collections to discern.
In heaven thou straight know’st all, concerning it,
[300] And what concerns it not shalt straight forget.
There thou (but in no other school) may’st be
Perchance, as learned, and as full, as she,
She who all libraries had thoroughly read
At home in her own thoughts, and practised
So much good as would make as many more;
She whose example they must all implore,
Who would or do, or think well, and confess
That aye the virtuous actions they express
Are but a new and worse edition
[310] Of her some one thought or one action;
She, who in th’art of knowing heaven, was grown
Here upon earth to such perfection,
That she hath, ever since to heaven she came
(In a far fairer print) but read the same;
She, she not satisfied with all this weight
(For so much knowledge, as would over-freight
Another, did but ballast her) is gone
As well to’enjoy, as get perfection,
And calls us after her, in that she took
[320] (Taking herself) our best and worthiest book.
Return not, my soul, from this ecstasy
Of our company in this life and the next.
And meditation of what thou shalt be,
To earthly thoughts, till it to thee appear,
With whom thy conversation must be there.
With whom wilt thou converse? What station
Canst thou choose out, free from infection,
That will nor give thee theirs, nor drink in thine?
Shalt thou not find a spongy slack divine,
Drink and suck in th’instructions of great men,
[330] And for the word of God, vent them again?
Are there not some courts (and then, no things be
So like as courts) which, in this let us see
That wits and tongues of libellers are weak,
Because they do more ill than these can speak?
The poison’is gone through all; poisons affect
Chiefly the chiefest parts, but some effect
In nails and hairs, yea excrements, will show;
So will the poison of sin in the most low.
Up, up, my drowsy soul, where thy new ear
[340] Shall in the angels’ songs no discord hear,
Where thou shalt see the blessed mother-maid
Joy in not being that, which men have said.
Where she’is exalted more for being good,
Than for her interest of motherhood.
Up to those patriarchs, which did longer sit
Expecting Christ than they’have enjoyed him yet.
Up to those prophets, which now gladly see
Their prophecies grown to be history.
Up to th’apostles, who did bravely run
[350] All the sun’s course with more light than the sun.
Up to those martyrs, who did calmly bleed
Oil to th’apostles lamps, dew to their seed.
Up to those virgins, who thought that almost
They made joint-tenants with the Holy Ghost,
If they to any should His temple give.
Up, up, for in that squadron there doth live
She, who hath carried thither new degrees
(As to their number) to their dignities.
She, who being to herself a state, enjoyed
[360] All royalties which any state employed,
For she made wars and triumphed; reason still
Did not o’erthrow, but rectify her will;
And she made peace, for no peace is like this,
That beauty’and chastity together kiss.
She did high justice, for she crucified
Every first motion of rebellious pride;
And she gave pardons and was liberal,
For, only’herself except, she pardoned all;
She coined, in this, that her impression gave
[370] To all our actions all the worth they have.
She gave protections; the thoughts of her breast
Satan’s rude officers could ne’er arrest.
As these prerogatives being met in one,
Made her a sovereign state; religion
Made her a church, and these two made her all.
She who was all this all, and could not fall
To worse by company (for she was still
More antidote, than all the world was ill);
She, she doth leave it, and by death survive
[380] All this in heaven; whither who doth not strive
The more, because she’is there, he doth not know
That accidental joys in heaven do grow.
But pause, my soul, and study ere thou fall
On accidental joys, th’essential.
Of essential joy in this life and the next.
Still before accessories do abide
A trial, must the principal be tried.
And what essential joy canst thou expect
Here upon earth? What permanent effect
Of transitory causes? Dost thou love
[390] Beauty? (And beauty worthiest is to move.)
Poor cozened coz’ner, that she, and that thou,
Which did begin to love, are neither now.
You are both fluid, changed since yesterday;
Next day repairs (but ill) last day’s decay.
Nor are (although the river keep the name)
Yesterday’s waters and today’s the same.
So flows her face and thine eyes, neither now
That saint, nor pilgrim, which your loving vow
Concerned, remains; but whil’st you think you be
[400] Constant, you’are hourly in inconstancy.
Honour may have pretence unto our love,
Because that God did live so long above
Without this honour, and then loved it so,
That He at last made creatures to bestow
Honour on Him, not that He needed it,
But that, to His hands, man might grow more fit.
But since all honours from inferiors flow
(For they do give it; princes do but show
Whom they would have so honoured), and that this
[410] On such opinions and capacities
Is built, as rise and fall, to more and less,
Alas, ’tis but a casual happiness.
Hath ever any man to’himself assigned
This or that happiness to’arrest his mind,
But that another man which takes a worse,
Thinks him a fool for having ta’en that course?
They who did labour Babel’s tower to’erect
Might have considered, that for that effect,
All this whole solid earth could not allow
[420] Nor furnish forth materials enow,
And that this centre, to raise such a place
Was far too little, to have been the base;
No more affords this world, foundation
To’erect true joy, were all the means in one.
But as the heathen made them several gods,
Of all God’s benefits and all His rods,
(For as the wine, and corn, and onions are
Gods unto them, so agues be, and war);
And as by changing that whole precious gold
[430] To such small copper coins, they lost the old,
And lost their only God, who ever must
Be sought alone, and not in such a thrust.
So much mankind true happiness mistakes;
No joy enjoys that man, that many makes.
Then, soul, to thy first pitch work up again;
Know that all lines which circles do contain,
For once that they the centre touch, do touch
Twice the circumference, and be thou such.
Double on heaven thy thoughts on earth employed;
[440] All will not serve; only who have enjoyed
The sight of God in fullness can think it,
For it is both the object and the wit.
This is essential joy, where neither He
Can suffer diminution nor we;
’Tis such a full and such a filling good,
Had th’angels once look’d on Him, they had stood.
To fill the place of one of them, or more,
She whom we celebrate is gone before.
She, who had here so much essential joy,
[450] As no chance could distract, much less destroy;
Who with God’s presence was acquainted so
(Hearing, and speaking to Him) as to know
His face in any natural stone or tree,
Better than when in images they be;
Who kept by diligent devotion,
God’s image in such reparation
Within her heart, that what decay was grown
Was her first parents’ fault, and not her own;
Who being solicited to any act,
[460] Still heard God pleading His safe pre-contract;
Who by a faithful confidence was here
Betrothed to God, and now is married there;
Whose twilights were more clear than our midday,
Who dreamt devoutlier than most use to pray;
Who being here filled with grace, yet strove to be,
Both where more grace and more capacity
At once is given: she to heaven is gone,
Who made this world in some proportion
A heaven, and here, became unto us all,
[470] Joy (as our joys admit) essential.
But could this low world joys essential touch,
Heaven’s accidental joys would pass them much.
Of accidental joys in both places.
How poor and lame must then our casual be?
If thy prince will his subjects to call thee
My Lord, and this do swell thee, thou art then,
By being a greater, grown to be less man.
When no physician of redress can speak,
A joyful casual violence may break
A dangerous apostem in thy breast,
[480] And whil’st thou joy’st in this, the dangerous rest,
The bag may rise up, and so strangle thee.
Whate’er was casual may ever be.
What should the nature change? Or make the same
Certain, which was but casual, when it came?
All casual joy doth loud and plainly say,
Only by coming, that it can away.
Only in heaven joy’s strength is never spent,
And accidental things are permanent.
Joy of a soul’s arrival ne’er decays,
[490] For that soul ever joys and ever stays.
Joy that their last great consummation
Approaches in the resurrection,
When earthly bodies more celestial
Shall be than angels were, for they could fall;
This kind of joy doth every day admit
Degrees of growth, but none of losing it.
In this fresh joy, ’tis no small part that she,
She, in whose goodness, he that names degree
Doth injure her (’Tis loss to be called best,
[500] There where the stuff is not such as the rest);
She, who left such a body’as even she
Only in heaven could learn how it can be
Made better; for she rather was two souls,
Or like to full on both sides written rolls,
Where eyes might read upon the outward skin
As strong records for God, as minds within.
She, who by making full perfection grow,
Pieces a circle, and still keeps it so,
Longed for, and longing for’it, to heaven is gone,
[510] Where she receives and gives addition.
Here in a place, where mis-devotion frames
Conclusion.
A thousand prayers to saints, whose very names
The ancient church knew not, heaven knows not yet,
And where what laws of poetry admit,
Laws of religion have at least the same,
Immortal maid, I might invoke thy name.
Could any saint provoke that appetite,
Thou here should’st make me a French convertite.
But thou would’st not, nor would’st thou be content
[520] To take this, for my second year’s true rent.
Did this coin bear any other stamp than His,
That gave thee power to do, me, to say this.
Since His will is, that to posterity
Thou should’st for life, and death, a pattern be,
And that the world should notice have of this,
The purpose, and th’authority is His.
Thou art the proclamation, and I am
The trumpet, at whose voice the people came.
Finis.
Sorrow, who to this house scarce knew the way
Is, O, heir of it, our all is his prey.
This strange chance claims strange wonder, and to us
Nothing can be so strange, as to weep thus.
’Tis well his life’s loud speaking works deserve,
And give praise too; our cold tongues could not serve.
’Tis well, he kept tears from our eyes before,
That to fit this deep ill we might have store.
O, if a sweet briar climb up by a tree,
[10] If to a paradise that transplanted be
Or felled and burnt for holy sacrifice,
Yet, that must wither, which by it did rise,
As we, for him dead. Though no family
E’er rigged a soul for heaven’s discovery
With whom more venturers more boldly dare
Venture their states, with him in joy to share.
We lose what all friends loved, him; he gains now
But life by death, which worst foes would allow,
If he could have foes, in whose practice grew
[20] All virtues, whose names subtle schoolmen knew,
What ease can hope, that we shall see’him, beget,
When we must die first, and cannot die yet?
His children are his pictures. O, they be
Pictures of him dead, senseless, cold as he.
Here needs no marble tomb since he is gone;
He, and about him, his, are turned to stone.
Man is the world, and death the ocean
To which God gives the lower parts of man.
This sea environs all, and though as yet
God hath set marks and bounds ’twixt us and it,
Yet doth it roar, and gnaw, and still pretend,
And breaks our bank when ere it takes a friend.
Then our land waters (tears of passion) vent;
Our waters then above our firmament
(Tears which our soul doth for her sins let fall)
[10] Take all a brackish taste and funeral,
And even those tears, which should wash sin, are sin.
We, after God’s Noah, drown the world again.
Nothing but man, of all envenomed things,
Doth work upon itself with inborn stings.
Tears are false spectacles; we cannot see
Through passion’s mist what we are, or what she.
In her, this sea of death hath made no breach,
But as the tide doth wash the slimy beach,
And leaves embroidered works upon the sand,
[20] So is her flesh refined by death’s cold hand.
As men of China after an age’s stay
Do take up porcelain where they buried clay,
So at this grave, her limbeck, which refines
The diamonds, rubies, sapphires, pearls, and mines
Of which this flesh was; her soul shall inspire
Flesh of such stuff, as God, when His last fire
Annuls this world to recompense it, shall
Make and name then the elixir of this all.
They say, when the sea gains, it loseth too;
[30] If carnal death (the younger brother) do
Usurp the body,’our soul, which subject is
To th’elder death by sin, is freed by this;
They perish both when they attempt the just,
For graves our trophies are, and both death’s dust.
So, unobnoxious now, she’hath buried both,
For none to death sins, that to sin is loath.
Nor do they die, which are not loath to die,
So hath she this, and that virginity.
Grace was in her extremely diligent,
[40] That kept her from sin, yet made her repent.
Of what small spots pure white complains? Alas,
How little poison breaks a crystal glass?
She sinned but just enough to let us see
That God’s word must be true: all sinners be.
So much did zeal her conscience rarefy
That extreme truth lacked little of a lie,
Making omissions acts, laying the touch
Of sin on things that sometimes may be such.
As Moses cherubim, whose natures do
[50] Surpass all speed, by him are winged too,
So would her soul already’in heaven seem then
To climb by tears the common stairs of men.
How fit she was for God, I am content
To speak, that death his vain haste may repent.
How fit for us, how even, and how sweet,
How good in all her titles, and how meet
To have reformed this forward heresy
That women can no parts of friendship be;
How moral, how divine shall not be told,
[60] Lest they that hear her virtues think her old,
And lest we take death’s part, and make him glad
Of such a prey, and to his triumph add.
Death I recant, and say unsaid by me
What ere hath slipped that might diminish thee.
Spiritual treason, atheism ’tis to say
That any can thy summons disobey.
Th’earth’s face is but thy table, and the meat
Plants, cattle, men – dishes for Death to eat.
In a rude hunger now he millions draws
Into his bloody, or plaguy, or starved jaws.
Now he will seem to spare, and doth more waste,
[10] Eating the best fruit, well preserved to last.
Now wantonly he spoils and eats us not,
But breaks off friends, and lets us piecemeal rot.
Nor will this earth serve him; he sinks the deep,
Where harmless fish monastic silence keep,
Who (were Death dead) by rows of living sand,
Might sponge that element, and make it land.
He rounds the air and breaks the hymnic notes
In birds’, heaven’s choristers’, organic throats,
Which (if they did not die) might seem to be
[20] A tenth rank in the heavenly hierarchy.
O strong and long-lived death, how cam’st thou in?
And how without creation didst begin?
Thou hast and shalt see dead before thou dyest
All the four monarchies, and Antichrist.
How could I think thee nothing, that see now
In all this all, nothing else is but thou.
Our births and life, vices and virtues, be
Wasteful consumptions, and degrees of thee,
For we, to live, our bellows wear and breath,
[30] Nor are we mortal, dying, dead, but death,
And though thou beest, O mighty bird of prey,
So much reclaimed by God that thou must lay
All that thou kill’st at His feet, yet doth He
Reserve but few, and leaves the most to thee.
And of those few, now thou hast overthrown
One, whom thy blow makes not ours, nor thine own.
She was more stories high; hopeless to come
To her soul, thou’hast offered at her lower room.
Her soul and body was a king and court,
[40] But thou hast both of captain missed, and fort.
As houses fall not, though the king remove,
Bodies of saints rest for their souls above.
Death gets ’twixt souls and bodies such a place,
As sin insinuates ’twixt just men and grace;
Both work a separation, no divorce.
Her soul is gone to usher up her corpse,
Which shall be’almost another soul, for there
Bodies are purer than best souls are here.
Because in her, her virtues did outgo
[50] Her years, would’st thou, O emulous Death, do so,
And kill her young to thy loss? Must the cost
Of beauty’and wit, apt to do harm, be lost?
What though thou found’st her proof ’gainst sins of youth?
O, every age a diverse sin pursueth.
Thou shouldst have stayed, and taken better hold.
Shortly ambitious, covetous, when old,
She might have proved, and such devotion
Might once have strayed to superstition.
If all her virtues must have grown, yet might
[60] Abundant virtue’have bred a proud delight.
Had she persevered just, there would have grown
Some that would sin, mis-thinking she did sin,
Such as would call her friendship, love, and fain
To sociableness a name profane,
Or sin by tempting, or not daring that,
By wishing, though they never told her what.
Thus mightst thou’have slain more souls, hadst thou not crossed
Thyself, and to triumph, thine army lost.
Yet though these ways be lost, thou hast left one,
[70] Which is immoderate grief that she is gone.
But we may ’scape that sin, yet weep as much;
Our tears are due because we are not such.
Some tears that knot of friends, her death must cost,
Because the chain is broke, but no link lost.
Language, thou art too narrow and too weak
To ease us now; great sorrow cannot speak.
If we could sigh out accents and weep words,
Grief wears and lessens, that tears’ breath affords.
Sad hearts, the less they seem, the more they are
(So guiltiest men stand mutest at the bar),
Not that they know not, feel not their estate,
But extreme sense hath made them desperate.
Sorrow, to whom we owe all that we be,
[10] Tyrant, in the fifth and greatest monarchy,
Was’t that she did possess all hearts before,
Thou hast killed her, to make thy empire more?
Knew’st thou some would, that knew her not lament,
As in a deluge perish th’innocent?
Was’t not enough to have that palace won,
But thou must raze it, too, that was undone?
Had’st thou stayed there, and looked out at her eyes,
All had adored thee that now from thee flies,
For they let out more light than they took in;
[20] They told not when, but did the day begin.
She was too saphirine and clear for thee;
Clay, flint, and jet now thy fit dwellings be.
Alas, she was too pure, but not too weak;
Who e’er saw crystal ordinance, but would break?
And if we be thy conquest, by her fall
Thou’hast lost thy end, for in her perish all;
Or if we live, we live but to rebel;
They know her better now that knew her well.
If we should vapour out, and pine, and die,
[30] Since she first went, that were not misery.
She changed our world with hers; now she is gone,
Mirth and prosperity is oppression.
For of all moral virtues she was all,
The ethics speak of virtues cardinal.
Her soul was paradise; the cherubim
Set to keep it was grace, that kept out sin;
She had no more than let in death, for we
All reap consumption from one fruitful tree.
God took her hence, lest some of us should love
[40] Her, like that plant, Him and His laws above,
And when we tears, He mercy shed in this,
To raise our minds to heaven, where now she is,
Who, if her virtues would have let her stay,
We’had had a saint, have now a holiday.
Her heart was that strange bush, where sacred fire,
Religion, did not consume, but inspire
Such piety, so chaste use of God’s day
That what we turn to feast, she turned to pray,
And did prefigure here in devout taste,
[50] The rest of her high sabbath, which shall last.
Angels did hand her up, who next God dwell
(For she was of that order whence most fell),
Her body left with us, lest some had said
She could not die, except they saw her dead.
For from less virtue and less beauteousness,
The gentiles framed them gods and goddesses.
The ravenous earth, that now woos her to be
Earth too, will be a Lemnia; and the tree
That wraps that crystal in a wooden tomb
[60] Shall be took up spruce, filled with diamond;
And we her sad glad friends all bear a part
Of grief, for all would waste a stoic’s heart.
Look to me, faith, and look to my faith, God,
For both my centres feel this period.
Of weight, one centre, one of greatness is;
And reason is that centre, faith is this.
For into’our reason flow, and there do end,
All that this natural world doth comprehend;
Quotidian things, and equidistant hence,
Shut in for men in one circumference.
But, for th’enormous greatnesses, which are
[10] So disproportioned and so angular
As is God’s essence, place, and providence,
Where, how, when, what, souls do departed hence –
These things (eccentric else) on faith do strike;
Yet, neither all, nor upon all, alike,
For reason, put t’her best extension,
Almost meets faith, and makes both centres one.
And nothing ever came so near to this
As contemplation of the prince we miss.
For, all that faith could credit, mankind could,
[20] Reason still seconded that this prince would.
If then, least movings of the centre make
(More than if whole hell belched) the world to shake,
What must this do, centres distracted so,
That we see not what to believe or know?
Was it not well believed, till now, that he,
Whose reputation was an ecstasy,
On neighbour states, which knew not why to wake
Till he discovered what ways he would take;
For whom what princes angled (when they tried)
[30] Met a torpedo and were stupefied;
And others’ studies, how he would be bent,
Was his great father’s greatest instrument,
And activist spirit to convey and tie
This soul of peace, through Christianity?
Was it not well believed, that he would make
This general peace th’eternal overtake?
And that his times might have stretched out so far
As to touch those of which they emblems are?
For to confirm this just belief, that now
[40] The last days came, we saw heaven did allow
That but from his aspect and exercise,
In peaceful times, rumours of wars should rise.
But now this faith is heresy: we must
Still stay, and vex our great-grandmother, dust.
O! Is God prodigal? Hath He spent His store
Of plagues on us? And only now, when more
Would ease us much, doth He grudge misery,
And will not let’s enjoy our curse, to die?
As, for the earth thrown lowest down of all,
[50] ’Twere an ambition to desire to fall,
So God, in our desire to die, doth know
Our plot for ease, in being wretched so.
Therefore we live, though such a life we have
As but so many mandrakes on his grave.
What had his growth and generation done?
When what we are, his putrefaction
Sustains in us, earth, which griefs animate;
Nor hath our world now other soul than that.
And could grief get so high as heaven, that choir,
[60] Forgetting this, their new joy would desire
(With grief to see him) he had stayed below
To rectify our errors they foreknow.
Is th’other centre, reason, faster, then?
Where should we look for that, now we’are not men?
For, if our reason be our connection
With causes, now to us there can be none.
For as, if all the substances were spent,
’Twere madness to enquire of accident,
So is’t to look for reason, he being gone,
[70] The only subject reason wrought upon.
If faith have such a chain, whose diverse links
Industrious man discerneth, as he thinks
When miracle doth join; and to steal in
A new link man knows not where to begin;
At a much deader fault must reason be,
Death having broke off such a link as he.
But now, for us, with busy proofs to come
That w’have no reason, would prove we had some;
So would just lamentations. Therefore, we
[80] May safelier say, that we are dead, than he.
So, if our griefs we do not well declare,
W’have double excuse: he is not dead, we are.
Yet, would not I die yet, for though I be
Too narrow to think him, as he is he
(Our soul’s best baiting and mid-period
In her long journey of considering God),
Yet (no dishonour) I can reach him thus:
As he embraced the fires of love with us.
Oh, may I (since I live) but see or hear
[90] That she-intelligence which moved this sphere,
I pardon fate my life. Whoe’er thou be
Which hast the noble conscience, thou art she.
I conjure thee by all the charms he spoke,
By th’oaths which only you two never broke,
By all the souls you sighed, that if you see
These lines, you wish I knew your history.
So, much as you two mutual heavens were here,
I were an angel singing what you were.
To the Countess of Bedford
Madam
I have learned by those laws wherein I am a little conversant, that he which bestows any cost upon the dead, obliges him which is dead, but not the heir; I do not therefore send this paper to your Ladyship that you should thank me for it, or think that I thank you in it; your favours and benefits to me are so much above my merits, that they are even above my gratitude, if that were to be judged by words which must express it: But, Madam, since your noble brother’s fortune being yours, the evidences also concerning it are yours. So his virtue being yours, the evidences [10] concerning it belong also to you, of which by your acceptance this may be one piece, in which quality I humbly present it, and as a testimony how entirely your family possesseth
Your Ladyship’s most humble and thankful servant
JOHN DONNE
Fair soul, which wast not only’as all souls be
Then when thou wast infused, harmony,
But didst continue so, and now dost bear
A part in God’s great organ, this whole sphere.
If looking up to God or down to us,
Thou find that any way is pervious
’Twixt heav’n and earth, and that men’s actions do
Come to your knowledge and affections too,
See, and with joy, me to that good degree
[10] Of goodness grown, that I can study thee,
And, by these meditations refined,
Can unapparel and enlarge my mind,
And so can make by this soft ecstasy
This place a map of heav’n, myself of thee.
Thou see’st me here at midnight. Now all rest;
Time’s dead low water, when all minds divest
Tomorrow’s business; when the labourers have
Such rest in bed, that their last churchyard grave,
Subject to change, will scarce be’a type of this;
[20] Now when the client, whose last hearing is
Tomorrow, sleeps; when the condemned man
(Who, when he opes his eyes, must shut them then
Again by death), although sad watch he keep,
Doth practise dying by a little sleep,
Thou at this midnight see’st me, and as soon
As that sun rises to me, midnight’s noon,
All the world grows transparent, and I see
Through all, both church and state, in seeing thee;
And I discern, by favour of this light,
[30] Myself, the hardest object of the sight.
God is the glass; as thou, when thou dost see
Him who sees all, see’st all concerning thee,
So, yet unglorified, I comprehend
All, in these mirrors of thy ways and end.
Though God be truly our glass through which we see
All, since the being of all things is He,
Yet are the trunks, which do to us derive
Things, in proportion fit by perspective,
Deeds of good men. For, by their being here,
[40] Virtues, indeed remote, seem to be near.
But where can I affirm, or where arrest
My thoughts on his deeds? Which shall I call best?
For fluid virtue cannot be looked on,
Nor can endure a contemplation.
As bodies change, and as I do not wear
Those spirits, humours, blood, I did last year;
And, as if on a stream I fix mine eye,
That drop, which I looked on, is presently
Pushed with more waters from my sight, and gone,
[50] So in this sea of virtues can no one
Be’insisted on; virtues, as rivers, pass,
Yet still remains that virtuous man there was,
And as if man feeds on man’s flesh, and so
Part of his body to another owe,
Yet at the last two perfect bodies rise
Because God knows where every atom lies,
So, if one knowledge were made of all those
Who knew his minutes well, he might dispose
His virtues into names and ranks; but I
[60] Should injure nature, virtue, and destiny,
Should I divide and discontinue so
Virtue, which did in one entireness grow.
For as he that should say spirits are framed
Of all the purest parts that can be named,
Honours not spirits half so much as he
Who says they have no parts, but simple be;
So is’t of virtue, for a point and one
Are much entirer than a million.
And had fate meant to have his virtues told,
[70] It would have let him live to have been old;
So then, that virtue’in season, and then this
We might have seen and said, that now he is
Witty, now wise, now temperate, now just,
In good short lives, virtues are fain to thrust,
And to be sure betimes to get a place
When they would exercise, lack time and space.
So was it in this person, forced to be
For lack of time his own epitome;
So to exhibit in few years as much
[80] As all the long breathed chronicles can touch.
As when an angel down from heav’n doth fly,
Our quick thought cannot keep him company;
We cannot think, now he is at the sun,
Now through the moon, now he through th’air doth run;
Yet, when he’s come, we know he did repair
To all ’twixt heav’n and earth, sun, moon, and air.
And as this angel in an instant knows,
And yet we know, this sudden knowledge grows
By quick amassing several forms of things
[90] Which he successively to order brings;
When they, whose slow-paced, lame thoughts cannot go
So fast as he, think that he doth not so;
Just as a perfect reader doth not dwell
On every syllable, nor stay to spell,
Yet without doubt he doth distinctly see
And lay together every A and B,
So, in short-lived, good men is’not understood
Each several virtue but the compound good,
For they all virtues’ paths in that pace tread,
[100] As angels go and know, and as men read.
O, why should then these men, these lumps of balm
Sent hither this world’s tempest to becalm,
Before by deeds they are diffused and spread,
And so make us alive, themselves be dead?
O soul, O circle, why so quickly be
Thy ends, thy birth, thy death, closed up in thee?
Since one foot of thy compass still was placed
In heav’n, the other might securely’have paced
In the most large extent, through every path,
[110] Which the whole world, or man, the abridgement hath.
Thou know’st that, though the tropic circles have
(Yea, and those small ones which the poles engrave)
All the same roundness, evenness, and all
The endlessness of th’equinoctial,
Yet, when we come to measure distances,
How here, how there, the sun affected is
When he doth faintly work, and when prevail,
Only great circles, then, can be our scale.
So, though thy circle to thyself express
[120] All, tending to thy endless happiness,
And we, by our good use of it, may try
Both how to live well young and how to die,
Yet, since we must be old, and age endures
His torrid zone at court, and calentures
Of hot ambitions, irrelegion’s ice,
Zeal’s agues, and hydroptic avarice,
Infirmities, which need the scale of truth
As well as lust and ignorance of youth,
Why didst thou not for these give medicines too,
[130] And by thy doing tell us what to do?
Though, as small pocket-clocks whose every wheel
Doth each mis-motion and distemper feel,
Whose hands get shaking palsies, and whose string
(His sinews) slackens, and whose soul, the spring,
Expires or languishes, whose pulse, the fly,
Either beats not, or beats unevenly,
Whose voice, the bell, doth rattle, or grow dumb
Or idle’as men, which to their last hours come,
If these clocks be not wound, or be wound still,
[140] Or be not set, or set at every will,
So, youth is easiest to destruction
If then we follow all, or follow none.
Yet, as in great clocks which in steeples chime,
Placed to inform whole towns to’employ their time,
An error doth more harm being general,
When small clocks’ faults only’on the wearer fall.
So work the faults of age, on which the eye
Of children, servants, or the state rely.
Why would’st not thou, then, which hadst such a soul,
[150] A clock so true as might the sun control,
And daily hadst from Him, who gave it thee
Instructions, such as it could never be
Disordered, stay here as a general
And great sundial to have set us all?
O, why would’st thou be any instrument
To this unnatural course? Or why consent
To this, not miracle, but prodigy,
That where the ebbs longer than flowings be,
Virtue, whose flood did with thy youth begin,
[160] Should so much faster ebb out than flow in?
Though her flood was blown in by thy first breath,
All is at once sunk in the whirlpool death,
Which word I would not name, but that I see
Death, else a desert, grown a court by thee.
Now I am sure that if a man would have
Good company, his entry is a grave.
Methinks all cities now but anthills be,
Where, when the several labourers I see
For children, house, provision, taking pain,
[170] They’are all but ants, carrying eggs, straw, and grain;
And churchyards are our cities, unto which
The most repair that are in goodness rich.
There is the best concourse and confluence,
There are the holy suburbs, and from thence
Begins God’s city, New Jerusalem,
Which doth extend her utmost gates to them.
At that gate then, triumphant soul, dost thou
Begin thy triumph. But since laws allow
That at the triumph day the people may,
[180] All that they will ’gainst the triumpher say,
Let me here use that freedom, and express
My grief, though not to make thy triumph less.
By law, to triumphs none admitted be
Till they as magistrates get victory,
Though then, to thy force, all youths’ foes did yield,
Yet till fit time had brought thee to that field,
To which thy rank in this state destined thee,
That there thy councils might get victory,
And so, in that capacity remove
[190] All jealousies ’twixt prince and subjects’ love,
Thou could’st no title to this triumph have;
Thou didst intrude on death, usurp’st a grave.
Then (though victoriously) thou hadst fought as yet
But with thine own affections, with the heat
Of youth’s desires and colds of ignorance;
But till thou should successfully advance
Thine armes ’gainst foreign enemies, which are
Both envy and acclamations popular
(For both these engines equally defeat,
[200] Though by a diverse mine, those which are great),
Till then thy war was but a civil war,
For which, to triumph, none admitted are.
No more are they who (though with good success)
In a defensive war their power express.
Before men triumph, the dominion
Must be enlarged, and not preserved alone;
Why should’st thou then, whose battles were to win
Thyself from those straits nature put thee in,
And to deliver up to God that state
[210] Of which he gave thee the vicariate,
(Which is thy soul and body) as entire
As he, who takes endeavours, doth require,
But didst not stay, t’enlarge his kingdom too,
By making others, what thou didst, to do;
Why should’st thou triumph now, when heav’n no more
Hath got, by getting thee, than’it had before?
For, heav’n and thou, even when thou livedst here,
Of one another in possession were.
But this from triumph most disables thee
[220] That that place which is conquered must be
Left safe from present war, and likely doubt
Of imminent commotions to break out.
And hath he left us so? Or can it be
His territory was no more than he?
No, we are all his charge; the diocese
Of ev’ry exemplar man, the whole world is,
And he was joined in commission
With tutelar angels sent to every one.
But though this freedom, to upbraid and chide
[230] Him who triumphed, were lawful, it was tied
With this, that it might never reference have
Unto the senate, who this triumph gave.
Men might at Pompey jest, but they might not
At that authority by which he got
Leave to triumph before by age he might;
So, though triumphant soul, I dare to write,
Moved with a reverential anger, thus,
That thou so early would’st abandon us,
Yet I am far from daring to dispute
[240] With that great sovereignty, whose absolute
Prerogative hath thus dispensed with thee,
’Gainst nature’s laws, which just impugners be
Of early triumphs. And I (though with pain)
Lessen our loss to magnify thy gain
Of triumph when I say, it was more fit
That all men should lack thee, than thou lack it.
Though then in our time, be not suffered
That testimony of love unto the dead,
To die with them, and in their graves be hid,
[250] As Saxon wives and French soldiery did;
And though in no degree I can express
Grief in great Alexander’s great excess,
Who, at his friend’s death, made whole towns divest
Their walls and bulwarks, which became them best,
Do not, fair soul, this sacrifice refuse,
That in thy grave I do inter my muse,
Who, by my grief, great as thy worth, being cast
Behind hand, yet hath spoke, and spoke her last.
Sir,
I presume you rather try what you can do in me, than what I can do in verse; you knew my uttermost when it was best, and even then I did best when I had least truth for my subject. In this present case there is so much truth as it defeats all poetry. Call, therefore, this paper by what name you will, and, if it be not worthy of him, nor of you, nor of me, smother it, and be that the sacrifice. If you had commanded me to have waited on his body to Scotland, and preached there, I would have embraced your obligation with much alacrity. But, I thank you that you would [10] command me that which I was loather to do, for, even that hath given a tincture of merit to the obedience of
Your poor friend and servant in Christ Jesus,
J. D.
Whether that soul which now comes up to you
Fill any former rank, or make a new,
Whether it take a name named there before,
Or be a name itself, and order more
Than was in heaven till now (for may not he
Be so, if every several angel be
A kind alone); whatever order grow
Greater by him in heaven, we do not so.
One of your orders grows by his access,
[10] But by his loss grow all our orders less.
The name of father, master, friend, the name
Of subject and of prince in one is lame.
Fair mirth is damped and conversation black,
The household widowed, and the garter slack.
The chapel wants an ear, council a tongue,
Story a theme, and music lacks a song.
Blest order that hath him, the loss of him
Gangreened all orders here; all lose a limb.
Never made body such haste to confess
[20] What a soul was. All former comeliness
Fled in a minute when the soul was gone,
And, having lost that beauty, would have none.
So fell our monasteries, in one instant grown
Not to less houses, but to heaps of stone.
So sent this body that fair form it wore
Unto the sphere of forms, and doth (before
His body fill up his sepulchral stone)
Anticipate a resurrection.
For, as in his fame, now his soul is here,
[30] So in the form thereof, his body’s there.
And if (fair soul) not with first innocents
Thy station be, but with the penitents
(And who shall dare to ask then, when I am
Dy’d scarlet in the blood of that pure lamb,
Whether that colour, which is scarlet then,
Were black or white before in th’eyes of men?),
When thou rememb’rest what sins thou didst find
Amongst those many friends now left behind,
And see’st such sinners as they are, with thee
[40] (Got thither by repentance), let it be
Thy wish to wish all there, to wish them clean,
Wish him a David, her a Magdalene.
Madame,
That I might make your cabinet my tomb,
And for my fame, which I love next my soul,
Next to my soul provide the happiest room,
Admit to that place this last funeral scroll.
Others by wills give legacies, but I,
Dying, of you do beg a legacy.
My fortune and my choice this custom break,
When we are speechless grown, to make stones speak,
Though no stone tell thee what I was, yet thou
[10] In my grave’s inside see’st what thou art now:
Yet thou’art not yet so good; till death us lay
To ripe and mellow here, we’are stubborn clay.
Parents make us earth, and souls dignify
Us to be glass; here to grow gold we lie;
Whil’st in our souls, sin bred and pampered is,
Our souls become worm-eaten carcasses,
So we ourselves miraculously destroy.
Here bodies with less miracle enjoy
Such privileges, enabled here to scale
[20] Heaven, when the trumpet’s air shall them exhale.
Hear this, and mend thyself, and thou mend’st me,
By making me being dead, do good to thee,
And think me well composed, that I could now
A last-sick hour to syllables allow.
ANNÆ
Fæminæ lectissimæ, dilectissimæque;
Coniugi charissimæ, castissimæque;
Matri piissimæ, Indulgentissimæque;
Xv annis in coniugio transactis,
Vii post xiim partum (quorum vii superstant) dies
[10] Immani febre correptæ,
(Quod hoc saxum farj iussit
Ipse, præ dolore Infans)
Maritus (miserrimum dictu) olim charæ charus
Cineribus cineres spondet suos
Nouo matrimonio (annuat Deus) hoc loco sociandos
Iohannes Donne
Sacr: Theolog: Profess:
A° xxxiii° Ætat: suæ et sui Iesu
[20] CI 
DC xvii°
TO ANNE
Daughter of [Sir] George More, of Loseley, Gilt/Golden Knight,
Sister of [Sir] Robert More,
Grand-daughter of [Sir] William More,
Great-grand-daughter of [Sir] Christopher More;
A woman most choice/select/read, most beloved/loving/well-read,
A spouse most dear, most chaste,
A mother most loving/merciful/pious/dutiful, most self-sacrificing/indulgent;
Fifteen years in union/covenant completed,
Seven days after the twelfth parturition (of whom seven survive)
[10] By a savage/immense/ravishing fever hurriedly-carried-off/seized
(Wherefore this stone to speak he commanded
Himself, by/beyond grief [made] speechless [Infant/infant])
Her husband (most miserable/wretched to say/designation/assertion) once dear to the dear
His own ashes to these ashes pledges [weds]
[in a] New marriage (may God assent) in this place joining together,
John Donne
Doctor of Theology.
She withdrew
In the 33rd year of age, hers and Jesus’s
[20] 1617[th]
August 15.