A Father, since her chast Ambition is
Yearely to bring forth such a child as this.
These Hymnes may worke on future wits, and so
May great-grand-children of thy prayses grow;
And so, though not revive, embalme and spice
The world, which else would putrifie with vice.
For thus, Man may extend thy progeny,
Untill man doe but vanish, and not die.
These Hymnes thy issue, may encrease so long,
As till Gods great Venite change the song.
Thirst for that time, O my insatiate soule,
And serve thy thirst, with Gods safe-sealing Bowle.
Be thirstie still, and drinke still till thou goe
To th'only Health, to be Hydroptique so.
Forget this rotten world; And unto thee
Let thine owne times as an old storie bee.
Be not concern'd: studie not why nor when ;
Doe not so much as not beleeve a man.
For though to erre be worst, to try truths forth,
Is far more businesse, then this world is worth.
The world is but a carkasse; thou art fed
By it, but as a worme that carkasse bred ;
And why should'st thou, poor worme, consider more
When this world will grow better then before,
Then those thy fellow wormes doe thinke upon
That carkasses last resurrection?
Forget this world, and scarce think of it so,
As of old clothes, cast off a yeare agoe.
To be thus stupid is Alacritie;
Men thus Lethargique have best Memory.
A just esti
mation
of this world.
Look upward; that's towards her, whose happy state
We now lament not, but congratulate.
Shee, to whom all this world 'twas but a stage,
Where all sat harkning how her youthfull age
Should be emploi'd, because in all she did
Some Figure of the Golden times was hid;
Who could not lacke, what e'er this world could give,
Because shee was the forme, that made it live;
Nor could complaine, that this world was unfit
To be staid in, then when shee was in it;
Shee, that first tried indifferent desires
By vertue, and vertue by religious fires;
Shee to whose person Paradise adher'd,
As Courts to Princes; shee whose eyes ensphear'd
Star-light enough, t'have made the South controule,
(Had shee beene there) the Star-full Northerne Pole,
Shee, she is gone; she is gone; when thou knowest this,
What fragmentary_rubbidge this world is
Thou knowest, and that it is not worth a thought;
He honors it too much that thinkes it nought.
plation of our state in our
death-bed.
Thinke then, my soule, that death is but a Groome, Contem-
Which brings a Taper to the outward roome,
Whence thou spiest first a little glimmering light,
And after brings it nearer to thy sight:
For such approaches doth heaven make in death.
Think thy selfe labouring now with broken breath,
And thinke those broken and soft Notes to bee
Division, and thy happyest Harmonie.
Thinke thee laid on thy death-bed, loose and slacke;
And thinke that, but unbinding of a packe,
To take one precious thing, thy soule from thence.
Thinke thy selfe parch'd with fevers violence;
Anger thine ague more, by calling it
Thy Physicke; chide the slacknesse of the fit.
Thinke that thou hear'st thy knell and think no more,
But that, as Bels cal'd thee to Church before,
So this, to the Triumphant Church, calls thee.
Thinke Satans Sergeants round about thee bee,
And thinke that but for Legacies they thrust
Give one thy Pride, to'another give thy Lust:
Give them those sinnes which they gave thee before,
And trust th'immaculate blood to wash thy score.
Thinke thy friends weeping round, and thinke that they
Weepe but because they goe not yet thy way.
Thinke that they close thine eyes, and thinke in this,
That they confesse much in the world amisse,
Who dare not trust a dead mans eye with that,
Which they from God, and Angels cover not.
Thinke that they shroud thee up, and think from thence They reinvest thee in white innocence.
Thinke that thy body rots, and (if so low,
Thy soule exalted so, thy thoughts can goe,)
Think thee a Prince, who of themselves create
Wormes which insensibly devoure their State.
Thinke that they bury thee, and thinke that right
Laies thee to sleepe but a Saint Lucies night.
Thinke these things cheerefully and if thou bee
Drowsie or slacke, remember then that shee,
Shee whose complexion was so even made,
That which of her ingredients should invade
The other three, no Feare, no Art could guesse;
So far were all remov'd from more or lesse.
But as in Mithridate, or just perfumes,
Where all good things being met, no one presumes
To governe, or to triumph on the rest,
Only because all were, no part was best;
And as, though all doe know, that quantities
Are made of lines, and lines from Points arise,
None can these lines or quantities unjoynt,
And say this is a line, or this a point:
So though the Elements and Humors were
In her, one could not say, this governes there,
Whose even constitution might have woon
Any disease to venter on the Sunne,
Rather then her and make a spirit feare,
That hee to disuniting subject were:
To whose proportions if we would compare
Cubes, th'are unstable; Circles, Angular;
She who was such a chaine as Fate employes
To bring mankinde all Fortunes it enjoyes;
So fast, so even wrought, as one would thinke,
No accident could threaten any linke;
Shee, shee embrac'd a sicknesse, gave it meat,
The purest blood, and breath, that e'r it eate;
And hath taught us, that though a good man hath
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 hee plead a long possession too,
(For they're in heaven on earth who heavens workes do) Though hee had right and power and place, before, Yet death must usher, and unlocke the door.
Thinke further on thy selfe, my Soule, and thinke Incom-
How thou at first wast made but in a sinke; modities
Thinke that it argued some infirmitie,
That those two soules, which then thou foundst in me,
Thou fedst upon, and drewst into thee both
My second soule of sense, and first of growth.
Thinke but how poore thou wast, how obnoxious;
Whom a small lumpe of flesh could poyson thus.
This curded milke, this poore unlittered whelpe
My body, could, beyond escape or helpe,
Infect thee with Originall sinne, and thou
Couldst neither then refuse, nor leave it now.
Thinke that no stubborne sullen Anchorit,
Which fixt to a pillar, or a grave, doth sit
Bedded, and bath'd in all his ordures, dwels
So fowly as our Soules in their first built Cels.
Thinke in how poore a prison thou didst lie
After, enabled but to suck, and crie.
Thinke, when 'twas growne to most, 'twas a poore Inne, A Province pack'd up in two yards of skinne,
And that usurp'd or threatned with a rage
Of sicknesses, or their true mother, Age.
But thinke that death hath now enfranchis'd thee, Her liberty
Thou hast thy'expansion now, and libertie;
Thinke that a rustie Peece discharg'd is flowne
In peeces, and the bullet is his owne,
And freely flies: this to thy Soule allow,
Thinke thy shell broke, thinke thy Soule hatch'd but now.
And think this slow-pac'd soule which late did cleave
To'a body, and went but by the bodies leave,
Twenty perchance or thirty mile a day,
Dispatches in a minute all the way
Twixt heaven, and earth; she stayes not in the ayre,
To looke what Meteors there themselves prepare;
She carries no desire to know, nor sense,
Whether th'ayres middle region be intense;
For th' Element of fire, she doth not know,
Whether she past by such a place or no ;
She baits not at the Moone, nor cares to trie
Whether in that new world, men live, and die;
Venus retards her not, to'enquire, how shee
Can (being one starre) Hesper, and Vesper bee;
Hee that charm'd Argus eyes, sweet Mercury,
Workes not on her, who now is growne all eye;
Who if she meet the body of the Sunne,
Goes through, not staying till his course be runne;
Who findes in Mars his Campe no corps of Guard;
Nor is by Jove, nor by his father barr'd ;
But ere she can consider how she went,
At once is at, and through the Firmament.
And as these starres were but so many beads
Strung on one string, speed undistinguish'd leads
Her through those Spheares, as through the beads a string,
Whose quick succession makes it still one thing:
As doth the pith, which, lest our bodies slacke,
Strings fast the little bones of necke, and backe;
So by the Soule doth death string Heaven and Earth ;
For when our Soule enjoyes this her third birth,
(Creation gave her one, a second, grace,)
Heaven is as neare, and present to her face,
As colours are, and objects, in a roome
Where darknesse was before, when tapers come.
This must, my Soule, thy long-short Progresse bee,
To'advance these thoughts; Remember then that she, 220
She, whose faire body no such prison was,
But that a soule might well be pleas'd to passe
An age in her; she whose rich beauty lent
Mintage to other beauties, for they went
But for so much as they were like to her;
Shee, in whose body (if we dare preferre
This low world, to so high a marke as shee,)
The Westerne treasure, Easterne spicerie,
Europe, and Afrique, and the unknowne rest
Were easily found, or what in them was best;
And when w'have made this large discoverie
Of all, in her some one part then will bee
Twenty such parts, whose plenty and riches is
Enough to make twenty such worlds as this;
Shee, whom had they knowne 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 severall man, to him, and him,
They would have given her one for every limbe;
She, of whose soule, if wee may say, 'twas gold,
Her body was th'Electrum, and did hold
Many degrees of that; wee understood
norance
in this life and knowledge in
Her by her sight; her pure, and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheekes, and so distinctly wrought,
That one might almost say, her body thought;
Shee, shee, thus richly and largely hous'd, is gone;
And chides us slow-pac'd snailes who crawle upon
Our prisons prison, earth, nor thinke us well,
Longer then whil'st wee beare our brittle shell.
But 'twere but little to have chang'd our roome, Her ig-
If, as we were in this our living Tombe
Oppress'd with ignorance, wee still were so.
Poore soule, in this thy flesh what dost thou know?
Thou know'st thy selfe 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 poyson of mans sinne.
Nor dost thou, (though thou know'st, that thou art so)
By what way thou art made immortall, know.
Thou art too narrow, wretch, to comprehend
Even thy selfe: yea though thou wouldst but bend
To know thy body. Have not all soules thought
For many ages, that our body'is wrought
Of aire, and fire, and other Elements ?
And now they thinke of new ingredients:
And one Soule thinkes one, and another way
Another thinkes, and 'tis an even lay.
Know'st thou but how the stone doth enter in
The bladders cave, and never brake the skinne?
Know'st thou how blood, which to the heart doth flow,
Doth from one ventricle to th'other goe?
And for the putrid stuffe, which thou dost spit,
Know'st thou how thy lungs have attracted it?
There are no passages, so that there is
(For aught thou know'st) piercing of substances.
And of those many opinions which men raise
Of Nailes and Haires, dost thou know which to praise ?
What hope have wee to know our selves, when wee
Know not the least things, which for our use be?
Wee see in Authors, too stiffe to recant,
A hundred controversies of an Ant ;
And yet one watches, starves, freeses, and sweats,
To know but Catechismes and Alphabets
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