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 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 assign'd
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
Nor furnish forth materials enough;
And that his 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
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;
All will not serve; only who have enjoyed
The sight of God, in fulness, 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 looked 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,
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,
Still heard God pleading his safe precontract;
Who by a faithful confidence, was here
Betrothed to God, and now is married there;
Whose twilights were more clear, than our mid-day;
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,
Joy, (as our joys admit) essential.
But could this low world joys essential touch,
Heaven's accidental joys would pass them much.
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 than,
By being 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;
And whilst thou joyest 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;
For that soul ever joys and ever stays.
* An abscess, áñóσтημa, corrupted into impostume.—JOHNSON.
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,
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,
Where she receives, and gives addition.
Here in a place, where misdevotion frames
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,
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 the authority is his ;
Thou art the proclamation; and I am
The trumpet, at whose voice the people came.
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,
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?
Hadst thou stayed there, and look'd out at her eyes,
All had adored thee that now from thee flies,
For they let out more light, than they took in,
They told not when, but did the day begin;
She was too sapphirine, and clear to thee;
Clay, flint, and jet now thy fit dwellings be;
Alas, she was too pure, but not too weak;
Whoe'er saw crystal ordnance 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;
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 cherubin
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
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,
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 wooes her to be
Earth too, will be a lemnia*; and the tree
That wraps that crystal in a wooden tomb,
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.
ELEGY TO THE LADY BEDford.
You that are she, and you that's double she,
In her dead face, half of yourself shall see;
She was the other part, for so they do
Which build them friendships, become one of two;
So two, that but themselves no third can fit,
Which were to be so, when they were not yet
Twins, though their birth Cusco, and Musco take,
As divers stars one constellation make,
Paired like two eyes, have equal motion, so
Both but one means to see, one way to go;
* Lemnian earth was supposed to possess a virtue in closing the lips of wounds; but neither this nor any other application of the word, seems sufficiently to explain this obscure passage.-Ed.
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