Sooner than you read this line, did the gale,
Like shot, not feared, till felt, our sails assail;
And what at first was called a gust, the same
Hath now a storm's, anon a tempest's name.
Jonas, I pity thee, and curse those men,
Who when the storm rag'd most, did wake thee then;
Sleep is pain's easiest salve, and doth fulfill
All offices of death, except to kill.
But when I wakt, I saw, that I saw not.
I, and the sun, which should teach me, had forgot
East, west, day, night, and I could only say,
If the world had lasted, now it had been day.
Thousands our noises were, yet we 'mongst all
Could none by his right name, but thunder call;
Lightning was all our light, and it rain'd more
Than if the sun had drunk the sea before;
Some coffin'd in their cabins lie, equally
Griev'd that they are not dead, and yet must die.
And as sin-burden'd souls from graves will creep
At the last day, some forth their cabins peep:
And tremblingly ask what news, and do hear so,
Like jealous husbands, what they would not know.
Some sitting on the hatches, would seem there
With hideous gazing to fear away fear.
Then note they the ship's sicknesses, the mast
Shak'd with this ague, and the hold and waste
With a salt dropsy clogged, and all our tacklings
Snapping, like too high-stretched treble strings.
And from our tottered sails, rags drop down so,
As from one hang'd in chains, a year ago.
Even our ordnance placed for our defence,
Strive to break loose, and scape away from thence.
Pumping hath tir'd our men, and what's the gain?
Seas into seas thrown, we suck in again;
Hearing hath deaf'd our sailors; and if they
Knew how to hear, there's none knows what to say.
Compar'd to these storms, death is but a qualm,
Hell somewhat lightsome, and the Bermuda* calm.
Darkness, light's eldest brother, his birth-right
Claim'd o'er this world, and to heaven hath chas'd light.
The reader will remember "The still-vext Bermoothes."-En.
All things are one, and that one none can be,
Since all forms, uniform deformity
Doth cover, so that we, except God say
Another fiat, shall have no more day.
So violent, yet long these furies be,
That though thine absence starve me, I wish not thee.
OUR storm is past, and that storm's tyrannous rage
A stupid calm, but nothing it, doth swage.
The fable is inverted, and far more
A block afflicts, now, than a stork before.
Storms chafe, and soon wear out themselves, or us:
In calms, heaven laughs to see us languish thus.
As steady as I can wish that my thoughts were,
Smooth as thy mistress' glass, or what shines there,
The sea is now. And, as the isles which we
Seek, when we can move, our ships rooted be.
As water did in storms, now pitch runs out
As lead, when a fir'd church becomes one spout.
And all our beauty, and our trim, decays,
Like courts removing, or like ended plays.
The fighting place now seamen's rags supply ;
And all the tackling is a frippery.
No use of lanthorns; and in one place lay
Feathers and dust, to-day and yesterday.
Earth's hollownesses, which the worlds lungs are,
Have no more wind than the upper vault of air.
We can nor lost friends, nor sought foes recover,
But meteor-like, save that we move not, hover.
Only the calenture* together draws
Dear friends, which meet dead in great fishes jaws :
And on the hatches as on altars lies
Each one, his own priest, and own sacrifice.
Who live, that miracle do multiply
Where walkers in hot ovens do not die.
* Calenture, an illusion during calms in hot climates, which makes the sea appear like fields, and the sailors fancy it to be land, and throw themselves on it.-JOHNSON.
If in despite of these, we swim, that hath
No more refreshing, than our brimstone bath,
But from the sea, into the ship we turn,
Like par-boil'd wretches, on the coals to burn.
Like Bajazet encag'd, the shepherds' scoff*,
Or like slack-sinew'd Sampson, his hair off,
Languish our ships. Now, as a myriad
Of ants durst the emperor's lov'd snake invade,
The crawling gallies, sea-gulls, finny chips,
Might brave our Venices, now bed-rid ships.
Whether a rotten state, and hope of gain,
Or to disuse me from the queasy pain
Of being belov'd, and loving, or the thirst
Of honour, or fair death, out-push'd me first,
I lose my end for here as well as I
A desperate may live, and a coward die.
Stag, dog, and all which from, or towards flies,
Is paid with life, or prey, or doing dies.
Fate grudges us all, and doth subtly lay
A scourge, 'gainst which we all forget to pray,
He that at sea prays for more wind, as well
Under the poles may beg cold, heat in hell.
What are we then? How little more alas
Is man now, than before he was! he was
Nothing; for us, we are for nothing fit;
Chance, or ourselves still disproportion it.
We have no power, no will, no sense; I lie,
I should not then thus feel this misery.
SIR, more than kisses, letters mingle souls;
For thus friends absent speak. This ease controls
The tediousness of my life: but for these
I could ideate nothing, which could please,
But I should wither in one day, and pass
To a bottle of hay, that am a lock of grass.
Life is a voyage, and in our life's ways
Countries, courts, towns are rocks, or remoras;
"The shepherds ;"-the Tartars.-ED.
They break or stop all ships, yet our state is such,
That though than pitch they stain worse, we must touch.
If in the furnace of the raging line,
Or under the adverse icy pole thou pine,
Thou know'st two temperate regions girded in,
Dwell there but O! what refuge canst thou win
Parched in the court, and in the country frozen,
Shall cities built of both extremes be chosen?
Can dung, and garlic be a perfume? or can
A scorpion, or torpedo cure a man?
Cities are worst of all three; of all three
(O knotty riddle) each is worst equally.
Cities are sepulchres; they who dwell there
Are carcases, as if no such there were.
And courts are theatres, where some men play
Princes, some slaves, all to one end, and of one clay.
The country is a desert, where no good,
Gained, as habits, nor born, is understood.
There men become beasts, and prone to more evils;
In cities blocks, and in a lewd court, devils.
As in the first chaos confusedly
Each element's qualities were in the other three;
So pride, lust, covetous, being several
To these three places, yet all are in all,
And mingled thus, their issue incestuous.
Falsehood is denizen'd. Virtue is barbarous.
Let no man say there, Virtue's flinty wall
Shall lock vice in me, I'll do none, but know all.
Men are spunges, which to pour out, receive,
Who know false play, rather than lose, deceive.
For in best understandings, sin began,
Angels sinned first, then devils, and then man.
Only perchance beasts sin not; wretched we
Are beasts in all, but white integrity.
I think if men, which in these places live,
Durst look in themselves, and themselves retrieve,
They would like strangers greet themselves, seeing then
Utopian youth, grown old Italian.
Be thou thine own home, and in thyself dwell;
Inn anywhere; continuance maketh hell.
And seeing the snail, which everywhere doth roam,
Carrying his own house still, still is at home,
Follow (for he is easy paced) this snail,
Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail;
And in the world's sea, do not like cork sleep
Upon the water's face; nor in the deep
Sink like a lead without a line: but as
Fishes glide, leaving no print where they pass,
Nor making sound; so, closely thy course go,
Let men dispute, whether thou breath, or no:
Only in this one thing, be no Galenist. To make
Court's hot ambitions wholesome, do not take
A dram of country's dulness; do not add
Correctives, but as chymics, purge the bad.
But, sir, I advise not you, I rather do
Say o'er those lessons, which I learned of you.
Whom, free from German schisms, and lightness
Of France, and fair Italy's faithlessness,
Having from these sucked all they had of worth,
And brought home that faith, which you carried forth,
I throughly love. But if myself, I have won
To know my rules, I have, and you have
WHO makes the past, a pattern for next year,
Turns no new leaf, but still the same things reads,
Seen things, he sees again, heard things doth hear,
And makes his life, but like a pair of beads.
A palace, when 'tis that, which it should be,
Leaves growing, and stands such, or else decays,
But he which dwells there, is not so; for he
Strives to urge upward, and his fortune raise.
So had your body her morning, hath her noon,
And shall not better; her next change is night: But her fair larger guest, to whom sun and moon Are sparks, and short-lived, claims another right.
The noble soul by age grows lustier,
Her appetite, and her digestion mend,
We must not starve, nor hope to pamper her
With women's milk, and pap, unto the end.
|