Part 21

To liken gold unto her radiant face, 9 Were likening day to night, and night to day, The king’s high seat to the low subject’s place, And heaven’s translucent breast to earthly way: For what is gold? her scorn; her scorn? her ire; Melting that dross with nought but anger’s fire.

In her respect ’tis dust, in her aspècts Earth, in respect of her ’tis little gravel; As dust, as earth, as gravel she rejects The hope, the gain, the sight, the price, the travel; Silver, because inferior to the other, Is clay, which two she in one look doth smother.

Her sight I callèd health, herself my beauty; 10 Health as my life, and beauty as my light; Each in performance of the other’s duty, This curing grief, this leading me aright; Two sovereign eyes, belonging to two places, This guides the soul, and this the body graces.

The heart-sick soul is cur’d by heart-strong health, The heart-strong health is the soul’s brightest eye, The heart-sick body heal’d by beauty’s wealth; Two sunny windolets of either’s sky, Whose beams cannot be clouded by reproach, Nor yet dismounted from so bright a coach.

What dowry could I wish more than I have? 11 What wealth, what honour, more than I possess? My soul’s request is mine, which I did crave; For sole redress in soul I have redress: The bodily expenses which I spend, Are[435] lent by her which my delight doth lend.

Then I may call her author of my good, Sith[436] good and goods are portions for my love; I love her well; who would not love his food, His joy’s maintainer, which all woes remove? I richest am, because I do possess her; I strongest am, in that none can oppress her.

It made me glad to think that I was rich, 12 More gladder for to think that I was strong; For lowest minds do covet highest pitch, As highest braves proceed from lowest tongue: Her first arrival first did make me glad, Yet ignorant at first, first made me sad.

Joyful I was, because I saw her power, Woeful I was, because I knew her not; Glad that her face was in mine eyes’-lock’d bower, Sad that my senses never drew her plot: I knew not that she was discretion’s mother, Though I profess’d myself to be her brother.

Like a rash wooer feeding on the looks, 13 Disgesting[437] beauty, apparition’s shew, Viewing the painted outside of the books, And inward works little regards to know; So I, feeding my fancies with her sight, Forgot to make inquiry of her might.

External powers I knew, riches I had, Internal powers I scarcely had discern’d; Unfeignedly I learnèd to be glad, Feigning I hated, verity I learn’d: I was not envious-learnèd to forsake her, But I was loving-learnèd for to take her.

And had I not, my treasure had been lost, 14 My loss my peril’s hazard had proclaim’d, My peril had my life’s destruction tost, My life’s destruction at my soul had aim’d: Great perils hazarded from one poor loss, As greatest filth doth come with smallest dross.

This righteous treasure whoso rightly useth, Shall be an heir in heaven’s eternity; All earthly fruits her heritage excuseth, All happiness in her felicity: The love of God consists in her embracing, The gifts of knowledge in her wisdom’s placing.

I speak as I am prompted by my mind, 15 My soul’s chief agent, pleader of my cause; I speak these things, and what I speak I find, By heaven’s judgment, not mine own applause: God he is judge; I next, because I have her; God he doth know; I next, because I crave her.

Should I direct, and God subvert my tongue, I worthy were of an unworthy name, Unworthy of my right, not of my wrong, Unworthy of my praise, not of my shame; But seeing God directs my tongue from missing, I rather look for clapping than for hissing.

He is the prompter of my tongue and me, 16 My tongue doth utter what his tongue applies; He sets before my sight what I should see, He breathes into my heart his verities; He tells me what I think, or see, or hear; His tongue a part, my tongue a part doth bear.

Our words he knows in telling of our hearts, Our hearts he knows in telling of our words; All in his hands, words, wisdom, works, and arts, And every power which influence affords; He knows what we will speak, what we will do, And how our minds and actions will go.

The wisdom which I have is heaven’s gift, 17 The knowledge which I have is God’s reward; Both presents my forewarnèd senses lift, And of my preservation had regard: This teaches me to know, this to be wise; Knowledge is wit’s, and wit is knowledge’ guise.

Now know I how the world was first created, 18 How every motion of the air was fram’d, How man was made, the devil’s pride abated, How time’s beginning, midst, and end was nam’d; Now know I time, time’s change, time’s date, time’s show, And when the seasons come, and when they go:

I know the changing courses of the years, 19 And the division of all differing climes, The situation of the stars and spheres, The flowing tides, and the flow-ebbing times; I know that every year hath his four courses, I know that every course hath several forces.

I know that nature is in every thing, 20 Beasts furious, winds rough, men wicked are, Whose thoughts their scourge, whose deeds their judgment’s sting, Whose words and works their peril and their care; I know that every plant hath difference, I know that every root hath influence.

True knowledge have I got in knowing truth, 21 True wisdom purchasèd in wisest wit; A knowledge fitting age, wit fitting youth, Which makes me young, though old with gain of it: True knowledge have I, and true wisdom’s store, True hap, true hope; what wish, what would I more?

Known things I needs must know, sith[438] not unknown, My care is knowledge, she doth hear for me; All secrets know I more because not shewn; My wisdom secret is, and her I see: Knowledge hath taught me how to hear known causes, Wisdom hath taught me secrecy’s applauses.

Knowledge and wisdom known in wisest things 22 Is reason’s mate, discretion’s sentinel; More than a trine of joys from virtues springs, More than one union, yet in union dwell: One for to guide the spring, summer the other; One harvest’s nurse, the other winter’s mother.

Four mounts and four high mounters, all four one, 23 One holy union, one begotten life, One manifold affection, yet alone, All one in peace’s rest, all none in strife; Sure, stable, without care, having all power, Not hurtful, doing good, as one all four.

This peaceful army of four-knitted souls 24 Is marching unto peace’s endless war, Their weapons are discretion’s written rolls, Their quarrel love, and amity their jar: Wisdom director is, captain and guide; All other take their places side by side.

Wisdom divides the conflict of her peace Into four squadrons of four mutual loves; Each bent to war, and never means to cease; Her wings of shot her disputation moves: She wars unseen, and pacifies unseen; She is war’s victory, yet peace’s queen.

She is the martial trumpet of alarms, 25 And yet the quiet rest in peace’s night; She guideth martial troops, she honours arms, Yet joins she fight with peace, and peace with fight; She is the breath of God’s and heaven’s power, Yet peace’s nurse in being peace’s flower.

A flowing in of that which ebbeth out, An ebbing out of that which floweth in; Presumption she doth hate in being stout, Humility, though poor, her favours win: She is the influence of heaven’s flow; No filth doth follow her where’er she go.

She is that spring which never hath an ebb, 26 That silver-colour’d brook which hath no mud, That loom which weaves and never cuts the web, That tree which grows and never leaves to bud: She constant is, inconstancy her foe; She doth not flow and ebb, nor come and go.

Phœbus doth weep when watery clouds approach, She keeps her brightness everlastingly; Phœbe, when Phœbus shines, forsakes night’s coach, Her day is night and day immortally; The undefilèd mirror of renown, The image of God’s power, her virtue’s crown.

Discretion, knowledge, wit, and reason’s skill, 27 All four are places in one only grace; They wisdom are, obedient to her will, All four are one, one in all four’s place; And wisdom being one, she can do all, Sith[439] one hath four, all subject to one call.

Herself remaining self, the world renews, 28 Renewing ages with perpetual youth, Entering into the souls which death pursues, Making them God’s friends which were friends to truth: If wisdom doth not harbour in thy mind, God loves thee not, and that thy soul shall find.

For how canst thou be led without thy light? 29 How can thy eyeless soul direct her way, If wanting her which guides thy steps aright, Thy steps from night into a path of day? More beautiful then is the eye of heaven, Gilding herself with her self-changing steven.[440]

The stars are twinkling handmaids to the moon, 30 Both moon and stars handmaids to wisdom’s sun; These shine at middest night, this at midnoon, Each new-begins their light when each hath done; Pale-mantled night follows red-mantled day, Vice follows both, but to her own decay.

CHAP. VIII.

Who is the empress of the world’s confine, 1 The monarchess of the four-corner’d earth, The princess of the seas, life without fine, Commixer of delight with sorrow’s mirth? What sovereign is she which ever reigns, Which queen-like governs all, yet none constrains?

Wisdom; O fly, my spirit, with that word! Wisdom; O lodge, my spirit, in that name! Fly, soul, unto the mansion of her lord, Although thy wings be singèd in her flame: Tell her my blackness doth admire her beauty; I’ll marry her in love, serve her in duty.

If marry her, God is my father God, 2 Christ is my brother, angels are my kin, The earth my dowry, heaven my abode, My rule the world, my life without my sin: She is the daughter of immortal Jove; My wife in heart, in thought, in soul, in love.

Happy for ever he that thought in heart, Happy for ever he that heart in thought; Happy the soul of both which bears both part, Happy that love which thought, heart, soul hath sought: The name of love is happiest, for I love her; Soul, heart, and thoughts, love’s agents are to prove her.

Ye parents, that would have your children rul’d, 3 Here may they be instructed, rul’d, and taught; Ye children, that would have your parents school’d, Feeding their wanton thirst with folly’s draught, See here the school of discipline erected! See here how young and old are both corrected!

Children, this is the mistress of your bliss, Your schoolmistress, reformer of your lives; Parents, you that do speak, think, do amiss, Here’s she which love’s and life’s direction gives; She teacheth that which God knows to be true, She chooseth that which God would choose for you.

What is our birth? poor, naked, needy, cold; 4 What is our life? poor as our birth hath been; What is our age? forlorn in being old; What is our end? as our beginning’s scene: Our birth, our life, our age, our end is poor; What birth, what life, what age, what end hath more?

Made rich it is with vanity’s vain show; If wanting wisdom, it is folly’s game; Or like a bended or unbended bow, Ill fortune’s scoff it is, good fortune’s shame: If wisdom be the riches of thy mind, Then can thy fortune see, not seeing, blind.

Then if good fortune doth begin thy state, 5 Ill fortune cannot end what she begins; Thy fate at first will still remain thy fate, Thy conduct unto joys, not unto sins: If thou the bridegroom art, wisdom the bride, Ill fortune cannot swim against thy tide.

Thou marrying her dost marry more than she, 6 Thy portion is not faculties, but bliss; Thou need’st not teaching, for she teacheth thee, Nor no reformer, she thy mistress is; The lesson which she gives thee for thy learning Is every virtue’s love, and sin’s discerning.

Dost thou desire experience for to know? 7 Why, how can she be less than what she is? The growth of knowledge doth from wisdom grow, The growth of wisdom is in knowing this: Wisdom can tell all things, what things are past, What done, what undone, what are doing last:

Nay, more, what things are come, what are to come, Or words, or works, or shews, or actions, In her brain’s table-book[441] she hath the sum, And knows dark sentences’ solutions; She knows what signs and wonders will ensue, And when success of seasons will be new.

Who would not be a bridegroom? who not wed? 8 Who would not have a bride so wise, so fair? Who would not lie in such a peaceful bed, Whose canopy is heaven, whose shade the air? How can it be that any of the skies Can there be missing, where heaven’s kingdom lies?

If care-sick, I am comforted with joy; If surfeiting on joy, she bids me care; She says that overmuch will soon annoy, Too much of joy, too much of sorrow’s fare: She always counsels me to keep a mean, And not with joy too fat, with grief too lean.

Fain would the shrub grow by the highest tree, 9 Fain would the mushroom kiss the cedar’s bark, Fain would the seely[442] worm a-sporting be, Fain would the sparrow imitate the lark: Though I a tender shrub, a mushroom be, Yet covet I the honour of a tree.

And may I not? may not the blossoms bud? Doth not the little seed make ears of corn? Doth not a sprig, in time, bear greatest wood? Do[443] not young evenings make an elder morn? For wisdom’s sake, I know, though I be young, I shall have praises from my elders’ tongue.

And as my growth doth rise, so shall my wit, 10 And as my wit doth rise, so shall my growth; In wit I grow, both growths grow to be fit, Both fitting in one growth be fittest both: Experience follows age, and nature youth; Some agèd be in wit, though young in ruth.

The wisdom which I have springs from above, The wisdom from above is that I have; Her I adore, I reverence, I love, She’s my pure soul, lock’d in my body’s grave; The judgment which I use from her proceeds, Which makes me marvell’d at in all my deeds.

Although mute silence tie my judgment’s tongue, 11 Sad secretary of dumb action, Yet shall they give me place, though I be young, And stay my leisure’s satisfaction; Even as a judge, which keeps his judgments mute, When clients have no answer of their suit.

But if the closure of my mouth unmeets, And dives within the freedom of my words, They like petitioners’ tongues welcome greets, And with attentive ear hears my accords; But if my words into no limits go, Their speech shall ebb, mine in their ebbing flow.

And what of this vain world, vain hope, vain shew, 12 Vain glory seated in a shade of praise, Mortality’s descent and folly’s flow, The badge of vanity, the hour of days; What glory is it for to be a king, When care is crown, and crown is fortune’s sling?

Wisdom is immortality’s alline,[444] And immortality is wisdom’s gain, By her the heaven’s lineage is mine, By her I immortality obtain; The earth is made immortal in my name, The heavens are made immortal in my fame.

Two spacious orbs of two as spacious climes 13 Shall be the heritage which I possess; My rule in heaven, directing earthly times, My reign in earth, commencing earth’s redress; One king made two, one crown a double crown, One rule two rules, one fame a twice renown.

What heaven is this, which every thought contains? 14 Wisdom my heaven, my heaven is wisdom’s heaven; What earth is this, wherein my body reigns? Wisdom my earth, all rule from wisdom given; Through her I rule, through her I do subdue, Through her I reign, through her my empire grew.

A rule, not tyranny, a reign, not blood, 15 An empire, not a slaughter-house of lives, A crown, not cruelty in fury’s mood, A sceptre which restores, and not deprives; All made to make a peace, and not a war, By wisdom, concord’s queen and discord’s bar.

The coldest word oft cools the hottest threat, The tyrant’s menaces the calms of peace; Two colds augmenteth one, two heats one heat, And makes both too extreme when both increase: My peaceful reign shall conquer tyrants’ force, Not arms, but words, not battle, but remorse.[445]

Yet mighty shall I be, though war in peace, 16 Strong, though ability hath left his clime, And good, because my wars and battles cease, Or, at the least, lie smother’d in their prime: The fence once diggèd up with fear’s amaze, Doth rage untam’d with folly’s fenceless gaze.

If wisdom doth not harbour in delight, It breaks the outward passage of the mind; Therefore I place my war in wisdom’s might, Whose heavy labours easy harbours find; Her company is pleasure, mirth, and joy, Not bitterness, not mourning, not annoy.

When every thought was balancèd by weight 17 Within the concave of my body’s scale, My heart and soul did hold the balance straight, To see what thought was joy, what thought was wail; But when I saw that grief did weigh down pleasure, I put in wisdom to augment her treasure:

Wisdom, the weight of immortality; 18 Wisdom, the balance of all happiness; Wisdom, the weigher of felicity; Wisdom, the paragon of blessedness; When in her hands there lies such plenty’s store, Needs must her heart have twice as much and more.

Her heart have I conjoinèd with her hand, 19 Her hand hath she conjoinèd with my heart, Two souls one soul, two hearts one body’s band, And two hands made of four, by amour’s art: Was I not wise in choosing earthly life? Nay, wise, thrice wise, in choosing such a wife?

Was I not good? good, then the sooner bad; 20 Bad, because earth is full of wickedness, Because my body is with vices clad, Anatomy of my sin’s heaviness: As doth unseemly clothes make the skin foul, So the sin-inkèd body blots the soul.

Thus lay my heart plung’d in destruction’s mire, 21 Thus lay my soul bespotted with my sin, Thus lay myself consum’d in my desire, Thus lay all parts ensnarèd in one gin; At last my heart, mounting above the mud, Lay between hope and death, mischief and good.

Thus panting, ignorant to live or die, To rise or fall, to stand or else to sink, I cast a fainting look unto the sky, And saw the thought which my poor heart did think; Wisdom my thought, at whose seen sight I pray’d, And with my heart, my mind, my soul, I said:

CHAP. IX.

O God of fathers, Lord of heaven and earth, 1, 2 Mercy’s true sovereign, pity’s portraiture, King of all kings, a birth surpassing birth, A life immortal, essence ever pure, Which with a breath ascending from thy thought, Hast made the heavens of earth, the earth of nought!

Thou which hast made mortality for man, 3 Beginning life to make an end of woe, Ending in him what in himself began, His earth’s dominion through thy wisdom’s flow; Made for to rule according to desert, And execute revenge with upright heart;

Behold a crown, but yet a crown of care, 4 Behold a sceptre, yet a sorrow’s guise, More than the balance of my head can bear, More than my hands can hold, wherein it lies; My crown doth want supportance for to bear, My sceptre wanteth empire for to wear.

A legless body is my kingdom’s map, Limping in folly, halting in distress; Give me thy wisdom, Lord, my better hap, Which may my folly cure, my grief redress; O let me not fall in oblivion’s cave! Let wisdom be my bail, for her I crave.

Behold thy servant pleading for his hire, 5 As an apprentice to thy gospel’s word! Behold his poor estate, his hot-cold fire, His weak-strong limbs, his merry woes’ record! Born of a woman, woman-like in woe, They weak, they feeble are, and I am so.

My time of life is as an hour of day, ’Tis as a day of months, a month of years; It never comes again, but fades away, As one morn’s sun about the hemispheres: Little my memory, lesser my time, But least of all my understanding’s prime.

Say that my memory should never die, 6 Say that my time should never lose a glide, Say that myself had earthly majesty, Seated in all the glory of my pride; Yet if discretion did not rule my mind, My reign would be like fortune’s, folly-blind:

My memory a pathway to my shame, My time the looking-glass of my disgrace, Myself resemblance of my scornèd name, My pride the puffèd shadow of my face: Thus should I be remember’d, not regarded; Thus should my labours end, but not rewarded.

What were it to be shadow of a king? 7 A vanity; to wear a shadow’d crown? A vanity; to love an outward thing? A vanity; vain shadows of renown: This king is king of shades, because a shade, A king in show, though not in action made.

His shape have I, his cognizance[446] I wear, A smoky vapour hemm’d with vanity; Himself I am, his kingdom’s crown I bear, Unless that wisdom change my livery: A king I am, God hath inflamèd me, And lesser than I am I cannot be.

When I command, the people do obey, 8 Submissive subjects to my votive will; A prince I am, and do what princes may, Decree, command, rule, judge, perform, fulfil; Yet I myself am subject unto God, As are all others to my judgment’s rod.

As do my subject[s] honour my command, So I at his command a subject am; I build a temple on mount Sion’s sand, Erect an altar in thy city’s name; Resemblances these are where thou dost dwell, Made when thou framed’st heaven, earth, and hell.

All these three casements were contain’d in wit; 9 ’Twas wisdom for to frame the heaven’s sky, ’Twas wisdom for to make the earth so fit, And hell within the lowest orb to lie, To make a heavenly clime, an earthly course, And hell, although the name of it be worse.

Before the world was made wisdom was born, Born of heaven’s God, conceivèd in his breast, Which knew what works would be, what ages worn, What labours life should have, what quiet rest, What should displease and please, in vice, in good, What should be clearest spring, what foulest mud.

O make my sinful body’s world anew, 10 Erect new elements, new airs, new skies! The time I have is frail, the course untrue, The globe unconstant, like ill fortune’s eyes: First make the world, which doth my soul contain, And next my wisdom, in whose power I reign.