Part 23

The more we grow in age, the more in vice, A house-room long unswept will gather dust; Our long-unthawèd souls will freeze to ice, And wear the badge of long-imprison’d rust; So those inhabitants in youth twice born, Were old in sin, more old in heaven’s scorn.

Committing works as inky spots of fame, 4 Commencing words like foaming vice’s waves, Committing and commencing mischief’s name, With works and words sworn to be vice’s slaves: As sorcery, witchcraft, mischievous deeds, And sacrifice, which wicked fancies feeds.

Well may I call that wicked which is more, 5 I rather would be low than be too high; O wondrous practisers, cloth’d all in gore, To end that life which their own lives did buy! More than swine-like eating man’s bowels up, Their banquet’s dish, their blood their banquet’s cup.

Butchers unnatural, worse by their trade, 6 Whose house the bloody shambles of decay, More than a slaughter-house which butchers made, More than an Eschip,[458] seely[459] bodies prey: Thorough whose hearts a bloody shambles runs; They do not butcher beasts, but their own sons.

Chief murderers of their souls, which their souls 7 bought; Extinguishers of light, which their lives gave; More than knife-butchers they, butchers in thought, Sextons to dig their own-begotten grave; Making their habitations old in sin, Which God doth reconcile, and new begin.

That murdering place was turn’d into delight, 8 That bloody slaughter-house to peace’s breast, That lawless palace to a place of right, That slaughtering shambles to a living rest; Made meet for justice, fit for happiness, Unmeet for sin, unfit for wickedness.

Yet the inhabitants, though mischief’s slaves, 9 Were not dead-drench’d in their destruction’s flood; God hop’d to raise repentance from sins’ graves, And hop’d that pain’s delay would make them good; Not that he was unable to subdue them, But that their sins’ repentance should renew them.

Delay is took for virtue and for vice; 10 Delay is good, and yet delay is bad; ’Tis virtue when it thaws repentance’ ice, ’Tis vice to put off things we have or had: But here it followeth repentance’ way, Therefore it is not sin’s nor mischief’s prey.

Delay in punishment is double pain, And every pain makes a twice-double thought, Doubling the way to our lives’ better gain, Doubling repentance, which is single bought; For fruitless grafts, when they are too much lopt, More fruitless are, for why their fruits are stopt.

So fares it with the wicked plants of sin, 11 The roots of mischief, tops of villany; They worser are with too much punishing, Because by nature prone to injury; For ’tis but folly to supplant his thought Whose heart is wholly given to be naught.

These seeded were in seed, O cursed plant! Seeded with other seed, O cursed root! Too much of good doth turn unto good’s want, As too much seed doth turn to too much soot: Bitter in taste, presuming of their height, Like misty vapours in black-colour’d night.

But God, whose powerful arms one strength doth 12 hold, Scorning to stain his force upon their faces, Will send his messengers, both hot and cold, To make them shadows of their own disgraces: His hot ambassador is fire, his cold Is wind, which two scorn for to be controll’d.

For who dares say unto the King of kings, What hast thou done, which ought to be undone? Or who dares stand against thy judgment’s stings? Or dare accuse thee for the nation’s moan? Or who dare say, Revenge this ill for me? Or stand against the Lord with villany?

What he hath done he knows; what he will do 13 He weigheth with the balance of his eyes; What judgment he pronounceth must be so, And those which he oppresseth cannot rise: Revenge lies in his hands when he doth please; He can revenge and love, punish and ease.

The carvèd spectacle which workmen make Is subject unto them, not they to it; They which from God a lively form do take, Should much more yield unto their Maker’s wit; Sith[460] there is none but he which hath his thought, Caring for that which he hath made of nought.

The clay is subject to the potter’s hands, 14 Which with a new device makes a new moul;[461] And what are we, I pray, but clayey bands, With ashy body, join’d to cleaner soul? Yet we, once made, scorn to be made again, But live in sin, like clayey lumps of pain.

Yet if hot anger smother cool delight, He’ll mould our bodies in destruction’s form, And make ourselves as subjects to his might, In the least fuel of his anger’s storm: Not king nor tyrant dare ask or demand, What punishment is this thou hast in hand?

We all are captives to thy regal throne; 15 Our prison is the earth, our bands our sins, And our accuser our own body’s groan, Press’d down with vice’s weights and mischief’s gins: Before the bar of heaven we plead for favour, To cleanse our sin-bespotted body’s savour.

Thou righteous art, our pleading, then, is right; Thou merciful, we hope for mercy’s grace; Thou orderest every thing with look-on sight, Behold us, prisoners in earth’s wandering race; We know thy pity is without a bound, And sparest them which in some faults be found.

Thy power is as thyself, without an end, 16 Beginning all to end, yet ending none; Son unto virtue’s son, and wisdom’s friend, Original of bliss to virtue shewn; Beginning good, which never ends in vice; Beginning flames, which never end in ice.

For righteousness is good in such a name; It righteous is, ’tis good in such a deed; A lamp it is, fed with discretion’s flame; Begins in seed, but never ends in seed: By this we know the Lord is just and wise, Which causeth him to spare us when he tries:

Just, because justice weighs what wisdom thinks; 17 Wise, because wisdom thinks what justice weighs; One virtue maketh two, and two more links; Wisdom is just, and justice never strays: The help of one doth make the other better, As is the want of one the other’s letter.

But wisdom hath two properties in wit, As justice hath two contraries in force; Heat added unto heat augmenteth it, As too much water bursts a water-course: God’s wisdom too much prov’d doth breed God’s hate, God’s justice too much mov’d breeds God’s debate.

Although the ashy prison of fire-durst[462] 18 Doth keep the flaming heat imprison’d in, Yet sometime will it burn, when flame it must, And burst the ashy cave where it hath bin:[463] So if God’s mercy pass the bounds of mirth, It is not mercy then, but mercy’s dearth.

Yet how can love breed hate without hate’s love? God doth not hate to love, nor love to hate; His equity doth every action prove, Smothering with love that spiteful envy’s fate; For should the team[464] of anger trace his brow, The very puffs of rage would drive the plough.

But God did end his toil when world begun; 19 Now like a lover studies how to please, And win their hearts again whom mischief won, Lodg’d in the mansion of their sin’s disease: He made each mortal man two ears, two eyes, To hear and see; yet he must make them wise.

If imitation should direct man’s life, ’Tis life to imitate a living corse; The thing’s example makes the thing more rife;[465] God loving is, why do we want remorse?[466] He put repentance into sinful hearts, And fed their fruitless souls with fruitful arts.

If such a boundless ocean of good deeds 20 Should have such influence from mercy’s stream, Kissing both good and ill, flowers and weeds, As doth the sunny flame of Titan’s beam; A greater Tethys then should mercy be, In flowing unto them which loveth thee.

The sun, which shines in heaven, doth light the 21 earth, The earth, which shines in sin, doth spite the heaven; Sin is earth’s sun, the sun of heaven sin’s dearth, Both odd in light, being of height not even: God’s mercy then, which spares both good and ill, Doth care for both, though not alike in will.

Can vice be virtue’s mate or virtue’s meat? 22 Her company is bad, her food more worse; She shames to sit upon her betters’ seat, As subject beasts wanting the lion’s force; Mercy is virtue’s badge, foe to disdain; Virtue is vice’s stop and mercy’s gain.

Yet God is merciful to mischief-flows, More merciful in sin’s and sinners’ want; God chasteneth us, and punisheth our foes, Like sluggish drones amongst a labouring ant: We hope for mercy at our bodies’ doom; We hope for heaven, the bail of earthly tomb.

What hope they for, what hope have they of heaven? 23 They hope for vice, and they have hope of hell, From whence their souls’ eternity is given, But such eternity which pains can tell: They live; but better were it for to die, Immortal in their pain and misery.

Hath hell such freedom to devour souls? Are souls so bold to rush in such a place? God gives hell power of vice, which hell controls; Vice makes her followers bold with armèd face; God tortures both, the mistress and the man, And ends in pain that which in vice began.

A bad beginning makes a worser end, 24 Without repentance meet the middle way, Making a mediocrity their friend, Which else would be their foe, because they stray: But if repentance miss the middle line, The sun of virtue ends in west’s decline.

So did it fare with these, which stray’d too far, Beyond the measure of the mid-day’s eye, In error’s ways, led without virtue’s star, Esteeming beast-like powers for deity; Whose heart no thought of understanding meant, Whose tongue no word of understanding sent:

Like infant babes, bearing their nature’s shell 25 Upon the tender heads of tenderer wit, Which tongue-tied are, having no tale to tell, To drive away the childhood of their fit; Unfit to tune their tongue with wisdom’s string, Too fit to quench their thirst in folly’s spring.

But they were trees to babes, babes sprigs to them, They not so good as these, in being nought; In being nought, the more from vice’s stem, Whose essence cannot come without a thought: To punish them is punishment in season, They children-like, without or wit or reason.

To be derided is to be half-dead, 26 Derision bears a part ’tween life and death; Shame follows her with misery half-fed, Half-breathing life, to make half-life and breath: Yet here was mercy shewn, their deeds were more Than could be wip’d off by derision’s score.

This mercy is the warning of misdeeds, A trumpet summoning to virtue’s walls, To notify their hearts which mischief feeds, Whom vice instructs, whom wickedness exhales: But if derision cannot murder sin, Then shame shall end, and punishment begin.

For many shameless are, bold, stout in ill; 27 Then how can shame take root in shameless plants, When they their brows with shameless furrows fill, And plough[467] each place which one plough-furrow wants? Then being arm’d ’gainst shame with shameless face, How can derision take a shameful place?

But punishment may smooth their wrinkled brow, And set shame on the forehead of their rage, Guiding the fore-front of that shameless row, Making it smooth in shame, though not in age; Then will they say that God is just and true; But ’tis too late, damnation will ensue.

CHAP. XIII.

The branch must needs be weak, if root be so, 1 The root must needs be weak, if branches fall; Nature is vain, man cannot be her foe, Because from nature and at nature’s call: Nature is vain, and we proceed from nature, Vain therefore is our birth, and vain our feature.

One body may have two diseases sore, Not being two, it may be join’d to two; Nature is one itself, yet two and more, Vain, ignorant of God, of good, of show, Which not regards the things which God hath done, And what things are to do, what new begun.

Why do I blame the tree, when ’tis the leaves? 2 Why blame I nature for her mortal men? Why blame I men? ’tis she, ’tis she that weaves, That weaves, that wafts unto destruction’s pen: Then, being blameful both, because both vain, I leave to both their vanity’s due pain.

To prize the shadow at the substance’ rate, Is a vain substance of a shadow’s hue; To think the son to be the father’s mate, Earth to rule earth because of earthly view; To think fire, wind, air, stars, water, and heaven, To be as gods, from whom their selves are given:

Fire as a god? O irreligious sound! 3 Wind as a god? O vain, O vainest voice! Air as a god? when ’tis but dusky ground; Star as a god? when ’tis but Phœbe’s choice; Water a god? which first by God was made; Heaven a god? which first by God was laid.

Say all hath beauty, excellence, array, Yet beautified they are, they were, they be, By God’s bright excellence of brightest day, Which first implanted our first beauty’s tree: If then the painted outside of the show Be radiant, what is the inward row?

If that the shadow of the body’s skin 4 Be so illumin’d with the sun-shin’d soul, What is the thing itself which is within, More wrench’d,[468] more cleans’d, more purified from foul? If elemental powers have God’s thought, Say what is God, which made them all of nought?

It is a wonder for to see the sky, And operation of each airy power; A marvel that the heaven should be so high, And let fall such a low-distilling shower: Then needs must He be high, higher than all, Which made both high and low with one tongue’s call.

The workman mightier is than his hand-work, 5 In making that which else would be unmade; The ne’er-thought thing doth always hidden lurk, Without the maker in a making trade: For had not God made man, man had not been, But nature had decay’d, and ne’er been seen.

The workman never shewing of his skill Doth live unknown to man, though known to wit; Had mortal birth been never in God’s will, God had been God, but yet unknown in it; Then having made the glory of earth’s beauty, ’Tis reason earth should reverence him in duty.

The savage people have a supreme head, 6 A king, though savage as his subjects are; Yet they with his observances are led, Obeying his behests, whate’er they were: The Turks, the Infidels, all have a lord, Whom they observe in thought, in deed, in word.

And shall we, differing from their savage kind, Having a soul to live and to believe, Be rude in thought, in deed, in word, in mind, Not seeking him which should our woes relieve? O no, dear brethren! seek our God, our fame, Then if we err, we shall have lesser blame.

How can we err? we seek for ready way; 7 O that my tongue could fetch that word again! Whose very accent makes me go astray, Breathing that erring wind into my brain: My word is past, and cannot be recall’d; It is like agèd time, now waxen bald.

For they which go astray in seeking God Do miss the joyful narrow-footed path— Joyful, thrice-joyful way to his abode!— Nought seeing but their shadows in a bath; Narcissus-like, pining to see a show, Hindering the passage which their feet should go.

Narcissus fantasy did die to kiss, 8 O sugar’d kiss! died with a poison’d lip; The fantasies of these do die to miss, O tossèd fantasies in folly’s ship! He died to kiss the shadow of his face; These live and die to life’s and death’s disgrace.

A fault without amends, crime without ease, 9 A sin without excuse, death without aid; To love the world, and what the world did please, To know the earth, wherein their sins are laid: They knew the world, but not the Lord that fram’d it; They knew the earth, but not the Lord that nam’d it.

Narcissus drown’d himself for his self’s show, 10 Striving to heal himself did himself harm; These drown’d themselves on earth with their selves’ woe, He in a water-brook by fury’s charm; They made dry earth wet with their folly’s weeping, He made wet earth dry with his fury’s sleeping.

Then leave him to his sleep; return to those Which ever wake in misery’s constraints, Whose eyes are hollow caves and made sleep’s foes, Two dungeons dark with sin, blind with complaints: They callèd images which man first found Immortal gods, for which their tongues are bound.

Gold was a god with them, a golden god; 11 Like children in a pageant of gay toys, Adoring images for saints’ abode; O vain, vain spectacles of vainer joys! Putting their hope in blocks, their trust in stones; Hoping to trust, trusting to hope in moans.

As when a carpenter cuts down a tree, 12 Meet for to make a vessel for man’s use, He pareth all the bark most cunningly With the sharp shaver of his knife’s abuse, Ripping the seely[469] womb with no entreat, Making her woundy chips to dress his meat:

Her body’s bones are often tough and hard, 13 Crooked with age’s growth, growing with crooks, And full of weather-chinks, which seasons marr’d, Knobby and rugged, bending in like hooks; Yet knowing age can never want a fault, Encounters it with a sharp knife’s assault;

And carves it well, though it be self-like ill, 14 Observing leisure, keeping time and place; According to the cunning of his skill, Making the figure of a mortal face, Or like some ugly beast in ruddy mould, Hiding each cranny with a painter’s fold.

It is a world to see,[470] to mark, to view, 15 How age can botch up age with crooked thread; How his old hands can make an old tree new, And dead-like he can make another dead! Yet makes a substantive able to bear it, And she an adjective, nor see nor hear it.

A wall it is itself, yet wall with wall 16 Hath great supportance, bearing either part; The image, like an adjective, would fall, Were it not closèd with an iron heart: The workman, being old himself, doth know What great infirmities old age can shew.

Therefore, to stop the river of extremes, 17 He burst into the flowing of his wit, Tossing his brains with more than thousand themes, To have a wooden stratagem so fit: Wooden, because it doth belong to wood; His purpose may be wise, his reason good:

His purpose wise? no, foolish, fond,[471] and vain; His reason good? no, wicked, vild,[472] and ill; To be the author of his own life’s pain, To be the tragic actor of his will; Praying to that which he before had fram’d, For welcome faculties, and not asham’d.

Calling to folly for discretion’s sense, 18 Calling to sickness for sick body’s health, Calling to weakness for a stronger fence, Calling to poverty for better wealth; Praying to death for life, for this he pray’d, Requiring help of that which wanteth aid;

Desiring that of it which he not had, 19 And for his journey that which cannot go; And for his gain her furtherance, to make glad The work which he doth take in hand to do: These windy words do rush against the wall; She cannot speak, ’twill sooner make her fall.

CHAP. XIV.

As doth one little spark make a great flame, 1 Kindled from forth the bosom of the flint; As doth one plague infect with it self name, With watery humours making bodies’ dint; So, even so, this idol-worshipper Doth make another idol-practiser.

The shipman cannot team dame Tethys’ waves Within a wind-taught capering anchorage, Before he prostrate lies, and suffrage craves, And have a block to be his fortune’s gage: More crooked than his stern, yet he implores her; More rotten than his ship, yet he adores her.

Who made this form? he that was form’d and made; 2, 3 ’Twas avarice, ’twas she that found it out; She made her craftsman crafty in his trade, He cunning was in bringing it about: O, had he made the painted show to speak, It would have call’d him vain, herself to wreak!

It would have made him blush alive, though he 4 Did dye her colour with a deadly blush; Thy providence, O father! doth decree A sure, sure way amongst the waves to rush; Thereby declaring that thy power is such, That though a man were weak, thou canst do much.

What is one single bar to double death? 5 One death in death, the other death in fear; This single bar a board, a poor board’s breath,[473] Yet stops the passage of each Neptune’s tear: To see how many lives one board can have, To see how many lives one board can save!

How was this board first made? by wisdom’s art, Which is not vain, but firm, not weak, but sure; Therefore do men commit their living heart To planks which either life or death procure; Cutting the storms in two, parting the wind, Ploughing the sea till they their harbour find:

The sea, whose mountain-billows, passing bounds, 6 Rusheth upon the hollow-sided bark, With rough-sent kisses from the water-grounds, Raising a foaming heat with rage’s spark: Yet sea nor waves can make the shipman fear; He knows that die he must, he cares not where.

For had his timorous heart been dy’d in white, And sent an echo of resembling woe, Wisdom had been unknown in folly’s night, The sea had been a desolation’s show; But one world, hope,[474] lay hovering on the sea, When one world’s hap did end with one decay.

Yet Phœbus, drownèd in the ocean’s world, 7 Phœbe disgrac’d with Tethys’ billow-rolls, And Phœbus’ fiery-golden wreath uncurl’d, Was seated at the length in brightness souls; Man, toss’d in wettest wilderness of seas, Had seed on seed, increase upon increase:

Their mansion-house a tree upon a wave; 8 O happy tree, upon unhappy ground! But every tree is not ordain’d to have Such blessedness, such virtue, such abound: Some trees are carvèd images of nought, Yet godlike reverenc’d, ador’d, besought.

Are the trees nought? alas, they senseless are! 9 The hands which fashion them condemn their growth, Cut down their branches, vail[475] their forehead bare; Both made in sin, though not sin’s equal both: First God made man, and vice did make him new, And man made vice from vice, and so it grew.

Now is her harvest greater than her good, Her wonted winter turn’d to summer’s air, Her ice to heat, her sprig to cedar’s wood, Her hate to love, her loathsome filth to fair:[476] Man loves her well, by mischief new created; God hates her ill, because of virtue hated.

O foolish man, mounted upon decay, 10 More ugly than Alastor’s[477] pitchy back, Night’s dismal summoner, and end of day, Carrying all dusky vapours hemm’d in black; Behold thy downfal ready at thy hand, Behold thy hopes wherein thy hazards stand!

O, spurn away that block out of thy way, With virtue’s appetite and wisdom’s force! That stumbling-block of folly and decay, That snare which doth ensnare thy treading corse: Behold, thy body falls! let virtue bear it; Behold, thy soul doth fall! let wisdom rear it.