Poetry

of you, yet they will doubt how I
—One corn of one low anthill’s dust, and less⁠—
Should name, know, or express a thing so high,
And⁠—not an inch⁠—measure infinity.

I cannot tell them, nor myself, nor you,
But leave, lest truth be endanger’d by my praise,
And turn to God, who knows I think this true,
And useth oft, when such a heart mis-says,
To make it good, for such a praiser prays.

He will best teach you, how you should lay out
His stock of beauty, learning, favour, blood;
He will perplex security with doubt,
And clear those doubts; hide from you, and show you good;
And so increase your appetite and food.

He will teach you, that good and bad have not
One latitude in cloisters, and in court;
Indifferent there the greatest space hath got;
Some pity’s not good there; some vain disport,
On this side sin, with that place may comport.

Yet He, as He bounds seas, will fix your hours,
Which pleasure and delight may not ingress;
And, though what none else lost be truliest yours,
He will make you, what you did not, possess,
By using others’ (not vice, but) weakness.

He will make you speak truths, and credibly,
And make you doubt that others do not so;
He will provide you keys, and locks, to spy,
And ’scape spies, to good ends, and He will show
What you may not acknowledge, what not know.

For your own conscience, He gives innocence,
But, for your fame, a discreet wariness;
And⁠—though to ’scape, than to revenge offence
Be better⁠—He shows both, and to repress
Joy, when your state swells, sadness, when ’tis less.

From need of tears He will defend your soul,
Or make a re-baptizing of one tear;
He cannot⁠—that ’s, He will not⁠—dis-enroll
Your name; and when with active joy we hear
This private gospel, then ’tis our New Year.

To the Countess of Huntingdon

Madam⁠—
Man to God’s image, Eve to man’s was made,
Nor find we that God breathed a soul in her;
Canons will not Church functions you invade,
Nor laws to civil office you prefer.

Who vagrant transitory comets sees,
Wonders because they’re rare; but a new star,
Whose motion with the firmament agrees,
Is miracle; for there, no new things are.

In woman so perchance mild innocence
A seldom comet is; but active good
A miracle, which reason ’scapes, and sense;
For art and nature this in them withstood.

As such a star the Magi led to view
The manger-cradled infant, God below,
By virtue’s beams⁠—by fame derived from you⁠—
May apt souls⁠—and the worst may⁠—virtue know

If the world’s age and death be argued well
By the sun’s fall, which now towards earth doth bend,
Then we might fear that virtue, since she fell
So low as woman, should be near her end.

But she’s not stoop’d, but raised; exiled by men
She fled to heaven, that’s heavenly things, that’s you;
She was in all men thinly scatter’d then,
But now a mass contracted in a few

She gilded us, but you are gold; and she
Informed us, but transubstantiates you.
Soft dispositions, which ductile be,
Elixirlike, she makes not clean, but new.

Though you a wife’s and mother’s name retain,
’Tis not as woman, for all are not so;
But virtue, having made you virtue, is fain
To adhere in these names, her and you to show

Else, being alike pure, we should neither see;
As, water being into air rarified,
Neither appear, till in one cloud they be,
So, for our sakes, you do low names abide.

Taught by great constellations⁠—which being framed
Of the most stars take low names, Crab and Bull,
When single planets by the gods are named⁠—
You covet not great names, of great things full.

So you, as woman, one doth comprehend,
And in the veil of kindred others see;
To some you are reveal’d, as in a friend,
And as a virtuous prince far off to me.

To whom, because from you all virtues flow,
And ’tis not none, to dare contemplate you,
I, which do so, as your true subject owe
Some tribute for that; so these lines are due.

If you can think these flatteries, they are,
For then your judgment is below my praise.
If they were so, oft, flatteries work as far
As counsels, and as far th’ endeavour raise.

So my ill, reaching you, might there grow good,
But I remain a poison’d fountain still;
And not your beauty, virtue, knowledge, blood
Are more above all flattery, than my will.

And if I flatter any, ’tis not you,
But my own judgment, who did long ago
Pronounce, that all these praises should be true,
And virtue should your beauty and birth outgrow.

Now that my prophecies are all fulfill’d,
Rather than God should not be honour’d too,
And all these gifts confessed, which He instill’d,
Yourself were bound to say that which I do.

So I but your Recorder am in this,
Or mouth, and Speaker of the universe,
A ministerial notary, for ’tis
Not I, but you and fame, that make this verse.

I was your prophet in your younger days,
And now your chaplain, God in you to praise.

To Mr. Thomas Woodward

All hail, sweet poet, more full of more strong fire,
Than hath or shall enkindle my dull spirit;
I loved what nature gave thee, but thy merit
Of wit and art I love not, but admire.
Who have before or shall write after thee,
Their works, though toughly laboured, will be
Like infancy or age to man’s firm stay,
Or early and late twilights to midday.

Men say, and truly, that they better be
Which be envied than pitied; therefore I,
Because I wish thee best, do thee envy;
O, wouldst thou, by like reason, pity me.
But care not for me; I, that ever was
In nature’s, and in fortune’s gifts, alas
—But for thy grace, got in the Muses’ school⁠—
A monster and a beggar, am a fool.

Oh, how I grieve that late-born modesty
Hath got such root in easy waxen hearts,
That men may not themselves their own good