Poetry

sphere his virtue stream;

After those learned papers which your hand
Hath stored with notes of use and pleasures too,
From which rich treasury you may command
Fit matter whether you will write or do;

After those loving papers where friends send,
With glad grief to your seaward steps, farewell,
Which thicken on you now, as prayers ascend
To heaven in troops, at a good man’s passing-bell;

Admit this honest paper, and allow
It such an audience as yourself would ask;
What you must say at Venice, this means now,
And hath for nature, what you have for task.

To swear much love, not to be changed before
Honour, alone will to your fortune fit;
Nor shall I then honour your fortune, more
Than I have done your honour, wanting it.

But ’tis an easier load, though both oppress,
To want, than govern greatness, for we are
In that, our own and only business,
In this, we must for others’ vices care.

’Tis therefore well your spirits now are placed
In their last furnace, in activity;
Which fits them⁠—schools and courts and wars o’erpast⁠—
To touch and test in any best degree.

For me⁠—if there be such a thing as I⁠—
Fortune⁠—if there be such a thing as she⁠—
Spies that I bear so well her tyranny,
That she thinks nothing else so fit for me.

But, though she part us, to hear my oft prayers
For your increase, God is as near me here;
And to send you what I shall beg, His stairs
In length and ease are alike everywhere.

To Mrs. Magdalen Herbert

Mad paper, stay, and grudge not here to burn
With all those sons whom my brain did create;
At least lie hid with me, till thou return
To rags again, which is thy native state.

What though thou have enough unworthiness
To come unto great place as others do;
That’s much⁠—emboldens, pulls, thrusts, I confess;
But ’tis not all; thou shouldst be wicked too.

And that thou canst not learn, or not of me,
Yet thou wilt go; go, since thou goest to her,
Who lacks but faults to be a prince, for she
Truth, whom they dare not pardon, dares prefer.

But when thou comest to that perplexing eye,
Which equally claims love and reverence,
Thou wilt not long dispute it, thou wilt die;
And, having little now, have then no sense.

Yet when her warm redeeming hand⁠—which is
A miracle, and made such to work more⁠—
Doth touch thee, sapless leaf, thou grow’st by this
Her creature, glorified more than before.

Then as a mother which delights to hear
Her early child misspeak half-uttered words,
Or because majesty doth never fear
Ill or bold speech, she audience affords.

And then, cold speechless wretch, thou diest again,
And wisely; what discourse is left for thee?
From speech of ill, and her, thou must abstain;
And is there any good which is not she?

Yet may’st thou praise her servants, though not her;
And wit, and virtue, and honour her attend;
And since they’re but her clothes, thou shalt not err,
If thou her shape, and beauty, and grace commend.

Who knows thy destiny? when thou hast done,
Perchance her cabinet may harbour thee,
Whither all noble ambitious wits do run,
A nest almost as full of good as she.

When thou art there, if any, whom we know,
Were saved before, and did that heaven partake;
When she revolves his papers, mark what show
Of favour, she, alone, to them doth make.

Mark if, to get them, she o’erskip the rest;
Mark if she read them twice, or kiss the name;
Mark if she do the same that they protest;
Mark if she mark whether her woman came.

Mark if slight things be objected, and o’erblown;
Mark if her oaths against him be not still
Reserved, and that she grieves she’s not her own,
And chides the doctrine that denies freewill.

I bid thee not do this to be my spy,
Nor to make myself her familiar;
But so much I do love her choice, that I
Would fain love him that shall be loved of her.

To the Countess of Bedford

Honour is so sublime perfection,
And so refined, that when God was alone
And creatureless at first, Himself had none.

But as of th’ elements, these which we tread,
Produce all things with which we’re joyed or fed,
And those are barren both above our head;

So from low persons doth all honour flow;
Kings, whom they would have honour’d, to us show,
And but direct our honour, not bestow.

For when from herbs the pure part must be won
From gross, by ’stilling, this is better done
By despised dung, than by the fire of sun.

Care not then, madam, how low your praises lie;
In labourers’ ballads oft more piety
God finds, than in Te Deum’s melody;

And ordnance, raised on towers, so many mile
Send not their voice, nor last so long a while,
As fires from the earth’s low vaults in Sicil isle.

Should I say I lived darker than were true,
Your radiation can all clouds subdue;
But One, ’tis best light to contemplate you;

You, for whose body God made better clay,
Or took souls’ stuff, such as shall late decay,
Or such as needs small change at the last day.

This, as an amber drop enwraps a bee,
Covering discovers your quick soul, that we
May in your through-shine front our hearts’ thoughts see.

You teach⁠—though we learn not⁠—a thing unknown
To our late times, the use of specular stone,
Through which all things within without were shown.

Of such were temples; so, and such you are;
Being and seeming is your equal care;
And virtue’s whole sum is but “Know” and “Dare.”

But as our souls of growth and souls of sense
Have birthright of our reason’s soul, yet hence
They fly not from that, nor seek precedence,

Nature’s first lesson; so discretion
Must not grudge zeal a place, nor yet keep none,
Not banish itself, nor religion.

Discretion is a wise man’s soul, and so
Religion is a Christian’s, and you know
How these are one; her “Yea” is not her “No.”

Nor may we hope to solder still and knit
These two, and dare to break them; nor must wit
Be colleague to religion, but be it.

In those poor types of God, round circles, so
Religion’s types