Poetry

had admired the birth
Of sun, moon, stars, fairer than late-prais’d earth,
He might have said the best that he could say,
And not be chid for praising yesterday;
So though some things are not together true,
As, that another’s worthiest, and, that you;
Yet, to say so, doth not condemn a man,
If, when he spoke them, they were both true then.
How fair a proof of this in our soul grows;
We first have souls of growth and sense; and those,
When our last soul, our soul immortal, came,
Were swallow’d into it, and have no name.
Nor doth he injure those souls, which doth cast
The power and praise of both them on the last;
No more do I wrong any, if I adore
The same things now which I adored before,
The subject changed, and measure; the same thing
In a low constable, and in the king
I reverence, his power to work on me
So did I humbly reverence each degree
Of fair, great, good, but more, now I am come
From having found their walks, to find their home.
And as I owe my first souls thanks, that they
For my last soul did fit and mould my clay,
So am I debtor unto them, whose worth
Enabled me to profit, and take forth
This new great lesson, thus to study you;
Which none, not reading others first, could do.
Nor lack I light to read this book, though I
In a dark cave, yea, in a grave do lie;
For as your fellow-angels, so you do
Illustrate them who come to study you.
The first whom we in histories do find
To have profess’d all arts, was one born blind;
He lack’d those eyes beasts have as well as we,
Not those by which angels are seen and see.
So, though I’m born without those eyes to live,
Which fortune, who hath none herself, doth give,
Which are fit means to see bright courts and you,
Yet, may I see you thus, as now I do,
I shall by that all goodness have discern’d,
And though I burn my library, be learn’d.

To the Lady Bedford

You that are she, and you that’s double she,
In her dead face half of yourself shall see.
She was the other part, for so they do
Which build them friendships, become one of two;
So two, that but themselves no third can fit
—Which were to be so, when they were not yet
Twins, though their birth Cusco and Musco take⁠—
As divers stars one constellation make,
Pair’d like two eyes have equal motion, so
Both but one means to see, one way to go.
Had you died first, a carcase she had been,
And we your rich tomb in her face had seen;
She like the soul is gone, and you here stay,
Not a live friend, but th’ other half of clay.
And since you act that part⁠—as men say, “Here
Lies such a prince,” when but one part is there,
And do all honour and devotion due
Unto the whole⁠—so we all reverence you;
For such a friendship who would not adore
In you, who are all what both were before,
Not all, as if some perished by this,
But so, as all in you contracted is.
As of this all, though many parts decay,
The pure which elemented them shall stay;
And though diffused, and spread in infinite,
Shall recollect, and in one All unite;
So, madam, as her soul to heaven is fled,
Her flesh rests in the earth, as in the bed;
Her virtues do, as to their proper sphere,
Return to dwell with you, of whom they were.
As perfect motions are all circular,
So they to you, their sea, whence less streams are.
She was all spices, you all metals; so
In you two we did both rich Indies know.
And as no fire nor rust can spend or waste
One dram of gold, but what was first shall last;
Though it be forced in water, earth, salt, air,
Expansed in infinite, none will impair;
So to yourself you may additions take,
But nothing can you less, or changèd make.
Seek not in seeking new to seem to doubt,
That you can match her, or not be without;
But let some faithful book in her room be,
Yet but of Judith no such book as she.

An Anatomy of the World

Wherein, by occasion of the untimely death of Mistress Elizabeth Drury, the frailty and the decay of this whole world is represented.

The First Anniversary

To the Praise of the Dead, and the Anatomy

Well died the world, that we might live to see
This world of wit, in his Anatomy.
No evil wants his good; so wilder heirs
Bedew their fathers’ tombs with forcèd tears,
Whose state requites their loss; whiles thus we gain
Well may we walk in blacks, but not complain.
Yet how can I consent the world is dead,
While this Muse lives, which in his spirit’s stead
Seems to inform a world, and bids it be,
In spite of loss or frail mortality?
And thou, the subject of this wellborn thought,
Thrice noble maid, could’st not have found nor sought
A fitter time to yield to thy sad fate,
Than whiles this spirit lives, that can relate
Thy worth so well to our last nephews’ eyne,
That they shall wonder both at his and thine.
Admired match! where strives in mutual grace
The cunning pencil, and the comely face;
A task which thy fair goodness made too much
For the bold pride of vulgar pens to touch.
Enough is us to praise them that praise thee,
And say, that but enough those praises be,
Which, hadst thou lived, had hid their fearful head
From th’ angry checkings of thy modest red.
Death bars reward and shame; when envy’s gone,
And gain, ’tis safe to give the dead their own.
As then the wise Egyptians wont to lay
More on their tombs than houses; these of clay,
But those of brass or marble were; so we
Give more unto thy ghost than unto thee.
Yet what we give to thee, thou gavest to us,
And may’st but thank thyself for being thus.
Yet what thou gavest and wert, O happy maid,
Thy grace profess’d all due, where ’tis repaid.
So these high songs, that to thee suited bin,
Serve but to sound thy Maker’s praise in thine,
Which thy dear soul as