Poetry

why he cannot laugh and speak his mind,
He wonders. Much with all, most he doth stay
With Adam’s fifth daughter, Siphatecia;
Doth gaze on her, and, where she passeth, pass,
Gathers her fruits, and tumbles on the grass;
And wisest of that kind, the first true lover was.

XLVII

He was the first that more desired to have
One than another; first that e’er did crave
Love by mute signs, and had no power to speak;
First that could make love faces, or could do
The vaulter’s somersaults, or used to woo
With hoiting gambols, his own bones to break,
To make his mistress merry, or to wreak
Her anger on himself. Sins against kind
They easily do, that can let feed their mind
With outward beauty; beauty they in boys and beasts do find.

XLVIII

By this misled, too low things men have proved,
And too high; beasts and angels have been loved.
This ape, though else through-vain, in this was wise,
He reached at things too high, but open way
There was, and he knew not she would say nay.
His toys prevail not, likelier means he tries.
He gazeth on her face with tear-shot eyes,
And uplifts subtly with his russet paw
Her kidskin apron without fear or awe
Of nature; nature hath no gaol, though she hath law.

XLIX

First she was silly and knew not what he meant.
That virtue, by his touches chafed and spent,
Succeeds an itchy warmth, that melts her quite;
She knew not first, nor cares not what he doth,
And willing half, and more, more than half wroth,
She neither pulls nor pushes, but outright
Now cries and now repents; when Thelemite,
Her brother, entered, and a great stone threw
After the ape, who, thus prevented, flew.
This house, thus batter’d down, the soul possess’d a new.

L

And whether by this change she lose or win,
She comes out next where th’ ape would have gone in.
Adam and Eve had mingled bloods, and now,
Like chemic’s equal fires, her temperate womb
Had stew’d and form’d it; and part did become
A spongy liver, that did richly allow,
Like a free conduit on a high hill’s brow,
Life-keeping moisture unto every part;
Part hardened itself to a thicker heart,
Whose busy furnaces life’s spirits do impart.

LI

Another part became the well of sense,
The tender well-arm’d feeling brain, from whence
Those sinewy strings, which do our bodies tie,
Are ravell’d out, and fast there by one end,
Did this soul limbs, these limbs a soul attend.
And now they join’d, keeping some quality
Of every past shape; she knew treachery,
Rapine, deceit, and lust, and ills enow
To be a woman. Themech she is now,
Sister and wife to Caïn, Cain that first did plough.

LII

Whoe’er thou beest that read’st this sullen writ
Which just so much courts thee, as thou dost it,
Let me arrest thy thoughts; wonder with me,
Why ploughing, building, ruling, and the rest,
Or most of those arts, whence our lives are blest,
By cursed Caïn’s race invented be,
And blest Seth vex’d us with astronomy.
There’s nothing simply good, nor ill alone;
Of every quality Comparison
The only measure is, and judge, Opinion.

Divine Poems

To the Earl of Doncaster, with Six Holy Sonnets

See, sir, how, as the sun’s hot masculine flame
Begets strange creatures on Nile’s dirty slime,
In me your fatherly yet lusty rhyme
—For these songs are their fruits⁠—have wrought the same.
But though th’ engend’ring force from which they came
Be strong enough, and Nature doth admit
Seven to be born at once; I send as yet
But six; they say the seventh hath still some maim.
I choose your judgment, which the same degree
Doth with her sister, your invention, hold,
As fire these drossy rhymes to purify,
Or as elixir, to change them to gold.
You are that alchemist, which always had
Wit, whose one spark could make good things of bad.

I

La Corona

Deign at my hands this crown of prayer and praise,
Weaved in my lone devout melancholy,
Thou which of good hast, yea, art treasury,
All changing unchanged Ancient of days.
But do not with a vile crown of frail bays
Reward my Muse’s white sincerity;
But what Thy thorny crown gain’d, that give me,
A crown of glory, which doth flower always.
The ends crown our works, but Thou crown’st our ends,
For at our ends begins our endless rest.
The first last end, now zealously possess’d,
With a strong sober thirst my soul attends.
’Tis time that heart and voice be lifted high;
Salvation to all that will is nigh.

II

Annunciation

Salvation to all that will is nigh;
That All, which always is all everywhere,
Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,
Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,
Lo! faithful Virgin, yields Himself to lie
In prison, in thy womb; and though He there
Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He’ll wear,
Taken from thence, flesh, which death’s force may try.
Ere by the spheres time was created thou
Wast in His mind, who is thy Son, and Brother;
Whom thou conceivest, conceived; yea, thou art now
Thy Maker’s maker, and thy Father’s mother.
Thou hast light in dark, and shutt’st in little room
Immensity, cloister’d in thy dear womb.

III

Nativity

Immensity, cloister’d in thy dear womb,
Now leaves His well-beloved imprisonment.
There he hath made himself to his intent
Weak enough, now into our world to come.
But O! for thee, for Him, hath th’ inn no room?
Yet lay Him in this stall, and from th’ orient,
Stars, and wise men will travel to prevent
The effects of Herod’s jealous general doom.
See’st thou, my soul, with thy faith’s eye, how He
Which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie?
Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee?
Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,
With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.

IV

Temple

With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe,
Joseph, turn back; see where your child doth sit,
Blowing, yea blowing out those sparks of wit,
Which Himself on the doctors did bestow.
The Word but lately could not speak, and lo!
It suddenly speaks wonders; whence comes it,
That all which was, and all which should be writ,
A shallow