To The Countess Of Bedford I
MADAM—
Reason is our soul's left hand, faith her right ;
By these we reach divinity, that's you ;
Their loves, who have the blessing of your light,
Grew from their reason ; mine from fair faith grew.
But as, although a squint left-handedness
Be ungracious, yet we cannot want that hand ;
So would I—not to increase, but to express
My faith—as I believe, so understand.
Therefore I study you first in your saints,
Those friends whom your election glorifies ;
Then in your deeds, accesses and restraints,
And what you read, and what yourself devise.
But soon the reasons why you're loved by all,
Grow infinite, and so pass reason's reach ;
Then back again to implicit faith I fall,
And rest on that the Catholic voice doth teach—
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Elegy III: Change
Although thy hand and faith, and good workes too,
Have ſeal'd thy love which nothing ſhould undoe,
Yea though thou fall backe, that apoſtaſie
Confirme thy love; yet much, much I feare thee.
Women, are like the Arts, forc'd unto none,
Open to'all ſearchers, unpriz'd, if unknowne.
If I have caught a bird, and let him flie,
Another fouler uſing theſe meanes, as I,
May catch the ſame bird; and, as theſe things bee,
Women are made for men, not him, nor mee.
Foxes and goats; all beaſts change when they pleaſe,
Shall women, more hot, wily, wild then theſe,
Be bound to one man, and did Naturre then
Idly make them apter to'endure then men?
They'are our clogges, not their owne; if a man bee
Chain'd to a galley, yet the galley'is free;
Who hath a plow-land, caſts all his feed come there,
And yet allowes his ground more corne ſhould beare;
Though Danuby into the ſea muſt flow,
The ſea receives the Rhene, Volga, and Po.
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To Sir Henry Wotton At His Going Ambassador To Venice
AFTER those reverend papers, whose soul is
Our good and great king's loved hand and fear'd name ;
By which to you he derives much of his,
And, how he may, makes you almost the same,
A taper of his torch, a copy writ
From his oiginal, and a fair beam
Of the same warm and dazzling sun, though it
Must in another 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 sea-ward steps, farewell,
Which thicken on you now, as prayers ascend
To heaven in troops, at a good man's passing-bell ;
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On the Lady Elizabeth, and Count Palatine Being Married on St. Valentine's Day
Hail Bishop Valentine, whose day this is,
All the air is thy Diocese,
And all the chirping choristers
And other birds are thy parishioners,
Thou marryest ever year
The lyric Lark, and the grave whispering Dove,
The Sparrow that neglects his life for love,
The household bird, with the red stomacher;
Thou maks't the black bird speed as soon,
As doth the Goldfinch, or the Halycon;
The husband cock looks out, and straight is sped,
And meets his wife, which brings her feather-bed.
This day more cheerfully than ever shine,
This day, which might enflame thy self, old Valentine.
Till now, thou warmd'st with mutiplying loves
Two larks, two sparrows, or two doves,
All that is nothing unto this,
For thou this day couplest two Phoenixes;
Thou mak'st a Taper see
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The Canonization
FOR God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love;
Or chide my palsy, or my gout;
My five gray hairs, or ruin'd fortune flout;
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve;
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his Honour, or his Grace;
Or the king's real, or his stamp'd face
Contemplate; what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.
Alas ! alas ! who's injured by my love?
What merchant's ships have my sighs drown'd?
Who says my tears have overflow'd his ground?
When did my colds a forward spring remove?
When did the heats which my veins fill
Add one more to the plaguy bill?
Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still
Litigious men, which quarrels move,
Though she and I do love.
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A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy's Day, Being The Shortest Day
'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;
The world's whole sap is sunk;
The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compar'd with me, who am their epitaph.
Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring;
For I am every dead thing,
In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness;
He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not.
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A Nocturnal Upon S. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day
'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;
The world's whole sap is sunk;
The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's-feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compared with me, who am their epitaph.
Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring;
For I am every dead thing,
In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness;
He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death—things which are not.
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Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward
Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this,
The intelligence that moves, devotion is
And as the other Spheares, by being growne
Subject to forraigne motions, lose their owne
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a yeare their natural! forme obey:
Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit
For their first mover, and are whirld by it.
Hence is's, that I am carryed towards the West
This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East.
There I should see a Sunne, by rising set,
And by that setting endlesse day beget;
But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall,
Sinne had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare ['almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for meet
Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye;
What a death were it then to see God dye?
It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke,
It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke.
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The Harbinger
to the Progresse.
TWo soules moue here, and mine (a third) must moue
Paces of admiration, and of loue;
Thy soule (Deare Virgin) whose this tribute is,
Mou'd from this mortall sphere to liuely blisse,
And yet moues still, and still aspires to see
The worlds last day, thy glories full degree:
Like as those starres which thou ore-lookest farre,
Are in their place, and yet still moued are
No soule (whiles with the luggage of this clay
It clogged is) can follow thee halfe way;
Or see thy flight; which doth our thoughts outgoe
So fast, that now the lightning moues but slow:
But now thou art as high in heauen flowne
As heau'ns from vs; what soule besides thine owne
Can tell thy ioyes, or say he can relate
Thy glorious Iornals in that blessed state?
I enuie thee (Rich soule) I enuy thee,
Although I cannot yet thy glory see:
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The Annunciation And Passion
TAMELY, frail body, abstain to-day ; to-day
My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.
She sees Him man, so like God made in this,
That of them both a circle emblem is,
Whose first and last concur ; this doubtful day
Of feast or fast, Christ came, and went away ;
She sees Him nothing, twice at once, who's all ;
She sees a cedar plant itself, and fall ;
Her Maker put to making, and the head
Of life at once not yet alive, yet dead ;
She sees at once the Virgin Mother stay
Reclused at home, public at Golgotha ;
Sad and rejoiced she's seen at once, and seen
At almost fifty, and at scarce fifteen ;
At once a son is promised her, and gone ;
Gabriell gives Christ to her, He her to John ;
Not fully a mother, she's in orbity ;
At once receiver and the legacy.
All this, and all between, this day hath shown,
Th' abridgement of Christ's story, which makes one—
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