And so exceeding shone with a false light,
That Heav'n itself to her it seemed oft,
Heav'n without clouds to her deluded sight;
But clouds withouten Heav'n it was aright:
And as her house was built, so did her brain
Build castles in the air, with idle pain,
But heart she never had in al! her body vain.
Like as a ship, in which no balance lies,
Without a pilot on the sleeping waves,
Fairly along with wind and water flies,
And painted masts with silken sails embraves,
That Neptune's self the bragging vessel saves,
To laugh a while at her so proud array ;
Her waving streamers loosely she lets play,
And flagging colours shine as bright as smiling day:
But all so soon as Heav'n his brows doth bend,
She veils her banners, and pulls in her beams,
The empty bark the raging billows send
Up to th' Olympic waves, and Argus seems
Again to ride upon our lower streams:

Right so Presumption did herself behave,
Tossed about with every stormy wave,
[brave.
And in white lawn she went, most like an angel

Gently our Saviour she began to shrive,
Whether he were the Son of God, or no;
For any other she disdain'd to wife:
And if he were, she bid him fearless throw
Himself to ground, and therewithal did show
A flight of little angels, that did wait

Upon their glittering wings, to latch him straight; And longed on their backs to feel his glorious weight.

But when she saw her speech prevailed nought,
Herself she tumbled headlong to the floor :
But him the angels on their feathers caught,
And to an airy mountain nimbly bore,
Whose snowy shoulders, like some chalky shore,
Restless Olympus seem'd to rest upon

With all his swimming globes: so, both are gone, The Dragon with the Lamb. Ah, unmeet paragon!

All suddenly the hill his snow devours,
In lieu whereof a goodly garden grew,
As if the snow had melted into flow'rs,
Which their sweet breath in subtle vapours threw :
That all about perfumed spirits flew.

For whatsoever might aggrate the sense,
In all the world, or please the appetence,
Here it was poured out in lavish affluence.
Not lovely Ida might with this compare,
Though many streams his banks besilvered,
Though Xanthus with his golden sands he bare:
Nor Hybla, though his thyme depastured,
As fast again with honey blossomed :

No Phodope, no Tempe's flow'ry plain :
Adonis' garden was to this but vain,
Though Plato on his beds a flood of praise did rain.

For in all these some one thing most did grow,
But in this one grew all things else beside;
For sweet Variety herself did throw
To every bank, here all the ground she dide
In lily white, there pinks eblazed white,

And damask all the earth; and here she shed
Blue violets, and there came roses red:
And every sight the yielding sense as captive led.

When I remember Christ our burden bears,
I look for glory, but find misery;

I look for joy, but find a sea of tears;
I look that we should live, and find bim die;
I look for angels' songs, and hear him cry:
Thus what I look, I cannot find so well;
Or rather, what I find I cannot tell,
These banks so narrow are, those streams so highly
swell.

Christ suffers, and in this his tears begin,
Suffers for us, and our joy springs in this;
Suffers to death, here is his manhood seen;
Suffers to rise, and here bis Godhead is,
For man, that could not by himself have rise,
Out of the grave doth by the Godhead rise,
And God, that could not die, in manhood dies,
That we in both might live by that sweet sacrifice.

Go, giddy brains, whose wits are thought so fresh,
Pluck all the flow'rs that Nature forth doth throw;
Go, stick them on the cheeks of wanton flesh :
Poor idol (forc'd at once to fall and grow)
Of fading roses, and of melting snow:

Your songs exceed your matter, this of mine,
The matter which it sings shall make divine;
As stars dull puddles gild, in which their beautjes
shine.

Who doth not see drown'd in Deucalion's name
(When earth his men, and sea had lost his shore)
Old Noah? and in Nisus' lock the fame
Of Samson yet alive? and long before
In Phaethon's, mine own fall I deplore;

But he that conquer'd Hell, to fetch again
His virgin widow, by a serpent slain,
Another Orpheus was then dreaming poets feign.
That taught the stones to melt for passion,
And dormant sea, to hear him, silent lie;
And at his voice, the wat'ry nation
To flock, as if they deem'd it cheap to buy
With their own deaths his sacred harmony:

The while the waves stood still to hear his song,
And steady shore wav'd with the reeling throng
Of thirsty souls, that hung upon his fluent tongue.
What better friendship, than to cover shame?
What greater love, than for a friend to die?
Yet this is better to asself the blame,
And this is greater for an enemy:
But more than this, to die not suddenly,

Not with some common death, or easy pain,
But slowly, and with torments to be slain:
O depth without a depth, far better seen than
say'n.

And yet the Son is humbled for the slave,
And yet the slave is proud before the Son:
Yet the Creator for his creature gave
Himself, and yet the creature hastes to run
From bis Creator, and self-good doth shun:

And yet the Prince, and God himself doth cry To man, his traitour, pardon not to fly; Yet man is God, and traitour doth his Prince defy.

Who is it sees not that he nothing is,

But he that nothing sees? what weaker breast, Since Adam's armour fail'd, dares warrant his? That made by God of all his creatures best, Straight made himself the worst of all the rest. "If any strength we have, it is to ill,

But all the good is God's, both pow'r and will :” The dead man cannot rise, though he himself may kill.

But let the thorny school these punctuals
Of wills, all good, or bad, or neuter diss;
Such joy we gained by our parentals,
That good, or bad, whether I cannot wish,
To call it a mishap, or happy miss,

That fell from Eden, and to Heav'n did rise;
Albe the mitred card'nal more did prize
His part in Paris, than his part in Paradise.

A tree was first the instrument of strife,
Where Eve to sin her soul did prostitute;
A tree is now the instrument of life,
Though all that trunk, and this fair body suit:
Ah cursed tree, and yet O blessed fruit!

That death to him, this life to us doth give: Strange is the cure, when things past cure revive,

And the Physician dies, to make his patient live. Sweet Eden was the arbour of delight, Yet in his honey flow'rs our poison blew; Sad Gethseman the bow'r of baleful night, Where Christ a health of poison for us drew, Yet all our honey in that poison grew :

So we from sweetest flow'rs could suck our bane, And Christ from bitter venom could again Extract life out of death, and pleasure out of pain.

A man was first the author of our fall,
A man is now the author of our rise:
A garden was the place we perish'd all,
A garden is the place he pays our price:
And the old serpent with a new device,

Hath found a way himselfe for to beguile:
So he that all men tangled in his wile,
Is now by one man caught, beguil'd with his own
guile.

The dewy night had with her frosty shade
Sparkled in ice, only the Lord, that made
Immantled all the world, and the stiff ground
All for himself, himself dissolved found,
Sweat without heat, and bled without a wound :
Of Heav'n, and Earth, and God, and man

forlore,

Thrice begging help of those, whose sins he bore, And thrice denied of those, not to deny had swore.

Yet had he been alone of God forsaken,
Or had his body been embroil'd alone
In fierce assault; he might, perhaps have taken
Some joy in soul, when all joy else was gone,
But that with God, and God to Heav'n is Bown;
And Hell itself out from her grave doth rise,
Black as the starless night, and with them flies,
Yet blacker than they both, the son of blasphemies.

As when the planets, with unkind aspect,
Call from her caves the meagre pestilence;
The sacred vapour, eager to infect,
Obeys the voice of the sad influence,
And vomits up a thousand noisome scents,

The well of life, flaming his golden flood
With the sick air, fevers the boiling blood,
And poisons all the body with contagious food.
The bold physician, too incautelous,
By those he cures himself is murdered:
Kindness infects, pity is dangerous,
And the poor infant, yet not fully bred,
There where he should be born lies buried:
So the dark prince, from his infernal cell,
Casts up his grisly torturers of Hell, [spell.
And whets them to revenge with this insulting
"See how the world smiles in eternal peace,
While we, the harmless brats, and rusty throng
Of night, our snakes in curls do prank and dress:
Why sleep our drowsy scorpions so long?
Where is our wonted virtue to do wrong?

Are we ourselves? or are we graces grown? The sons of Hell, or Heav'n? was never known Our whips so over-moss'd, and brands so deadly

blown.

"O long desired, never hop'd-for hour,

When our tormentor shall our torments feel! Arm, arm yourselves, sad dires of my pow'r, And make our judge for pardon to us kneel: Slice, lanch, dig, tear him with your whips of steel,

[eries

Myself in honour of so noble prize, Will pour you reeking blood, shed with the Of hasty heirs, who their own fathers sacrifice." With that a flood of poison, black as Hell, Out from his filthy gorge the beast did spue, That all about his blessed body fell, And thousand flaming serpents hissing flew About his soul, from hellish sulphur threw,

And every one brandish'd his fiery tongue,
And worming all about his soul they clung;
But he their stings tore out, and to the ground
them flung.

So have I seen a rock's heroic breast,
Against proud Neptune, that his ruin threats,
When all his waves he hath to battle prest,
And with a thousand swelling billows beats
The stubborn stone, and foams, and chaffs and

frets

To heave him from his root, unmoved stand; And more in heaps the barking surges band, The more in pieces beat, fly weeping to the strand.

So may we oft a vent'rous father see,
To please his wanton son, his only joy,
Coast all about, to catch the roving bee,
And stung himself, his busy hands employ
To save the honey for the gamesome boy :

Or from the snake her ranc'rous teeth eraze, Making his child the toothless serpent chace, Or with his little hands her tim'rous gorge em. brace.

Thus Christ himself to watch and sorrow gives,
While, dew'd in easy sleep, dead Peter lies:
Thus utan in his own grave securely lives,
While Christ alive, with thousand horrours dies,
Yet more for theirs, than his own pardon cries:

No sins he had, yet all our sins he bare, So much doth God for others' evils care, And yet so careless men for their own evils are.

See drowsy Peter, see where Judas wakes,
Where Judas kisses him whom Peter flies :
O kiss more deadly than the sting of snakes!
False love more hurtful than true injuries!
Aye me! how dearly God his servant buys?
For God his man at his own blood doth hold,
And man his God for thirty-pence hath sold.
So tin for silver goes, and dunghill-dross for gold.
Yet was it not enough for Sin to choose
A servant, to betray his Lord to them;
But that a subject must his king accuse,
But that a Pagan must his God condemn,
But that a Father must his Son contemn,

But that the Son must his own death desire, That prince, and people, servant, and the sire, Gentile, and Jew, and he against himself conspire ?

Was this the oil, to make thy saints adore thee,
Are these the virges, that are borne before thee,
The frothy spittle of the rascal throng?
Base whips of cord, and knotted all along?
Is this thy golden sceptre, against wrong,

A reedy cane? is that the crown adorns
Thy shining locks, a crown of spiny thorns?
Are these the angels' hymns, the priests' blasphe-
mous scorns?

Who ever saw honour before asham'd;
Afflicted majesty, debased height,
Innocence guilty, honesty defam'd;
Liberty bound, health sick, the Sun in night!
But since such wrong was offer'd unto right,

Our night is day, our sickness health is grown,
Our shame is veil'd, this now remains alone
For us, since he was ours, that we be not our

own.

Night was ordain'd for rest, and not for pain; But they, to pain their Lord, their rest contemn, Good laws to save, what bad men would have

slain,

And not bad judges, with one breath, by them
The innocent to pardon, and condemn :

Death for revenge of murderers, not decay Man's murderer to save, man's Saviour to slay. Of guiltless blood, but now all headlong sway

Frail multitude! whose giddy law is list,
And best applause is windy flattering,
Most like the breath of which it doth consist,
No sooner blown, but as soon vanishing,
As much desir'd, as little profiting,

That makes the men that have it oft as light, As those that give it, which the proud invite, And fear; the bad man's friend, the good man's hypocrite.

It was but now their sounding clamours sung,
"Blessed is he that comes from the Most High,"
And all the mountains with "Hosannah" rung;
And now, "Away with him, away," they cry,
And nothing can be heard but " Crucify:"

It was but now, the crown itself they save,
And golden name of king unto him gave;
And now, no. king, but only Cæsar, they will have.