Classic Poem

CHAPTER VIII.

Who is the empress of the world's confine,
The monarchess of the four-corner'd earth,
The princess of the seas, life without fine,
Commixer of delight with sorrow's mirth?
What sovereign is she which ever reigns,
Which queen-like governs all, yet none constrains?

Wisdom; O fly, my spirit, with that word!
Wisdom; O lodge, my spirit, in that name!
Fly, soul, unto the mansion of her lord,
Although thy wings be singed in her flame:
Tell her my blackness doth admire her beauty;
I'll marry her in love, serve her in duty.

If marry her, God is my father God,
Christ is my brother, angels are my kin,
The earth my dowry, heaven my abode,
My rule the world, my life without my sin:
She is the daughter of immortal Jove;
My wife in heart, in thought, in soul, in love.

Happy for ever he that thought in heart,
Happy for ever he that heart in thought;
Happy the soul of both which bears both part,
Happy that love which thought, heart, soul hath sought:
The name of love is happiest, for I love her;
Soul, heart, and thoughts, love's agents are to prove her.

Ye parents, that would have your children rul'd,
Here may they be instructed, rul'd, and taught;
Ye children, that would have your parents school'd,
Feeding their wanton thirst with folly's draught,
See here the school of discipline erected!
See here how young and old are both corrected!

Children, this is the mistress of your bliss,
Your schoolmistress, reformer of your lives;
Parents, you that do speak, think, do amiss,
Here's she which love's and life's direction gives;
She teacheth that which God knows to be true,
She chooseth that which God would choose for you.

What is our birth? poor, naked, needy, cold;
What is our life? poor as our birth has been;
What is our age? forlorn in being old;
What is our end? as our beginning's scene:
Our birth, our life, our age, our end is poor;
What birth, what life, what age, what end hath more?

Made rich it is with vanity's vain show;
If wanting wisdom, it is folly's game;
Or like a bended or unbended bow,
Ill fortune's scoff it is, good fortune's shame:
If wisdom be the riches of thy mind,
Then can thy fortune see, not seeing, blind.

Then if good fortune doth begin thy state,
Ill fortune cannot end what she begins;
Thy fate at first will still remain thy fate,
Thy conduct unto joys, not unto sins:
If thou the bridegroom art, wisdom the bride,
Ill fortune cannot swim against thy tide.

Thou marrying her dost marry more than she,
Thy portion is not faculties, but bliss;
Thou need'st not teaching, for she teacheth thee,
Nor no reformer, she thy mistress is;
The lesson which she gives thee for thy learning
Is every virtue's love, and sin's discerning.

Dost thou desire experience for to know?
Why, how can she be less than what she is?
The growth of knowledge doth from wisdom grow,
The growth of wisdom is in knowing this:
Wisdom can tell all things, what things are past,
What done, what undone, what are doing last:

Nay, more, what things are come, what are to come,
Or words, or works, or shows, or actions,
In her brain's table-book she hath the sum,
And knows dark sentences' solutions;
She knows what signs and wonders will ensue,
And when success of seasons will be new.

Who would not be a bridegroom? who not wed?
Who would not have a bride so wise, so fair?
Who would not lie in such a peaceful bed,
Whose canopy is heaven, whose shade the air?
How can it be that any of the skies
Can there be missing, where heaven's kingdom lies?

If care-sick, I am comforted with joy;
If surfeiting on joy, she bids me care;
She says that overmuch will soon annoy,
Too much of joy, too much of sorrow's fare:
She always counsels me to keep a mean,
And not with joy too fat, with grief too lean.

Fain would the shrub grow by the highest tree,
Fain would the mushroom kiss the cedar's bark,
Fain would the seely worm a-sporting be,
Fain would the sparrow imitate the lark:
Though I a tender shrub, a mushroom be,
Yet covet I the honour of a tree.

And may I not? may not the blossoms bud?
Doth not the little seed make ears of corn?
Doth not a sprig, in time, bear greatest wood?
Doth not young evenings make an elder morn?
For wisdom's sake, I know, though I be young,
I shall have praises from my elders' tongue.

And as my growth doth rise, so shall my wit,
And as my with doth rise, so shall my growth;
In wit I grow, both growths grow to be fit,
Both fitting in one growth be fittest both:
Experience follows age, and nature youth;
Some aged be in wit, though young in ruth.

The wisdom which I have springs from above,
The wisdom from above is that I have;
Her I adore, I reverence, I love,
She's my pure soul, lock'd in my body's grave;
The judgment which I use from her proceeds,
Which makes me marvell'd at in all my deeds.

Although mute silence tie my judgment's tongue,
Sad secretary of dumb action,
Yet shall they give me place, though I be young,
And stay my leisure's satisfaction;
Even as a judge, which keeps his judgments mute,
When clients have no answer of their suit.

But if the closure of my mouth unmeets,
And dives within the freedom of my words,
They like petitioners' tongues welcome greets,
And with attentive ear hears my accords;
But if my words into no limits go,
Their speech shall ebb, mine in their ebbing flow.

And what of this vain world, vain hope, vain show,
Vain glory seated in a shade of praise,
Mortality's descent and folly's flow,
The badge of vanity, the hour of days;
What glory is it for to be a king,
When care is crown, and crown is fortune's sling?

Wisdom is immortality's alline,
And immortality is wisdom's gain,
By her the heaven's lineage is mine,
By her I immortality obtain;
The earth is made immortal in my name,
The heavens are made immortal in my fame.

Two spacious orbs of two as spacious climes
Shall be the heritage which I possess;
My rule in heaven, directing earthly times,
My reign in earth, commencing earth's redress;
One king made two, one crown a double crown,
One rule two rules, one fame a twice renown.

What heaven is this, which every thought contains?
Wisdom my heaven, my heaven is wisdom's heaven;
What earth is this, wherein my body reigns?
Wisdom my earth, all rule from wisdom given;
Through her I rule, through her I do subdue,
Through her I reign, through her my empire grew.

A rule, not tyranny, a reign, not blood,
An empire, not a slaughter-house of lives,
A crown, not cruelty in fury's mood,
A sceptre which restores, and not deprives;
All made to make a peace, and not a war,
By wisdom, concord's queen and discord's bar.

The coldest word oft cools the hottest threat,
The tyrant's menaces the calms of peace;
Two colds augmenteth one, two heats one heat,
And makes both too extreme when both increase:
My peaceful reign shall conquer tyrants' force,
Not arms, but words, not battle, but remorse.

Yet mighty shall I be, though war in peace,
Strong, though ability hath left his clime,
And good, because my wars and battles cease,
Or, at the least, lie smother'd in their prime:
The fence once digged up with fear's amaze,
Doth rage untam'd with folly's fenceless gaze.

If wisdom doth not harbour in delight,
It breaks the outward passage of the mind;
Therefore I place my war in wisdom's might,
Whose heavy labours easy harbours find;
Her company is pleasure, mirth, and joy,
Not bitterness, not mourning, not annoy.

When every thought was balanced by weight
Within the concave of my body's scale,
My heart and soul did hold the balance straight,
To see what thought was joy, what thought was wail;
But when I saw that grief did weigh down pleasure,
I put in wisdom to augment her treasure:

Wisdom, the weight of immortality;
Wisdom, the balance of all happiness;
Wisdom, the weigher of felicity;
Wisdom, the paragon of blessedness;
When in her hands their lies such plenty's store,
Needs must her heart have twice as much and more.

Her heart have I conjoined with her hand,
Her hand hath she conjoined with my heart;
Two souls one soul, two hands one body's band,
And two hands made of four, by amour's art:
Was I not wise in choosing earthly life?
Nay, wise, thrice wise, in choosing such a wife?

Was I not good? good, then the sooner bad;
Bad, because earth is full of wickedness,
Because my body is with vices clad,
Anatomy of my sin's heaviness:
As doth unseemly clothes make the skin foul,
So the sin-inked body blots the soul.

Thus lay my heart plung'd in destruction's mire,
Thus lay my soul bespotted with my sin,
Thus lay myself consum'd in my desire,
Thus lay all parts ensnared in one gin;
At last my heart, mounting above the mud,
Lay between hope and death, mischief and good.

Thus panting, ignorant to live or die,
To rise or fall, to stand or else to sink,
I cast a fainting look unto the sky,
And saw the thought which my poor heart did think;
Wisdom my thought, at whose seen sight I pray'd,
And with my heart, my mind, my soul, I said: