Classic Poem

FIRST SONG
1
I sing the progress of a deathless soul,
Whom Fate, which God made, but doth not control,
Placed in most shapes; all times before the law
Yoked us, and when, and since, in this I sing.
And the great world to his aged evening,
From infant morn, through manly noon I draw.
What the gold Chaldee, or silver Persian saw,
Greek brass, or Roman iron, is in this one;
A work to outwear Seth's pillars, brick and stone,
?And (holy writ excepted) made to yield to none.
2
Thee, eye of heaven, this great soul envies not,
By thy male force, is all we have, begot.
In the first east, thou now begin'st to shine,
Suck'st early balm, and island spices there,
And wilt anon in thy loose-reined career
At Tagus, Po, Seine, Thames, and Danow dine,
And see at night thy western land of mine,
Yet hast thou not more nations seen than she,
That before thee, one day began to be,
?And thy frail light being quenched, shall long, long outlive thee.
3
Nor, holy Janus, in whose sovereign boat
The Church, and all the monarchies did float;
That swimming college, and free hospital
Of all mankind, that cage and vivary
Of fowls, and beasts, in whose womb, Destiny
Us, and our latest nephews did instal
(From thence are all derived, that fill this all),
Didst thou in that great stewardship embark
So diverse shapes into that floating park,
?As have been moved, and informed by this heavenly spark.
4
Great Destiny the commissary of God,
That hast marked out a path and period
For every thing; who, where we offspring took,
Our ways and ends seest at one instant; thou
Knot of all causes, thou whose changeless brow
Ne'er smiles nor frowns, O vouch thou safe to look
And show my story, in thy eternal book;
That (if my prayer be fit) I may understand
So much myself, as to know with what hand,
?How scant, or liberal this my life's race is spanned.
5
To my six lustres almost now outwore,
Except thy book owe me so many more,
Except my legend be free from the lets
Of steep ambition, sleepy poverty,
Spirit-quenching sickness, dull captivity,
Distracting business, and from beauty's nets,
And all that calls from this, and t'other whets,
O let me not launch out, but let me save
Th' expense of brain and spirit; that my grave
?His right and due, a whole unwasted man may have.
6
But if my days be long, and good enough,
In vain this sea shall enlarge, or enrough
Itself; for I will through the wave, and foam,
And shall in sad lone ways, a lively sprite
Make my dark heavy poem light, and light.
For though through many straits, and lands I roam,
I launch at paradise, and I sail towards home;
The course I there began, shall here be stayed,
Sails hoisted there, struck here, and anchors laid
?In Thames, which were at Tigris, and Euphrates weighed.
7
For the great soul which here amongst us now
Doth dwell, and moves that hand, and tongue, and brow,
Which as the moon the sea, moves us, to hear
Whose story, with long patience you will long;
(For 'tis the crown, and last strain of my song)
This soul to whom Luther and Mahomet were
Prisons of flesh; this soul which oft did tear,
And mend the wracks of th' Empire, and late Rome,
And lived when every great change did come,
?Had first in paradise, a low, but fatal room.
8
Yet no low room, nor than the greatest, less,
If (as devout and sharp men fitly guess)
That Cross, our joy, and grief, where nails did tie
That all, which always was all, everywhere,
Which could not sin, and yet all sins did bear;
Which could not die, yet could not choose but die;
Stood in the self same room in Calvary,
Where first grew the forbidden learned tree,
For on that tree hung in security
?This soul, made by the Maker's will from pulling free.
9
Prince of the orchard, fair as dawning morn,
Fenced with the law, and ripe as soon as born
That apple grew, which this soul did enlive,
Till the then climbing serpent, that now creeps
For that offence, for which all mankind weeps,
Took it, and to her whom the first man did wive
(Whom and her race, only forbiddings drive)
He gave it, she to her husband, both did eat;
So perished the eaters, and the meat:
?And we (for treason taints the blood) thence die and sweat.
10
Man all at once was there by woman slain,
And one by one we 're here slain o'er again
By them. The mother poisoned the well-head,
The daughters here corrupt us, rivulets,
No smallness 'scapes, no greatness breaks their nets,
She thrust us out, and by them we are led
Astray, from turning to whence we are fled.
Were prisoners judges, 'twould seem rigorous,
She sinned, we bear; part of our pain is, thus
?To love them, whose fault to this painful love yoked us.
11
So fast in us doth this corruption grow,
That now we dare ask why we should be so.
Would God (disputes the curious rebel) make
A law, and would not have it kept? Or can
His creatures' will, cross his? Of every man
For one, will God (and be just) vengeance take?
Who sinned? 'twas not forbidden to the snake
Nor her, who was not then made; nor is 't writ
?That Adam cropped, or knew the apple; yet
?The worm and she, and he, and we endure for it.
12
But snatch me, heavenly Spirit, from this vain
Reckoning their vanities, less is the gain
Than hazard still, to meditate on ill,
Though with good mind; their reasons, like those toys
Of glassy bubbles, which the gamesome boys
Stretch to so nice a thinness through a quill
That they themselves break, do themselves spill:
Arguing is heretics' game, and exercise
As wrestlers, perfects them; not liberties
?Of speech, but silence; hands, not tongues, end heresies.
13
Just in that instant when the serpent's gripe,
Broke the slight veins, and tender conduit-pipe,
Through which this soul from the tree's root did draw
Life, and growth to this apple, fled away
This loose soul, old, one and another day.
As lightning, which one scarce dares say, he saw,
'Tis so soon gone, (and better proof the law
Of sense, than faith requires) swiftly she flew
To a dark and foggy plot; her, her fate threw
?There through th' earth's pores, and in a plant housed her anew.
14
The plant thus abled, to itself did force
A place, where no place was; by nature's course
As air from water, water fleets away
From thicker bodies, by this root thronged so
His spongy confines gave him place to grow,
Just as in our streets, when the people stay
To see the Prince, and have so filled the way
That weasels scarce could pass, when she comes near
They throng and cleave up, and a passage clear,
?As if, for that time, their round bodies flattened were.
15
His right arm he thrust out towards the east,
Westward his left; th' ends did themselves digest
Into ten lesser strings, these fingers were:
And as a slumberer stretching on his bed,
This way he this, and that way scattered
His other leg, which feet with toes upbear;
Grew on his middle parts, the first day, hair,
To show, that in love's business he should still
A dealer be, and be used well, or ill:
?His apples kindle, his leaves, force of conception kill.
16
A mouth, but dumb, he hath; blind eyes, deaf ears,
And to his shoulders dangle subtle hairs;
A young Colossus there he stands upright,
And as that ground by him were conquered
A leafy garland wears he on his head
Enchased with little fruits, so red and bright
That for them you would call your love's lips white;
So, of a lone unhaunted place possessed,
Did this soul's second inn, built by the guest,
?This living buried man, this quiet mandrake, rest.
17
No lustful woman came this plant to grieve,
But 'twas because there was none yet but Eve:
And she (with other purpose) killed it quite;
Her sin had now brought in infirmities,
And so her cradled child, the moist red eyes
Had never shut, nor slept since it saw light,
Poppy she knew, she knew the mandrake's might,
And tore up both, and so cooled her child's blood;
Unvirtuous weeds might long unvexed have stood;
?But he's short-lived, that with his death can do most good.
18
To an unfettered soul's quick nimble haste
Are falling stars, and heart's thoughts, but slow-paced:
Thinner than burnt air flies this soul, and she
Whom four new coming, and four parting suns
Had found, and left the mandrake's tenant, runs
Thoughtless of change, when her firm destiny
Confined, and enjailed her, that seemed so free,
Into a small blue shell, the which a poor
Warm bird o'erspread, and sat still evermore,
?Till her enclosed child kicked, and picked itself a door.
19
Out crept a sparrow, this soul's moving inn,
On whose raw arms stiff feathers now begin,
As children's teeth through gums, to break with pain,
His flesh is jelly yet, and his bones threads,
All a new downy mantle overspreads,
A mouth he opes, which would as much contain
As his late house, and the first hour speaks plain,
And chirps aloud for meat. Meat fit for men
His father steals for him, and so feeds then
?One, that within a month, will beat him from his hen.
20
In this world's youth wise nature did make haste,
Things ripened sooner, and did longer last;
Already this hot cock in bush and tree
In field and tent o'erflutters his next hen,
He asks her not, who did so taste, nor when,
Nor if his sister, or his niece she be,
Nor doth she pule for his inconsistancy
If in her sight he change, nor doth refuse
The next that calls; both liberty do use;
?Where store is of both kinds, both kinds may freely choose.
21
Men, till they took laws which made freedom less,
Their daughters, and their sisters did ingress;
Till now unlawful, therefore ill, 'twas not.
So jolly, that it can move, this soul is,
The body so free of his kindnesses,
That self-preserving it hath now forgot,
And slackeneth so the soul's, and body's knot
Which temperance straitens; freely on his she friends
He blood, and spirit, pith, and marrow spends,
?Ill steward of himself, himself in three years ends.
22
Else might he long have lived; man did not know
Of gummy blood, which doth in holly grow,
How to make bird-lime, nor how to deceive
With feigned calls, hid nets, or enwrapping snare,
The free inhabitants of the pliant air.
Man to beget, and woman to conceive
Asked not of roots, nor of cock-sparrows, leave:
Yet chooseth he, though none of these he fears,
Pleasantly three, than straitened twenty years
?To live, and to increase his race, himself outwears.
23
This coal with overblowing quenched and dead,
The soul from her too active organs fled
To a brook; a female fish's sandy roe
With the male's jelly, newly leavened was,
For they had intertouched as they did pass,
And one of those small bodies, fitted so,
This soul informed, and abled it to row
Itself with finny oars, which she did fit,
Her scales seemed yet of parchment, and as yet
?Perchance a fish, but by no name you could call it.
24
When goodly, like a ship in her full trim,
A swan, so white that you may unto him
Compare all whiteness, but himself to none,
Glided along, and as he glided watched,
And with his arched neck this poor fish catched.
It moved with state, as if to look upon
Low things it scorned, and yet before that one
Could think he sought it, he had swallowed clear
This, and much such, and unblamed devoured there
?All, but who too swift, too great, or well armed were.
25
Now swam a prison in a prison put,
And now this soul in double walls was shut,
Till melted with the swan's digestive fire,
She left her house the fish, and vapoured forth;
Fate not affording bodies of more worth
For her as yet, bids her again retire
To another fish, to any new desire
Made a new prey; for, he that can to none
Resistance make, nor complaint, sure is gone.
?Weakness invites, but silence feasts oppression.
26
Pace with her native stream, this fish doth keep,
And journeys with her, towards the glassy deep,
But oft retarded, once with a hidden net
Though with great windows, for when need first taught
These tricks to catch food, then they were not wrought
As now, with curious greediness to let
None 'scape, but few, and fit for use to get,
As, in this trap a ravenous pike was ta'en,
Who, though himself distressed, would fain have slain
?This wretch; so hardly are ill habits left again.
27
Here by her smallness she two deaths o'erpast,
Once innocence 'scaped, and left the oppressor fast;
The net through-swum, she keeps the liquid path,
And whether she leap up sometimes to breathe
And suck in air, or find it underneath,
Or working parts like mills, or limbecks hath
To make the water thin and airlike, faith
Cares not, but safe the place she's come unto
Where fresh, with salt waves meet, and what to do
?She knows not, but between both makes a board or two.
28
So far from hiding her guests, water is
That she shows them in bigger quantities
Than they are. Thus doubtful of her way,
For game and not for hunger a sea pie
Spied through this traitorous spectacle, from high,
The silly fish where it disputing lay,
And to end her doubts and her, bears her away,
Exalted she is, but to the exalter's good,
As are by great ones, men which lowly stood.
?It's raised, to be the raiser's instrument and food.
29
Is any kind subject to rape like fish?
Ill unto man, they neither do, nor wish:
Fishers they kill not, nor with noise awake,
They do not hunt, nor strive to make a prey
Of beasts, nor their young sons to bear away;
Fowls they pursue not, nor do undertake
To spoil the nests industrious birds do make;
Yet them all these unkind kinds feed upon,
To kill them is an occupation,
?And laws make Fasts, and Lents for their destruction.
30
A sudden stiff land-wind in that self hour
To sea-ward forced this bird, that did devour
The fish; he cares not, for with ease he flies,
Fat gluttony's best orator: at last
So long he hath flown, and hath flown so fast
That many leagues at sea, now tired he lies,
And with his prey, that till then languished, dies:
The soul's no longer foes, two ways did err,
The fish I follow, and keep no calendar
?Of the other; he lives yet in some great officer.
31
Into an embryon fish, our soul is thrown,
And in due time thrown out again, and grown
To such vastness as, if unmanacled
From Greece, Morea were, and that by some
Earthquake unrooted, loose Morea swum,
Or seas from Afric's body had severed
And torn the hopeful promontory's head,
This fish would seem these, and, when all hopes fail,
A great ship overset, or without sail
?Hulling, might (when this was a whelp) be like this whale.
32
At every stroke his brazen fins do take,
More circles in the broken sea they make
Than cannons' voices, when the air they tear:
His ribs are pillars, and his high arched roof
Of bark that blunts best steel, is thunder-proof:
Swim in him swallowed dolphins, without fear,
And feel no sides, as if his vast womb were
Some inland sea, and ever as he went
He spouted rivers up, as if he meant
?To join our seas, with seas above the firmament.
33
He hunts not fish, but as an officer,
Stays in his court, as his own net, and there
All suitors of all sorts themselves enthral;
So on his back lies this whale wantoning,
And in his gulf-like throat, sucks every thing
That passeth near. Fish chaseth fish, and all,
Flyer and follower, in this whirlpool fall;
O might not states of more equality
Consist? and is it of necessity
?That thousand guiltless smalls, to make one great, must die?
34
Now drinks he up seas, and he eats up flocks,
He jostles islands, and he shakes firm rocks.
Now in a roomful house this soul doth float,
And like a Prince she sends her faculties
To all her limbs, distant as provinces.
The sun hath twenty times both crab and goat
Parched, since first launched forth this living boat.
'Tis greatest now, and to destruction
Nearest; there's no pause at perfection.
?Greatness a period hath, but hath no station.
35
Two little fishes whom he never harmed,
Nor fed on their kind, two not throughly armed
With hope that they could kill him, nor could do
Good to themselves by his death: they did not eat
His flesh, nor suck those oils, which thence outstreat,
Conspired against him, and it might undo
The plot of all, that the plotters were two,
But