Classic Poem

CHAPTER XII.

When all the elements of mortal life
Were placed in the mansion of their skin,
Each having daily motion to be rife,
Clos'd in that body which doth close them in,
God sent his Holy Spirit unto man,
Which did begin when first the world began:

So that the body, which was king of all,
Is subject unto that which now is king,
Which chasteneth those whom mischief doth exhale,
Unto misdeeds from whence destructions spring;
Yet merciful it is, though it be chief,
Converting vice to good, sin to belief.

Old time is often lost in being bald,
Bald, because old, old, because living long;
It is rejected oft when it is call'd;
And wears out age with age, still being young:
Twice children we, twice feeble, and once strong;
But being old, we sin, and do youth wrong.

The more we grow in age, the more in vice,
A house-room long unswept will gather dust;
Our long-unthawed souls will freeze to ice,
And wear the badge of long-imprison'd rust;
So those inhabitants in youth twice born,
Were old in sin, more old in heaven's scorn.

Committing works as inky spots of fame,
Commencing words like foaming vice's waves,
Committing and commencing mischief's name,
With works and words sworn to be vice's slaves:
As sorcery, witchcraft, mischievous deeds,
And sacrifice, which wicked fancies feeds.

Well may I call that wicked which is more,
I rather would be low than be too high;
O wondrous practisers, cloth'd all in gore,
To end that life which their own lives did buy!
More than swine-like eating man's bowels up,
Their banquet's dish, their blood their banquet's cup.

Butchers unnatural, worse by their trade,
Whose house the bloody shambles of decay,
More than a slaughter-house which butchers made,
More than an Eschip, seely bodies prey:
Thorough whose hearts a bloody shambles runs;
They do not butcher beasts, but their own sons.

Chief murderers of their souls, which their souls bought;
Extinguishers of light, which their lives gave;
More than knife-butchers they, butchers in thought,
Sextons to dig their own-begotten grave;
Making their habitations old in sin,
Which God doth reconcile, and new begin.

That murdering place was turn'd into delight,
That bloody slaughter-house to peace's breast,
That lawless palace to a place of right,
That slaughtering shambles to a living rest;
Made meet for justice, fit for happiness,
Unmeet for sin, unfit for wickedness.

Yet the inhabitants, though mischief's slaves,
Were not dead-drench'd in their destruction's flood;
God hop'd to raise repentance from sins' graves,
And hop'd that pain's delay would make them good;
Not that he was unable to subdue them,
But that their sins' repentance should renew them.

Delay is took for virtue and for vice;
Delay is good, and yet delay is bad;
'Tis virtue when it thaws repentance' ice,
'Tis vice to put off things we have or had:
But here it followeth repentance' way,
Therefore it is not sin's nor mischief's prey.

Delay in punishment is double pain,
And every pain makes a twice-double thought,
Doubling the way to our lives' better gain,
Doubling repentance, which is single bought;
For fruitless grafts, when they are too much lopt,
More fruitless are, for why their fruits are stopt.

So fares it with the wicked plants of sin,
The roots of mischief, tops of villany;
They worser are with too much punishing,
Because by nature prone to injury;
For 'tis but folly to supplant his thought
Whose heart is wholly given to be naught.

These seeded were in seed, O cursed plant!
Seeded with other seed, O cursed root!
Too much of good doth turn unto good's want,
As too much seed doth turn to too much soot:
Bitter in taste, presuming of their height,
Like misty vapours in black-colour'd night.

But God, whose powerful arms one strength doth hold,
Scorning to stain his force upon their faces,
Will send his messengers, both hot and cold,
To make them shadows of their own disgraces:
His hot ambassador is fire, his cold
Is wind, which two scorn for to be controll'd.

For who dares say unto the King of kings,
What hast thou done, which ought to be undone?
Or who dares stand against thy judgment's stings?
Or dare accuse thee for the nation's moan?
Or who dare say, Revenge this ill for me?
Or stand against the Lord with villany?

What he hath done he knows; what he will do
He weigheth with the balance of his eyes;
What judgment he pronounceth must be so,
And those which he oppresseth cannot rise:
Revenge lies in his hands when he doth please;
He can revenge and love, punish and ease.

The carved spectacle which workmen make
Is subject unto them, not they to it;
They which from God a lively form do take,
Should much more yield unto their maker's wit;
Sith there is none but he which hath his thought,
Caring for that which he hath made of nought.

The clay is subject to the potter's hands,
Which with a new device makes a new moul;
And what are we, I pray, but clayey bands,
With ashy body, join'd to cleaner soul?
Yet we, once made, scorn to be made again,
But live in sin, like clayey lumps of pain.

Yet if hot anger smother cool delight,
He'll mould our bodies in destruction's form,
And make ourselves as subjects to his might,
In the least fuel of his anger's storm:
Not king nor tyrant dare ask or demand,
What punishment is this thou hast in hand?

We all are captives to thy regal throne;
Our prison is the earth, our bands our sins,
And our accuser our own body's groan,
Press'd down with vice's weights and mischief's gins:
Before the bar of heaven we plead for favour,
To cleanse our sin-bespotted body's savour.

Thou righteous art, our pleading, then, is right;
Thou merciful, we hope for mercy's grace;
Thou orderest every thing with look-on sight,
Behold us, prisoners in earth's wandering race;
We know thy pity is without a bound,
And sparest them which in some faults be found.

Thy power is as thyself, without an end,
Beginning all to end, yet ending none;
Son unto virtue's son, and wisdom's friend,
Original of bliss to virtue shown;
Beginning good, which never ends in vice;
Beginning flames, which never end in ice.

For righteousness is good in such a name;
It righteous is, 'tis good in such a deed;
A lamp it is, fed with discretion's flame;
Begins in seed, but never ends in seed:
By this we know the Lord is just and wise,
Which causeth him to spare us when he tries:

Just, because justice weighs what wisdom thinks;
Wise, because wisdom thinks what justice weighs;
One virtue maketh two, and two more links;
Wisdom is just, and justice never strays:
The help of one doth make the other better,
As is the want of one the other's letter.

But wisdom hath two properties in wit,
As justice hath two contraries in force;
Heat added unto heat augmenteth it,
As too much water bursts a water-course:
God's wisdom too much prov'd doth breed God's hate,
God's justice too much mov'd breeds God's debate.

Although the ashy prison of fire-dust
Doth keep the flaming heat imprison'd in,
Yet sometime will it burn, when flame it must,
And burst the ashy cave where it hath bin:
So if God's mercy pass the bounds of mirth,
It is not mercy then, but mercy's dearth.

Yet how can love breed hate without hate's love?
God doth not hate to love, nor love to hate;
His equity doth every action prove,
Smothering with love that spiteful envy's fate;
For should the team of anger trace his brow,
The very puffs of rage will drive the plough.

But God did end his toil when world begun;
Now like a lover studies how to please,
And win their hearts again whom mischief won,
Lodg'd in the mansion of their sin's disease:
He made each mortal man two ears, two eyes,
To hear and see; yet he must make them wise.

If imitation should direct man's life,
'Tis life to imitate a living corse;
The thing's example makes the thing more rife;
God living is, why do we want remorse?
He put repentance into sinful hearts,
And fed their fruitless souls with fruitful arts.

If such a boundless ocean of good deeds
Should have such influence from mercy's stream,
Kissing both good and ill, flowers and weeds,
As doth the sunny flame of Titan's beam;
A greater Tethys then should mercy be,
In flowing unto them which loveth thee.

The sun, which shines in heaven, doth light the earth,
The earth, which shines in sin, doth spite the heaven;
Sin is earth's sun, the sun of heaven sin's dearth,
Both odd in light, being of height not even:
God's mercy then, which spares both good and ill,
Doth care for both, though not alike in will.

Can vice be virtue's mate or virtue's meat?
Her company is bad, her food more worse;
She shames to sit upon her betters' seat,
As subject beasts wanting the lion's force;
Mercy is virtue's badge, foe to disdain;
Virtue is vice's stop and mercy's gain.

Yet God is merciful to mischief-flows,
More merciful in sin's and sinners' want;
God chasteneth us, and punisheth our foes,
Like sluggish drones amongst a labouring ant:
We hope for mercy at our bodies' doom;
We hope for heaven, the bail of earthly tomb.

What hope they for, what hope have they of heaven?
They hope for vice, and they have hope of hell,
From whence their souls' eternity is given,
But such eternity which pains can tell:
They live; but better were it for to die,
Immortal in their pain and misery.

Hath hell such freedom to devour souls?
Are souls so bold to rush in such a place?
God gives hell power of vice, which hell controls;
Vice makes her followers bold with armed face;
God tortures both, the mistress and the man,
And ends in pain, that which in vice began.

A bad beginning makes a worser end,
Without repentance meet the middle way,
Making a mediocrity their friend,
Which else would be their foe, because they stray:
But if repentance miss the middle line,
The sun of virtue ends in west's decline.

So did it fare with these, which stray'd too far,
Beyond the measure of the mid-day's eye,
In error's ways, led without virtue's star,
Esteeming beast-like powers for deity;
Whose heart no thought of understanding meant,
Whose tongue no word of understanding sent:

Like infant babes, bearing their nature's shell
Upon the tender heads of tenderer wit,
Which tongue-tied are, having no tale to tell,
To drive away the childhood of their fit;
Unfit to tune their tongue with wisdom's string,
Too fit to quench their thirst in folly's spring.

But they were trees to babes, babes sprigs to them,
They not so good as these, in being nought;
In being nought, the more from vice's stem,
Whose essence cannot come without a thought;
To punish them is punishment in season,
They children-like, without or wit or reason.

To be derided is to be half-dead,
Derision bears a part 'tween life and death;
Shame follows her with misery half-fed,
Half-breathing life, to make half-life and breath:
Yet here was mercy shown, their deeds were more
Than could be wip'd off by derision's score.

This mercy is the warning of misdeeds,
A trumpet summoning to virtue's walls,
To notify their hearts which mischief feeds,
Whom vice instructs, whom wickedness exhales:
But if derision cannot murder sin,
Then shame shall end, and punishment begin.

For many shameless are, bold, stout in ill;
Then how can shame take root in shameless plants,
When they their brows with shameless furrows fill,
And ploughs each place which one plough-furrow wants?
Then being arm'd 'gainst shame with shameless face,
How can derision take a shameful place?

But punishment may smooth their wrinkled brow,
And set shame on the forehead of their rage,
Guiding the fore-front of that shameless row,
Making it smooth in shame, though not in age;
Then will they say that God is just and true;
But 'tis too late, damnation will ensue.