Classic Poem

CHAPTER XV.

But God will never dye his hands with blood,
His heart with hate, his throne with cruelty,
His face with fury's map, his brow with cloud,
His reign with rage, his crown with tyranny;
Gracious is he, long-suffering, and true,
Which ruleth all things with his mercy's view:

Gracious; for where is grace but where he is?
The fountain-head, the ever-boundless stream:
Patient; for where is patience in amiss,
If not conducted by pure grace's beam?
Truth is the moderator of them both,
For grace and patience are of truest growth.

For grace-beginning truth doth end in grace,
As truth-beginning grace doth end in truth;
Now patience takes the moderator's place,
Young-old in suffering, old-young in ruth.
Patience is old in being always young,
Not having right, nor ever offering wrong.

So this is moderator of God's rage,
Pardoning those deeds which we in sin commit,
That if we sin, she is our freedom's gage,
And we still thine, though to be thine unfit;
In being thine, O Lord, we will not sin,
That we thy patience, grace, and truth, may win!

O grant us patience, in whose grant we rest,
To right our wrong, and not to wrong the right!
Give us thy grace, O Lord, to make us blest,
That grace might bless, and bliss might grace our sight!
Make our beginning and our sequel truth,
To make us young in age, and grave in youth!

We know that our demands rest in thy will;
Our will rests in thy word, our word in thee;
Thou in our orisons, which dost fulfil
That wished action which we wish to be;
'Tis perfect righteousness to know thee right,
'Tis immortality to know thy might.

In knowing thee, we know both good and ill,
Good to know good and ill, ill to know none;
In knowing all, we know thy sacred will,
And what to do, and what to leave undone:
We are deceiv'd, not knowing to deceive;
In knowing good and ill, we take and leave.

The glass of vanity, deceit, and shows,
The painter's labour, the beguiling face,
The divers-colour'd image of suppose,
Cannot deceive the substance of thy grace;
Only a snare to those of common wit,
Which covets to be like, in having it.

The greedy lucre of a witless brain,
This feeding avarice on senseless mind,
Is rather hurt than good, a loss than gain,
Which covets for to lose, and not to find;
So they were coloured with such a face,
They would not care to take the idol's place.

Then be your thoughts coherent to your words,
Your words as correspondent to your thought;
'Tis reason you should have what love affords,
And trust in that which love so dearly bought:
The maker must needs love what he hath made,
And the desirer's free of either trade.

Man, thou wast made; art thou a maker now?
Yes, 'tis thy trade, for thou a potter art,
Tempering soft earth, making the clay to bow;
But clayey thou dost bear too stout a heart:
The clay is humble to thy rigorous hands;
Thou clay too tough against thy God's commands.

If thou want'st slime, behold thy slimy faults;
If thou want'st clay, behold thy clayey breast;
Make them to be the deepest centre's vaults,
And let all clayey mountain sleep in rest:
Thou bear'st an earthly mountain on thy back,
Thy heart's chief prison-house, thy soul's chief wrack.

Art thou a mortal man, and mak'st a god?
A god of clay, thou but a man of clay?
O suds of mischief, in destruction sod!
O vainest labour, in a vainer play!
Man is the greatest work which God did take,
And yet a god with man is nought to make.

He that was made of earth would make a heaven,
If heaven may be made upon the earth;
Sin's heirs, the airs, sin's plants, the planets seven,
Their god a clod, his birth true virtue's dearth:
Remember whence you came, whither you go;
Of earth, in earth, from earth to earth in woe.

No, quoth the potter; as I have been clay,
So will I end with what I did begin;
I am of earth, and I do what earth may;
I am of dust, and therefore will I sin:
My life is short, what then? I'll make it longer;
My life is weak, what then? I'll make it stronger.

Long shall it live in vice, though short in length,
And fetch immortal steps from mortal stops;
Strong shall it be in sin, though weak in strength,
Like mounting eagles on high mountains' tops;
My honour shall be placed in deceit,
And counterfeit new shows of little weight.

My pen doth almost blush at this reply,
And fain would call him wicked to his face;
But then his breath would answer with a lie,
And stain my ink with an untruth's disgrace:
Thy master bids thee write, the pen says no;
But when thy master bids, it must be so.

Call his heart ashes, — O, too mild a name!
Call his hope vile, more viler than the earth;
Call his life weaker than a clayey frame;
Call his bespotted heart an ashy hearth:
Ashes, earth, clay, conjoin'd to heart, hope, life,
Are features' love, in being nature's strife.

Thou might'st have chose more stinging words than these,
For this he knows he is, and more than less;
In saying what he is, thou dost appease
The foaming anger which his thoughts suppress:
Who knows not, if the best be made of clay,
The worst must needs be clad in foul array?

Thou, in performing of thy master's will,
Dost teach him to obey his lord's commands;
But he repugnant is, and cannot skill
Of true adoring, with heart-heav'd-up hand:
He hath a soul, a life, a breath, a name,
Yet he is ignorant from whence they came.

My soul, saith he, is but a map of shows,
No substance, but a shadow for to please;
My life doth pass even as a pastime goes,
A momentary time to live at ease;
My breath a vapour, and my name of earth,
Each one decaying of the other's birth.

Our conversation best, for there is gains,
And gain is best in conversation's prime;
A mart of lucre in our conscience reigns,
Our thoughts as busy agents for the time:
So we get gain, ensnaring simple men,
It is no matter how, nor where, nor when.

We care not how, for all misdeeds are ours;
We care not where, if before God or man;
We care not when, but when our crafts have powers
In measuring deceit with mischief's fan;
For wherefore have we life, form, and ordaining,
But that we should deceive, and still be gaining?

I, made of earth, have made all earthen shops,
And what I sell is all of earthy sale;
My pots have earthen feet and earthen tops,
In like resemblance of my body's veil;
But knowing to offend the heavens more,
I made frail images of earthy store.

O bold accuser of his own misdeeds!
O heavy clod, more than the earth can bear!
Was never creature cloth'd in savage weeds,
Which would not blush when they this mischief hear:
Thou told'st a tale which might have been untold,
Making the hearers blush, the readers old.

Let them blush still that hears, be old that reads,
Then boldness shall not reign, nor youth in vice;
Thrice miserable they which rashly speeds,
With expedition to this bold device;
More foolish than are fools, whose misery
Cannot be chang'd with new felicity.

Are not they fools which live without a sense?
Have not they misery which never joy?
Which takes an idol for a god's defence,
And with their self-will'd thoughts themselves destroy?
What folly is more greater than is here?
Or what more misery can well appear?

Call you them gods which have no seeing eyes,
No noses for to smell, no ears to hear,
No life but that which in death's shadow lies,
Which have no hands to feel, no feet to bear?
If gods can neither hear, live, feel, nor see,
A fool may make such gods of every tree.

And what was he that made them but a fool,
Conceiving folly in a foolish brain,
Taught and instructed in a wooden school,
Which made his head run of a wooden vein?
'Twas man which made them, he his making had;
Man, full of wood, was wood, and so ran mad.

He borrowed his life, and would restore
His borrow'd essence to another death;
He fain would be a maker, though before
Was made himself, and God did lend him breath:
No man can make a god like to a man;
He says he scorns that work, he further can.

He is deceiv'd, and in his great deceit
He doth deceive the folly-guided hearts;
Sin lies in ambush, he for sin doth wait,
Here is deceit deceiv'd in either parts;
His sin deceiveth him, and he his sin,
So craft with craft is mew'd in either gin.

The craftsman mortal is, craft mortal is,
Each function nursing up the other's want;
His hands are mortal, deadly what is his,
Only his sins buds in destruction's plant:
Yet better he than what he doth devise,
For he himself doth live, that ever dies.

Say, call you this a god? where is his head?
Yet headless is he not, yet hath he none;
Where is his godhead? fled; his power? dead;
His reign? decayed; and his essence? gone:
Now tell me, is this god the god of good?
Or else Silvanus monarch of the wood?

There have I pierc'd his bark, for he is so,
A wooden god, feign'd as Silvanus was;
But leaving him, to others let us go,
To senseless beasts, their new-adoring glass;
Beasts which did live in life, yet died in reason;
Beasts which did seasons eat, yet knew no season.

Can mortal bodies and immortal souls
Keep one knit union of a living love?
Can sea with land, can fish agree with fowls?
Tigers with lambs, a serpent with a dove?
O no, they cannot! then say, why do we
Adore a beast which is our enemy?

What greater foe than folly unto wit?
What more deformity than ugly face?
This disagrees, for folly is unfit,
The other contrary to beauty's place:
Then how can senseless heads, deformed shows,
Agree with you, when they are both your foes?