Classic Poem

CHAPTER XVII.

O, fly the bed of vice, the lodge of sin!
Sleep not too long in your destruction's pleasures;
Amend your wicked lives, and new begin
A more new perfect way to heaven's treasures!
O, rather wake and weep than sleep and joy!
Waking is truth, sleep is a flattering toy.

O, take the morning of your instant good!
Be not benighted with oblivion's eye;
Behold the sun, which kisseth Neptune's flood,
And re-salutes the world with open sky:
Else sleep, and ever sleep; God's wrath is great,
And will not alter with too late entreat.

Why wake I them which have a sleeping mind?
O words, sad sergeants to arrest my thoughts!
If wak'd, they cannot see, their eyes are blind,
Shut up like windolets, which sleep hath bought:
Their face is broad awake, but not their heart;
They dream of rising, but are loath to start.

These were the practisers how to betray
The simple righteous with beguiling words,
And bring them in subjection to obey
Their irreligious laws and sin's accords:
But night's black-colour'd veil did cloud their will,
And made their wish rest in performance skill.

The darksome clouds are summoners of rain,
In being something black and something dark;
But coal-black clouds makes it pour down amain,
Darting forth thunderbolts and lightning's spark:
Sin of itself is black, but black with black
Augments the heavy burthen of the back.

They thought that sins could hide their sinful shames,
In being demi-clouds and semi-nights;
But they had clouds enough to make their games,
Lodg'd in black coverings of oblivious nights:
Then was their vice afraid to lie so dark,
Troubled with visions from Alastor's park.

The greater poison bears the greater sway,
The greatest force hath still the greatest face;
Should night miss course, it would infect the day
With foul-risse vapours from a humorous place:
Vice hath some clouds, but yet the night hath more,
Because the night was fram'd and made before.

That sin which makes afraid was then afraid,
Although enchamber'd in a den's content;
That would not drive back fear which comes repaid,
Nor yet the echoes which the visions sent;
Both sounds and shows, both words and action,
Made apparition's satisfaction.

A night in pitchy mantle of distress,
Made thick with mists and opposite to light,
As if Cocytus' mansion did possess
The gloomy vapours of suppressing sight;
A night more ugly than Alastor's pack,
Mounting all nights upon his night-made back.

The moon did mourn in sable-suited veil;
The stars, her handmaids, were in black attire;
All nightly visions told a hideous tale;
The screech-owls made the earth their dismal quire:
The moon and stars divide their twinkling eyes
To lighten vice, which in oblivion lies.

Only appear'd a fire in doleful blaze,
Kindled by furies, rais'd by envious winds,
Dreadful in sight, which put them to amaze,
Having before fury-despairing minds:
What hair in reading would not stand upright?
What pen in writing would not cease to write?

Fire is God's angel, because bright and clear,
But this an evil angel, because dread;
Evil to them which did already fear,
A second death to them which were once dead.
Annexing horror to dead-strucken life,
Connexing dolor to live nature's strife.

Deceit was then deceiv'd, treason betray'd,
Mischief beguil'd, a night surpassing night,
Vice fought with vice, and fear was then dismay'd,
Horror itself appall'd at such a sight;
Sin's snare was then ensnar'd, the fisher cought,
Sin's net was then entrapt, the fowler fought.

Yet all this conflict was but in a dream,
A show of substance and a shade of truth,
Illusions for to mock in flattering theme,
Beguiling mischief with a glass of ruth:
For boasts require a fall, and vaunts a shame,
Which two vice had in thinking but to game.

Sin told her creditors she was a queen,
And now become revenge to right their wrong,
With honey-mermaid's speech alluring seen,
Making new-pleasing words with her old tongue:
If you be sick, quoth she, I'll make you whole;
She cures the body, but makes sick the soul.

Safe is the body when the soul is wounded,
The soul is joyful in the body's grief;
One's joy upon the other's sorrow grounded,
One's sorrow placed in the one's relief:
Quoth sin, Fear nothing, know that I am here;
When she, alas, herself was sick for fear!

A promise worthy of derision's place,
That fear should help a fear when both are one;
She was as sick in heart, though not in face,
With inward grief, though not with outward moan:
But she clasp'd up the closure of the tongue,
For fear that words should do her body wrong.

Cannot the body weep without the eyes?
Yes, and frame deepest canzons of lament;
Cannot the body fear without it lies
Upon the outward show of discontent?
Yes, yes, the deeper fear sits in the heart,
And keeps the parliament of inward smart.

So sin did snare in mind, and not in face,
The dragon's jaw, the hissing serpent's sting;
Some liv'd, some died, some ran a fearful race,
Some did prevent that which ill fortunes bring:
All were officious servitors to fear,
And her pale connizance in heart did wear.

Malice condemn'd herself guilty of hate,
With a malicious mouth of envious spite;
For Nemesis is her own cruel fate,
Turning her wrath upon her own delight:
We need no witness for a guilty thought,
Which to condemn itself, a thousand brought.

For fear deceives itself in being fear,
It fears itself in being still afraid;
It fears to weep, and yet it sheds a tear;
It fears itself, and yet it is obey'd:
The usher unto death, a death to doom,
A doom to die in horror's fearful room:

His own betrayer, yet fears to betray,
He fears his life by reason of his name;
He fears lament, because it brings decay,
And blames himself in that he merits blame:
He is tormented, yet denies the pain;
He is the king of fear, yet loath to reign.

His sons were they which slept and dreamt of fear,
A waking sleep, and yet a sleepy waking,
Which pass'd that night more longer than a year,
Being grief's prisoners, and of sorrow's taking:
Slept in night's dungeon insupportable,
Lodg'd in night's horror too endurable.

O sleep, the image of long-lasting woe!
O waking image of long-lasting sleep!
The hollow cave where visions come and go,
Where serpents hiss, where mandrakes groan and creep:
O fearful show, betrayer of a soul,
Dyeing each heart in white, each white in foul!

A guileful hole, a prison of deceit,
Yet nor deceit nor guile in being dead;
Snare without snarer, net without a bait,
A common lodge, and yet without a bed;
A hollow-sounding vault, known and unknown,
Yet not for mirth, but too, too well for moan.

'Tis a free prison, a chain'd liberty,
A freedom's cave, a sergeant and a bail;
It keeps close prisoners, yet doth set them free,
Their clogs not iron, but a clog of wail;
It stays them not, and yet they cannot go,
Their chain is discontent, their prison woe.

Still it did gape for more, and still more had,
Like greedy avarice without content;
Like to Avernus, which is never glad
Before the dead-liv'd wicked souls be sent:
Pull in thy head, thou sorrow's tragedy,
And leave to practice thy old cruelty.

The merry shepherd cannot walk alone,
Tuning sweet madrigals of harvest's joy,
Carving love's roundelays on every stone,
Hanging on every tree some amorous toy,
But thou with sorrow interlines his song,
Opening thy jaws of death to do him wrong.

O, now I know thy chain, thy clog, thy fetter,
Thy free-chain'd prison and thy clogged walk!
'Tis gloomy darkness, sin's eternal debtor,
'Tis poison'd buds from Acherontic stalk;
Sometime 'tis hissing winds which are their bands,
Sometime enchanting birds which binds their hands;

Sometime the foaming rage of waters' stream,
Or clattering down of stones upon a stone,
Or skipping beasts at Titan's gladsome beam,
Or roaring lion's noise at one alone,
Or babbling Echo, tell-tale of each sound,
From mouth to sky, from sky unto the ground.

Can such-like fears follow man's mortal pace,
Within dry wilderness of wettest woe?
It was God's providence, his will, his grace,
To make midnoon midnight in being so;
Midnight with sin, midnoon where virtue lay;
That place was night, all other places day.

The sun, not past the middle line of course,
Did clearly shine upon each labour's gain,
Not hindering daily toil of mortal force,
Nor clouding earth with any gloomy stain;
Only night's image was apparent there,
With heavy, leaden appetite of fear.