Classic Poem

CHAPTER IX.

O God of fathers, Lord of heaven and earth,
Mercy's true sovereign, pity's portraiture,
King of all kings, a birth surpassing birth,
A life immortal, essence ever pure,
Which with a breath ascending from thy thought,
Hast made the heavens of earth, the earth of nought!

Thou which hast made mortality for man,
Beginning life to make an end of woe,
Ending in him what in himself began,
His earth's dominion through thy wisdom's flow:
Made for to rule according to desert,
And execute revenge with upright heart;

Behold a crown, but yet a crown of care,
Behold a sceptre, yet a sorrow's guise,
More than the balance of my head can bear,
More than my hands can hold, wherein it lies;
My crown doth want supportance for to bear,
My sceptre wanteth empire for to wear.

A legless body is my kingdom's map,
Limping in folly, halting in distress;
Give me thy wisdom, Lord, my better hap,
Which may my folly cure, my grief redress;
O let me not fall in oblivion's cave!
Let wisdom be my bail, for her I crave.

Behold thy servant pleading for his hire,
As an apprentice to thy gospel's word!
Behold his poor estate, his hot-cold fire,
His weak-strong limbs, his merry woes' record!
Born of a woman, woman-like in woe,
They weak, they feeble are, and I am so.

My time of life is as an hour of day,
'Tis as a day of months, a month of years;
It never comes again, but fades away,
As one morn's sun about the hemispheres:
Little my memory, lesser my time,
But least of all my understanding's prime.

Say that my memory should never die,
Say that my time should never lose a glide,
Say that myself had earthly majesty,
Seated in all the glory of my pride;
Yet if discretion did not rule my mind,
My reign would be like fortune's, folly-blind:

My memory a pathway to my shame,
My time the looking-glass of my disgrace,
Myself resemblance of my scorned name,
My pride the puffed shadow of my face:
Thus should I be remember'd, not regarded;
Thus should my labours end, but not rewarded.

What were it to be shadow of a king?
A vanity; to wear a shadow'd crown?
A vanity; to love an outward thing?
A vanity; vain shadows of renown:
This king is king of shades, because a shade,
A king in show, though not in action made.

His shape have I, his cognizance I wear,
A smoky vapour hemm'd with vanity;
Himself I am, his kingdom's crown I bear,
Unless that wisdom change my livery:
A king I am, God hath inflamed me,
And lesser than I am I cannot be.

When I command, the people do obey,
Submissive subjects to my votive will;
A prince I am, and do what princes may,
Decree, command, rule, judge, perform, fulfil;
Yet I myself am subject unto God,
As are all others to my judgment's rod.

As do my subject[s] honour my command,
So I at his command a subject am;
I build a temple on mount Sion's sand,
Erect an altar in thy city's name;
Resemblances these are where thou dost dwell,
Made when thou framed'st heaven, earth, and hell.

All these three casements were contain'd in wit;
'Twas wisdom for to frame the heaven's sky,
'Twas wisdom for to make the earth so fit,
And hell within the lowest orb to lie,
To make a heavenly clime, an earthly course,
And hell, although the name of it be worse.

Before the world was made wisdom was born,
Born of heaven's God, conceived in his breast,
Which knew what works would be, what ages worn,
What labours life should have, what quiet rest,
What should displease and please, in vice, in good,
What should be clearest spring, what foulest mud.

O make my sinful body's world anew,
Erect new elements, new airs, new skies!
The time I have is frail, the course untrue,
The globe unconstant, like ill fortune's eyes:
First make the world, which doth my soul contain,
And next my wisdom, in whose power I reign.

Illumine earth with wisdom's heavenly sight,
Make her ambassador to grace the earth;
O let her rest by day and lodge by night
Within the closure of my body's hearth!
That in her sacred self I may perceive
What things are good to take, what ill to leave.

The body's heat will flow into the face,
The outward index of an outward deed;
The inward sins do keep an inward place,
Eyes, face, mouth, tongue, and every function feed:
She is my face; if I do any ill,
I see my shame in her repugnant will.

She is my glass, my type, my form, my map,
The figure of my deed, shape of my thought,
My life's character, fortune to my hap,
Which understandeth all that heart hath wrought;
What works I take in hand she finisheth,
And all my vicious thoughts diminisheth.

My facts are written in her forehead's book,
The volume of my thoughts, lines of my words;
The sins I have she murders with a look,
And what one cheek denies, th' other affords;
As white and red, like battles and retreats,
One doth defend the blows, the other beats:

So is her furious mood commix'd with smile,
Her rod is profit, her correction mirth;
She makes me keep an acceptable style,
And govern every limit of the earth:
Through her the state of monarchy is known,
Through her I rule, and guide my father's throne.

Mortality itself, without repair,
Is ever falling feebly on the ground;
Submissive body, heart above the air,
Which fain would know, when knowledge is not found;
Fain would it soar above the eagle's eye,
Though it be made of lead, and cannot fly.

The soul and body are the wings of man;
The soul should mount, but that lies drown'd in sin,
With leaden spirit, but doth what it can,
Yet scarcely can it rise when it is in;
Then how can man so weak know God so strong?
What heart from thought, what thought from heart hath sprung?

We think that every judgment is alike,
That every purpose hath one final end;
Our thoughts, alas! are fears, fears horrors strike,
Horrors our life's uncertain course do spend;
Fear follows negligence, both death and hell;
Unconstant are the paths wherein we dwell.

The hollow concave of our body's vaults
Once laden up with sin's eternal graves,
Straight bursts into the soul the slime of faults,
And overfloweth like a sea of waves;
The earth, as neighbour to our privy thought,
Keeps fast the mansion which our cares have bought.

Say, can we see ourselves? are we so wise?
Or can we judge our own with our own hearts?
Alas, we cannot! folly blinds our eyes,
Mischief our minds, with her mischievous arts:
Folly reigns there where wisdom should bear sway,
And folly's mischief bars discretion's way.

O weak capacity of strongest wit!
O strong capacity of weaker sense!
To guide, to meditate, unapt, unfit,
Blind in perceiving earth's circumfluence:
If labour doth consist in mortal skill,
'Tis greater labour to know heaven's will.

The toiling spirit of a labouring man
Is toss'd in casualties of fortune's seas;
He thinks it greater labour than he can,
To run his mortal course without an ease:
Then who can gain or find celestial things,
Unless their hopes a greater labour brings?

What volume of thy mind can then contain
Thoughts, words, and works, which God thinks, speaks, and makes,
When heaven itself cannot such honour gain,
Nor angels know the counsel which God takes?
Yet if thy heart be wisdom's mansion,
Thy soul shall gain thy heart's made mention.

Who can in one day's space make two days' toil?
Or who in two days' space will spend but one?
The one doth keep his mean in overbroil,
The other under mean, because alone:
Say, what is man without his spirit sways him?
Say, what's the spirit if the man decays him?

An ill-reformed breath, a life, a hell,
A going out worse than a coming in;
For wisdom is the body's sentinel,
Set to guard life, which else would fall in sin;
She doth correct and love, sways and preserves,
Teaches and favours, rules and yet observes.