| I SAW Eternity the other night | |
| Like a great Ring of pure and endless light, | |
| All calm, as it was bright, | |
| And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years | |
| Driv’n by the spheres | 5 |
| Like a vast shadow mov’d, In which the world | |
| And all her train were hurl’d; | |
| The doting Lover in his queintest strain | |
| Did their Complain, | |
| Neer him, his Lute, his fancy, and his flights, | 10 |
| Wits sour delights, | |
| With gloves, and knots the silly snares of pleasure | |
| Yet his dear Treasure | |
| All scatter’d lay, while he his eys did pour | |
| Upon a flowr. | 15 |
| |
| The darksome States-man hung with weights and woe | |
| Like a thick midnight-fog mov’d there so slow | |
| He did nor stay, nor go; | |
| Condemning thoughts (like sad Ecclipses) scowl | |
| Upon his soul, | 20 |
| And Clouds of crying witnesses without | |
| Pursued him with one shout. | |
| Yet dig’d the Mole, and lest his ways be found | |
| Workt under ground, | |
| Where he did Clutch his prey, but one did see | 25 |
| That policie, | |
| Churches and altars fed him, Perjuries | |
| Were gnats and flies, | |
| It rain’d about him bloud and tears, but he | |
| Drank them as free. | 30 |
| |
| The fearfull miser on a heap of rust | |
| Sate pining all his life there, did scarce trust | |
| His own hands with the dust, | |
| Yet would not place one peece above, but lives | |
| In feare of theeves. | 35 |
| Thousands there were as frantick as himself | |
| And hug’d each one his pelf, | |
| The down-right Epicure plac’d heav’n in sense | |
| And scornd pretence | |
| While others slipt into a wide Excesse | 40 |
| Said little lesse; | |
| The weaker sort slight, triviall wares Inslave | |
| Who think them brave, | |
| And poor, despised truth sate Counting by | |
| Their victory. | 45 |
| |
| Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing, | |
| And sing, and weep, soar’d up into the Ring, | |
| But most would use no wing. | |
| O fools (said I,) thus to prefer dark night | |
| Before true light, | 50 |
| To live in grots, and caves, and hate the day | |
| Because it shews the way, | |
| The way which from this dead and dark abode | |
| Leads up to God, | |
| A way where you might tread the Sun, and be | 55 |
| More bright than he. | |
| But as I did their madnes so discusse | |
| One whisper’d thus, | |
| This Ring the Bride-groome did for none provide | |
| But for his bride. | 60 |
