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A Jove surgit opus.
CHAPTER I. WISEDOME, 1 elixer of the purest life, | |
| Hath taught hir lesson to iudicial views, | |
| To those that iudge a cause and end a strife, | |
| Which sits in iudgement’s seat, and iustice use; | |
| A lesson worthy of diuinest care, | 5 |
| Quintessence of a true diuinest feare. | |
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| Vnwilling that exordium should retaine, | |
| Her life-infusing speech doth thus begin: | |
| You (quoth shee) that giue remedy or paine, | |
| Love iustice; for iniustice is a sin. | 10 |
| Giue vnto God his due, his reuerent stile; | |
| And rather vse simplicity then guile. | |
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| For him that guides the radiant eie of day, | |
| Sitting in his star-chamber of the skie, | |
| The horizons and hemespheres obay, | 15 |
| And windes, the fillers of vacuitie: | |
| Much lesse shuld man tempt God, when all obay, | |
| But rather be a guide and leade the way. | |
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| For temting argues but a sin’s attempt; | |
| Temptation is to sin associate: | 20 |
| So doing, thou from God art cleane exempt, | |
| Whose loue is neuer placde in his loue’s hate: | |
| He will be found not of a tempting minde, | |
| But found of those which he doth faithfull finde. | |
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| Temptation rather seperates from God, | 25 |
| Conuerting goodnes from the thing it was; | |
| Heaping the indignation of his rod | |
| To bruse our bodies like a brittle glasse: | |
| For wicked thoughts haue still a wicked end, | |
| In making God our foe, which was our frend. | 30 |
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| They muster up reuenge, encamp our hate, | |
| Vndoing what before they meant to do, | |
| Stirring up anger and vnluckie fate; | |
| Making the earth their friend, the heauen their foe: | |
| But when heauen’s Guide makes manifest his power, | 35 |
| The earth, their frinds, doth them like foes deuoure. | |
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| O foolish men, to warre against your blisse! | |
| O hatefull harts, where wisedome neuer raign’d! | |
| O wicked thoughts, which euer thought amisse! | |
| What have you reapt? what pleasure haue you gain’d? | 40 |
| A finite in shew, a pleasure to decay; | |
| This haue you got by keeping follie’s way. | |
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| For wisedome’s haruest is with follie nipt, | |
| And with the winter of your vice’s frost | |
| Her fruite all scattered, her implanting ript, | 45 |
| Her name decayed, her fruition lost: | |
| Nor can she prosper in a plot of vice, | |
| Gaining no summer’s warmth, but winter’s ice. | |
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| Thou barren earth, where vertues neuer bud, | |
| Thou fruitles wombe, where neuer fruits abide; | 50 |
| And thou, drie-withered sap, which bears no good, | |
| But the dishonor of thy prowd heart’s pride; | |
| A seate of al deceit, deceit deceaude, | |
| Thy blisse a woe, thy woe of blisse bereaude. | |
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| This place of night hath left no place for day; | 55 |
| Here neuer shines the sunne of discipline: | |
| But mischiefe clad in sable night’s array, | |
| Thought’s apparition, euill angell’s signe; | |
| These raigne enhoused with their mother night, | |
| To cloude the day of clearest wisedom’s light. | 60 |
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CHAPTER IX. O GOD of fathers, Lord of heau’n and earth, | |
| Mercie’s true soueraigne, pittie’s portraiture, | |
| King of all kings, a birth surpassing birth, | |
| A life immortall, essence euer pure; | |
| Which with a breath ascending from thy thought | 65 |
| Hast made the heau’ns of earth, the earth of nought. | |
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| Thou which hast made mortalitie for man, | |
| Beginning life to make an end of woe, | |
| Ending in him what in himselfe began, | |
| His earth’s dominion, through thy wisedome’s flow; | 70 |
| Made for to rule according to desart, | |
| And execute reuenge with upright heart. | |
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| Behold a crowne, but yet a crowne of care; | |
| Behold a scepter, yet a sorrowe’s guise; | |
| More than the ballance of my head can beare, | 75 |
| More than my hands can hold, wherein it lies: | |
| My crowne doth want supportance for to beare, | |
| My scepter wanteth empire for to weare. | |
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| A leglesse body is my kingdome’s mappe, | |
| Limping in follie, halting in distresse: | 80 |
| Giue me thy wisedome, Lord, my better happe, | |
| Which may my follie cure, my griefe redresse: | |
| O let me not fall in obliuion’s caue; | |
| Let wisedome be my baile, for her I craue. | |
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| Behold thy seruant pleading for his hire, | 85 |
| As an apprentice to thy gospel’s word; | |
| Behold his poore estate, his hot-cold fire, | |
| His weake-strong limmes, his mery woes record: | |
| Borne of a woman, woman-like in woe; | |
| They weake, they feeble are, and I am so. | 90 |
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| My time of life is as an houre of day, | |
| ’Tis as a day of months, a month of yeeres; | |
| It neuer comes againe, but fades away, | |
| As one morne’s sunne about the hemispheres: | |
| Little my memory, lesser my time, | 95 |
| But least of all my vnderstanding’s prime. | |
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| Say that my memory should neuer die: | |
| Say that my time should neuer loose a glide: | |
| Say that myselfe had earthly maiestie, | |
| Seated in all the glory of my pride: | 100 |
| Yet if discretion did not rule my minde, | |
| My raigne would be like fortune’s, follie-blind; | |
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| My memory a pathway to my shame, | |
| My time the looking-glasse of my disgrace, | |
| My selfe resemblance of my scorned name, | 105 |
| My pride the puffed shadow of my face: | |
| Thus should I be remembered, not regarded; | |
| Thus should my labours end, but not rewarded. | |
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| What were it to be shadow of a king? | |
| A vanitie: to weare a shadow’d crowne? | 110 |
| A vanitie: to loue an outward thing? | |
| A vanitie: vaine shadowes of renowne: | |
| This king is king of shades, because a shade; | |
| A king in shew, though not in action made. | |
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| His shape haue I, his cognisance I weare, | 115 |
| A smoaky vapour hem’d with vanitie; | |
| Himselfe I am, his kingdome’s crowne I beare, | |
| Vnlesse that wisedome change my liuerie: | |
| A king I am, God hath inflamed me, | |
| And lesser than I am I cannot be. | 120 |
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CHAPTER XIX. THE BIRDS forsooke the ayre, the sheepe the fould, | |
| The eagle pitched low, the swallow hie, | |
| The nightingale did sleepe, and vncontrouled | |
| Forsoke the prickle of her nature’s eie: | |
| The seely worme was friends with all her foes, | 125 |
| And suckt the dew-teares from the weeping rose. | |
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| The sparrow tunde the larke’s sweet melody, | |
| The larke in silence sung a dirge of dole, | |
| The linnet helpt the larke in malady, | |
| The swans forsooke the quire of billow-roule; | 130 |
| The drie-land foule did make the sea their nest, | |
| The wet-sea fish did make the land their rest. | |
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| The swans, the queristers which did complaine | |
| In inward feeling of an outward losse, | |
| And filde the quire of waues with lauing paine, | 135 |
| (Yet dauncing in their waile with surges tosse,) | |
| Forsooke her cradle-billow-mountaine bed, | |
| And hies her vnto land there to be fed. | |
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| Her sea-fare now is land-fare of content; | |
| Olde change is changed new, yet all is change; | 140 |
| The fishes are her food, and they are sent | |
| Vnto drie land, to creep, to feed, to range: | |
| Now coolest water cannot quench the fire, | |
| But makes it proud in hottest hot desire. | |
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| The eu’ning of a day is morne to night, | 145 |
| The eu’ning of a night is morne to day; | |
| The one is Phœbe’s clime, which is pale-bright, | |
| The other Phœbus’, in more light array: | |
| Shee makes the mountaines limp in chil-cold snowe; | |
| Hee melts their eies, and makes them weep for woe. | 150 |
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| His beames, ambassadors of his hot will, | |
| Through the transparent element of aire | |
| Doth only his warme embassage fulfill, | |
| And melts the icie iaw of Phœbe’s heyre: | |
| Yet these, though firie flames, could not thaw cold, | 155 |
| Nor breake the frosty glew of winter’s mould. | |
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| Here nature slue herselfe, or at the least | |
| Did take the passage of her hot aspects: | |
| All things haue nature to be worst or best, | |
| And must encline to that which she affects: | 160 |
| But nature mist herselfe in this same part, | |
| For she was weake, and had not nature’s hart. | |
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| ’Twas God which made her weake, and made her strong, | |
| Resisting vice, assisting righteousness; | |
| Assisting and resisting right and wrong, | 165 |
| Making this epilogue in equallness: | |
| ’Twas God, his people’s aid, their wisedome’s frend, | |
In whom I did begin, with whom I end.
A Iove surgit opus: de Iove finit opus. | |
