|
Lines from The Glasse of Time in the First Age O PARADISE, 1 that first our parents staid, | |
Vntill such time Gods will they disobayd, | |
How far my pen doth of thy worth come vnder, | |
Mirrour of earth, of all the world the wonder! | |
Where sacred Thetis from her louely lap | 5 |
Hath powerd her treasures, much inricht thy hap, | |
With Euphrates and Tigris hath combind, | |
Their source diuided in foure parts, to winde | |
About thy borders, as heauens dearest worke, | |
Within thy bowels glide along and lurke; | 10 |
Venting such jewels as were neuer found | |
A welcome tribute to thy holy ground. | |
|
Nature her selfe hath much impald thy head, | |
And wreathd thy browes as fortune hath her led, | |
With such a ridge of rocky mountaines small, | 15 |
To hemme thee in as with a sacred wall; | |
Vpon the top towards the east still stands | |
A smoky hill, which sends forth fiery brands | |
Of burning oyle from hels infernall deepe, | |
Much like the sword the tree of life did keepe. | 20 |
|
Deuinest land the sunne hath euer seene, | |
How fortunate, thrice happy hast thou beene, | |
To haue that God, which framd the world and all, | |
Frequent thy walkes before thy fearefull fall; | |
Yet as thou art and as thou dost remaine, | 25 |
The totall earth on euery side dost staine: | |
Where can a man in all this world below | |
Find bdelium, that pleasant tree, to grow, | |
Whose fragrant branches, sweet delightfull fruite, | |
And lofty height, hath made my sences mute; | 30 |
The onix stone and other things to bide, | |
In all the earth scarce in one place beside. | |
|
How is thy ground exceeding rich and faire, | |
A region seasoned with a temperate aire, | |
Thy channels crawling full of golden ore, | 35 |
The fruitfulst soile that eer the earth yet bore: | |
Neptune himselfe with foure great riuers greeing | |
To deck the bosome which gaue Adam being; | |
Vpon thy temples all their treasures powrd, | |
And all their wealth at once vpon thee showrd. | 40 |
After the floud, when all the world was kild | |
In Noahs time, there man began to build, | |
When hauing rambled in the sacred keele | |
About the world, on euery side did feele | |
Thy fragrant scent so pleasing, rich, and neate, | 45 |
Of all the earth to make thy throne their seate. | |
|
Here was religion planted in her prime, | |
The golden age and infancy of time, | |
When mans worst actions like the turtle-doue | |
In all the world was little else but loue: | 50 |
Deere Paradise, how famous was thy name, | |
When God himselfe erected first thy frame, | |
Endude thy land with such things it is set, | |
As time for euer neuer can forget! | |
|
The fabling prayses of Elizium fields, | 55 |
The Turkes, Eutopia, nothing to it yeelds; | |
The paradise of Romes fantastike braine | |
Is but a iest a little wealth to gaine; | |
And Aladenles, with his place of pleasure, | |
Comes far behind, and still is short of measure, | 60 |
Worth honor, grace, when brought into compare, | |
With this so rich and glorious garden rare. | |
The Persian fancies of their heauenly land | |
In sight of this not able is to stand; | |
The world itselfe, and all that is therein, | 65 |
I could forsake that very place to win: | |
And all the greatest kingdomes euer found | |
But dung and trash to that most holy ground. | |
|
The lofty walls were all of iasper built, | |
Lind thick with gould, and couered rich with guilt, | 70 |
Like a quadrangle seated on a hill, | |
With twelue braue gates the curious eye to fill, | |
The sacred luster as the glistring zoane, | |
And euery gate framd of a seuerall stone: | |
On stately columes reared by that hand | 75 |
Which graud the world and all that in it stand; | |
The chalsedony and the iacinth pure, | |
The emrald greene, which euer will endure, | |
The sardonix, and purple amethist, | |
The azurd burnisht saphire is not mist, | 80 |
The chrisolite, most glorious to behold, | |
And tophaze stone, which shines as beaten gold, | |
The chrisophrasus of admired worth, | |
The sardius, berill seldome found on earth. | |
The dores thereof, of siluerd pearle most white, | 85 |
Do shew that none by wrong oppression might | |
Be crost, by cunning, wringing, wrestling guile, | |
By wicked plodding in all actions vile, | |
By foule offences like base enuy faste, | |
Can passe the dores but those are pure and chaste. | 90 |
|
That sweete disciple which the gospell wrate, | |
And lent at supper (when Christ Iesus sate) | |
Vpon the bosome of his Lord and King, | |
He from the heauens this Paradise did bring, | |
Perusd the walls, and viewd, and viewd the same within, | 95 |
Describd it largely, all our loues to win. | |
The christall river, with the tree of life, | |
Gods deerest Lamb, and sacred spouse, his wife, | |
The various fruits that in the garden growes, | |
And all things else which in aboundance flowes: | 100 |
Hath rapt my sence to thinke how God at first | |
Framd all for Adam, and his ofspring curst. | |