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Lines from “The Glasse of Time in the First Age”
O PARADISE, 1 that first our parents stai’d, | |
| Vntill such time God’s will they disobay’d, | |
| 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 power’d her treasures, much inrich’t thy hap, | |
| With Euphrates and Tigris hath combin’d, | |
| Their source diuided in foure parts, to winde | |
| About thy borders, as heauen’s dearest worke, | |
| Within thy bowels glide along and lurke; | 10 |
| Venting such jewels as were neuer found— | |
| A welcome tribute to thy holy ground. | |
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| Nature her selfe hath much impal’d thy head, | |
| And wreath’d 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 hel’s infernall deepe, | |
| Much like the sword the tree of life did keepe. | 20 |
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| Deuinest land the sunne hath euer seene, | |
| How fortunate, thrice happy hast thou beene, | |
| To haue that God, which fram’d 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. | |
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| How is thy ground exceeding rich and faire, | |
| A region seasoned with a temperate aire, | |
| Thy channels crawling full of golden ore, | 35 |
| The fruitful’st soile that e’er 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 pow’rd, | |
| And all their wealth at once vpon thee show’rd. | 40 |
| After the floud, when all the world was kild | |
| In Noah’s 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. | |
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| Here was religion planted in her prime, | |
| The golden age and infancy of time, | |
| When man’s 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! | |
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| The fabling prayses of Elizium fields, | 55 |
| The Turkes, Eutopia, nothing to it yeelds; | |
| The paradise of Rome’s 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. | |
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| The lofty walls were all of iasper built, | |
| Lin’d 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 fram’d 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 burnish’t 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 siluer’d 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 |
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| 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, | |
| Perus’d the walls, and view’d, and view’d the same within, | 95 |
| Describ’d it largely, all our loues to win. | |
| The christall river, with the tree of life, | |
| God’s 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 | |
| Fram’d all for Adam, and his ofspring curst. | |
