To the Praise of the Dead, and the Anatomy

Well died the world, that we might live to see
This world of wit, in his Anatomy.
No evil wants his good; so wilder heirs
Bedew their fathers’ tombs with forcèd tears,
Whose state requites their loss; whiles thus we gain
Well may we walk in blacks, but not complain.
Yet how can I consent the world is dead,
While this Muse lives, which in his spirit’s stead
Seems to inform a world, and bids it be,
In spite of loss or frail mortality?
And thou, the subject of this wellborn thought,
Thrice noble maid, could’st not have found nor sought
A fitter time to yield to thy sad fate,
Than whiles this spirit lives, that can relate
Thy worth so well to our last nephews’ eyne,
That they shall wonder both at his and thine.
Admired match! where strives in mutual grace
The cunning pencil, and the comely face;
A task which thy fair goodness made too much
For the bold pride of vulgar pens to touch.
Enough is us to praise them that praise thee,
And say, that but enough those praises be,
Which, hadst thou lived, had hid their fearful head
From th’ angry checkings of thy modest red.
Death bars reward and shame; when envy’s gone,
And gain, ’tis safe to give the dead their own.
As then the wise Egyptians wont to lay
More on their tombs than houses; these of clay,
But those of brass or marble were; so we
Give more unto thy ghost than unto thee.
Yet what we give to thee, thou gavest to us,
And may’st but thank thyself for being thus.
Yet what thou gavest and wert, O happy maid,
Thy grace profess’d all due, where ’tis repaid.
So these high songs, that to thee suited bin,
Serve but to sound thy Maker’s praise in thine,
Which thy dear soul as sweetly sings to him
Amid the choir of saints, and Seraphim,
As any angel’s tongue can sing of thee.
The subjects differ, though the skill agree.
For as by infant years men judge of age,
Thy early love, thy virtues, did presage
What high part thou bear’st in those best of songs,
Whereto no burden nor no end belongs.
Sing on, thou virgin soul, whose lossful gain
Thy lovesick parents have bewail’d in vain;
Ne’er may thy name be in our songs forgot,
Till we shall sing thy ditty and thy note.

When that rich soul which to her heaven is gone,
Whom all do celebrate, who know they’ve one
—For who is sure he hath a soul, unless
It see, and judge, and follow worthiness,
And by deeds praise it? he who doth not this,
May lodge an inmate soul, but ’tis not his⁠—
When that queen ended here her progress time,
And, as to her standing house, to heaven did climb
Where, loth to make the saints attend her long,
She’s now a part both of the choir and song,
This world in that great earthquake languished;
For in a common bath of tears it bled,
Which drew the strongest vital spirits out.
But succour’d then with a perplexed doubt,
Whether the world did lose, or gain in this
—Because, since now no other way there is,
But goodness, to see her, whom all would see,
All must endeavour to be good as she⁠—
This great consumption to a fever turn’d,
And so the world had fits; it joy’d, it mourn’d;
And as men think that agues physic are,
And th’ ague being spent, give over care;
So thou, sick world, mistakest thyself to be
Well, when, alas! thou’rt in a lethargy.
Her death did wound and tame thee then, and then
Thou might’st have better spared the sun, or man.
That wound was deep, but ’tis more misery,
That thou hast lost thy sense and memory.
’Twas heavy then to hear thy voice of moan,
But this is worse, that thou art speechless grown.
Thou hast forgot thy name thou hadst; thou wast
Nothing but she, and her thou hast o’erpast.
For, as a child kept from the fount, until
A prince, expected long, come to fulfil
The ceremonies, thou unnamed hadst laid,
Had not her coming thee her palace made.
Her name defined thee, gave thee form and frame,
And thou forget’st to celebrate thy name.
Some months she hath been dead⁠—but being dead,
Measures of time are all determined⁠—
But long she hath been away, long, long, yet none
Offers to tell us who it is that’s gone.
But as in states doubtful of future heirs,
When sickness without remedy impairs
The present prince, they’re loth it should be said,
The prince doth languish, or the prince is dead.
So mankind, feeling now a general thaw,
A strong example gone, equal to law,
The cement, which did faithfully compact
And glue all virtues, now resolved and slack’d,
Thought it some blasphemy to say she was dead,
Or that our weakness was discovered
In that confession; therefore spoke no more,
Than tongues, the soul being gone, the loss deplore.
But though it be too late to succour thee,
Sick world, yea dead, yea putrefied, since she,
Thy intrinsic balm and thy preservative,
Can never be renew’d, thou never live,
I⁠—since no man can make thee live⁠—will try
What we may gain by thy Anatomy.
Her death hath taught us dearly, that thou art
Corrupt and mortal in thy purest part.
Let no man say, the world itself being dead,
’Tis labour lost to have discovered
The world’s infirmities, since there is none
Alive to study this dissection;
For there’s a kind of world remaining still;
Though she, which did inanimate and fill
The world, be gone, yet in this last long night
Her ghost doth walk, that is, a glimmering light,
A faint weak love of virtue and of good
Reflects from her, on them which understood
Her worth; and though she have shut in all day,
The twilight of her memory doth stay;
Which, from the carcase of the old world free,
Creates a new world, and new creatures be
Produced; the matter and the stuff of this
Her virtue, and the form our practice is.
And, though to be thus elemented arm
These creatures from home-born intrinsic harm
—For all assumed unto this dignity
So many weedless paradises be,
Which of themselves produce no venomous sin,
Except some foreign serpent bring it in⁠—
Yet because outward storms the strongest break,
And strength itself by confidence grows weak,
This new world may be safer, being told
The dangers and diseases of the old.
For with due temper men do then forego,
Or covet things, when they their true worth know.
There is no health; physicians say that we,
At best, enjoy but a neutrality.
And can there be worse sickness than to know
That we are never well, nor can be so?
We are born ruinous; poor mothers cry
That children come not right, nor orderly,
Except they headlong come and fall upon
An ominous precipitation.
How witty’s ruin, how importunate
Upon mankind! it labour’d to frustrate
Even God’s purpose, and made woman, sent
For man’s relief, cause of his languishment.
They were to good ends, and they are so still,
But accessory, and principal in ill;
For that first marriage was our funeral;
One woman, at one blow, then kill’d us all;
And singly, one by one, they kill us now.
We do delightfully ourselves allow
To that consumption; and, profusely blind
We kill ourselves to propagate our kind.
And yet we do not that; we are not men;
There is not now that mankind which was then,
When as the sun and man did seem to strive
—Joint-tenants of the world⁠—who should survive;
When stag, and raven, and the long-lived tree,
Compared with man, died in minority;
When if a slow-paced star had stolen away
From the observer’s marking, he might stay
Two or three hundred years to see it again,
And then make up his observation plain;
When, as the age was long, the size was great;
Man’s growth confess’d, and recompensed the meat;
So spacious and large, that every soul
Did a fair kingdom and large realm control;
And when the very stature, thus erect,
Did that soul a good way towards heaven direct.
Where is this mankind now? who lives to age
Fit to be made Methusalem his page?
Alas! we scarce live long enough to try
Whether a true-made clock run right, or lie.
Old grandsires talk of yesterday with sorrow;
And for our children we reserve tomorrow.
So short is life, that every peasant strives,
In a torn house, or field, to have three lives;
And as in lasting, so in length is man,
Contracted to an inch, who was a span.
For had a man at first in forests stray’d,
Or shipwreck’d in the sea, one would have laid
A wager, that an elephant or whale,
That met him, would not hastily assail
A thing so equal to him; now, alas!
The fairies and the pygmies well may pass
As credible; mankind decays so soon,
We’re scarce our fathers’ shadows cast at noon.
Only death adds to our length; nor are grown
In stature to be men, till we are none.
But this were light, did our less volume hold
All the old text; or had we changed to gold
Their silver, or disposed into less glass
Spirits of virtue, which then scatter’d was.
But ’tis not so; we’re not retired, but damp’d;
And, as our bodies, so our minds are cramp’d.
’Tis shrinking, not close weaving that hath thus
In mind and body both bedwarfed us.
We seem ambitious God’s whole work to undo;
Of nothing He made us, and we strive too
To bring ourselves to nothing back; and we
Do what we can to do ’t so soon as He.
With new diseases on ourselves we war,
And with new physic, a worse engine far.
This man, this world’s vice-emperor, in whom
All faculties, all graces are at home
—And if in other creatures they appear,
They’re but man’s ministers and legates there,
To work on their rebellions, and reduce
Them to civility, and to man’s use⁠—
This man, whom God did woo, and, loth to attend
Till man came up, did down to man descend;
This man so great, that all that is, is his,
O, what a trifle, and poor thing he is!
If man were anything, he’s nothing now.
Help, or at least some time to waste, allow
To his other wants, yet when he did depart
With her whom we lament, he lost his heart.
She, of whom th’ ancients seemed to prophesy,
When they called virtues by the name of she;
She, in whom virtue was so much refined,
That for allay unto so pure a mind
She took the weaker sex; she that could drive
The poisonous tincture, and the stain of Eve,
Out of her thoughts and deeds, and purify
All by a true religious alchemy;
She, she is dead; she’s dead; when thou know’st this
Thou know’st how poor a trifling thing man is,
And learn’st thus much by our Anatomy,
The heart being perish’d, no part can be free,
And that except thou feed, not banquet, on
The supernatural food, religion,
Thy better growth grows withered and scant;
Be more than man, or thou’rt less than an ant.
Then as mankind, so is the world’s whole frame,
Quite out of joint, almost created lame;
For before God had made up all the rest,
Corruption enter’d and depraved the best.
It seized the angels, and then first of all
The world did in her cradle take a fall,
And turn’d her brains, and took a general maim,
Wronging each joint of th’ universal frame.
The noblest part, man, felt it first; and then
Both beasts and plants, cursed in the curse of man.
So did the world from the first hour decay;
That evening was beginning of the day.
And now the springs and summers which we see,
Like sons of women after fifty be.
And new philosophy calls all in doubt;
The element of fire is quite put out;
The sun is lost, and th’ earth, and no man’s wit
Can well direct him where to look for it.
And freely men confess that this world’s spent,
When in the planets, and the firmament
They seek so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out again to his atomies.
’Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone,
All just supply, and all relation.
Prince, subject, father, son, are things forgot.
For every man alone thinks he hath got
To be a phoenix, and that then can be
None of that kind of which he is, but he.
This is the world’s condition now, and now
She that should all parts to reunion bow;
She that had all magnetic force alone,
To draw and fasten sunder’d parts in one;
She whom wise nature had invented then,
When she observed that every sort of men
Did in their voyage in this world’s sea stray,
And needed a new compass for their way;
She that was best, and first original
Of all fair copies, and the general
Steward to fate; she whose rich eyes and breast
Gilt the West Indies, and perfumed the East;
Whose having breathed in this world did bestow
Spice on those isles, and bade them still smell so;
And that rich Indy, which doth gold inter,
Is but as single money coin’d from her;
She to whom this world must itself refer,
As suburbs, or the microcosm of her;
She, she is dead; she’s dead; when thou know’st this,
Thou know’st how lame a cripple this world is;
And learn’st thus much by our Anatomy,
That this world’s general sickness doth not lie
In any humour, or one certain part,
But as thou saw’st it, rotten at the heart.
Thou seest a hectic fever hath got hold
Of the whole substance, not to be controll’d;
And that thou hast but one way, not to admit
The world’s infection⁠—to be none of it.
For the world’s subtlest immaterial parts
Feel this consuming wound and age’s darts;
For the world’s beauty is decay’d, or gone
—Beauty; that’s colour and proportion.
We think the heavens enjoy their spherical,
Their round proportion, embracing all;
But yet their various and perplexed course,
Observed in divers ages, doth enforce
Men to find out so many eccentric parts,
Such diverse downright lines, such overthwarts,
As disproportion that pure form; it tears
The firmament in eight-and-forty shares,
And in these constellations then arise
New stars, and old do vanish from our eyes;
As though heaven suffered earthquakes, peace or war,
When new towers rise, and old demolish’d are.
They have impaled within a zodiac
The freeborn sun, and keep twelve signs awake
To watch his steps; the Goat and Crab control,
And fright him back, who else to either pole,
Did not these tropics fetter him, might run.
For his course is not round, nor can the sun
Perfect a circle, or maintain his way
One inch direct; but where he rose today
He comes no more, but with a cozening line,
Steals by that point, and so is serpentine;
And seeming weary with his reeling thus,
He means to sleep, being now fallen nearer us.
So of the stars which boast that they do run
In circle still, none ends where he begun.
All their proportion’s lame, it sinks, it swells;
For of meridians and parallels
Man hath weaved out a net, and this net thrown
Upon the heavens, and now they are his own.
Loth to go up the hill, or labour thus
To go to heaven, we make heaven come to us.
We spur, we rein the stars, and in their race
They’re diversely content to obey our pace.
But keeps the earth her round proportion still?
Doth not a Teneriffe or higher hill
Rise so high like a rock, that one might think
The floating moon would shipwreck there and sink?
Seas are so deep that whales, being struck today,
Perchance tomorrow scarce at middle way
Of their wish’d journey’s end, the bottom, die.
And men, to sound depths, so much line untie
As one might justly think that there would rise
At end thereof one of th’ antipodes.
If under all a vault infernal be
—Which sure is spacious, except that we
Invent another torment, that there must
Millions into a straight hot room be thrust⁠—
Then solidness and roundness have no place.
Are these but warts and pockholes in the face
Of th’ earth? Think so; but yet confess, in this
The world’s proportion disfigured is;
That those two legs whereon it doth rely,
Reward and punishment, are bent awry.
And, O, it can no more be questioned,
That beauty’s best proportion is dead,
Since even grief itself, which now alone
Is left us, is without proportion.
She, by whose lines proportion should be
Examined, measure of all symmetry,
Whom had that ancient seen, who thought souls made
Of harmony, he would at next have said
That harmony was she, and thence infer
That souls were but resultances from her,
And did from her into our bodies go,
As to our eyes the forms from objects flow;
She, who if those great doctors truly said
That th’ ark to man’s proportion was made,
Had been a type for that, as that might be
A type of her in this, that contrary
Both elements and passions lived at peace
In her, who caused all civil war to cease.
She, after whom what form soe’er we see
Is discord and rude incongruity;
She, she is dead; she’s dead; when thou know’st this,
Thou know’st how ugly a monster this world is;
And learn’st thus much by our Anatomy,
That here is nothing to enamour thee;
And that not only faults in inward parts,
Corruptions in our brains, or in our hearts,
Poisoning the fountains whence our actions spring,
Endanger us; but that if everything
Be not done fitly and in proportion,
To satisfy wise and good lookers-on
—Since most men be such as most think they be⁠—
They’re loathsome too, by this deformity.
For good, and well, must in our actions meet;
Wicked is not much worse than indiscreet.
But beauty’s other second element,
Colour and lustre, now is as near spent.
And had the world his just proportion,
Were it a ring still, yet the stone is gone.
As a compassionate turquoise, which doth tell,
By looking pale, the wearer is not well;
As gold falls sick being stung with mercury,
All the world’s parts of such complexion be
When nature was most busy, the first week,
Swaddling the newborn earth, God seem’d to like
That she should sport herself sometimes, and play,
To mingle and vary colours every day;
And then, as though she could not make enow,
Himself his various rainbow did allow.
Sight is the noblest sense of any one;
Yet sight hath only colour to feed on,
And colour is decay’d; summer’s robe grows
Dusky, and like an oft dyed garment shows.
Our blushing red, which used in cheeks to spread,
Is inward sunk, and only our souls are red.
Perchance the world might have recovered,
If she whom we lament had not been dead.
But she, in whom all white, and red, and blue
(Beauty’s ingredients) voluntary grew,
As in an unvex’d paradise; from whom
Did all things’ verdure, and their lustre come;
Whose composition was miraculous,
Being all colour, all diaphanous,
For air and fire but thick gross bodies were,
And liveliest stones but drowsy and pale to her;
She, she is dead; she’s dead; when thou know’st this,
Thou know’st how wan a ghost this our world is;
And learn’st thus much by our Anatomy,
That it should more affright than pleasure thee;
And that, since all fair colour then did sink,
’Tis now but wicked vanity, to think
To colour vicious deeds with good pretence,
Or with bought colours to illude men’s sense.
Nor in ought more this world’s decay appears,
Than that her influence the heaven forbears,
Or that the elements do not feel this.
The father or the mother barren is;
The clouds conceive not rain, or do not pour,
In the due birth-time, down the balmy shower;
Th’ air doth not motherly sit on the earth,
To hatch her seasons, and give all things birth.
Spring-times were common cradles, but are tombs,
And false conceptions fill the general wombs.
Th’ air shows such meteors, as none can see,
Not only what they mean, but what they be;
Earth such new worms, as would have troubled much
Th’ Egyptian Mages to have made more such.
What artist now dares boast that he can bring
Heaven hither, or constellate anything,
So as the influence of those stars may be
Imprison’d in an herb, or charm, or tree,
And do by touch, all which those stars could do?
The art is lost, and correspondence too,
For heaven gives little, and the earth takes less,
And man least knows their trade and purposes.
If this commerce ’twixt heaven and earth were not
Embarr’d, and all this traffic quite forgot,
She, for whose loss we have lamented thus,
Would work more fully, and powerfully on us.
Since herbs and roots by dying lose not all,
But they, yea ashes too, are medicinal;
Death could not quench her virtue so, but that
It would be⁠—if not follow’d⁠—wonder’d at;
And all the world would be one dying swan,
To sing her funeral praise, and vanish then.
But as some serpents’ poison hurteth not,
Except it be from the live serpent shot,
So doth her virtue need her here, to fit
That unto us, she working more than it.
But she, in whom to such maturity
Virtue was grown, past growth, that it must die;
She, from whose influence all impression came,
But by receivers’ impotencies lame;
Who, though she could not transubstantiate
All states to gold, yet gilded every state,
So that some princes have some temperance;
Some counsellors, some purpose to advance
The common profit; and some people have
Some stay, no more than kings should give, to crave;
Some women have some taciturnity;
Some nunneries some grains of chastity;
She, that did thus much, and much more could do,
But that our age was iron, and rusty too,
She, she is dead; she’s dead; when thou know’st this
Thou know’st how dry a cinder this world is;
And learn’st thus much by our Anatomy,
That ’tis in vain to dew, or mollify
It with thy tears, or sweat, or blood; nothing
Is worth our travail, grief, or perishing,
But those rich joys which did possess her heart,
Of which she’s now partaker, and a part.
But as in cutting up a man that’s dead,
The body will not last out, to have read
On every part, and therefore men direct
Their speech to parts that are of most effect;
So the world’s carcase would not last, if I
Were punctual in this Anatomy;
Nor smells it well to hearers, if one tell
Them their disease, who fain would think they’re well.
Here therefore be the end; and blessed maid,
Of whom is meant whatever has been said,
Or shall be spoken well by any tongue,
Whose name refines coarse lines, and makes prose song,
Accept this tribute, and his first year’s rent;
Who till his dark short taper’s end be spent,
As oft as thy feast sees this widow’d earth,
Will yearly celebrate thy second birth;
That is, thy death; for though the soul of man
Be got when man is made, ’tis born but then
When man doth die; our body’s as the womb,
And as a midwife death directs it home.
And you, her creatures, whom she works upon,
And have your last and best concoction
From her example and her virtue, if you
In reverence to her do think it due,
That no one should her praises thus rehearse,
As matter fit for chronicle, not verse;
Vouchsafe to call to mind that God did make
A last and lasting’st piece, a song. He spake
To Moses to deliver unto all
That song, because He knew they would let fall
The law, the prophets, and the history,
But keep the song still in their memory.
Such an opinion, in due measure, made
Me this great office boldly to invade;
Nor could incomprehensibleness deter
Me from thus trying to imprison her;
Which when I saw that a strict grave could do,
I saw not why verse might not do so too.
Verse hath a middle nature; heaven keeps souls,
The grave keeps bodies, verse the fame enrolls.

’Tis loss to trust a tomb with such a guest,
Or to confine her in a marble chest.
Alas! what’s marble, jet, or porphyry,
Prized with the chrysolite of either eye,
Or with those pearls and rubies which she was?
Join the two Indies in one tomb, ’tis glass;
And so is all, to her materials,
Though every inch were ten Escurials;
Yet she’s demolish’d; can we keep her then
In works of hands, or of the wits of men?
Can these memorials, rags of paper, give
Life to that name, by which name they must live?
Sickly, alas! short-lived, abortive be
Those carcase verses, whose soul is not she;
And can she, who no longer would be she,
Being such a tabernacle stoop to be
In paper wrapp’d; or when she would not lie
In such an house, dwell in an elegy?
But ’tis no matter; we may well allow
Verse to live so long as the world will now,
For her death wounded it. The world contains
Princes for arms, and counsellors for brains,
Lawyers for tongues, divines for hearts, and more,
The rich for stomachs, and for backs the poor;
The officers for hands, merchants for feet,
By which remote and distant countries meet;
But those fine spirits, which do tune and set
This organ, are those pieces which beget
Wonder and love; and these were she; and she
Being spent, the world must needs decrepit be.
For since death will proceed to triumph still,
He can find nothing, after her, to kill,
Except the world itself, so great as she.
Thus brave and confident may nature be,
Death cannot give her such another blow,
Because she cannot such another show.
But must we say she’s dead? may ’t not be said,
That as a sunder’d clock is piecemeal laid,
Not to be lost, but by the maker’s hand
Repolish’d, without error then to stand,
Or as the Afric Niger stream enwombs
Itself into the earth, and after comes
—Having first made a natural bridge, to pass
For many leagues⁠—far greater than it was,
May ’t not be said, that her grave shall restore
Her, greater, purer, firmer than before?
Heaven may say this, and joy in ’t, but can we
Who live, and lack her here, this vantage see?
What is ’t to us, alas! if there have been
An angel made a throne, or cherubin?
We lose by ’t: and as agèd men are glad
Being tasteless grown, to joy in joys they had,
So now the sick, starved world must feed upon
This joy, that we had her, who now is gone.
Rejoice then, nature, and this world, that you,
Fearing the last fires hastening to subdue
Your force and vigour, ere it were near gone,
Wisely bestow’d and laid it all on one;
One, whose clear body was so pure and thin,
Because it need disguise no thought within;
’Twas but a through-light scarf her mind to enroll,
Or exhalation breathed out from her soul;
One whom all men, who durst no more, admired;
And whom, whoe’er had worth enough, desired;
As when a temple’s built, saints emulate
To which of them it shall be consecrate.
But as, when heaven looks on us with new eyes,
Those new stars every artist exercise;
What place they should assign to them they doubt,
Argue, and agree not, till those stars go out;
So the world studied whose this piece should be,
Till she can be nobody’s else, nor she;
But like a lamp of balsamum, desired
Rather to adorn than last, she soon expired.
Clothed in her virgin white integrity
—For marriage, though it doth not stain, doth dye⁠—
To ’scape th’ infirmities which wait upon
Woman, she went away before she was one;
And the world’s busy noise to overcome,
Took so much death as served for opium;
For though she could not, nor could choose to die,
She hath yielded to too long an ecstasy.
He which, not knowing her sad history,
Should come to read the book of destiny,
How fair, and chaste, humble and high she’d been,
Much promised, much perform’d, at not fifteen,
And measuring future things by things before,
Should turn the leaf to read, and read no more,
Would think that either destiny mistook,
Or that some leaves were torn out of the book.
But ’tis not so; fate did but usher her
To years of reason’s use, and then infer
Her destiny to herself, which liberty
She took, but for thus much, thus much to die.
Her modesty not suffering her to be
Fellow-commissioner with destiny,
She did no more but die; if after her
Any shall live, which dare true good prefer,
Every such person is her delegate,
To accomplish that which should have been her fate.
They shall make up that book, and shall have thanks
Of fate, and her, for filling up their blanks;
For future virtuous deeds are legacies,
Which from the gift of her example rise;
And ’tis in heaven part of spiritual mirth,
To see how well the good play her, on earth.

Two souls move here, and mine, a third, must move
Paces of admiration and of love.
Thy soul, dear virgin, whose this tribute is,
Moved from this mortal sphere to lively bliss
And yet moves still, and still aspires to see
The world’s last day, thy glory’s full degree,
Like as those stars which thou o’erlookest far,
Are in their place, and yet still movèd are.
No soul⁠—whiles with the luggage of this clay
It clogged is⁠—Scan follow thee halfway;
Or see thy flight, which doth our thoughts outgo
So fast, as now the lightning moves but slow.
But now thou art as high in heaven flown
As heavens from us, what soul besides thine own
Can tell thy joys, or say he can relate
Thy glorious journals in that blessed state?
I envy thee, rich soul, I envy thee,
Although I cannot yet thy glory see.
And thou, great spirit, which hers followed hast
So fast, as none can follow thine so fast;
So far, as none can follow thine so far
—And if this flesh did not the passage bar,
Hadst caught her⁠—let me wonder at thy flight,
Which long agone hadst lost the vulgar sight,
And now makest proud the better eyes, that they
Can see thee lessened in thine airy way.
So while thou makest her soul by progress known,
Thou makest a noble progress of thine own,
From this world’s carcase having mounted high
To that pure life of immortality;
Since thine aspiring thoughts themselves so raise
That more may not beseem a creature’s praise,
Yet still thou vow’st her more, and every year
Makest a new progress, while thou wanderest here,
Still upward mount; and let thy Maker’s praise
Honour thy Laura, and adorn thy lays.
And since thy Muse her head in heaven shrouds,
Oh, let her never stoop below the clouds;
And if those glorious sainted souls may know
Or what we do, or what we sing below,
Those acts, those songs shall still content them best
Which praise those awful Powers that make them blest.

Nothing could make me sooner to confess
That this world had an everlastingness,
Than to consider, that a year is run,
Since both this lower world’s, and the sun’s sun,
The lustre and the vigour of this all
Did set; ’twere blasphemy to say, did fall.
But as a ship, which hath struck sail, doth run
By force of that force which before it won;
Or as sometimes in a beheaded man,
Though at those two Red Seas, which freely ran,
One from the trunk, another from the head,
His soul be sail’d to her eternal bed,
His eyes will twinkle, and his tongue will roll,
As though he beckon’d and call’d back his soul:
He grasps his hands, and he pulls up his feet,
And seems to reach, and to step forth to meet
His soul; when all these motions which we saw,
Are but as ice, which crackles at a thaw,
Or as a lute, which in moist weather rings
Her knell alone, by cracking of her strings.
So struggles this dead world, now she is gone;
For there is motion in corruption.
As some days are, at the creation, named
Before the sun, the which framed days, was framed,
So after this sun’s set, some show appears,
And orderly vicissitude of years.
Yet a new deluge, and of Lethe flood,
Hath drown’d us all; all have forgot all good,
Forgetting her, the main reserve of all.
Yet in this deluge, gross and general,
Thou seest me strive for life; my life shall be
To be hereafter praised, for praising thee.
Immortal maid, who though thou wouldst refuse
The name of mother, be unto my Muse
A father, since her chaste ambition is
Yearly to bring forth such a child as this.
These hymns may work on future wits, and so
May great-grandchildren of thy praises grow;
And so, though not revive, embalm and spice
The world, which else would putrify with vice.
For thus man may extend thy progeny,
Until man do but vanish, and not die.
These hymns thy issue may increase so long,
As till God’s great Venite change the song.
Thirst for that time, O my insatiate soul,
And serve thy thirst with God’s safe-sealing bowl;
Be thirsty still, and drink still till thou go
To th’ only health; to be hydroptic so,
Forget this rotten world; and unto thee
Let thine own times as an old story be.
Be not concern’d; study not why nor when;
Do not so much as not believe a man.
For though to err, be worst, to try truths forth
Is far more business than this world is worth.
The world is but a carcass; thou art fed
By it, but as a worm that carcass bred;
And why shouldst thou, poor worm, consider more
When this world will grow better than before,
Than those thy fellow-worms do think upon
That carcass’s last resurrection?
Forget this world, and scarce think of it so,
As of old clothes cast off a year ago.
To be thus stupid is alacrity;
Men thus lethargic have best memory.
Look upward; that’s towards her, whose happy state
We now lament not, but congratulate.
She, to whom all this world was but a stage,
Where all sat hearkening how her youthful age
Should be employ’d, because in all she did
Some figure of the golden times was hid.
Who could not lack, whate’er this world give,
Because she was the form that made it live;
Nor could complain that this world was unfit
To be stay’d in, then when she was in it;
She, that first tried indifferent desires
By virtue, and virtue by religious fires;
She, to whose person paradise adhered, could
As courts to princes; she, whose eyes ensphered
Starlight enough to have made the South control
—Had she been there⁠—the star-full Northern Pole;
She, she is gone; she’s gone; when thou know’st this,
What fragmentary rubbish this world is
Thou know’st, and that it is not worth a thought;
He honours it too much that thinks it nought.
Think then, my soul, that death is but a groom,
Which brings a taper to the outward room,
Whence thou spiest first a little glimmering light,
And after brings it nearer to thy sight;
For such approaches doth heaven make in death.
Think thyself labouring now with broken breath,
And think those broken and soft notes to be
Division, and thy happiest harmony.
Think thee laid on thy deathbed, loose and slack,
And think that but unbinding of a pack,
To take one precious thing, thy soul, from thence.
Think thyself parch’d with fever’s violence;
Anger thine ague more, by calling it
Thy physic; chide the slackness of the fit.
Think that thou hear’st thy knell, and think no more,
But that, as bells call’d thee to church before,
So this to the triumphant church calls thee.
Think Satan’s sergeants round about thee be,
And think that but for legacies they thrust;
Give one thy pride, to another give thy lust;
Give them those sins which they gave thee before,
And trust th’ immaculate blood to wash thy score.
Think thy friends weeping round, and think that they
Weep but because they go not yet thy way.
Think that they close thine eyes, and think in this,
That they confess much in the world amiss,
Who dare not trust a dead man’s eye with that
Which they from God and angels cover not.
Think that they shroud thee up, and think from thence
They reinvest thee in white innocence.
Think that thy body rots, and⁠—if so low,
Thy soul exalted so, thy thoughts can go⁠—
Think thee a prince, who of themselves create
Worms, which insensibly devour their state.
Think that they bury thee, and think that rite
Lays thee to sleep but a Saint Lucy’s night.
Think these things cheerfully, and if thou be
Drowsy, or slack, remember then that she,
She, whose complexion was so even made,
That which of her ingredients should invade
The other three, no fear, no art could guess;
So far were all removed from more or less;
—But as in mithridate, or just perfumes,
Where all good things being met, no one presumes
To govern, or to triumph on the rest,
Only because all were, no part was, best;
And as, though all do know, that quantities
Are made of lines, and lines from points arise,
None can these lines or quantities unjoint
And say, this is a line, or this a point;
So though the elements and humours were
In her, one could not say, this governs there,
Whose even constitution might have won
Any disease to venture on the sun
Rather than her; and make a spirit fear
That he to disuniting subject were;
To whose proportions if we would compare
Cubes, they are unstable, circles, angular⁠—
She who was such a chain as fate employs
To bring mankind all fortunes it enjoys;
So fast, so even wrought, as one would think,
No accident could threaten any link;
She, she embraced a sickness, gave it meat,
The purest blood, and breath, that e’er it eat;
And hath taught us, that though a good man hath
Title to heaven, and plead it by his faith,
And though he may pretend a conquest, since
Heaven was content to suffer violence,
Yea though he plead a long possession too
—For they’re in heaven on earth who heaven’s works do⁠—
Though he had right and power and place, before,
Yet death must usher, and unlock the door.
Think further on thyself, my soul, and think
How thou at first wast made but in a sink.
Think that it argued some infirmity,
That those two souls, which then thou found’st in me,
Thou fed’st upon, and drew’st into thee both
My second soul of sense, and first of growth.
Think but how poor thou wast, how obnoxious;
Whom a small lump of flesh could poison thus.
This curded milk, this poor unlitter’d whelp,
My body, could, beyond escape or help,
Infect thee with original sin, and thou
Couldst neither then refuse, nor leave it now.
Think that no stubborn, sullen anchorite,
Which fix’d to a pillar, or a grave, doth sit
Bedded and bathed in all his ordures, dwells
So foully as our souls in their first-built cells.
Think in how poor a prison thou didst lie,
After, enabled but to suck, and cry.
Think, when ’twas grown to most, ’twas a poor inn,
A province pack’d up in two yards of skin;
And that usurp’d, or threaten’d with a rage
Of sicknesses, or their true mother, age.
But think that death hath now enfranchised thee;
Thou hast thy expansion now, and liberty.
Think that a rusty piece, discharged, is flown
In pieces, and the bullet is his own,
And freely flies; this to thy soul allow.
Think thy shell broke, think thy soul hatch’d but now.
And think this slow-paced soul which late did cleave
To a body, and went but by the body’s leave,
Twenty perchance, or thirty mile a day,
Dispatches in a minute all the way
’Twixt heaven and earth; she stays not in the air,
To look what meteors there themselves prepare;
She carries no desire to know, nor sense,
Whether th’ air’s middle region be intense;
For th’ element of fire, she doth not know,
Whether she pass’d by such a place or no;
She baits not at the moon, nor cares to try
Whether in that new world men live, and die;
Venus retards her not to inquire, how she
Can⁠—being one star⁠—Hesper and Vesper be;
He that charm’d Argus’ eyes, sweet Mercury,
Works not on her, who now is grown all eye;
Who if she meet the body of the sun,
Goes through, not staying till his course be run;
Who finds in Mars his camp no corps of guard,
Nor is by Jove, nor by his father barr’d;
But ere she can consider how she went,
At once is at, and through the firmament;
And as these stars were but so many beads
Strung on one string, speed undistinguish’d leads
Her through those spheres, as through the beads a string,
Whose quick succession makes it still one thing.
As doth the pith, which, lest our bodies slack,
Strings fast the little bones of neck and back,
So by the soul doth death string heaven and earth;
For when our soul enjoys this her third birth
—Creation gave her one, a second, grace⁠—
Heaven is as near and present to her face
As colours are and objects, in a room,
Where darkness was before, when tapers come.
This must, my soul, thy long-short progress be
To advance these thoughts; remember then that she,
She, whose fair body no such prison was,
But that a soul might well be pleased to pass
An age in her; she, whose rich beauty lent
Mintage to other beauties, for they went
But for so much as they were like to her;
She, in whose body⁠—if we dare prefer
This low world to so high a mark as she⁠—
The western treasure, eastern spicery,
Europe, and Afric, and the unknown rest
Were easily found, or what in them was best;
—And when we have made this large discovery
Of all, in her some one part then will be
Twenty such parts, whose plenty and riches is
Enough to make twenty such worlds as this⁠—
She, whom had they known, who did first betroth
The tutelar angels, and assign’d one, both
To nations, cities, and to companies,
To functions, offices, and dignities,
And to each several man, to him, and him,
They would have given her one for every limb;
She, of whose soul, if we may say, ’twas gold,
Her body was th’ electrum, and did hold
Many degrees of that; we understood
Her by her sight; her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought
That one might almost say, her body thought;
She, she thus richly and largely housed, is gone;
And chides us slow-paced snails who crawl upon
Our prison’s prison, earth, nor think us well,
Longer than whilst we bear our brittle shell.
But ’twere but little to have changed our room,
If, as we were in this our living tomb
Oppress’d with ignorance, we still were so.
Poor soul, in this thy flesh what dost thou know?
Thou know’st thyself so little, as thou know’st not
How thou didst die, nor how thou wast begot.
Thou neither know’st how thou at first camest in
Nor how thou took’st the poison of man’s sin;
Nor dost thou⁠—though thou know’st that thou art So⁠—
By what way thou art made immortal, know.
Thou art too narrow, wretch, to comprehend
Even thyself, yea though thou wouldst but bend
To know thy body. Have not all souls thought
For many ages, that our bodies wrought
Of air, and fire, and other elements?
And now they think of new ingredients;
And one soul thinks one, and another way
Another thinks, and ’tis an even lay.
Know’st thou but how the stone doth enter in
The bladder’s cave, and never break the skin?
Know’st thou how blood, which to the heart doth flow,
Doth from one ventricle to th’ other go?
And for the putrid stuff which thou dost spit,
Know’st thou how thy lungs have attracted it?
There are no passages, so that there is
—For aught thou know’st⁠—piercing of substances.
And of those many opinions which men raise
Of nails and hairs, dost thou know which to praise?
What hope have we to know ourselves, when we
Know not the least things which for our use be?
We see in authors, too stiff to recant,
A hundred controversies of an ant;
And yet one watches, starves, freezes, and sweats,
To know but catechisms and alphabets
Of unconcerning things, matters of fact,
How others on our stage their parts did act,
What Caesar did, yea, and what Cicero said.
Why grass is green, or why our blood is red,
Are mysteries which none have reach’d unto.
In this low form, poor soul, what wilt thou do?
When wilt thou shake off this pedantry,
Of being taught by sense and fantasy?
Thou look’st through spectacles; small things seem great
Below; but up unto the watchtower get,
And see all things despoil’d of fallacies;
Thou shalt not peep through lattices of eyes,
Nor hear through labyrinths of ears, nor learn
By circuit or collections to discern.
In heaven thou straight know’st all concerning it,
And what concerns it not shalt straight forget.
There thou⁠—but in no other school⁠—may’st be,
Perchance, as learned and as full as she;
She, who all libraries had throughly read
At home in her own thoughts, and practisèd
So much good as would make as many more;
She, whose example they must all implore,
Who would, or do, or think well, and confess
That all the virtuous actions they express
Are but a new and worse edition
Of her some one thought or one action;
She, who in th’ art of knowing heaven, was grown
Here upon earth to such perfection,
That she hath, ever since to heaven she came
—In a far fairer print⁠—but read the same;
She, she not satisfied with all this weight⁠—
For so much knowledge as would over-freight
Another, did but ballast her⁠—is gone,
As well to enjoy, as get perfection;
And calls us after her, in that she took
(Taking herself) our best and worthiest book.
Return not, my soul, from this ecstasy
And meditation of what thou shalt be,
To earthly thoughts, till it to thee appear
With whom thy conversation must be there.
With whom wilt thou converse? what station
Canst thou choose out, free from infection,
That will not give thee theirs, nor drink in thine?
Shalt thou not find a spongy slack divine
Drink and suck in th’ instructions of great men,
And for the word of God vent them again?
Are there not some courts⁠—and then, no things be
So like as courts⁠—which in this let us see
That wits and tongues of libellers are weak,
Because they do more ill than these can speak?
The poison’s gone through all; poisons affect
Chiefly the chiefest parts, but some effect
In nails, and hairs, yea excrements, will show;
So lies the poison of sin in the most low.
Up, up, my drowsy soul, where thy new ear
Shall in the angels’ songs no discord hear;
Where thou shalt see the blessed mother-maid
Joy in not being that which men have said;
Where she’s exalted, more for being good
Than for her interest of motherhood;
Up to those patriarchs, which did longer sit
Expecting Christ, than they’ve enjoy’d Him yet;
Up to those prophets, which now gladly see
Their prophecies grown to be history;
Up to th’ apostles, who did bravely run
All the sun’s course, with more light than the sun;
Up to those martyrs, who did calmly bleed
Oil to th’ apostles’ lamps, dew to their seed;
Up to those virgins, who thought that almost
They made joint-tenants with the Holy Ghost,
If they to any should His temple give;
Up, up, for in that squadron there doth live
She, who hath carried thither new degrees,
As to their number, to their dignities;
She, who being to herself a state, enjoy’d
All royalties which any state employ’d;
For she made wars, and triumph’d; reason still
Did not o’erthrow, but rectify her will;
And she made peace, for no peace is like this,
That beauty and chastity together kiss.
She did high justice, for she crucified
Every first motion of rebellious pride.
And she gave pardons, and was liberal,
For, only herself except, she pardon’d all.
She coin’d, in this, that her impression gave
To all our actions all the worth they have.
She gave protections; the thoughts of her breast
Satan’s rude officers could ne’er arrest.
As these prerogatives being met in one
Made her a sovereign state, religion
Made her a church; and these two made her all.
She who was all this All, and could not fall
To worse, by company, for she was still
More antidote than all the world was ill,
She, she doth leave it, and by death survive
All this, in heaven; whither who doth not strive
The more, because she’s there, he doth not know
That accidental joys in heaven do grow.
But pause, my soul, and study, ere thou fall
On accidental joys, th’ essential.
Still, before accessories do abide
A trial, must the principal be tried.
And what essential joy canst thou expect
Here upon earth? what permanent effect
Of transitory causes? Dost thou love
Beauty⁠—and beauty worthiest is to move⁠—?
Poor cozened cozener, that she, and that thou,
Which did begin to love, are neither now;
You are both fluid, changed since yesterday;
Next day repairs⁠—but ill⁠—last day’s decay.
Nor are⁠—although the river keep the name⁠—
Yesterday’s waters and today’s the same.
So flows her face, and thine eyes; neither now
That saint nor pilgrim, which your loving vow
Concern’d, remains; but whilst you think you be
Constant, you’re hourly in inconstancy.
Honour may have pretence unto our love,
Because that God did live so long above
Without this honour, and then loved it so,
That He at last made creatures to bestow
Honour on Him, not that He needed it,
But that to His hands man might grow more fit.
But since all honours from inferiors flow,
—For they do give it; princes do but show
Whom they would have so honour’d⁠—and that this
On such opinions and capacities
Is built, as rise and fall to more and less;
Alas! ’tis but a casual happiness.
Hath ever any man to himself assigned
This or that happiness to arrest his mind,
But that another man which takes a worse,
Thinks him a fool for having ta’en that course?
They who did labour Babel’s tower to erect,
Might have considered, that for that effect
All this whole solid earth could not allow
Nor furnish forth materials enow;
And that his centre, to raise such a place,
Was far too little to have been the base.
No more affords this world foundation
To erect true joy, were all the means in one;
But as the heathen made them several gods
Of all God’s benefits, and all His rods
—For as the wine, and corn, and onions are
Gods unto them, so agues be, and war⁠—
And as by changing that whole precious gold
To such small copper coins, they lost the old,
And lost their only God, who ever must
Be sought alone, and not in such a thrust;
So much mankind true happiness mistakes;
No joy enjoys that man, that many makes.
Then, soul, to thy first pitch work up again;
Know that all lines which circles do contain,
For once that they the centre touch, do touch
Twice the circumference; and be thou such,
Double on heaven thy thoughts on earth employ’d.
—All will not serve; only who have enjoy’d
The sight of God in fullness can think it;
For it is both the object and the wit.
This is essential joy, where neither He
Can suffer diminution, nor we;
’Tis such a full, and such a filling good,
Had th’ angels once look’d on Him, they had stood.
To fill the place of one of them, or more,
She whom we celebrate is gone before;
She, who had here so much essential joy,
As no chance could distract, much less destroy;
Who with God’s presence was acquainted so
—Hearing and speaking to Him⁠—as to know
His face in any natural stone or tree,
Better than when in images they be;
Who kept, by diligent devotion,
God’s image in such reparation
Within her heart, that what decay was grown
Was her first parents’ fault, and not her own;
Who, being solicited to any act,
Still heard God pleading His safe precontract;
Who by a faithful confidence, was here
Betroth’d to God, and now is married there;
Whose twilights were more clear than our midday;
Who dreamt devoutlier than most use to pray;
Who, being here fill’d with grace, yet strove to be
Both where more grace and more capacity
At once is given; she to heaven is gone,
Who made this world in some proportion
A heaven, and here became unto us all
Joy⁠—as our joys admit⁠—essential.
But could this low world joys essential touch,
Heaven’s accidental joys would pass them much.
How poor and lame must then our casual be?
If thy prince will his subjects to call thee
My lord, and this do swell thee, thou art then,
By being greater, grown to be less man.
When no physician of redress can speak,
A joyful casual violence may break
A dangerous aposthume in thy breast;
And whilst thou joyest in this, the dangerous rest,
The bag, may rise up, and so strangle thee.
Whate’er was casual, may ever be.
What should the nature change? or make the same
Certain, which was but casual, when it came?
All casual joy doth loud and plainly say,
Only by coming, that it can away.
Only in heaven joy’s strength is never spent,
And accidental things are permanent.
Joy of a soul’s arrival ne’er decays,
For that soul ever joys and ever stays.
Joy that their last great consummation
Approaches in the resurrection,
When earthly bodies more celestial
Shall be, than angels’ were, for they could fall;
This kind of joy doth every day admit
Degrees of growth, but none of losing it.
In this fresh joy, ’tis no small part that she,
She, in whose goodness he that names degree
Doth injure her⁠—’tis loss to be called best
There, where the stuff is not such as the rest⁠—
She, who left such a body, as even she
Only in heaven could learn how it can be
Made better; for she rather was two souls,
Or like to full on both sides written rolls,
Where eyes might read upon the outward skin,
As strong records for God as minds within;
She, who by making full perfection grow,
Pieces a circle, and still keeps it so;
Long’d for, and longing for ’t, to heaven is gone,
Where she receives, and gives addition.

Here, in a place where mis-devotion frames
A thousand prayers to saints, whose very names
The ancient Church knew not, Heaven knows not yet;
And where what laws of poetry admit,
Laws of religion have at least the same;
Immortal maid, I might invoke thy name.
Could any saint provoke that appetite,
Thou here should’st make me a French convertite.
But thou would’st not; nor would’st thou be content,
To take this, for my second year’s true rent,
Did this coin bear any other stamp than His,
That gave thee power to do, me to say this.
Since His will is, that to posterity
Thou should’st for life and death a pattern be,
And that the world should notice have of this,
The purpose and th’ authority is His.
Thou art the proclamation; and I am
The trumpet, at whose voice the people came.