Donne (7 page)

Thou shalt not laugh in this leafe, Muse, nor they

Whom any pitty warmes; He which did lay

Rules to make Courtiers, (hee being understood

May make good Courtiers, but who Courtiers good?)

Frees from the sting of jests all who in extreme

Are wreched or wicked: of these two a theame

Charity and liberty give me. What is hee

Who Officers rage, and Suiters misery

Can write, and jest? If all things be in all,

As I thinke, since all, which were, are, and shall

Bee, be made of the same elements:

Each thing, each thing implyes or represents.

Then man is a world; in which, Officers

Are the vast ravishing seas; and Suiters,

Springs; now full, now shallow, now drye; which, to

That which drownes them, run: These selfe reasons do

Prove the world a man, in which, officers

Are the devouring stomacke, and Suiters

The excrements, which they voyd; all men are dust;

How much worse are Suiters, who to mens lust

Are made preyes. O worse then dust, or wormes meat

For they do eate you now, whose selves wormes shall eate.

They are the mills which grinde you, yet you are

The winde which drives them; and a wastfull warre

Is fought against you, and you fight it; they

Adulterate lawe, and you prepare their way

Like wittals, th’issue your owne ruine is;

Greatest and fairest Empresse, know you this?

Alas, no more then Thames calme head doth know

Whose meades her armes drowne, or whose corne o’rflow:

You Sir, whose righteousness she loves, whom I

By having leave to serve, am most richly

For service paid, authorized, now beginne

To know and weed out this enormous sinne.

O Age of rusty iron! Some better wit

Call it some worse name, if ought equall it;

The iron Age
that
was, when justice was sold, now

Injustice is sold dearer farre; allow

All demands, fees, and duties; gamsters, anon

The mony which you sweat, and sweare for, is gon

Into other hands: So controverted lands

Scape, like Angelica, the strivers hands.

If Law be the Judges heart, and hee

Have no heart to resist letter, or fee,

Where wilt thou appeale? powre of the Courts below

Flow from the first maine head, and these can throw

Thee, if they sucke thee in, to misery,

To fetters, halters; But if the injury

Steele thee to dare complaine, Alas, thou goest

Against the stream, when upwards: when thou art most

Heavy and most faint; and in these labours they,

’Gainst whom thou should’st complaine, will in the way

Become great seas, o’r which, when thou shalt bee

Forc’d to make golden bridges, thou shalt see

That all thy gold was drown’d in them before;

All things follow their like, only who have may have more.

Judges are Gods; he who made and said them so,

Meant not that men should be forc’d to them to goe,

By meanes of Angels; When supplications

We send to God, to Dominations,

Powers, Cherubins, and all heavens Courts, if wee

Should pay fees as here, Daily bread would be

Scarce to Kings; so ’tis. Would it not anger

A Stoicke, a coward, yea a Martyr,

To see a Pursivant come in, and call

All his cloathes, Copes; Bookes, Primers; and all

His Plate, Challices; and mistake them away,

And aske a fee for comming? Oh, ne’r may

Faire lawes white reverend name be strumpeted,

To warrant thefts: she is established

Recorder to Destiny, on earth, and shee

Speakes Fates words, and but tells us who must bee

Rich, who poore, who in chaires, who in jayles:

Shee is all faire, but yet hath foule long nailes,

With which she scracheth Suiters; In bodies

Of men, so in law, nailes are th’extremities,

So Officers stretch to more then Law can doe,

As our nailes reach what no else part comes to.

Why barest thou to yon Officer? Foole, Hath hee

Got those goods, for which erst men bared to thee?

Foole, twice, thrice, thou hast bought wrong, and now hungerly

Beg’st right; But that dole comes not till these dye.

Thou had’st much, and lawes Urim and Thummim trie

Thou wouldst for more; and for all hast paper

Enough to cloath all the great Carricks Pepper.

Sell that, and by that thou much more shalt leese,

Then Haman, when he sold his Antiquities.

O wretch that thy fortunes should moralize

Esops fables, and make tales, prophesies.

Thou art the swimming dog whom shadows cosened,

And div’st, neare drowning, for what vanished.

M
ADAME
,

Reason is our Soules left hand, Faith her right,

By these wee reach divinity, that’s you;

Their loves, who have the blessings of your light,

Grew from their reason, mine from faire faith grew.

But as, although a squint lefthandednesse

Be’ungracious, yet we cannot want that hand,

So would I, not to encrease, but to expresse

My faith, as I beleeve, so understand.

Therefore I study you first in your Saints,

Those friends, whom your election glorifies,

Then in your deeds, accesses, and restraints,

And what you reade, and what your selfe devize.

But soone, the reasons why you’are lov’d by all,

Grow infinite, and so passe reasons reach,

Then backe againe to’implicate faith I fall,

And rest on what the Catholique voice doth teach;

That you are good: and not one Heretique

Denies it: if he did, yet you are so.

For, rockes, which high top’d and deep rooted sticke,

Waves wash, not undermine, nor overthrow.

In every thing there naturally growes

A
Balsamum
to keepe it fresh, and new,

If’twere not injur’d by extrinsique blowes:

Your birth and beauty are this Balme in you.

But you of learning and religion,

And vertue,’and such ingredients, have made

A methridate, whose operation

Keepes off, or cures what can be done or said.

Yet, this is not your physicke, but your food,

A dyet fit for you; for you are here

The first good Angell, since the worlds frame stood,

That ever did in womans shape appeare.

Since you are then Gods masterpeece, and so

His Factor for our loves; do as you doe,

Make your returne home gracious; and bestow

This life on that; so make one life of two.

    For so God helpe mee,’I would not misse you there

    For all the good which you can do me here.

M
ADAME
,

You have refin’d mee, and to worthyest things

Vertue, Art, Beauty, Fortune, now I see

Rarenesse, or use, not nature value brings;

And such, as they are circumstanc’d, they bee.

    Two ills can ne’re perplexe us, sinne to’excuse;

    But of two good things, we may leave and chuse.

Therefore at Court, which is not vertues clime,

Where a transcendent height, (as, lownesse mee)

Makes her not be, or not show: all my rime

Your vertues challenge, which there rarest bee;

    For, as darke texts need notes: there some must bee

    To usher vertue, and say,
This is shee.

So in the country’is beauty; to this place

You are the season (Madame) you the day,

’Tis but a grave of spices, till your face

Exhale them, and a thick close bud display.

    Widow’d and reclus’d else, her sweets she’enshrines

    As China, when the Sunne at Brasill dines.

Out from your chariot, morning breaks at night,

And falsifies both computations so;

Since a new world doth rise here from your light,

We your new creatures, by new recknings goe.

    This showes that you from nature lothly stray,

    That suffer not an artificiall day.

In this you’have made the Court the Antipodes,

And will’d your Delegate, the vulgar Sunne,

To doe profane autumnall offices,

Whilst here to you, wee sacrificers runne;

    And whether Priests, or Organs, you wee’obey,

    We sound your influence, and your Dictates say.

Yet to that Deity which dwels in you,

Your vertuous Soule, I now not sacrifice;

These are
Petitions
, and not
Hymnes
; they sue

But that I may survay the edifice.

    In all Religions as much care hath bin

    Of Temples frames, and beauty,’as Rites within.

As all which goe to Rome, doe not thereby

Esteeme religions, and hold fast the best,

But serve discourse, and curiosity,

With that which doth religion but invest,

    And shunne th’en tangling laborinths of Schooles,

    And make it wit, to thinke the wiser fooles:

So in this pilgrimage I would behold

You as you’are vertues temple, not as shee,

What walls of tender christall her enfold,

What eyes, hands, bosome, her pure Altars bee;

    And after this survay, oppose to all

    Bablers of Chappels, you th’Escuriall.

Yet not as consecrate, but merely’as faire;

On these I cast a lay and country eye.

Of past and future stories, which are rare

I finde you all record, and prophecie.

    Purge but the booke of Fate, that it admit

    No sad nor guilty legends, you are it.

If good and lovely were not one, of both

You were the transcript, and originall,

The Elements, the Parent, and the Growth,

And every peece of you, is both their All,

    So’intire are all your deeds, and you, that you

    Must do the same thinge still; you cannot two.

But these (as nice thinne Schoole divinity

Serves heresie to furder or represse)

Tast of Poëtique rage, or flattery,

And need not, where all hearts one truth professe;

    Oft from new proofes, and new phrase, new doubts grow,

    As strange attire aliens the men wee know.

Leaving then busie praise, and all appeale,

To higher Courts, senses decree is true,

The Mine, the Magazine, the Commonweale,

The story of beauty,’in Twicknam is, and you.

    Who hath seene one, would both; As, who had bin

    In Paradise, would seeke the Cherubin.

T’have written then, when you writ, seem’d to mee

    Worst of spirituall vices, Simony,

And not t’have written then, seemes little lesse

    Then worst of civill vices, thanklessenesse.

In this, my debt I seem’d loath to confesse,

    In that, I seem’d to shunne beholdingnesse.

But ’tis not soe,
nothings
, as I am, may

    Pay all they have, and yet have all to pay.

Such borrow in their payments, and owe more

    By having leave to write so, then before.

Yet since rich mines in barren grounds are showne,

    May not I yeeld (not gold) but coale or stone?

Temples were not demolish’d, though prophane:

    Here
Peter Joves
, there
Paul
hath Dian’s Fane.

So whether my hymnes you admit or chuse,

    In me you’have hallowed a Pagan Muse,

And denizend a stranger, who mistaught

    By blamers of the times they mard, hath sought

Vertues in corners, which now bravely doe

    Shine in the worlds best part, or all It; You.

I have been told, that vertue’in Courtiers hearts

    Suffers an Ostracisme, and departs.

Profit, ease, fitnesse, plenty, bid it goe,

    But whither, only knowing you, I know;

Your (or you) vertue two vast uses serves,

    
It ransomes one sex, and one Court preserves;

There’s nothing but your worth, which being true,

    Is knowne to any other, not to you.

And you can never know it; To admit

    No knowledge of your worth, is some of it.

But since to you, your praises discords bee,

    Stoop, others ills to meditate with mee.

Oh! to confesse wee know not what we should,

    Is halfe excuse, wee know not what we would.

Lightnesse depresseth us, emptinesse fills,

    We sweat and faint, yet still goe downe the hills;

As new Philosophy arrests the Sunne,

    And bids the passive earth about it runne,

So wee have dull’d our minde, it hath no ends;

    Onely the bodie’s busie, and pretends;

As dead low earth ecclipses and controules

    The quick high Moone: so doth the body, Soules.

In none but us, are such mixt engines found,

    As hands of double office: For, the ground

We till with them; and them to heav’n wee raise;

    Who prayer-lesse labours, or, without this, prayes,

Doth but one halfe, that’s none; He which said,
Plough

    
And looke not back
, to looke up doth allow.

Good seed degenerates, and oft obeys

    The soyles disease, and into cockle strayes.

Let the minds thoughts be but transplanted so,

    Into the body,’and bastardly they grow.

What hate could hurt our bodies like our love?

    Wee but no forraine tyrans could remove,

These not ingrav’d, but inborne dignities,

    Caskets of soules; Temples, and Palaces:

For, bodies shall from death redeemed bee,

    Soules but preserv’d, not naturally free;

As men to’our prisons, new soules to us are sent,

    Which learne vice there, and come in innocent.

First seeds of every creature are in us,

    What ere the world hath bad, or pretious,

Mans body can produce, hence hath it beene

    That stones, wormes, frogges, and snakes in man are seene.

But who ere saw, though nature can worke soe,

    That pearle, or gold, or corne in man did grow?

We’have added to the world Virginia,’and sent

    Two new starres lately to the firmament;

Why grudge wee us (not heaven) the dignity

    T’increase with ours, those faire soules company.

But I must end this letter, though it doe

    Stand on two truths, neither is true to you.

Vertue hath some perversenesse; For she will

    Neither beleeve her good, nor others ill.

Even in you, vertues best paradise,

    Vertue hath some, but wise degrees of vice.

Too many vertues, or too much of one

    Begets in you unjust suspition.

And ignorance of vice, makes vertue lesse,

    Quenching compassion of our wretchednesse.

But these are riddles; Some aspersion

    Of vice becomes well some complexion.

Statesmen purge vice with vice, and may corrode

    The bad with bad, a spider with a toad:

For so, ill thralls not them, but they tame ill

    And make her do much good against her will,

But in your Commonwealth or world in you

    Vice hath no office, or good worke to doe.

Take then no vitious purge, but be content

With cordiall vertue, your knowne nourishment.