Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 34

8 One thinks the soul is air; another fire; Another blood, diffused about the heart; Another saith, the elements conspire, And to her essence each doth give a part.

9 Musicians think our souls are harmonies; Physicians hold that they complexions be; Epicures make them swarms of atomies, Which do by chance into our bodies flee.

10 Some think one general soul fills every brain, As the bright sun sheds light in every star; And others think the name of soul is vain, And that we only well-mix'd bodies are.

11 In judgment of her substance thus they vary; And thus they vary in judgment of her seat; For some her chair up to the brain do carry, Some thrust it down into the stomach's heat.

12 Some place it in the root of life, the heart; Some in the liver, fountain of the veins; Some say, she's all in all, and all in every part; Some say, she's not contain'd, but all contains.

13 Thus these great clerks their little wisdom show, While with their doctrines they at hazard play; Tossing their light opinions to and fro, To mock the lewd, as learn'd in this as they.

14 For no crazed brain could ever yet propound, Touching the soul, so vain and fond a thought; But some among these masters have been found, Which in their schools the selfsame thing have taught.

15 G.o.d only wise, to punish pride of wit, Among men's wits hath this confusion wrought, As the proud tower whose points the clouds did hit, By tongues' confusion was to ruin brought.

16 But thou which didst man's soul of nothing make, And when to nothing it was fallen again, 'To make it new, the form of man didst take; And, G.o.d with G.o.d, becam'st a man with men.'

17 Thou that hast fashion'd twice this soul of ours, So that she is by double t.i.tle thine, Thou only know'st her nature and her powers, Her subtle form thou only canst define.

18 To judge herself, she must herself transcend, As greater circles comprehend the less; But she wants power her own powers to extend, As fetter'd men cannot their strength express.

19 But thou bright morning Star, thou rising Sun, Which in these later times hast brought to light Those mysteries that, since the world begun, Lay hid in darkness and eternal night:

20 Thou, like the sun, dost with an equal ray Into the palace and the cottage shine, And show'st the soul, both to the clerk and lay, By the clear lamp of oracle divine.

21 This lamp, through all the regions of my brain, Where my soul sits, doth spread such beams of grace, As now, methinks, I do distinguish plain Each subtle line of her immortal face.

22 The soul a substance and a spirit is, Which G.o.d himself doth in the body make, Which makes the man; for every man from this The nature of a man and name doth take.

23 And though this spirit be to the body knit, As an apt means her powers to exercise, Which are life, motion, sense, and will, and wit, Yet she survives, although the body dies.

THE SELF-SUBSISTENCE OF THE SOUL.

1 She is a substance, and a real thing, Which hath itself an actual working might, Which neither from the senses' power doth spring, Nor from the body's humours temper'd right.

2 She is a vine, which doth no propping need, To make her spread herself, or spring upright; She is a star, whose beams do not proceed From any sun, but from a native light.

3 For when she sorts things present with things past, And thereby things to come doth oft foresee; When she doth doubt at first, and choose at last, These acts her own,[1] without her body be.

4 When of the dew, which the eye and ear do take, From flowers abroad, and bring into the brain, She doth within both wax and honey make: This work is hers, this is her proper pain.

5 When she from sundry acts, one skill doth draw; Gathering from divers fights one art of war; From many cases like, one rule of law; These her collections, not the senses' are.

6 When in the effects she doth the causes know; And seeing the stream, thinks where the spring doth rise; And seeing the branch, conceives the root below: These things she views without the body's eyes.

7 When she, without a Pegasus, doth fly Swifter than lightning's fire from east to west; About the centre, and above the sky, She travels then, although the body rest.

8 When all her works she formeth first within, Proportions them, and sees their perfect end; Ere she in act doth any part begin, What instruments doth then the body lend?

9 When without hands she doth thus castles build, Sees without eyes, and without feet doth run; When she digests the world, yet is not fill'd: By her own powers these miracles are done.

10 When she defines, argues, divides, compounds, Considers virtue, vice, and general things; And marrying divers principles and grounds, Out of their match a true conclusion brings.

11 These actions in her closet, all alone, Retired within herself, she doth fulfil; Use of her body's organs she hath none, When she doth use the powers of wit and will.

12 Yet in the body's prison so she lies, As through the body's windows she must look, Her divers powers of sense to exercise, By gathering notes out of the world's great book.

13 Nor can herself discourse or judge of ought, But what the sense collects, and home doth bring; And yet the powers of her discoursing thought, From these collections is a diverse thing.

14 For though our eyes can nought but colours see, Yet colours give them not their power of sight; So, though these fruits of sense her objects be, Yet she discerns them by her proper light.

15 The workman on his stuff his skill doth show, And yet the stuff gives not the man his skill; Kings their affairs do by their servants know, But order them by their own royal will.

16 So, though this cunning mistress, and this queen, Doth, as her instruments, the senses use, To know all things that are felt, heard, or seen; Yet she herself doth only judge and choose.

17 Even as a prudent emperor, that reigns By sovereign t.i.tle over sundry lands, Borrows, in mean affairs, his subjects' pains, Sees by their eyes, and writeth by their hands:

18 But things of weight and consequence indeed, Himself doth in his chamber then debate; Where all his counsellors he doth exceed, As far in judgment, as he doth in state.

19 Or as the man whom princes do advance, Upon their gracious mercy-seat to sit, Doth common things of course and circ.u.mstance, To the reports of common men commit:

20 But when the cause itself must be decreed, Himself in person in his proper court, To grave and solemn hearing doth proceed, Of every proof, and every by-report.

21 Then, like G.o.d's angel, he p.r.o.nounceth right, And milk and honey from his tongue doth flow: Happy are they that still are in his sight, To reap the wisdom which his lips doth sow.

22 Right so the soul, which is a lady free, And doth the justice of her state maintain: Because the senses ready servants be, Attending nigh about her court, the brain:

23 By them the forms of outward things she learns, For they return unto the fantasy, Whatever each of them abroad discerns, And there enrol it for the mind to see.

24 But when she sits to judge the good and ill, And to discern betwixt the false and true, She is not guided by the senses' skill, But doth each thing in her own mirror view.

25 Then she the senses checks, which oft do err, And even against their false reports decrees; And oft she doth condemn what they prefer; For with a power above the sense she sees.

26 Therefore no sense the precious joys conceives, Which in her private contemplations be; For then the ravish'd spirit the senses leaves, Hath her own powers, and proper actions free.

27 Her harmonies are sweet, and full of skill, When on the body's instruments she plays; But the proportions of the wit and will, Those sweet accords are even the angels' lays.

28 These tunes of reason are Amphion's lyre, Wherewith he did the Theban city found: These are the notes wherewith the heavenly choir, The praise of Him which made the heaven doth sound.

29 Then her self-being nature shines in this, That she performs her n.o.blest works alone: 'The work, the touchstone of the nature is; And by their operations things are known.'

[1] That the soul hath a proper operation without the body.

SPIRITUALITY OF THE SOUL.

1 But though this substance be the root of sense, Sense knows her not, which doth but bodies know: She is a spirit, and heavenly influence, Which from the fountain of G.o.d's Spirit doth flow.