Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 39

IX.

Prince of the orchard, fair as dawning morn, Fenced with the law, and ripe as soon as born, That apple grew which this soul did enlive, Till the then climbing serpent, that now creeps For that offence for which all mankind weeps, Took it, and t' her, whom the first man did wive, (Whom and her race only forbiddings drive,) He gave it, she to her husband; both did eat: So perished the eaters and the meat, And we, for treason taints the blood, thence die and sweat.

X.

Man all at once was there by woman slain, And one by one we're here slain o'er again By them. The mother poison'd the well-head; The daughters here corrupt us rivulets; No smallness 'scapes, no greatness breaks, their nets: She thrust us out, and by them we are led Astray from turning to whence we are fled.

Were prisoners judges 't would seem rigorous; She sinned, we bear: part of our pain is thus To love them whose fault to this painful love yoked us.

XI.

So fast in us doth this corruption grow, That now we dare ask why we should be so.

Would G.o.d (disputes the curious rebel) make A law, and would not have it kept? or can His creatures' will cross his? Of every man For one will G.o.d (and be just) vengeance take?

Who sinned? 'twas not forbidden to the snake, Nor her, who was not then made; nor is 't writ That Adam cropt or knew the apple; yet The worm, and she, and he, and we, endure for it.

XII.

But s.n.a.t.c.h me, heavenly Spirit! from this vain Reck'ning their vanity; less is their gain Than hazard still to meditate on ill, Though with good mind; their reasons like those toys Of gla.s.sy bubbles which the gamesome boys Stretch to so nice a thinness through a quill, That they themselves break, and do themselves spill.

Arguing is heretics' game, and exercise, As wrestlers, perfects them. Not liberties Of speech, but silence; hands, not tongues, and heresies.

XIII.

Just in that instant, when the serpent's gripe Broke the slight veins and tender conduit-pipe Through which this Soul from the tree's root did draw Life and growth to this apple, fled away This loose Soul, old, one and another day.

As lightning, which one scarce dare say he saw, 'Tis so soon gone (and better proof the law Of sense than faith requires) swiftly she flew To a dark and foggy plot; her her fates threw There through the earth's pores, and in a plant housed her anew.

XIV.

The plant, thus abled, to itself did force A place where no place was by Nature's course, As air from water, water fleets away From thicker bodies; by this root thronged so His spungy confines gave him place to grow: Just as in our streets, when the people stay To see the prince, and so fill up the way That weasels scarce could pa.s.s; when he comes near They throng and cleave up, and a pa.s.sage clear, As if for that time their round bodies flatten'd were.

XV.

His right arm he thrust out towards the east, Westward his left; the ends did themselves digest Into ten lesser strings, these fingers were: And, as a slumberer, stretching on his bed, This way he this, and that way scattered His other leg, which feet with toes upbear; Grew on his middle part, the first day, hair.

To shew that in love's business he should still A dealer be, and be used, well or ill: His apples kindle, his leaves force of conception kill.

XVI.

A mouth, but dumb, he hath; blind eyes, deaf ears, And to his shoulders dangle subtle hairs; A young Colossus there he stands upright; And, as that ground by him were conquered, A lazy garland wears he on his head Enchased with little fruits so red and bright, That for them ye would call your love's lips white; So of a lone unhaunted place possess'd, Did this Soul's second inn, built by the guest, This living buried man, this quiet mandrake, rest.

XVII.

No l.u.s.tful woman came this plant to grieve, But 'twas because there was none yet but Eve, And she (with other purpose) killed it quite: Her sin had now brought in infirmities, And so her cradled child the moist-red eyes Had never shut, nor slept, since it saw light: Poppy she knew, she knew the mandrake's might, And tore up both, and so cooled her child's blood.

Unvirtuous weeds might long unvexed have stood, But he's short-lived that with his death can do most good.

XVIII.

To an unfettered Soul's quick nimble haste Are falling stars and heart's thoughts but slow-paced, Thinner than burnt air flies this Soul, and she, Whom four new-coming and four parting suns Had found, and left the mandrake's tenant, runs, Thoughtless of change, when her firm destiny Confined and enjailed her that seemed so free Into a small blue sh.e.l.l, the which a poor Warm bird o'erspread, and sat still evermore, Till her enclosed child kicked, and picked itself a door.

XIX.

Out crept a sparrow, this Soul's moving inn, On whose raw arms stiff feathers now begin, As children's teeth through gums, to break with pain: His flesh is jelly yet, and his bones threads; All a new downy mantle overspreads: A mouth he opes, which would as much contain As his late house, and the first hour speaks plain, And chirps aloud for meat: meat fit for men His father steals for him, and so feeds then One that within a month will beat him from his hen.

XX.

In this world's youth wise Nature did make haste, Things ripened sooner, and did longer last: Already this hot c.o.c.k in bush and tree, In field and tent, o'erflutters his next hen: He asks her not who did so taste, nor when; Nor if his sister or his niece she be, Nor doth she pule for his inconstancy If in her sight he change; nor doth refuse The next that calls; both liberty do use.

Where store is of both kinds, both kinds may freely choose.

XXI.

Men, till they took laws, which made freedom less, Their daughters and their sisters did ingress; Till now unlawful, therefore ill, 'twas not; So jolly, that it can move this Soul. Is The body so free of his kindnesses, That self-preserving it hath now forgot, And slack'neth not the Soul's and body's knot, Which temp'rance straitens? Freely on his she-friends He blood and spirit, pith and marrow, spends; Ill steward of himself, himself in three years ends.

XXII.

Else might he long have lived; man did not know Of gummy blood which doth in holly grow, How to make bird-lime, nor how to deceive, With feigned calls, his nets, or enwrapping snare, The free inhabitants of the pliant air.

Man to beget, and woman to conceive, Asked not of roots, nor of c.o.c.k-sparrows, leave; Yet chooseth he, though none of these he fears, Pleasantly three; then straitened twenty years To live, and to increase his race himself outwears.

XXIII.

This coal with over-blowing quenched and dead, The Soul from her too active organs fled To a brook. A female fish's sandy roe With the male's jelly newly leavened was; For they had intertouched as they did pa.s.s, And one of those small bodies, fitted so, This Soul informed, and able it to row Itself with finny oars, which she did fit, Her scales seemed yet of parchment, and as yet Perchance a fish, but by no name you could call it.

XXIV.

When goodly, like a ship in her full trim, A swan so white, that you may unto him Compare all whiteness, but himself to none, Glided along, and as he glided watched, And with his arched neck this poor fish catched: It moved with state, as if to look upon Low things it scorned; and yet before that one Could think he sought it, he had swallowed clear This and much such, and unblamed, devoured there All but who too swift, too great, or well-armed, were.

XXV.

Now swam a prison in a prison put, And now this Soul in double walls was shut, Till melted with the swan's digestive fire She left her house, the fish, and vapoured forth: Fate not affording bodies of more worth For her as yet, bids her again retire To another fish, to any new desire Made a new prey; for he that can to none Resistance make, nor complaint, is sure gone; Weakness invites, but silence feasts oppression.

XXVI.

Pace with the native stream this fish doth keep, And journeys with her towards the gla.s.sy deep, But oft r.e.t.a.r.ded; once with a hidden net, Though with great windows, (for when need first taught These tricks to catch food, then they were not wrought As now, with curious greediness, to let None 'scape, but few and fit for use to get,) As in this trap a ravenous pike was ta'en, Who, though himself distress'd, would fain have slain This wretch; so hardly are ill habits left again.

XXVII.

Here by her smallness she two deaths o'erpast, Once innocence 'scaped, and left the oppressor fast; The net through swam, she keeps the liquid path, And whether she leap up sometimes to breathe And suck in air, or find it underneath, Or working parts like mills or limbecs hath, To make the water thin, and air like faith, Cares not, but safe the place she's come unto, Where fresh with salt waves meet, and what to do She knows not, but between both makes a board or two.

XXVIII.

So far from hiding her guests water is, That she shews them in bigger quant.i.ties Than they are. Thus her, doubtful of her way, For game, and not for hunger, a sea-pie Spied through his traitorous spectacle from high The silly fish, where it disputing lay, And to end her doubts and her, bears her away; Exalted, she's but to the exalter's good, (As are by great ones men which lowly stood;) It's raised to be the raiser's instrument and food.

XXIX.

Is any kind subject to rape like fish?

Ill unto man they neither do nor wish; Fishers they kill not, nor with noise awake; They do not hunt, nor strive to make a prey Of beasts, nor their young sons to bear away; Fowls they pursue not, nor do undertake To spoil the nests industrious birds do make; Yet them all these unkind kinds feed upon; To kill them is an occupation, And laws make fasts and lents for their destruction.

x.x.x.

A sudden stiff land-wind in that self hour To sea-ward forced this bird that did devour The fish; he cares not, for with ease he flies, Fat gluttony's best orator: at last, So long he hath flown, and hath flown so fast, That, leagues o'erpast at sea, now tired he lies, And with his prey, that till then languished, dies: The souls, no longer foes, two ways did err.

The fish I follow, and keep no calender Of the other: he lives yet in some great officer.