The
Purple Island.
Phineas
Fletcher.
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I II
III IV
V VI
VII VIII
IX X
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This Renascence Editions text was transcribed by Daniel Gustav Anderson, July 2003,
and reproduces the 1633 publication of The Purple Island, with
the Piscatory Eclogues and Poeticall Miscellenie. It retains
the spelling and punctuation of the original, silently amending
obvious typographical errors such as missing periods at stanza ends.
The long "s" and the vowel ligatures, also, are silently amended
to the letters of the conventional keyboard. Any errors that have crept into the transcription
are the fault of the present publisher. The text is in the public
domain. Content unique to this presentation is copyright ©
2003 the editor and the University of Oregon. For nonprofit and
educational uses only.
THE
PURPLE
ISLAND
OR
THE ISLE OF MAN:
TOGETHER WITH
PISCATORIE ECLOGS
AND OTHER
POETICALL MISCELLANIES
By P. F.
<printer’s
mark>
Printed by the Printers to the Universitie
of Cambridge. 1633.
TO
MY MOST WORTHY
AND LEARNED FRIEND,
EDWARD BENLOWES
ESQUIRE.
SIR,
AS some Optick-glasses, if we
look one way, increase the object; if the other, lessen the quantity:
Such is an Eye that looks through Affection; It doubles
any good, and extenuates what is amisse. Pardon me, Sir,
for speaking plain truth; such is that eye whereby you have viewed
the raw Essayes of my very unripe yeares, and almost childehood.
How unseasonable are Blossomes in Autumne! (unlesse
perhaps in this age, where are more flowers than fruit) I am entring
upon my Winter, and yet these Blooms of my first Spring
must now shew themselves to our ripe wits, which certainly
will give them no other entertainment but derision. For my self,
I canot account that worthy of your Patronage, which comes
forth so short of my Desires, thereby meriting no other light
then the fire. But since you please to have them see more Day
then their credit can well endure, marvel not if they flie under
your Shadow, to cover them from the piercing eye of this
very curious (yet more censorious) age. In letting them abroad I
desire only to testifie, how much I preferre your desires before
mine own, and how much I owe to You more than any other:
this if they witnesse for me, it is all their service I require.
Sir, I leave them to you tuition, and entreat you
to love him who will contend with you in nothing but to out-love
you, and would be known to the world by no other Name,
then
Your true friend,
P. F.
Hilgay, May 1. 1633.
To the Readers.
HE that would learn Theologie,
must first studie Autologie. The way to God is by our selves:
It is a blinde and ditry way; it hath many windings, and is easie
to be lost: This Poem will make them understand that way; and therefore
my desire is, that thou maist understand this Poem. Peruse it as
thou shouldst thy self, from thy first sheet to thy last. The first
view, perchance, may runne thy judgement in debt; the second will
promise payment; and the third will perform promise. Thou shalt
here find Philosophie, and Moralitie, two curious
handmaids, dressing the Kings daughter, whose garments smell of
Myrrhe and Cassia, and being wrought with needlework, and gold,
shall make thee take pleasure in her beautie. Here are no blocks
for the purblinde; no snares for the timorous; no dangers for the
bold: I invite all sorts to be readers; all readers to be understanders;
all understanders to be happie.
DANIEL FEALTY.
D. D.
ON
THE EXCELLENT
MORALL POEM,
ENTITULED THE
ISLE OF MAN.
LOrd! how my youth with this vain world hath err'd,
Applauding theirs as th' onely happy fate,
Whom to some Empire bloud, choice, chance preferr'd,
Or who of learned arts could wisely prate;
Or travelling the world, had well conferr'd
Mens natures with the mysteries of state!
But now thy wiser Muse hath
taught me this,
That these and most men else do aim at blisse;
But these and most men else to take their aim amisse.
Reigne o're the world, not o're this Isle of Man,
Worse then a slave thou thine own slaves obey'st.
Study all arts devis'd since time began,
And not thy Self, thou studiest not, but play'st.
Out-travell wise Ulysses, (if you can)
Yet misse this Isle, thou travell'st not, but stray'st.
Let me (O Lord) but reigne
o're mine own heart,
And master be of this self-knowing
art,
I'le dwell in th' Isle of Man, ne're travell forrain part.
E. BENLOWES.
BENEVOLUS.
Ingeniose
INgeniose tuo ne libro supprime nomen;
Ingenio Authorem deteget
ille suo.
Nempe verecundo memini te scribere vati,
Quod pulchre ingenio quadrat,
amice, tuo.
QUid tuas retegis nimis
tegendo
Noctiluca faces? pates latendo:
Ipsa es sphaera tuae comesque
stellae.
Diem si repetas, die latebis.
on te nox tenebrist tegit
fovendo,
Sed te nox tenebris fovendo
prodit.
TO THE LEARNED
AUTHOUR, SONNE
AND BROTHER TO
two judicious Poets, himself the
third, not second to either.
GRave Father of this Muse, thou deem'st too light
To wear thy name, 'cause of thy youthfull brain
It seems a sportfull childe; resembling right
Thy wittie childehood, not thy graver strain,
Which now esteems these works of fancie vain.
Let not thy childe, thee
living, orphan be;
Who when th' art dead,
will give a life to thee.
How many barren wits would gladly own,
How few o' th' pregnantest own such another?
Thou Father art, yet blushest to be known;
And though't may call the best of Muses Mother,
Yet thy severer judgement would it smother.
O judge not Thou,
let Readers judge thy book:
Such Cates should
rather please the Guest, then Cook.
O but thou fear'st't will stain the reverend gown
Thou wearest now; nay then fear not to show it:
For were't a stain, 't were natures, not thine own:
For thou art Poet born; who know thee, know it:
Thy brother, sire, thy very name's a Poet.
Thy very name will make
these Poems take,
These very Poems else thy
name will make.
W. BENLOWES.
TO
THE INGENIUS
COMPSER OF THIS
PASTORALL, THE
SPENCER of this age.
I Vow (sweet stranger) if my lazie quill
Had not been disobedient to fulfill
My quick desires, this glory which is thine,
Had but the Muses pleased had been mine.
My Genius jumpt with thine; the very same
Was our Foundation: in the very Frame
Thy Genius jumpt with mine; it got the start
In nothing, but Prioritie, and Art.
If (my ingenious Rivall) these dull times
Should want the present strength to prize thy rhymes,
The time-instructed children of the next
Shall fill thy margent, and admire the text;
Whose well read lines will teach the how to be
The happie knowers of themselves and thee.
FRAN. QUARLES.
TO THE UNKNOWN
Mr. P. F. UPON SURVAY
of his ISLE OF MAN.
REnowned Author, let it not seem strange
A Merchants eye should thus thy Island range:
It is a Merchants progresse to surround
The earth, and seek out undiscover'd ground.
What though my foot hath trod the fourefold shore?
And eyes survaid their subdivided store?
Yet rarer wonders in this Isle of thine
I view'd this day, then in twice six years time.
Justly didst thou, great Macedo, repine
That thou could'st adde no other world to thine.
He is not truely great, nor stout, who can
Curb the great world, and not the lesser, Man.
And
thou whose name the Western world impos'd
Upon it self, first by thy skill disclos'd;
Yet is thy skill by this farre overcome,
Who hath descride an unknown World at home:
A World, which to search out, subdue, and till,
Is the best object of mans wit, strength, skill:
A World, where all may dangerlesse obtain
Without long travell, cheapest, greatest gain.
LOD. ROBERTS
ON THE MOST ACCU-
RATE POEM, INSCRIBED
THE PURPLE ISLAND.
HEnceforth let wandering Delos cease to boast
Herself the God of Learnings dearest coast;
And let that double-headed mountain hallow
No more the honour'd name of great Apollo:
And may the Pegasean spring, that uses
To cheer the palats of the thirstie Muses,
Drie up: and let this happie Isle of thine
Preserve Apolloes harp; where every line
Carries a Suada with't, and doth display
The banners of heav'n-born Urania.
Henceforth let all the world thy verse admire
Before that Thracean Orpheus charming lyre:
He but enchanted Beasts, but to thy divine
And higher aires bring Deities to this Isle of thine.
A. C.
MAn's Bodie's like a house: his greater bones
Are the main timber; and the lesser ones
Are smaller splints: his ribs are laths, daub'd
o're,
Plaster'd with flesh, and bloud: his mouth's
the doore,
His throat's the narrow entrie, and his heart
Is the great chamber, full of curious art:
His midriffe is a large partition-wall
'Twixt the great chamber, and the spacious hall:
His stomack is the kitchin, where the meat
Is often but half sod, for want of heat:
His splene's a vessell nature does allot
To take the skumme that rises from the pot:
His lungs are like the bellows, that respire
In ev'ry office, quickning ev'ry fire:
His nose the chimney is, whereby are vented
Such fumes as with the bellows are augmented:
His bowels are the sink, whose part's to drein
All noisome filth, and keep the kitchin clean:
His eyes are crystall windows, cleare and bright;
Let in the object, and let out the sight.
And as the timber is or great, or small,
Or strong or weak, 'tis apt to stand, or fall:
Yet is the likeliest building sometimes known
To fall by obvious chances; overthrown
Ofttimes by tempests, by the full-mouth'd blasts
Of heav'n; sometimes by fire; sometimes in wastes
Through unadvis'd neglect: put case the stuff
Were ruine-proofe, by nature strong enough
To conquer time, and age; but case it should
Ne're know an end, alas our leafes would.
What hast thou then, proud flesh and bloud, to boast?
Thy dayes are evil, at best; but few, at most;
But sad, at merriest; and but weak, and strongest;
Unsure, at surest; and but short, at longest.
FRAN. QUARLES.
THE
PURPLE ISLAND,
OR
THE ISLE OF MAN.
CANT. I STAN. I.
THe warmer Sun the golden Bull outran,
And with the Twins made haste to inne and play:
Scatt’ring ten thousand flowres, he new began
To paint the world, and piece the length’ning
day:
(The world more aged by
new youths accrewing)
Ah wretched man this wretched
world pursuing,
Which still grows worse by age, & older by renewing!
2
The shepherd-boyes, who with the Muses dwell,
Met in the plain their May-lords new to chuse,
(For two they yearly chuse) to order well
Their rurall sports, and yeare that next ensues:
Now were they sat, where
by the orchyard walls
The learned Chame
with stealing water crawls,
And lowly down before that royall temple falls.
3
Among the rout they take two gentle swains,
Whose sprouting youth did now but greenly bud:
Well could they pipe and sing; but yet their strains
Were onely known unto the silent wood:
Their nearest bloud from
self-same fountains flow,
Their souls self-same in
nearer love did grow:
So seem’d two joyn’d in one, or one disjoyn’d
in two.
4
Now when the shepherd-lads with common voice
Their first consent had firmly ratifi’d,
A gentle boy thus ‘gan to wave their choice;
Thirsil, (said he) though yet thy Muse untri’d
Hath onely learn’d
in private shades to feigne
Soft sighs of love unto
a looser strain,
Or thy poore Thelgons wrong in mournfull verse
to plain;
5
Yet since the shepherd-swains do all consent
To make thee lord of them, and of their art;
And that choice lad (to give a full content)
Hath joyn’d with thee in office, as in heart;
Wake, wake thy long- (thy
too long) sleeping Muse,
And thank them with a song,
as is the use:
Such honour thus conferr’d thou mayst not well
refuse.
6
Sing what thou list, be it of Cupids spite,
(Ah lovely spite, and spitefull lovelinesse!)
Or Gemma’s grief, if sadder be thy sprite:
Begin, thou loved swain, with good successe.
Ah, (said the bashfull
boy) such wanton toyes
A better minde and sacred
vow destroyes,
Since in a higher love I settled all my joyes.
7
New light new love, new love new life hath bred;
A life that lives by love, and loves by light:
A love to him, to whom all loves are wed;
A light, to whom the Sunne is darkest night:
Eyes light, hearts love,
souls onely life he is:
Life, soul, love, heart,
light, eye, and all are his:
He eye, light, heart, love, soul; he all my joy,
& blisse.
8
But if you deigne my ruder pipe to heare,
(Rude pipe, unus’d, untun’d, unworthy
hearing)
These infantine beginnings gently bear,
Whose best desert and hope must be your bearing.
But you, O Muses, by soft
Chamus sitting,
(Your daintie songs unto
his murmures fitting,
Which bears the under-song unto your chearfull dittying;)
9
Tell me, ye Muses, what our father-ages
Have left succeeding times to play upon:
What now remains unthought on by those Sages,
Where a new Muse may trie her pineon?
What lightning Heroes,
like great Peleus heir,
(Darting his beams through
our hard-frozen aire)
May stirre up gentle heat, and virtues wane repair?
10
Who knows not Jason? or bold Tiphys
hand,
That durst unite what Natures self would part?
He makes Isles continent, and all one land;
O’re seas, as earth, he march’d with
dangerous art:
He rides the white-mouth’d
waves, and scorneth all
Those thousand deaths wide
gaping for his fall:
He death defies, fenc’t with a thin, low, wooden
wall.
11
Who ha’s not often read Troyes twice-sung
fires,
And at the second time twice better sung?
Who ha’s
not heard th’ Arcadian shepherds quires,
Which now have gladly chang’d their native
tongue;
And sitting by slow Mincius,
sport their fill,
With sweeter voice and
never-equall’d skill,
Chaunting their amorous layes unto a Romane
quill?
12
And thou, choice wit, Loves scholar and Loves master,
Art known to all, where Love himself is known:
Whether thou bidd’st Ulysses hie him
faster,
Or dost thy fault and distant exile moan.
Who ha’s not seen upon the mourning stage
Dire Atreus feast, and wrong’d Medea’s
rage,
Marching in tragick state, and buskin’d equipage?
13
And now of late
th’ Italian fisher-swain
Sits on the shore to watch his trembling line;
There teaches rocks and prouder seas to plain
By Nesis fair, and fairer Mergiline:
While his thinne net, upon
his oars twin’d,
With wanton strife catches
the Sunne, and winde,
Which still do slip away, and still remain behinde.
14
And that
French Muses eagle eye and wing
Hath soar’d to heav’n, and there hath
learn’d the art
To frame Angelick strains, and canzons sing
Too high and deep for every shallow heart.
Ah blessed soul! in those
celestiall rayes,
Which gave thee light these
lower works to blaze,
Thou sitt’st emparadis’d, and chaunt’st
eternall layes.
15
Thrice happy wits, which in your springing May
(Warm’d with the Sunne of well deserved favours)
Disclose your buds, and your fair blooms display,
Perfume the aire with your rich fragrant savours!
Nor may, nor ever shall
those honour’d flowers
Be spoil’d by summers
heat, or winters showers;
But last when eating time shal gnaw the proudest
towers.
16
Happy, thrice happy times in silver age!
When generous plants advanc’t their lofty crest;
When honour stoopt to be learn’d wisdomes page;
When baser weeds starv’d in their frozen nest;
When th’ highest
flying Muse still highest climbes;
And virtues rise keeps
down all rising crimes.
Happy, thrice happy age! happy, thrice happy times!
17
But wretched we, to whom these iron daies
(Hard daies) afford nor matter, nor reward!
Sings Maro? men deride high Maro’s
layes;
Their hearts with lead, with steel their sense is
barr’d:
Sing Linus, or his
father, as he uses,
Our Midas eares
their well tun’d verse refuses.
What cares an asse for arts? he brayes at sacred
Muses.
18
But if fond Bavius vent his clowted song,
Or Maevius chaunt his thoughts in brothell
charm;
The witlesse vulgar, in a numerous throng,
Like summer flies about their dunghills swarm:
They sneer, they grinne.
Like to his like will move.
Yet never let them greater
mischief prove
Then this, Who hates not one, may he the other
love.
19
Witnesse
our
Colin; whom though all the Graces,
And all the Muses nurst; whose well taught song
Parnassus self, and Glorian embraces,
And all the learn’d, and all the shepherds
throng;
Yet all his hopes were
crost, all suits deni’d;
Discourag’d, scorn’d,
his writings vilifi’d:
Poorly (poore man) he liv’d; poorly (poore
man) he di’d.
20
And had not
that great Hart, (whose honour’d head
Ah lies full low) piti’d thy wofull plight;
There hadst thou lein unwept, unburied,
Unblest, nor grac’t with any common rite:
Yet shalt thou live, when
thy great foe shall sink
Beneath his mountain tomb,
whose fame shall stink;
And time his blacker name shall blurre with blackest
ink.
21
O let th’Iambick Muse revenge that wrong,
Which cannot slumber in thy sheets of lead:
Let thy abused honour crie as long
As there be quills to write, or eyes to reade:
On his rank name let thine
own votes be turn’d,
Oh may that man that
hath the Muses scorn’d,
Alive, nor dead, be ever of a Muse adorn’d!
22
Oft therefore have I chid my tender Muse;
Oft my chill breast beats off her fluttering wing:
Yet when new spring her gentle rayes infuse,
All storms are laid, I ‘gin to chirp and sing:
At length soft fires disperst
in every vein,
Yeeld open passage to the
thronging train,
And swelling numbers tide rolls like the surging
main.
23
So where fair Thames, and crooked Isis
sonne
Payes tribute to his King, the mantling stream
Encounter’d by the tides (now rushing on
With equall force) of’s way doth doubtfull
seem;
At length the full-grown
sea, and waters King
Chide the bold waves with
hollow murmuring:
Back flie the streams to shroud them in their mother
spring.
24
Yet thou sweet numerous Muse, why should’st
thou droop
That every vulgar eare thy musick scorns?
Nor can they rise, nor thou so low canst stoop;
No seed of heav’n takes root in mud or thorns.
When owls or crows, imping
their flaggy wing
With thy stoln plumes,
their notes through th’ayer fling;
Oh shame! They howl & croke, while fond they
strain to sing.
25
Enough for thee in heav’n to build thy nest;
(Farre be dull thoughts of winning dunghill praise)
Enough, if Kings enthrone thee in their breast,
And crown their golden crowns with higher baies:
Enough that those who weare
the crown of Kings
(Great Israels Princes)
strike thy sweetest strings:
Heav’ns Dove when high’st he flies, flies
with thy heav’nly wings.
26
Let others trust the seas, dare death and hell,
Search either Inde, vaunt of their scarres
and wounds;
Let others their deare breath (nay silence) sell
To fools, and (swoln, not rich) stretch out their
bounds
By spoiling those that
live, and in wronging dead;
That they may drink in
pearl, and couch their head
In soft, but sleeplesse down; in rich, but restlesse
bed.
27
Oh let them in their gold quaff dropsies down;
Oh let them surfets feast in silver bright:
While sugar hires the taste the brain to drown,
And bribes of sauce corrupt false appetite,
His masters rest, health,
heart, life, soul to sell.
Thus plentie, fulnesse,
sicknesse, ring their knell:
Death weds and beds them; first in grave, and then
in hell.
28
But (ah!) let me under some Kentish hill
Neare rowling Medway ‘mong my shepherd
peers,
With fearlesse merrie-make, and piping still,
Securely passe my few and slow-pac’d yeares:
While yet the great Augustus
of our nation
Shuts up old Janus
in this long ccessation,
Strength’ning our pleasing ease, and gives
us sure vacation.
29
There may I, master of a little flock,
Feed my poore lambes, and often change their fare:
My lovely mate shall tend my sparing stock,
And nurse my little ones with pleasing care;
Whose love and look shall
speak their father plain.
Health be my feast, heav’n
hope, content my gain:
So in my little house my lesser heart shall reigne.
30
The beech shall yeeld a cool safe canopie,
While down I sit, and chaunt to th’ echoing
wood:
Ah singing might I live, and singing die!
So by fair Thames, or silver Medwayes
floud,
The dying swan, when yeares
her temples pierce,
In musick strains breathes
out her life and verse;
And chaunting her own dirge tides on her watry herse.
31
What shall I then need seek a patron out,
Or begge a favor from a mistris eyes,
To fence my song against the vulgar rout,
Or shine upon me with her Geminies?
What care I, if they praise
my slender song?
Or reck I, if they do me
right, or wrong?
A shepherds blisse nor stands nor falls to ev’ry
tongue.
32
Great prince of shepherds, then thy heav’ns
more high,
Low as our earth, here serving, ruling there;
Who taught’st our death to live, thy life to
die;
Who when we broke thy bonds, our bonds would’st
bear;
Who reignedst in thy heav’n,
yet felt’st our hell;
Who (God) bought’st
man, whom man (though God) did sell;
Who in our flesh, our graves (and worse) our hearts
would’st dwell:
33
Great Prince of shepherds, thou who late didst deigne
To lodge thy self within this wretched breast,
(Most wretched breast such guest to entertain,
Yet oh most happy lodge in such a guest!)
Thou first and last, inspire
thy sacred skill;
Guide thou my hand, grace
thou my artlesse quill:
So shall I first begin, so last shall end thy will.
34
Heark then, ah heark, you gentle shepheard-crue;
An Isle I fain would sing, an Island fair;
A place too seldome view’d, yet still in view;
Neare as our selves, yet farthest from our care;
Which we by leaving find,
by seeking lost;
A forrain home, a strange,
though native coast;
Most obvious to all, yet most unknown to most:
35
Coevall with the world in her nativitie:
Which though it now hath pass’d through many
ages,
And still retain’d a naturall proclivitie
To ruine, compast with a thousand rages
Of foe-mens spite, which
still this Island tosses;
Yet ever grows more prosp’rous
by her crosses;
By with’ring springing fresh, and rich by often
losses.
36
Vain men, too fondly wise, who plough the seas,
With dangerous pains another earth to find;
Adding new worlds to th’ old, and scorning
ease,
The earths vast limits dayly more unbind!
The aged world, though
now it falling shows,
And hastes to set, yet
still in dying grows.
Whole lives are spent to win, what one deaths houre
must lose.
37
How like’s the world unto a tragick stage!
Where every changing scene the actours change;
Some subject crouch and fawn; some reigne and rage:
And new strange plots brings scenes as new &
strange,
Till most are slain; the
rest their parts have done:
So here; some laugh and
play; some weep and grone;
Till all put of their robes, and stage and actours
gone.
38
Yet this fair Isle, sited so nearly neare,
That from our sides nor place nor time may sever;
Though to your selves your selves are not more deare,
Yet with strange carelesnesse you travel never:
Thus while your selves
and native home forgetting,
You searche farre distant
worlds with needlesse sweating,
You never find your selves; so lose ye more by getting.
39
When that great Power, that All, farre more then
all,
(When now his fore-set time was fully come)
Brought into act this undigested Ball,
Which in himself till then had onely room;
He labour’d not,
nor suffer’d pain, or ill;
But bid each kind their
severall places fill:
He bid, and they obeyed; their action was his will.
40
First stepp’d the Light, and spread his chearfull
rayes
Through all the Chaos; darknesse headlong fell,
Frighted with suddain beams, and new-born dayes;
And plung’d her ougly head in deepest hell:
Not that he meant to help
his feeble sight
To frame the rest, he made
the day of night:
All els but darkness; he the true, the onely Light.
41
Fire, Water, Earth, and Aire (that fiercely strove)
His soveraigne hand in strong alliance ti’d,
Binding their deadly hate in constant love:
So that great Wisdome temper’d all their pride,
Commanding strife and love
should never cease)
That by their peacefull
fight, and fighting peace,
The world might die to live, and lessen to increase.
42
Thus Earths cold arm cold Water friendly holds,
But with his drie the others wet defies:
Warm Aire with mutuall love hot Fire infolds;
As moist, his dryth abhorres: drie Earth allies
With Fire, but heats with
cold new warres prepare:
Yet Earth drencht Water
proves, which boil’d turns Aire;
Hot Aire makes Fire: condenst all change, and home
repair.
43
Now when the first weeks life was almost spent,
And this world built, and richly furnished;
To store heav’ns courts, and steer earths regiment,
He cast to frame an Isle, the heart and head
Of all his works, compos’d
with curious art;
Which like an Index briefly
should impart
The summe of all; the whole, yet of the whole a part.
44
That Trine-one with himself in councell sits,
And purple dust takes from the new-born earth;
Part circular, and part triang’lar fits,
Endows it largely at the unborn birth,
Desputes his Favorite Vice-roy;
doth invest
With aptnesse thereunto,
as seem’d him best;
And lov’d it more then all, and more then all
it blest.
45
Then plac’t it in the calm pacifick seas,
And bid nor waves, nor troublous windes offend it;
Then peopled it with subjects apt to please
So wise a Prince, made able to defend it
Against all outward force,
or inward spite;
Him framing like himself,
all shining bright;
A little living Sunne, Sonne of the living Light.
46
Nor made he this like other Isles; but gave it
Vigour, sense, reason, and a perfect motion,
To move it self whither it self would have it,
And know what falls within the verge of notion:
No time might change it,
but as ages went,
So still return’d;
still spending, never spent;
More rising in their fall, more rich in detriment.
47
So once the
Cradle of that double light,
Whereof one rules the night, the other day,
(Till sad Latona flying Juno’s
spite,
Her double burthen there did safely lay)
Not rooted yet, in every
sea was roving,
With every wave, and every
winde removing;
But since to those fair Twins hath left her ever
moving.
48
Look as a scholar, who doth closely gather
Many large volumes in a narrow place;
So that great Wisdome all this All together
Confin’d into this Islands little space;
And being one, soon into
two he fram’d it;
And now made two, to one
again reclaim’d it;
The little Isle of Man, or Purple Island
nam’d it.
49
Thrice happy was the worlds first infancie,
Nor knowing yet, nor curious ill to know:
Joy without grief, love without jealousie:
None felt hard labour, or the sweating plough:
The willing earth brought
tribute to her King;
Bacchus unborn lay
hidden in the cling
Of big-swoln grapes; their drink was every silver
spring.
50
Of all the windes there was no difference:
None knew mild Zephyres from cold Eurus
mouth;
Nor Orithyia’s lovers violence
Distinguisht from the ever-dropping South:
But either gentle West-winds
reign’d alone,
Or else no winde, or harmfull
winde was none:
But one wind was in all, and all the windes in one.
51
None knew the sea; (oh blessed ignorance!)
None nam’d the stars, the North carres constant
race,
Taurus bright horns, or Fishes happy chance:
Astraea yet chang’d not her name or
place;
Her ev’n-pois’d
ballance heav’n yet never tri’d:
None sought new coasts,
nor forrain lands descri’d;
But in their own they liv’d, and in their own
they di’d.
52
But (ah!) what liveth long in happinesse?
Grief, of an heavy nature, steddy lies,
And cannot be remov’d for weightinesse;
But joy, of lighter presence, eas’ly flies,
And seldome comes, and
soon away will goe:
Some secret power here
all things orders so,
That for a sun-shine day follows an age of woe.
53
Witnesse this glorious Isle, which not content
To be confin’d in bounds of happinesse,
Would trie what e’re is in the continent;
And seek out ill, and search for wretchednesse.
Ah fond, to seek what then
was in thy will!
That needs no curious search;
‘tis next us still.
‘Tis grief to know of grief, and ill to know
of ill.
54
That old slie Serpent, (slie, but spitefull more)
Vext with the glory of this happy Isle,
Allures it subt’ly from the peacefull shore,
And with fair painted lies, & colour’d
guile
Drench’d in
dead seas; whose dark streams, full of fright,
Emptie their sulphur waves
in endlesse night;
Where thousand deaths and hells torment the damned
sprite.
55
So when a fisher-swain by chance hath spi’d
A big-grown Pike pursue the lesser frie,
He sets a withy Labyrinth beside,
And with fair baits allures his nimble eye;
Which he invading with
out-stretched finne,
All suddainly is compast
with the ginne,
Where there is no way out, but easie passage in.
56
That deathfull lake hath these three properties;
No turning path, or issue thence is found:
The captive never dead, yet ever dies;
It endlesse sinks, yhet never comes to ground:
Hells self is pictur’d
in that brimstone wave;
For what retiring from
that hellish grave?
Or who can end in death, where deaths no ending have?
57
For ever had this Isle in that foul ditch
With curelesse grief and endlesse errour strai’d,
Boyling in sulphur, and hot-bubbling pitch;
Had not the King, whose laws he (fool) betrai’d,
Unsnarl’d that chain,
then from that lake secur’d;
For which ten thousand
tortures he endur’d:
So hard was this lost Isle, so hard to be recur’d.
58
O thou deep well of life, wide stream of love,
(More deep, more wide then widest deepest seas)
Who dying Death to endlesse death didst prove,
To work this wilfull-rebell Islands ease;
Thy love no time began,
no time decaies;
But still increaseth with
decreasing daies:
Where then may we begin, where may we end thy praise?
59
My callow wing, that newly left the nest,
How can it make so high a towring flight?
O depth without a depth! in humble breast
With praises I admire so wondrous height.
But thou, my
sister Muse, mayst well go higher,
And end thy flight; ne’re
may thy pineons tire:
Thereto may he his grace and gentle heat aspire.
60
Then let me end my easier taken storie,
And sing this Islands new recover’d seat.
But see, the eye of noon, in brightest glorie,
(Teaching great men) is ne’re so little great:
Our panting flocks retire
into the glade;
They crouch, and close
to th’ earth their horns have laid:
Vail we our scorched heads in that thick beeches
shade.
DEclining Phoebus, as he larger grows,
(Taxing proud folly) gentler waxeth still;
Never lesse fierce, then when he greatest shows;
When Thirsil on a gentle rising hill
(Where all his flock he round
might feeding view)
Sits down, and circled with
a lovely crue
Of Nymphs & shepherd-boyes, thus ‘gan his
song renew:
2
Now was this Isle pull’d from that horrid main,
Which bears the fearfull looks and name of death;
And setled new with bloud and dreadfull pain,
By him who twice had giv’n (once forfeit) breath:
A baser state then what was
first assign’d;
Wherein (to curb the too
aspiring minde)
The better things were lost, the worst were left behinde.
3
That glorious image of himself was raz’d;
Ah! scarce the place of that best part we finde;
And that bright Sun-like knowledge much defac’d,
Onely some twinkling starres remain behinde:
Then mortall made; yet as
one fainting dies,
Two other in its place succeeding
rise:
And drooping stock with branches fresh immortalize.
4
So that ‘lone bird in fruitfull Arabie,
When now her strength and waning life decaies,
Upon some airie rock, or mountain high,
In spiced bed (fir’d by neare Phoebus
rayes)
Her self and all her crooked
age consumes:
Straight from the ashes and
those rich perfumes
A new-born Phoenix flies, & widow’d place
resumes.
5
It grounded lies upon a sure
foundation,
Compact, and hard; whose matter (cold and drie)
To marble turns in strongest congelation;
Fram’d of fat earth, which fires together tie:
Through all the isle, and
every part extent,
To give just form to every
regiment;
Imparting to each part due strength and stablishment.
6
Whose looser ends are glu’d with brother earth,
Of nature like, and of a neare relation;
Of self-same parents both, and self-same birth;
That oft it self stands for a good foundation:
Both
these a third doth soulder fast, and binde;
Softer then both, yet of
the self-same kinde;
All instruments of motion, in one league combin’d.
7
Upon this base a
curious work is rais’d,
Like undivided brick, entire and one;
Though soft, yet lasting, with just balance pais’d;
Distributed with due proportion:
And that the rougher frame
might lurk unseen,
All fair is hung with coverings
slight and thinne;
Which partly hide it all, yet all is partly seen:
8
As when a virgin her snow-circled breast
Displaying hides, and hiding sweet displaies;
The greater segments cover’d, and the rest
The vail transparent willingly betraies;
Thus takes and gives, thus
lends and borrows light:
Lest eyes should surfet
with too greedy sight,
Transparent lawns withhold, more to increase delight.
9
Nor is there any part in all this land,
But is a little Isle: for thousand brooks
In azure chanels glide on silfer sand;
Their serpent windings, and deceiving crooks
Circling about, and wat’ring
all the plain,
Emptie themselves into
th’ all-drinking main;
And creeping forward slide, but never turn again.
10
Three diff’ring streams from fountains different,
Neither in nature nor in shape agreeing,
(Yet each with other friendly ever went)
Give to this Isle his fruitfulnesse and being:
The
first in single chanels skie-like blue,
With luke-warm waters di’d
in porphyr hue,
Sprinkle this crimson Isle with purple-colour’d
dew.
11
The next, though from the same springs first it
rise,
Yet passing through another greater fountain,
Doth lose his former name and qualities:
Through many a dale it flows, and many a mountain;
More firie light, and needful
more then all;
And therefore fenced with
a double wall,
All froths his yellow streams with many a sudding
fall.
12
The last, in all things diff’ring from the
other,
Fall from an hill, and close together go,
Embracing as they runne, each with his brother;
Guarded with double trenches sure they flow:
The coldest spring, yet
nature best they have;
And like the lacteall stones
which heaven pave,
Slide down to every part with their thick milky wave.
13
These with a thousand streams through th’ Island roving,
Bring tribute in; the first gives nourishment,
Next life, last sense and arbitrarie moving:
For when the Prince hath now his mandate sent,
The nimble poasts quick
down the river runne,
And end their journey,
though but now begunne;
But now the mandate came, & now the mandate’s
done.
14
The whole Isle, parted in three regiments,
By three Metropolies is jointly sway’d;
Ord’ring in peace and warre their governments
With loving concord, and with mutuall aid:
The lowest hath the worst,
but largest See;
The middle lesse, of greater
dignitie:
The highest least, but holds the greatest soveraigntie.
15
Deep in a vale doth that first province lie,
With many a citie grac’t, and fairly town’d;
And for a fence from forrain enmitie,
With five strong-builded walls encompast round;
Which my rude pencil will
in limming stain;
A work more curious, then
which poets feigne
Neptune and Phoebus built, and pulled
down again.
16
The first of these is that round spreading fence,
Which like a sea girts th’ Isle in every part;
Of fairest building, quick and nimble sense,
Of common matter fram’d with speciall art;
Of middle temper, outwardest
of all,
To warn of every chance
that may befall:
The same a fence, and spie; a watchman, and a wall.
17
His native beautie is a lilie white,
Which still some other colou’d stream infecteth;
Least like it self, with divers stainings dight,
The inward disposition detecteth:
If white, it argues wet;
if purple, fire;
If black, a heavie cheer,
and fixt desire;
Youthfull and blithe, if suited in a rosie tire.
18
It cover’d stands with silken flourishing,
Which as it oft decaies, renews again,
The others sense and beautie perfecting;
Which els would feel, but with unusuall pain:
Whose pleasing sweetnesse,
and resplendent shine,
Softning the wanton touch,
and wandring ey’n,
Doth oft the Prince himself with witch’ries
undermine.
19
The second rampier of a softer matter,
Cast up by th’ purple rivers overflowing:
Whose airy wave, and swelling waters, fatter
For want of heat congeal’d, and thicker growing,
The
wandring heat (which quiet ne’re subsisteth)
Sends back again to what
confine it listeth;
And outward enemies by yielding most resisteth.
20
The third more inward, firmer then the best,
May seem at first but thinly built, and slight;
But yet of more defence then all the rest;
Of thick and stubborn substance, strongly dight.
hese three (three common
fences) round impile
This regiment, and all
the other Isle;
And saving inward friends, their outward foes beguile.
21
Beside these three,
two more appropriate guards
With constant watch compasse this government:
The first eight companies in severall wards,
(To each his station in this regiment)
On each side foure, continuall
watch observe,
And under one great Captain
jointly serve;
Two fore-right stand, two crosse, and four obliquely
swerve.
22
The other fram’d of common matter, all
This lower region girts with strong defence;
More long then round, with double-builded wall,
Though single often seems to slighter sense;
With many gates, whose
strangest properties
Protect this coast from
all conspiracies;
Admitting welcome friends, excluding enemies.
23
Between this fences double-walled sides,
Foure slender brooks run creeping o’re the
lea;
The first is call’d the Nurse, and rising slides
From this low regions Metropolie:
Two from th’ Heart-citie
bend their silent pace;
The last from Urine-lake
with waters base
In th’ Allantoid sea empties his flowing
race.
24
Down in a vale, where these two parted walls
Differ from each with wide distending space,
Into a lake the Urine-river falls,
Which at the Nephros hill beginnes his race:
Crooking his banks he often
runs astray,
Lest his ill streams might
backward finde a way:
Thereto, some say, was built a curious framed bay.
25
The Urine-lake drinking his colour’d brook,
By little swells, and fills his stretching sides:
But when the stream the brink ‘gins over-look,
A sturdy groom empties the swelling tides;
Sphincter some call;
who if he loosed be,
Or stiffe with cold, out
flows the senselesse sea,
And rushing unawares covers the drowned lea.
26
From thence with blinder passage, (flying name)
These noisome streams a secret pipe conveys;
Which though we tearm the hidden parts of shame,
Yet for the skill deserve no lesser praise
vThen they, to which we honour’d names impart.
Oh powerfull Wisdome, with
what wondrous art
Mad’st thou the best, who thus hast fram’d
the vilest part!
27
Six goodly Cities, built with suburbs round,
Do fair adorn this lower region:
The first Koilia, whose extreamest bound
On this side border’d by the Splenion,
On that by soveraigne Hepars
large commands:
The merry Diazome
above it stands,
To both these joyn’d in league & never
failing bands.
28
The form (as when with breath our bag-pipes rise,
And swell) round-wise, and long, yet long-wise more;
Fram’d to the most capacious figures guise:
For ‘tis the Islands garner; here its store
Lies treasur’d up,
which well prepar’d it sends
By secret path that
to th’ Arch-citie bends;
Which making it more fit, to all the Isle dispends.
29
Farre hence at foot of rocky Cephals hills
This Cities
Steward dwells in vaulted stone;
And twice a day Koilia’s store-house
fills
With certain rent, and due provision:
Aloft he fitly dwells in
arched cave;
Which to describe I better
time shall have,
When that fair mount I sing, & his white curdy
wave.
30
At that caves mouth
twice sixteen Porters stand,
Receivers of the customarie rent;
Of each side foure, (the formost of the band)
Whose office to divide what in is sent:
Straight other foure break
it in peices small;
And at each hand twice
five, which grinding all,
Fit it for convoy, and this cities Arsenall.
31
From thence a
Groom with wondrous volubilitie
Delivers all unto near officers,
Of nature like himself, and like agilitie;
At each side foure, that are the governours
To see the vict’als
shipt at fittest tide;
Which straight from thence
with prosp’rous chanel slide,
And in Koilia’s port with nimble oars
glide.
32
The
haven, fram’d with wondrous sense and art,
Opens it self to all that entrance seek;
Yet if ought back would turn, and thence depart,
With thousand wrinkles shuts the ready creek:
But when the rent is slack,
it rages rife,
And mutines in it self
with civil strife:
Thereto a
little groom egges it with sharpest knife.
33
Below dwells in this Cities market-place
The Islands common Cook, Concoction,
Common to all; therefore in middle space
Is quarter’d fit in just proportion;
Whence never from his labour
he retires;
No rest he asks, or better
change requires:
Both night and day he works, ne’re sleeps,
nor sleep desires.
34
That heat, which in his furnace ever fumeth,
Is nothing like to our hot parching fire;
Which all consuming, self at length consumeth;
But moistening flames a gentle heat inspire,
Which sure some in-born
neighbor to him lendeth;
And oft the bord’ring
coast fit fuell sendeth,
And oft the rising fume, which down again descendeth.
35
Like to a pot, where under hovering
Divided flames, the iron sides entwining,
Above is stopt with close-laid covering,
Exhaling fumes to narrow straits confining;
So doubling heat, his dutie
doubly speedeth:
Such is the fire Concoctions
vessel needeth,
Who daily all the Isle with fit provision feedeth.
36
There many a groom the busie Cook attends
In under offices, and severall place:
This gathers up the scumme, and thence it sends
To be cast out; another liquours base,
Another garbage, which
the kitchin cloyes,
And divers filth, whose
sent the place annoyes,
By divers secret waies in under-sinks convoyes.
37
Therefore a second Port is sidelong fram’d,
To let out what unsavorie there remains:
There sits a needful groom, the Porter nam’d,
Which soon the full-grown kitchin cleanly drains
By divers pipes, with hundred
turnings giring;
Lest that the food too
speedily retiring
Should whet the appetite, still cloy’d, &
still desiring.
38
So Erisicthon once fir’d (as men say)
With hungry rage, fed never, ever feeding;
Ten thousand dishes serv’d in every day,
Yet in ten thousand, thousand dishes needing,
In vain his daughter hundred shapes assum’d:
A whole camps meat he in
his gorge inhum’d;
And all consum’d, his hunger yet was unconsum’d.
39
Such would the state of this whole Island be,
If those pipes windings (passage quick delaying)
Should not refrain too much edacitie,
With longer stay fierce appetite allaying.
These
pipes are seven-fold longer then the Isle,
Yet all are folded in a
little pile,
Whereof three noble are, and thinne; three thick,
& vile.
40
The first is narrow’st, and down-right doth
look,
Lest that his charge discharg’d might back
retire;
And by the way takes in a bitter brook,
That when the chanel’s stopt with stifeling
mire,
Through th’ idle
pipe with piercing waters soking,
His tender sides with sharpest
stream provoking,
Thrusts out the muddy parts, & rids the miry
choking.
41
The second lean and lank, still pill’d, and harri’d
By mighty bord’rers oft his barns invading:
Always his food and new-inn’d store is carri’d;
Therefore an angry colour, never fading,
Purples his cheek:
the third for length exceeds,
And down his stream in
hundred turnings leads:
These three most noble are, adorn’d with silken
threads.
42
The formost of the base half blinde appears;
And where his broad way in an Isthmos ends,
There he examines all his passengers,
And those who ought not scape, he backward sends:
The
second Aeols court, where tempests raging
Shut close within a cave
the windes encaging,
With earthquakes shakes the Island, thunders sad
presaging.
43
The last down-right falls to port Esquiline,
More strait above, beneath still broader growing;
Soon as the gate opes by the Kings assigne,
Empties it self, farre thence the filth out-throwing:
This gate endow’d
with many properties,
Yet for his office sight
and naming flies;
Therefore between two hills, in darkest valley lies.
44
To that Arch-citie of this government
The three first pipes the ready feast convoy:
The other three, in baser office spent,
Fling out the dregs, which else the kitchin cloy.
In
every one the Hepar keeps his spies;
Who if ought good with
evil blended lies,
Thence bring it back again to Hepars treasuries.
45
Two severall covers fence these twice three pipes:
The first from over-swimming takes his name,
Like cobweb-lawn woven with hundred stripes:
The second, strength’ned with a double frame,
From forein enmitie the
pipes maintains:
Close
by the Pancreas stands, who ne’re
complains;
Though prest by all his neighbors, he their state
sustains.
46
Next Hepar, chief of all these lower parts,
One of the three, yet of the three the least.
But see, the Sunne, like to undaunted hearts,
Enlarges in his fall his ample breast:
Now hie we home; the pearled
dew ere long
Will wet the mothers, and
their tender young:
To morrow with the day we may renew our song.
CANT. III.
THe Morning fresh, dappling her horse with roses,
(Vext at the lingring shades, that long had left
her
In Tithons freezing arms) the light discloses;
And chasing Night, of rule and heav’n bereft
her:
The Sunne with gentle beams
his rage disguises,
And like aspiring tyrants,
temporizes;
Never to be endur’d, but when he falls, or
rises.
2
Thirsil from withy prison, as he uses,
Lets out his flock, and on an hill stood heeding
Which bites the grasse, and which his meat refuses;
So his glad eyes fed with their greedy feeding:
Straight flock a shoal
of Nymphs & shepherd-swains
While all their lambes
rang’d on the flowry plains;
Then thus the boy began, crown’d with their
circling trains.
3
You gentle shepherds, and you snowie fires,
That sit around, my rugged rimes attending;
How may I hope to quit your strong desires,
In verse uncomb’d such wonders comprehending?
Too well I know my rudeness
all unfit
To frame this curious Isle,
whose framing yet
Was never thoroughly known to any humane wit.
4
Thou Shepherd-God, who onely know’st it right,
And hid’st that art from all the world beside;
Shed in my mistie breast thy sparkling light,
And in this fogge my erring footsteps guide;
Thou who first mad’st,
and never wilt forsake it:
Else how shall my weak
hand dare undertake it,
When thou thy self ask’st counsel of thy self
to make it?
5
Next to Koilia, on the right side stands,
Fairly dispread in large dominion,
Th’
Arch-citie Hepar, stretching her commands
To all within this lower region;
Fenc’t with sure
barres, and strongest situation;
So never fearing foreiners
invasion:
Hence are the
walls slight, thinne; built but for sight &
fashion.
6
To th’ Heart and to th’ Head-citie
surely ti’d
With firmest league, and
mutuall reference:
His liegers there, theris
ever here abide,
To take up strife, and casuall
difference:
Built
4 all alike, seeming like rubies sheen,
Of some peculiar matter;
such I ween,
As over all the world may no where else be seen.
7
Much like a mount it easily ascendeth;
The upper part’s all smooth as slipperie glasse:
But on the lower many a cragge dependeth;
Like to the hangings of some rockie masse:
Here
first the purple fountain making vent,
By thousand rivers through
the Isle dispent,
Gives every part fit growth and daily nourishment.
8
In this fair town the isles great Steward dwells;
His porphyre house glitters in purple die;
In purple clad himself: from hence he deals
His store to all the Isles necessitie:
And though the rent he
daily duly pay,
Yet doth his flowing substance
ne’re decay;
All day he rent receives, returns it all the day.
9
And like that golden starre, which cuts his way
Through Saturns ice, and Mars his firy
ball;
Temp’ring their strife with his more kindely
ray:
So ‘tween the Splenions frost and th’
angry Gall
The joviall Hepar
sits; with great expence
Cheering the Isle by his
sweet influence;
So slakes their envious rage end endlesse difference.
10
Within, some say,
Love hath his habitation;
Not Cupids self, but Cupids better
brother:
For Cupids self dwells with a lower nation,
But this more sure, much chaster then the other;
By whose command we either
love our kinde,
Or with most perfect love
affect the mind;
With such a diamond knot he often souls can binde.
11
Two purple streams here raise their boiling heads;
The first and least in th’ hollow cavern breeding,
His waves on divers neighbour grounds dispreads:
The next fair river all the rest exceeding,
Topping the hill, breaks
forth in fierce evasion,
And sheds abroad his Nile-like
inundation;
So gives to all the Isle their food and vegetation.
12
Yet these from other streams much different;
For others, as they longer, broader grow;
These as they runne in narrow banks impent,
Are then at least, when in the main they flow:
Much like a tree, which
all his roots so guides,
That all the trunk in his
full body hides;
Which straight his stemme to thousand branches subdivides.
13
Yet lest these streams might hap to be infected
With other liquours in the well abounding;
Before their flowing chanels are detected,
Some lesser delfs, the fountains bottome sounding,
Suck out the baser streams,
the springs annoying,
An hundred pipes unto that
end employing;
Thence run to fitter place their noisome load convoying.
14
Such is fair Hepar;
which with great dissension
Of all the rest pleads most antiquitie;
But yet th’ Heart-citie with no lesse contention
And justest challenge, claims prioritie:
But sure the Hepar
was the elder bore;
For that small river, call’d
the Nurse, of yore
Laid boths foundation, yet Hepar built afore.
15
Three pois’nous liquours from this purple well
Rise with the native streams;
the first like fire,
All flaming hot, red, furious, and fell,
The spring of dire depate, and civile ire;
Which wer’t not surely
held with strong retention,
Would stirre domestick
strife, and fierce contention,
And waste the weary Isle with never ceas’d
dissension.
16
Therefore close by a little conduit stands,
Choledochus, that drags this poison hence,
And safely locks it up in prison bands;
Thence gently drains it through a narrow fence;
A needful fence, attended
with a guard,
That watches in the straits
all closely barr’d,
Lest some might back escape, and break the prison
ward.
17
The next ill
stream the wholesome fount offending,
All dreery black and frightfull, hence convay’d
By divers drains unto the Splenion tending,
The Splenion o’re against the Hepar
laid,
Built long, and square:
some say that laughter here
Keeps residence; but
laughter fits not there,
Where darknesse ever dwells, and melancholy fear.
18
And should these waies, stopt by ill accident,
To th’ Hepar streams turn back their
muddie humours;
The cloudie Isle with hellish dreeriment
Would soon be fill’d, and thousand fearfull
rumours:
Fear hides him here, lockt
deep in earthy cell;
Dark, dolefull, deadly-dull,
a little hell;
Where with him fright, despair, and thousand horrours
dwell.
19
If this black town in over-growth increases,
With too much strength his neighbors over-bearing;
The Hepar daily, and whole Isle decreases,
Like ghastly shade, or ashie ghost appearing:
But when it pines, th’
Isle thrives; its curse, his blessing:
So
when a tyrant raves, his subjects pressing,
His gaining is their losse, his treasure their distressing.
20
The third bad water, bubbling from this fountain,
Is wheyish cold, which with good liquours meint,
Is drawn into the double Nephros mountain;
Which suck the best for growth, and nourishment:
The
worst, as through a little pap, distilling
To divers pipes, the pale
cold humour swilling,
Runs down to th’ Urine-lake, his banks thrice
daily filling.
21
These mountains differ but in situation;
In form and matter like; the left is higher,
Lest even height might slack their operation:
Both like the Moon which now wants half her fire;
Yet into two obtuser angles
bended,
Both strongly with a double
wall defended;
And both have walls of mudde before those walls extended.
22
The sixt and last town in this region,
With largest stretcht precincts, and compasse wide,
Is that, where Venus and her wonton sonne
(Her wonton Cupid) will in youth reside:
For though his arrows and
his golden bow
On other hills he frankly
does bestow,
Yet here he hides the fire with which each heart
doth glow.
23
For that great Providence, their course foreseeing
Too eas’ly led into the sea of death;
After this first, gave them a second being,
Which in their off-spring newly flourisheth:
He therefore made the fire
of generation
To burn in Venus
courts without cessation,
Out of whose ashes comes another Island nation.
24
For from the first a fellow Isle he fram’d,
(For what alone can live, or fruitful be?)
Arren the first, the second Thelu nam’d;
Weaker the last, yet fairer much to see:
Alike in all the rest,
here disagreeing,
Where Venus and
her wonton have their being:
For nothing is produc’t of two in all agreeing.
25
But though some few in these hid parts would see
Their Makers glory, and their justest shame;
Yet for the most would turn to luxurie,
And what they should lament, would make their game:
Flie then those parts,
which best are undescri’d;
Forbear, my maiden song,
to blazon wide
What th’ Isle and Natures self doth ever strive
to hide.
26
These two fair Isles distinct in their creation,
Yet one extracted from the others side,
Are oft made one by Loves firm combination,
And from this unitie are multipli’d:
Strange may it seem; such
their condition,
That they are more dispread
by union;
And two are twenty made, by being made in one.
27
For from these two in Loves delight agreeing,
Another little Isle is soon proceeding;
At first of unlike frame and matter being,
In Venus temple takes it form and breeding;
Till at full time the tedious
prison flying,
It breaks all lets its
ready way denying;
And shakes the trembling Isle with often painfull
dying.
28
So by the Bosphor straits in Euxine
seas,
Not farre from old Byzantum, closely stand
Two neighbor Islands, call’d Symplegades,
Which sometime seem but one combined land:
For often meeting on the
watrie plain,
And parting oft, tost by
the boist’rous main,
They now are joyn’d in one, and now disjoyn’d
again.
29
Here oft not Lust, but sweetest Chastitie,
Coupled sometimes, and sometimes single, dwells;
Now linkt with Love, to quench Lusts tyrannie,
Now Phoenix-like alone in narrow cells:
Such Phoenix one, but one
at once may be:
In Albions hills
thee, Basilissa, thee,
Such onely have I seen, such shall I never see.
30
What Nymph was this, (said fairest Rosaleen)
Whom thou admirest thus above so many?
She, while she was, (ah!) was the shepherds Queen;
Sure such a shepherds Queen was never any:
But (ah!) no joy her dying
heart contented,
Since
she a deare Deers side unwilling rented;
Whose death she all too late, too soon, too much,
repented.
31
Ah royall maid! why should’st thou thus lament
thee?
Thy little fault was but too much beleeving:
It is too much so much thou should’st repent
thee;
His joyous soul at rest desires no grieving.
These words (vain words!)
fond comforters did lend her;
But (ah!) no words, no
prayers might ever bend her
To give an end to grief, till endlesse grief did
end her.
32
But how should I those sorrows dare display?
Or how limme forth her virtues wonderment?
She was (ay me! she was) the sweetest May
That ever flowr’d in Albions regiment.
Few eyes fall’n lights
adore: yet fame shall keep
Her name awake, when others
silent sleep;
While men have eares to hear, eyes to look back,
and weep.
33
And though the curres (which whelpt & nurst in
Spain,
Learn of fell Geryon to snarle and brawl)
Have vow’d and strove her Virgin tomb to stain;
And grinne, and fome, and rage, and yelp, and bawl:
Yet shall our Cynthia’s
high-triumphing light
Deride their houling throats,
and toothlesse spight;
And sail through heav’n, while they sink down
in endlesse night.
34
So is this Islands lower region:
Yet ah much better is it sure then so.
But my poore reeds, like my condition,
(Low is the shepherds state, my song as low)
Marre what they make: but
now in yonder shade
Rest we, while Sunnes have
longer shadows made:
See how our panting flocks runne to the cooler glade.
CANT.
IIII.
THe shepherds in the shade their hunger feasted
With simple cates, such as the countrey yeelds;
And while from scorching beams secure they rested,
The Nymphs disperst along the woody fields,
Pull’d from their
stalks the blushing strawberries,
Which lurk close shrouded
from high-looking eyes;
Shewing that sweetnesse oft both low and hidden lies.
2
But when the day had his meridian runne
Between his highest throne, and low declining;
Thirsil again his forced task begunne,
His wonted audience his sides entwining.
The middle Province next
this lower stands,
Where th’ Isles Heart-city
spreads his large comands,
Leagu’d to the neighbour towns with sure and
friendly bands.
3
Such as that starre, which sets his glorious chair
In midst of heav’n, and to dead darknesse here
Gives light and life; such is this citie fair:
Their ends, place, office, state, so nearly neare,
That those wise ancients
from their natures sight,
And likenesse, turn’d
their names, and call’d aright
The sunne the great worlds heart, the heart the lesse
worlds light.
4
This middle coast to all the Isle dispends
All heat and life: hence it another Guard
(Beside those common to the first) defends;
Built whole of massie stone, cold, drie, and hard:
Which stretching round
about his circling arms,
Warrants these parts from
all exteriour harms;
Repelling angry force, securing all alar’ms.
5
But in the front
two fair twin-bulwarks rise,
In th’ Arren built for strength, and
ornament;
In Thelu of more use, and larger size;
For hence the young Isle draws his nourishment:
Here lurking Cupid
hides his bended bow;
Here milkie springs in
sugred rivers flow;
Which first gave th’ infant Isle to be, and
then to grow.
6
For when the lesser Island (still increasing
In Venus temple) to some greatnesse swells,
Now larger rooms and bigger spaces seizing,
It stops the Hepar rivers; backward reels
The stream, and to these
hills bears up his flight,
And in these founts (by
some strange hidden might)
Dies his fair rosie waves into a lily white.
7
So where fair Medway, down the Kentish
dales
To many towns her plenteous waters dealing,
Lading her banks, into wide Thamis falls;
The big-grown main with fomie billows swelling,
Stops there the sudding
stream; her steddy race
Staggers awhile, at length
flies back apace,
And to the parent fount returns its fearfull pace.
8
These two fair mounts are like two hemispheres,
Endow’d with goodly gifts and qualities;
Whose top two little purple hillocks reares,
Most like the poles in heavens Axletrees:
And round about two circling
altars gire,
In blushing red; the rest
in snowy tire
Like Thracian Haemus looks, which ne’re
feels Phoebus fire.
9
That mighty hand in these dissected wreathes,
(Where moves our Sunne) his thrones fair picture
gives;
The pattern breathlesse, but the picture breathes;
His highest heav’n is dead, our low heav’n
lives:
Nor scorns that loftie
one thus low to dwell;
Here his best starres he
sets, and glorious cell;
And fills with saintly spirits, so turns to heav’n
from hell.
10
About this Region round in compasse stands
A Guard, both for defence, and respiration,
Of sixtie foure, parted in severall bands;
Half to let out the smokie exhalation,
The other half to draw in
fresher windes:
Beside both these, a third
of both their kindes,
That lets both out, & in; which no enforcement
binds.
11
This third the merrie
Diazome we call,
A border-citie these two coasts removing;
Which like a balk, with his crosse-builded wall,
Disparts the terms of anger, and of loving;
Keeps from th’ Heart-citie
fuming kitchin fires,
And to his neighbours gentle
windes inspires;
Loose when he sucks in aire, contract when he expires.
12
The Diazome of severall matter’s fram’d:
The first moist, soft; harder the next, and drier:
His fashion like the fish a Raia nam’d;
Fenc’d with two walls, one low, the other higher;
By eight streams water’d;
two from Hepar low,
And from th’ Heart-town
as many higher go;
But two twice told down from the Cephal mountain
flow.
13
Here sportfull Laughter dwells, here ever sitting,
Defies all lumpish griefs, and wrinkled care;
And twentie merrie-mates mirth causes fitting,
And smiles, which Laughters sonnes, yet infants are.
But if this town be fir’d
with burnings nigh,
With selfsame flames high
Cephals towers fry;
Such is their feeling love, and loving sympathie.
14
This coast stands girt with a
peculiar wall,
The whole precinct, and every part defending:
The chiefest Citie, and Imperiall,
Is fair Kerdia, farre his bounds extending;
Which full to know were
knowledge infinite:
How then should my rude
pen this wonder write,
Which thou, who onely mad’st it, onely know’st
aright?
15
In middle of this middle Regiment
Kerdia seated lies,
the centre deem’d
Of this whole Isle, and of this government:
If not the chiefest this, yet needfull’st seem’d,
Therefore obtain’d
an equall distant seat,
More fitly hence to shed
his life and heat,
And with his yellow streams the fruitfull Island
wet.
16
Flankt with two severall walls (for more defence)
Betwixt them ever flows a wheyish moat;
In whose soft waves, and circling profluence
This Citie, like an Isle, might safely float:
In motion still (a motion
fixt, not roving)
Most like to heav’n
in his most constant moving:
Hence most here plant the seat of sure and active
loving.
17
Built of a substance like smooth porphyrie;
His matter hid, and (like it self) unknown:
Two rivers of his own; another by,
That from the Hepar rises, like a crown,
Infold the narrow
part: for that great All
This his works glory
made pyramicall;
Then crown’d with triple wreath, & cloath’d
in scarlet pall.
18
The Cities self in two
partitions rest;
That on the right, thes on the other side;
The right (made tributarie to the left)
Brings in his pension at his certain tide,
A pension of liquours strangely
wrought;
Which first by Hepars
streams are thither brought,
And here distill’d with art, beyond or words
or thought.
19
The grosser waves of these life-streams (which here
With much, yet much lesse labour is prepar’d)
A doubtfull chanel doth to Pneumon bear:
But to the left those labour’d extracts shar’d,
As
through a wall, with hidden passage slide;
Where many secret gates
(gates hardly spi’d)
With safe convoy give passage to the other side.
20
At each hand of the left
two streets stand by,
Of severall stuffe, and severall working fram’d,
With hundred crooks, and deep-wrought cavitie:
Both like the eares in form, and so are nam’d.
I’ th’
right hand street the tribute liquour sitteth:
The left forc’t
aire into his concave getteth;
Which subtile wrought, & thinne, for future workmen
fitteth.
21
The Cities
left side, (by some hid direction)
Of this thinne aire, and of that right sides rent,
(Compound together) makes a strange confection;
And in one vessel both together meynt,
Stills them with equall
never-quenched firing:
Then in small streams (through
all the Island wiring)
Sends it to every part, both heat and life inspiring.
22
In this Heart-citie four main streams appeare;
One from the Hepar, where the tribute landeth,
Largely poures out his purple river here;
At whose wide mouth a band of Tritons standeth,
(Three Tritons stand)
who with their three-forkt mace
Drive on, and speed the
rivers flowing race,
But strongly stop the wave, if once it back repace.
23
The second is that doubtfull chanel, lending
Some of this tribute to the Pneumon nigh;
Whose springs by carefull guards are watcht, that
sending
From thence the waters, all regresse denie:
The
third unlike to this, from Pneumon flowing,
And his due ayer-tribute
here bestowing,
Is kept by gates and barres, which stop all backward
going.
24
The last full spring out of this left side rises,
Where three fair Nymphs, like Cynthia’s
self appearing,
Draw down the stream which all the Isle suffices;
But stop back-waies, some ill revolture fearing.
This river still it self
to lesse dividing,
At length with thousand
little brooks runes sliding,
His fellow course along with Hepar chanels
guiding.
25
Within this Citie is the palace fram’d,
Where life, and lifes companion, heat, abideth;
And their attendants, passions untam’d:
(Oft very hell in this strait room resideth)
And did not neighboring
hills, cold aires inspiring,
Allay their rage and mutinous
conspiring,
Heat all (it self and all) would burn with quenchlesse
firing.
26
Yea that great Light, by whom all heaven shines
With borrow’d beams, oft leaves his loftie
skies,
And to this lowly seat himself confines.
Fall then again, proud heart, now fall to rise:
Cease earth, ah cease,
proud Babel earth, to swell:
Heav’n blast high
towers, stoops to a low-rooft cell;
First heav’n must dwell in man, then man in
heav’n shall dwell.
27
Close to Kerdia
Pneumon takes his seat,
Built of a lighter frame, and spungie mold:
Hence rise fresh aires to fanne Kerdia’s
heat;
Temp’ring those burning fumes with moderate
cold:
It self of largest size,
distended wide,
In divers streets and out-wayes
multipli’d:
Yet in one Corporation all are jointly ti’d.
28
Fitly ‘t is cloath’d with hangings
thinne and light,
Lest too much weight might hinder motion:
His chiefest use to frame the voice aright;
(The voice which publishes each hidden notion)
And for that end
a long pipe down descends,
(Which here it self in
many lesser spends)
Untill low at the foot of Cephal mount it
ends.
29
This pipe was built for th’ aiers safe purveiance,
To fit each severall voice with perfect sound;
Therefore of divers matter the conveiance
Is finely fram’d; the first in circles round,
In hundred circles bended,
hard and drie,
(For watrie softnesse is
sounds enemie)
Not altogether close, yet meeting very nigh.
30
The seconds drith and hardnesse somewhat lesse,
But smooth and pliable made for extending,
Fills up the distant circles emptinesse;
All in one bodie joyntly comprehending:
The
last most soft, which where the circles scanted
Not fully met, supplies
what they have wanted,
Not hurting tender parts, which next to this are
planted.
31
Upon the top there stands the pipes safe covering,
Made for the voices better modulation:
Above it foureteen carefull warders hovering,
Which shut and open it at all occasion:
The cover in foure parts
it self dividing,
Of substance hard, fit
for the voices guiding;
One still unmov’d (in Thelu double oft)
residing.
32
Close by this pipe runnes that great chanel down,
Which from high Cephals mount twice every
day
Brings to Koilia due provision:
Straight at whose mouth a floud-gate stops the way,
Made like an Ivie leaf,
broad-angle-fashion;
Of matter hard, fitting
his operation,
For swallowing soon to fall, and rise for inspiration.
33
But see, the smoak mounting in village nigh,
With folded wreaths steals through the quiet aire;
And mixt with duskie shades in Eastern skie,
Begins the night, and warns us home repair:
Bright Vesper now
hat chang’d his name and place,
And twinkles in the heav’n
with doubtfull face:
Home then my full-fed lambes; the night comes, home
apace.
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