35

Here, if thou please to beautify a town,
Thou may'st; or with a hand, turn 't upside down;
Here may'st thou scant or widen by the measure
Of thine own will; make short or long at pleasure:
Here may'st thou tire thy fancy, and advise

With shows more apt to please more curious eyes.
Sp. Ah, fool! that doat'st on vain, on present toys, 41
And disrespect'st those true, those future joys:
How strongly are thy thoughts befool'd, alas!
To doat on goods that perish with thy glass!
Nay, vanish with the turning of a hand:
Were they but painted colours, it might stand
With painted reason that they might devote thee;
But things that have no being to besot thee!
Foresight of future torments is the way
To balk those ills which present joys betray.
As thou hast fool'd thyself, so now come hither,
Break that fond glass, and let's be wise together.

50

Be

O that men would be wise, and understand, and foresee. wise, to know three things-the multitude of those that are to be damned, the few number of those that are to be saved, and the vanity of transitory things: understand three things-the multitude of sins, the omission of good things, and the loss of time: foresee three things-the danger of death, the last judgment, and eternal punishment.-S. BONAVENT. de Contemptu Sæculi.

EPIG. 14.

What, soul, no further yet? what, ne'er commence
Master in faith? still bachelor of sense?

Is 't insufficiency or what has made thee

O'erslip thy lost degree? thy lusts have staid thee.

No. XV.

Illustration-One sitting pensive on the ground; Death and fantastic figures above.

My life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing.-PSALM Xxxi. 10.

WHAT sullen star ruled my untimely birth,

That would not lend my days one hour of mirth?
How oft have these bare knees been bent to gain
The slender alms of one poor smile in vain!
How often, tired with the fastidious light,
Have my faint lips implored the shades of night!
How often have my nightly torments pray'd
For ling'ring twilight, glutted with the shade!
Day worse than night, night worse than day appears;
In fears I spend my nights, my days in tears:
I moan unpitied, groan without relief,
There is no end or measure of my grief.
The smiling flow'r salutes the day; it grows
Untouch'd with care; it neither spins nor sows:
Oh that my tedious life were like this flow'r,
Or freed from grief, or finish'd with an hour:
Why was I born? why was I born a man?
And why proportion'd by so large a span?
Or why suspended by the common lot,
And being born to die, why die I not?
Ah me! why is my sorrow-wasted breath
Denied the easy privilege of death?

The branded slave, that tugs the weary oar,
Obtains the sabbath of a welcome shore;
His ransom'd stripes are heal'd; his native soil
Sweetens the mem'ry of his foreign toil:
But, ah! my sorrows are not half so blest;
My labour finds no point, my pains no rest:

10

20

I barter sighs for tears, and tears for groans,
Still vainly rolling Sisyphæan stones.
Thou just observer of our flying hours,
That, with thy adamantine fangs, devours
The brazen monuments of renowned kings,
Doth thy glass stand? or be thy moulting wings
Unapt to fly? if not, why dost thou spare
A willing breast; a breast that stands so fair;
A dying breast, that hath but only breath

To beg a wound, and strength to crave a death?
Oh that the pleased Heav'ns would once dissolve
These fleshly fetters, that so fast involve
My hamper'd soul; then would my soul be blest
From all those ills, and wrap her thoughts in rest:
Till then, my days are months, my months are years,
My years are ages to be spent in tears:

My grief's entailed upon my wasteful breath,
Which no recov'ry can cut off but death.
Breath drawn in cottages, puffed out in moans,
Begins, continues, and concludes in groans.

30

40

O who will give mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I may bewail the miserable ingress of man's condition; the sinful progress of man's conversation; the damnable egress in man's dissolution? I will consider with tears, whereof man was made, what man doth, and what man is to do: alas! he is formed of earth, conceived in sin, born to punishment: he doth evil things which are not lawful; he doth filthy things, which are not decent; he doth vain things, which are not expedient.-INNOCENT. de Vilitate Condit. Humanæ.

EPIG. 15.

My heart, thy life's a debt by bond, which bears
A secret date; the use is groans and tears:

Plead not; usurious nature will have all,

As well the int'rest as the principal.

BOOK THE FOURTH.

No. I.

Illustration-One standing between two beings, the one pulling him back, the other inviting him forward.

I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin.-ROM vii. 23.

10 How my will is hurried to and fro,

And how my unresolved resolves do vary! I know not where to fix; sometimes I go This way, then that, and then the quite contrary: I like, dislike; lament for what I could not; I do, undo; yet still do what I should not, And, at the selfsame instant, will the thing I would

not.

2 Thus are my weather-beaten thoughts opprest
With th' earth-bred winds of my prodigious will;
Thus am I hourly toss'd from east to west
Upon the rolling streams of good and ill:
Thus am I driv'n upon the slipp'ry suds
From real ills to false apparent goods:

My life's a troubled sea, composed of ebbs and floods.

3 The curious penman, having trimm'd his page

With the dead language of his dabbled quill, Lets fall a heedless drop, then in a rage Cashiers the fruits of his unlucky skill;

E'en so my pregnant soul in th' infant bud

Of her best thoughts show'rs down a coal-black
flood

Of unadvised ills, and cancels all her good.

4 Sometimes a sudden flash of sacred heat

Warms my chill soul, and sets my thoughts in frame; But soon that fire is shoulder'd from her seat

By lustful Cupid's much inferior flame.

I feel two flames, and yet no flame entire; Thus are the mongrel thoughts of mix'd desire Consumed between that heav'nly and this earthly fire.

5 Sometimes my trash-disdaining thoughts outpass
The common period of terrene conceit;

O then methinks I scorn the thing I was,
Whilst I stand ravish'd at my new estate:
But when th' Icarian wings of my desire

Feel but the warmth of their own native fire,
O then they melt and plunge within their wonted mire.

6 I know the nature of my wav'ring mind;

I know the frailty of my fleshly will!

My passion's eagle-eyed; my judgment blind;
I know what's good, and yet make choice of ill.
When th' ostrich wings of my desires shall be
So dull, they cannot mount the least degree,
Yet grant my sole desire, but of desiring thee.

My heart is a vain heart, a vagabond and instable heart; while it is led by its own judgment, and wanting divine counsel, cannot subsist in itself; and whilst it divers ways seeketh rest, findeth none, but remaineth miserable through labour, and void of peace : it agreeth not with itself, it dissenteth from itself; it altereth resolutions, changeth the judgment, frameth new thoughts, pulleth