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For if we justly call each silly man

A little world, what shall we call thee then?

Traitors are. Friends are ourselves. This I thee tell
As to my friend, and myself as counsel:

Thou art not soft, and clear, and straight, and fair, Let for awhile the time's unthrifty rout

As down, as stars, cedars, and lilies are;

But thy right hand, and cheek, and eye only
Are like thy other hand, and cheek, and eye.
Such was my Phao awhile, but shall be never
As thou wast, art, and oh! may'st thou be ever.
Here lovers swear in their idolatry,

That I am such; but grief discolours me :
And yet I grieve the less, lest grief remove
My beauty, and make m' unworthy of thy love.
Plays some soft boy with thee? oh! there wants yet
A mutual feeling, which should sweeten it.
His chin, a thorny hairy unevenness,

Doth threaten, and some daily change possess.
Thy body is a natural paradise,

In whose self, unmanur'd, all pleasure lies,
Nor needs perfection; why should'st thou then
Admit the tillage of a harsh rough man?

Men leave behind them that, which their sin shows,
And are as thieves trac'd, which rob when it snows;
But of our dalliance no more signs there are,
Than fishes leave in streams, or birds in air.
And between us all sweetness may be had;
All, all that nature yields, or art can add.
My two lips, eyes, thighs, differ from thy two,
But so, as thine from one another do:
And, oh! no more; the likeness being such,
Why should they not alike in all parts touch?
Hand to strange hand, lip to lip none denies;
Why should they breast to breast, or thighs to thighs?
Likeness begets such strange self-flattery,
That touching myself, all seems done to thee.
Myself I embrace, and mine own hands I kiss,
And amorously thank myself for this.
Me in my glass I call thee; but, alas!
When I would kiss, tears dim mine eyes and glass.
O cure this loving madness, and restore
Me to me; thee my half, my all, my more.
So may thy cheek's red outwear scarlet die,
And their white whiteness of the galaxy;
So may thy mighty amazing beauty move
Envy in all women, and in all men love;
And so be change and sickness far from thee,
As thou, by coming near, keep'st them from me.

Contemn learning, and all your studies flout:
Let them scorn Hell, they will a serjeant fear,
More than we them; that ere long God may forbear,
But creditors will not. Let them increase
In riot and excess, as their means cease;

Let them scorn him that made them, and still shun
His grace, but love the whore, who hath undone
Them and their souls. But, that they that allow
But one God, should have religions enow

For the queen's mask, and their husbands, for more
Than all the Gentiles knew or Atlas bore.
Well, let all pass, and trust him, who nor cracks
The bruised reed, nor quencheth smoking flax.

TO BEN JONSON. NOV. 9, 1603.

If great men wrong me, I will spare myself;
If mean, I will spare them; I know, the pelf,
Which is ill got, the owner doth upbraid;
It may corrupt a judge, make me afraid
And a jury: but 't will revenge in this,
That, though himself be judge, he guilty is.
What care I though of weakness men tax me?
I'd rather sufferer than doer be;
That I did trust it was my nature's praise,
For breach of word I knew but as a phrase.
That judgment is, that surely can comprise
The world in precepts, most happy and most wise.
What though? though less, yet some of both have
Who have learn'd it by use and misery.
Poor I, whom every petty cross doth trouble,
Who apprehend each hurt, that's done me, double,
Am of this (though it should think me) careless,
It would but force me t' a stricter goodness.
They have great gain of me, who gain do win
(If such gain be not loss) from every sin.
The standing of great men's lives would afford
A pretty sum, if God would sell his word.
He cannot; they can theirs, and break them too,
How unlike they are that they 're likened to?
Yet I conclude, they are amidst my evils,
If good, like gods; the naught are so like devils.

[we,

TO BEN JONSON. JAN. 6, 1603.

THE state and men's affairs are the best plays
Next yours; 't is not more nor less than due praise:
Write, but touch not the much descending race
Of lords' houses, so settled in worth's place,
As but themselves none think them usurpers:
It is no fault in thee to suffer theirs.

If the queen mask, or king a hunting go,
Though all the court follow, let them. We know
Like them in goodness that court ne'er will be,
For that were virtue, and not flattery.
Forget we were thrust out. It is but thus
God threatens kings, kings lords, as lords do us.
Judge of strangers, trust and believe your friend,
And so me; and when I true friendship end,
With guilty conscience let me be worse stung
Than with Popham's sentence thieves, or Cook's
tongue

DEAR TOM.

TO SIR THO, ROWE. 1603.

TELL her, if she to bired servants show
Dislike, before they take their leave they go;
When nobler spirits start at no disgrace;
For who hath but one mind, hath but one face.
If then why I take not my leave she ask,
Ask her again why she did not unmask.
Was she or proud or cruel, or knew she
'T would make my loss more felt, and pity'd me!
Or did she fear one kiss might stay for moe?
Or else was she unwilling I should go?
I think the best, and love so faithfully,

I cannot choose but think that she loves me.
If this prove not my faith, then let her try
How in her service I would fructify.

Ladies have boldly lov'd; bid her renew

That decay'd worth, and prove the times past true.
Then he, whose wit and verse grows now so lame,
With songs to her will the wild Irish tame.
Howe'er, I'll wear the black and white ribband;
White for her fortunes, black for mine shall stand.
I do esteem her favour, not the stuff;
If what I have was given, I've enough,
And all 's well, for had she lov'd, I had not had
All my friends' hate; for now departing sad
I feel not that: yet as the rack the gout
Cures, so hath this worse grief that quite put out:
My first disease nought but that worse cureth,
Which (I dare foresay) nothing cures but death.
Tell her all this before I am forgot,

That not too late she grieve she lov'd me not.
Burdened with this, I was to depart less
Willing than those which die, and not confess.

So these high songs, that to thee suited bin,
Serve but to sound thy maker's praise and thine;
Which thy dear soul as sweetly sings to him
Amid the choir of saints and seraphim,
As any angels' tongues can sing of thee;
The subjects differ, though the skill agree:
For as by infant years men judge of age,
Thy early love, thy virtues did presage
What high part thou bear'st in those best of songs,
Whereto no burden, nor no end belongs.
Sing on, thou virgin soul, whose lossful gain
Thy love-sick parents have bewail'd in vain;
Never may thy name be in songs forgot,
Till we shall sing thy ditty and thy note.

FUNERAL ELEGIES.

ANATOMY OF THE WORLD.

WHEREIN, BY OCCASION OF THE UNTIMELY DEATH OF MRS. ELIZABETH DRURY, THE FRAILTY AND DECAY OF

THE WHOLE IS REPRESENTED.

THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY.

To the praise of the dead, and the anatomy. WELL dy'd the world, that we might live to see This world of wit in his anatomy: No evil wants his good; so wilder heirs Bedew their father's tombs with forced tears, Whose 'state requites their loss: while thus we gain, Well may we walk in blacks, but not complain. Yet how can I consent the world is dead, While this Muse lives? which in his spirit's stead Seems to inform a world, and bids it be, In spite of loss or frail mortality? And thou the subject of this well-born thought, Thrice noble maid, couldst not have found nor sought A-fitter time to yield to thy sad fate, Than while this spirit lives, that can relate Thy worth so well to our last nephew's eyne, That they shall wonder both at his and thine: Admired match! where strives in mutual grace The cunning pencil and the comely face; A task, which thy fair goodness made too much For the bold pride of vulgar pens to touch: Enough it is to praise them that praise thee, And say, that but enough those praises be, Which, hadst thou liv'd, had hid their fearful head From th' angry checkings of thy modest red: Death bars reward and shame; when envy's gone, And gain, 't is safe to give the dead their own. As then the wise Egyptians wont to lay More on their tombs than houses; these of clay, But those of brass or marble were: so we Give more unto thy ghost than unto thee. Yet what we give to thee, thou gav'st to us, And may'st but thank thyself, for being thus: Yet what thou gav'st and wert, O happy maid, Thy grace profess'd all due, where 't is repaid.

AN ANATOMY OF THE WORLD.

THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY.

WHEN that rich soul, which to her Heav'n is gone,
Whom all do celebrate, who know they 've one,
(For who is sure he hath a soul, unless
It see, and judge, and follow worthiness,
And by deeds praise it? he, who doth not this,
May lodge an inmate soul, but 't is not his)
When that queen ended here her progress time,
And as t' her standing house to Heav'n did climb;
Where, loath to make the saints attend her long,
She's now a part both of the choir and song:
This world in that great earthquake languished;
For in a common bath of tears it bled,
Which drew the strongest vital spirits out:
But succour'd them with a perplexed doubt,
Whether the world did lose, or gain in this,
(Because since now no other way there is
But goodness, to see her, whom all would see,
All must endeavour to be good as she)
This great consumption to a fever turn'd,
And so the world had fits; it joy'd, it mourn'd;
And as men think that agues physic are,
And th' ague being spent, give over care:
So thou, sick world, mistak'st thyself to be
Well, when, alas! thou 'rt in a lethargy:
Her death did wound and tame thee then, and then
Thou might'st have better spar'd the Sun, or man.
That wound was deep; but 't is more misery,
That thou hast lost thy sense and memory.
'T was heavy then to hear thy voice of moan,
But this is worse, that thou art speechless grown.
Thou hast forgot thy name thou hadst; thou wast
Nothing but she, and her thou hast o'erpast.
For as a child kept from the fount, until
A prince, expected long, come to fulfil
The ceremonies, thou unnam'd hadst laid,
Had not her coming thee her palace made;
Her name defin'd thee, gave thee form and frame,
And thou forget'st to celebrate thy name.
Some months she hath been dead, (but being dead,
Measures of time are all determined)

But long sh' hath been away, long, long; yet none
Offers to tell us, who it is that 's gone.
But as in states doubtful of future heirs,
When sickness without remedy impairs.
The present prince, they 're loath it should be said,
The prince doth languish, or the prince is dead:
So mankind, feeling now a general thaw,
A strong example gone, equal to law,

The cement, which did faithfully compact
And give all virtues, now resolv'd and slack'd,
Thought it some blasphemy to say sh' was dead,
Or that our weakness was discovered
In that confession; therefore spoke no more,
Than tongues, the soul being gone, the loss deplore.
But though it be too late to succour thee,
Sick world, yea dead, yea putrified, since she,
Thy intrinsic balm and thy preservative,
Can never be renew'd, thou never live;

I (since no man can make thee live) will try
What we may gain by thy anatomy.

Her death bath taught us dearly, that thou art
Corrupt and mortal in thy purest part.

Let no man say, the world itself being dead,
'Tis labour lost to have discovered

The world's infirmities, since there is none
Alive to study this dissection;

For there's a kind of world remaining still;
Though she, which did inanimate and fill
The world, be gone, yet in this last long night
Her ghost doth walk, that is, a glimmering light,
A faint weak love of virtue, and of good
Reflects from her on them, which understood
Her worth; and though she have shut in all day,
The twilight of her memory doth stay;
Which, from the carcass of the old world free,
Creates a new world, and new creatures be
Produc'd: the matter and the stuff of this
Her virtue, and the form our practice is:
And though to be thus elemented arm
These creatures from home-born intrinsic harm,
(For all assum'd unto this dignity,
So many weedless paradises be,
Which of themselves produce no venomous sin,
Except some foreign serpent bring it in)

Yet because outward storms the strongest break,
And strength itself by confidence grows weak,
This new world may be safer, being told
The dangers and diseases of the old:
For with due temper men do then forego

Or covet things, when they their true worth know.
There is no health; physicians say that we
At best enjoy but a neutrality.

And can there be worse sickness than to know,
That we are never well, nor can be so?
We are born ruinous: poor mothers cry,
That children come not right nor orderly,
Except they headlong come and fall upon
An ominous precipitation.

How witty's ruin, how importunate
Upon mankind! it labour'd to frustrate
Even God's purpose; and made woman, sent
For man's relief, cause of his languishment;
They were to good ends, and they are so still,
But accessary, and principal in ill;
For that first marriage was our funeral:
One woman at one blow then kill'd us all,
And singly one by one they kill us now,
And we delightfully ourselves allow
To that consumption; and, profusely blind,
We kill ourselves to propagate our kind;
And yet we do not that; we are not men:
There is not now that mankind, which was then,
When as the Sun and man did seem to strive,
(Joint-tenants of the world) who should survive;
When stag and raven, and the long-liv'd tree,
Compar'd with man, dy'd in minority;
When, if a slow-pac'd star had stol'n away
From the observer's marking, he might stay
VOL. V.

Two or three hundred years to see 't again,
And then make up his observation plain;
When as the age was long, the size was great;
Man's growth confess'd and recompens'd the meat;
So spacious and large, that every soul
Did a fair kingdom and large realm control;
And when the very stature thus erect
Did that soul a good way towards Heav'n direct:
Where is this mankind now? who lives to age,
Fit to be made Methusalem his page?
Alas! we scarce live long enough to try
Whether a true made clock run right or lie.
Old grandsires talk of yesterday with sorrow:
And for our children we reserve to morrow.
So short is life, that every peasant strives,
In a torn house, or field, to have three lives.
And as in lasting, so in length, is man,
Contracted to an inch, who was a span;
For had a man at first in forests stray'd
Or shipwreck'd in the sea, one would have laid
A wager, that an elephant or whale,
That met him, would not hastily assail
A thing so equal to him: now, alas !
The fairies and the pygmies well may pass
As credible; mankind decays so soon,
We're scarce our father's shadows cast at noon :
Only death adds t' our length: nor are we grown
In stature to be men, till we are none.

But this were light, did our less volume hold
All the old text; or had we chang'd to gold
Their silver, or dispos'd into less glass
Spirits of virtue, which then scatter'd was:
But 't is not so: we 're not retir'd, but damp'd;
And as our bodies, so our minds are cramp'd:
'T is shrinking, not close weaving, that hath thus
In mind and body both bedwarfed us.
We seem ambitious God's whole work t' undo;
Of nothing he made us, and we strive too
To bring ourselves to nothing back; and we
Do what we can, to do 't as soon as he:
With new diseases on ourselves we war,
And with new physic, a worse engine far.
This man, this world's vice-emperor, in whom
All faculties, all graces are at home;
And if in other creatures they appear,
They 're but man's ministers and legats there,
To work on their rebellions, and reduce
Them to civility and to man's use:

This man, whom God did woo, and, loth t' attend
Till man came up, did down to man descend:
This man so great, that all that is, is his,
Oh what a trifle and poor thing he is!
If man were any thing, he 's nothing now;
Help, or at least some time to waste allow
This other wants, yet when he did depart
With her, whom we lament, he lost his heart.
She, of whom th' ancients seem'd to prophesy,
When they call'd virtues by the name of she;
She, in whom virtue was so much refin'd,
That for allay unto so pure a mind

She took the weaker sex: she, that could drive
The poisonous tincture and the stain of Eve
Out of her thoughts and deeds, and purify
All by a true religious alchymy;

She, she is dead; she's dead: when thou know'st this,
Thou know'st how poor a trifling thing man is,
And learn'st thus much by our anatomy,
The heart being perish'd, no part can be free,
And that except thou feed (not banquet) on
The supernatural food, religion,

N

Thy better growth grows withered and scant;
Be more than man, or thou 'rt less than an ant.
Then as mankind, so is the world's whole frame
Quite out of joint, almost created lame :
For before God had made up all the rest,
Corruption enter'd and deprav'd the best:
It seiz'd the angels, and then first of all
The world did in her cradle take a fall,
And turn'd her brains, and took a general maim,
Wronging each joint of th' universal frame.
The noblest part, man, felt it first; and then
Both beasts, and plants, curs'd in the curse of man;
So did the world from the first hour decay,
That evening was beginning of the day;
And now the springs and summers, which we see,
Like sons of women after fifty be.
And new philosophy calls all in doubt,
The element of fire is quite put out:

The Sun is lost, and th' Earth; and no man's wit
Can well direct him where to look for it.
And freely men confess that this world's spent,
When in the planets and the firmament
They seek so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out again to his atomies.
'T is all in pieces, all coherence gone,
All just supply, and all relation:
Prince, subject, father, son, are things forgot,
For every man alone thinks he hath got
To be a phenix, and that then can be
None of that kind, of which he is, but he.
This is the world's condition now, and now
She, that should all parts to reunion bow;
She, that had all magnetic force alone
To draw and fasten sunder'd parts in one;
She, whom wise Nature had invented then,
When she observ'd that every sort of men
Did in their voyage, in this world's sea, stray,
And needed a new compass for their way;
She, that was best and first original
Of all fair copies, and the general
Steward to Fate; she, whose rich eyes and breast
Gilt the West Indies, and perfum'd the East,
Whose having breath'd in this world did bestow
Spice on those isles, and bad them still smell so;
And that rich India, which doth gold inter,
Is but as single money coin'd from her:
She, to whom this world must itself refer,
As suburbs, or the microcosm of her;
She, she is dead; she's dead: when thou know'st this
Thou know'st how lame a cripple this world is,
And learn'st thus much by our anatomy,
That this world's general sickness doth not lie
In any humour, or one certain part;
But as thou saw'st it rotten at the heart,
Thou seest a hectic fever hath got hold
Of the whole substance not to be control'd;
And that thou hast but one way not t' admit
The world's infection, to be none of it.
For the world's subtl'st immaterial parts
Feel this consuming wound, and age's darts.
For the world's beauty is decay'd or gone,
Beauty, that 's colour and proportion.
We think the Heav'ns enjoy their spherical,
Their round proportion embracing all,
But yet their various and perplexed course,
Observ'd in divers ages, doth enforce
Men to find out so many eccentric parts,
Such divers down-right lines, such overthwarts,
As disproportion that pure form: it tears
The firmament in eight and forty shares,

And in these constellations then arise
New stars, and old do vanish from our eyes: [war,
As though Heav'n suffered earthquakes, peace or
When new tow'rs rise, and old demolish'd are.
They have impal'd within a zodiac

The free-born Sun, and keep twelve signs awake
To watch his steps; the Goat and Crab control
And fright him back, who else to either pole
(Did not these tropics fetter him) might run:
For his course is not round, nor can the Sun
Perfect a circle, or maintain his way
One inch direct, but where he rose to day
He comes no more, but with a cozening line,
Steals by that point, and so is serpentine:
And seeming weary of his reeling thus,
He means to sleep, being now fall'n nearer us.
So of the stars, which boast that they do run
In circle still, none ends where he begun:
All their proportion's lame, it sinks, it swells;
For of meridians and parallels,

Man hath weav'd out a net, and this net thrown
Upon the Heav'ns; and now they are his own.
Loth to go up the hill, or labour thus

To go to Heav'n, we make Heav'n come to us.
We spur, we rein the stars, and in their race
They 're diversly content t' obey our pace.
But keeps the Earth her round proportion still?
Doth not a Tenarus or higher hill

Rise so high like a rock, that one might think
The floating Moon would shipwreck there and sink?
Seas are so deep, that whales being struck to day,
Perchance to morrow scarce at middle way
Of their wish'd journey's end, the bottom, die :
And men, to sound depths, so much line untie,
As one might justly think, that there would rise
At end thereof one of th' antipodes :
If under all a vault infernal be,
(Which sure is spacious, except that we
Invent another torment, that there must
Millions into a strait hot room be thrust)
Then solidness and roundness have no place:
Are these but warts and pockholes in the face
Of th' Earth? think so: but yet confess, in this
The world's proportion disfigur'd is;
That those two legs, whereon it doth rely,
Reward and punishment, are bent awry :
And, oh! it can no more be questioned,
That beauty's best proportion is dead,
Since even grief itself, which now alone
Is left us, is without proportion.
She, by whose lines proportion should be
Examin'd, measure of all symmetry, [made
Whom had that ancient seen, who thought souls
Of harmony, he would at next have said
That Harmony was she, and thence infer
That souls were but resultances from her,
And did from her into our bodies go,
As to our eyes the forms from objects flow:
She, who, if those great doctors truly said,
That th' ark to man's proportion was made,
Had been a type for that, as that might be
A type of her in this, that contrary
Both elements and passions liv'd at peace
In her, who caus'd all civil war to cease:
She, after whom what form soe'er we see,
Is discord and rude incongruity;

She, she is dead, she's dead! when thou know'st this,
Thou know'st how ugly a monster this world is;
And learn'st thus much by our anatomy,

That here is nothing to enamour thee:

And that not only faults in inward parts,
Corruptions in our brains, or in our hearts,
Poisoning the fountains, whence our actions spring,
Endanger us; but that if every thing
Be not done fitly and in proportion,
To satisfy wise and good lookers on,

Since most men be such as most think they be,
They're loathsome too by this deformity.
For good and well must in our actions meet;
Wicked is not much worse than indiscreet.
But beauty's other second element,
Colour and lustre, now is as near spent.
And had the world his just proportion,
Were it a ring still, yet the stone is gone;
As a compassionate turcoise, which doth tell,
By looking pale, the wearer is not well :
As gold falls sick being stung with mercury,
All the world's parts of such complexion be.
When Nature was most busy, the first week
Swadling the new-born Earth, God seem'd to like
That she should sport herself sometimes and play,
To mingle and vary colours every day:

And then, as though she could not make enow,
Himself his various rainbow did allow.
Sight is the noblest sense of any one,
Yet sight hath only colour to feed on,
And colour is decay'd: Summer's robe grows
Dusky, and like an oft-dy'd garment shows.
Our blushing red, which us'd in cheeks to spread,
Is inward sunk, and only our souls are red.
Perchance the world might have recovered,
If she, whom we lament, had not been dead:
But she, in whom all white, and red, and blue
(Beauty's ingredients) voluntary grew,
As in an unvex'd Paradise, from whom
Did all things' verdure and their lustre come,
Whose composition was miraculous,
Being all colour, all diaphanous,

(For air and fire but thick gross bodies were,
And liveliest stones but drowsy and pale to her)
She, she is dead; she 's dead: when thou know'st this,
Thou know'st how wan a ghost this our world is:
And learn'st thus much by our anatomy,
That it should more affright than pleasure thee:
And that, since all fair colour then did sink,
'Tis now but wicked vanity to think
To colour vicious deeds with good pretence,
Or with bought colours to illude men's sense.
Nor in aught more this world's decay appears,
Than that her influence the Heav'n forbears,
Or that the elements do not feel this,
The father or the mother barren is.

The clouds conceive not rain, or do not pour,
In the due birth-time, down the balmy shower;
Th' air doth not motherly sit on the earth,
To hatch her seasons, and give all things birth;
Spring-times were common cradles, but are tombs;
And false conceptions fill the general wombs;
Th' air shows such meteors, as none can see,
Not only what they mean, but what they be.
Earth such new worms, as would have troubled much
Th' Egyptian magi to have made more such.
What artist now dares boast that he can bring
Heav'n hither, or constellate any thing,
So as the influence of those stars may be
Imprison'd in a herb, or charm, or tree,
And do by touch all which those stars could do?
The art is lost, and correspondence too,
For Heav'n gives little, and the Earth takes less,
And man least knows their trade and purposes.

If this commerce 'twixt Heav'n and Earth were not
Embarr'd, and all this traffic quite forgot,
She, for whose loss we have lamented thus,
Would work more fully and pow'rfully on us:
Since herbs and roots by dying lose not all,
But they, yea ashes too, 're medicinal,
Death could not quench her virtue so, but that
It would be (if not follow'd) wonder'd at:
And all the world would be one dying swan,
To sing her funeral praise, and vanish then.
But as some serpent's poison hurteth not,
Except it be from the live serpeut shot;
So doth her virtue need her here, to fit
That unto us; she working more than it.
But she, in whom to such maturity

Virtue was grown past growth, that it must die;
She, from whose influence all impression came,
But by receiver's impotences lame;
Who, though she could not transubstantiate
All states to gold, yet gilded every state,
So that some princes have some temperance;
Some counsellors some purpose to advance
The common profit; and some people have
Some stay, no more than kings should give, to crave;
Some women have some taciturnity,
Some nunneries some grains of chastity.
She, that did thus much, and much more could do,
But that our age was iron, and rusty too;
She, she is dead; she's dead! when thou know'st this,
Thou know'st how dry a cinder this world is:
And learn'st thus much by our anatomy,
That 't is in vain to dew or mollify

[well.

[song,

It with thy tears, or sweat, or blood: nothing
Is worth our travail, grief, or perishing,
But those rich joys, which did possess her heart,
Of which she 's now partaker, and a part.
But as in cutting up a man that's dead,
The body will not last out, to have read
On every part, and therefore men direct
Their speech to parts, that are of most effect;
So the world's carcass would not last, if I
Were punctual in this anatomy;
Nor smells it well to hearers, if one tell
Them their disease, who fain would think they 're
Here therefore be the end; and, blessed maid,
Of whom is meant whatever hath been said,
Or shall be spoken well by any tongue,
Whose name refines coarse lines, and makes prose
Accept this tribute, and his first year's rent,
Who, till his dark short taper's end be spent,
As oft as thy feast sees this widow'd Earth,
Will yearly celebrate thy second birth;
That is thy death; for though the soul of man
Be got when man is made, 't is born but then,
When man doth die; our body 's as the womb,
And, as a midwife, Death directs it home;
And you her creatures whom she works upon,
And have your last and best concoction
From her example and her virtue, if you
In reverence to her do think it due,
That no one should her praises thus rehearse;
As matter fit for chronicle, not verse:
Vouchsafe to call to mind that God did make
A last, and lasting'st piece, a song. He spake
To Moses to deliver unto all

That song, because he knew they would let fall
The law, the prophets, and the history,
But keep the song still in their memory:
Such an opinion, in due measure, made
Me this great office boldly to invade :

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