HEARING.

Now let us hear how she the ears employs :
Their office is, the troubled air to take;
Which in their mazes forms a sound or noise,
Whereof herself doth true distinction make.

These wickets of the soul are plac'd on high,
Because all sounds do lightly mount aloft ;
And that they may not pierce too violently,

They are delay'd with turns and windings oft.

For should the voice directly strike the brain,
It would astonish and confuse it much;
Therefore these plaits and folds the sound restrain,
That it the organ may more gently touch.

As streams, which with their winding banks do play, Stopp'd by their creeks, run softly through the So in th' ear's labyrinth the voice doth stray, [plain: And doth with easy motion touch the brain.

And as from senses, reason's work doth spring,
So many reasons understanding gain;
And many understandings, knowledge bring,
And by much knowledge, wisdom we obtain.

So, many stairs we must ascend upright

Ere we attain to wisdom's high degree: So doth this Earth eclipse our reason's light, Which else (in instants) would like angels see.

YET hath the soul a dowry natural,

And sparks of light, some common things to see; Not being a blank where naught is writ at all, But what the writer will, may written be.

For Nature in man's heart her laws doth pen,
Prescribing truth to wit, and good to will;
Which do accuse, or else excuse all men,

For ev'ry thought or practice, good or ill:

Although they say, "Come let us eat and drink;
Our life is but a spark, which quickly dies:"
Though thus they say, they know not what to think;
But in their minds ten thousand doubts arise.

Therefore no heretics desire to spread

Their light opinions, like these epicures; For so their stagg'ring thoughts are comforted, And other men's assent their doubt assures.

Yet though these men against their conscience strive,
There are some sparkles in their flinty breasts,
Which cannot be extinct, but still revive;

That though they would, they cannot quite be beasts.

But whoso makes a mirror of his mind,

And doth with patience view himself therein,
His soul's eternity shall clearly find,
Though th' other beauties be defac'd with sin.

REASON I.

Drawn from the desire of knowledge.
FIRST, in man's mind we find an appetite
To learn and know the truth of ev'ry thing,
Which is co-natural, and born with it,

And from the essence of the soul doth spring.

With this desire, she hath a native might

To find out ev'ry truth, if she had time; Th' innumerable effects to sort aright,

And by degrees, from cause to cause to climb.

But since our life so fast away doth slide,

As doth a hungry eagle through the wind; Or as a ship transported with the tide,

Which in their passage leave no print behind.

That our short race of life is at an end,

Ere we the principles of skill attain.

Or God (who to vain ends hath nothing done)
In vain this appetite and pow'r hath giv'n;
Or else our knowledge, which is here begun,

Hereafter must be perfected in Heav'n.

God never gave a pow'r to one whole kind,

But most part of that kind did use the same: Most eyes have perfect sight, though some be blind; Most legs can nimbly run, though some be lame.

But in this life, no soul the truth can know
So perfectly, as it hath pow'r to do:
If then perfection be not found below,

An higher place must make her mount thereto.

REASON II.

Drawn from the motion of the soul.'

Water in conduit-pipes can rise no higher

Than the well-head, from whence it first doth Then since to eternal God she doth aspire, [spring: She cannot be but an eternal thing.

AGAIN, how can she but immortal be,

When, with the motions of both will and wit, She still aspireth to eternity,

And never rests, till she attain to it?

"All moving things to other things do move,

Of the same kind which shows their nature such :"
So earth falls down, and fire doth mount above,
Till both their proper elements do touch.

And as the moisture, which the thirsty earth

Sucks from the sea, to fill her empty veins, From out her womb at last doth take a birth,

And runs a lymph along the grassy plains:

Of which swift little time so much we spend,
For who did ever yet, in honour, wealth,
While some few things we through the sense do Who ever ceas'd to wish, when he had health?
Or pleasure of the sense, contentment find?

strain,

Or, having wisdom, was not vex'd in mind?

Long doth she stay, as loath to leave the land,

From whose soft side she first did issue make: She tastes all places, turns to ev'ry hand,

Her flow'ry banks unwilling to forsake:

Yet Nature so her streams doth lead and carry,
As that her course doth make no final stay,
Till she herself unto the ocean marry,

Within whose watry bosom first she lay.

E'en so the soul, which in this earthly mould
The spirit of God doth secretly infuse,
Because at first she doth the earth behold,

And only this material world she views:

At first her mother-earth she holdeth dear,

And doth embrace the world, and worldly things;
She flies close by the ground, and hovers here,
And mounts not up with her celestial wings:

Yet under Heav'n she cannot light on aught

That with her heav'nly nature doth agree:
She cannot rest, she cannot fix her thought,
She cannot in this world contented be.

Then as a bee which among weeds doth fall,

Which seem sweet flow'rs, with lustre fresh and She lights on that, and this, and tasteth all; [gay; But, pleas'd with none, doth rise, and soar away:

So, when the soul finds here no true content,

And, like Noah's dove, can no sure footing take,
She doth return from whence she first was sent,

And flies to him that first her wings did make.
Wit, seeking truth, from cause to cause ascends,
And never rests till it the first attain:
Will, seeking good, finds many middle ends;
But never stays till it the last do gain.

Now God the truth and first of causes is;

God is the last good end, which lasteth still;
Being alpha and omega nam'd for this;
Alpha to wit, omega to the will.

Since then her heav'nly kind she doth display,
In that to God she doth directly move;
And on no mortal thing can make her stay,
She cannot be from hence, but from above.

The soul compared to a river.