Time is as swift as thought,-the swift'st-wing'd
Cannot endure the flight of Time to follow:
Time is of the Ubiquitaries' race,—
Time's here, Time's there, Time is in every place;
Time is divided in a three-fold summe,
Time past, Time present, and the Time to come.
Of present Time I presently intreat,
For therein lyes the summe of my conceit;
For Time (once past) can never be recal❜d,
And therefore is he feyned to be bald:
So Time to come, untill it present be,
Is neither May, nor opportunitie.
Prudence, Fore-care, and Diligence (they say,
With fit occasion,) are the flow'rs of May;
And these in winter doe as faire appeare
As in the summer-season of the yeere.
Carelesnesse, Sloth, Excuse, and Time's delay,
With Ignorance, are tearm'd the weedes of May;
And these are neither sweet, or faire appeare,
Neither in spring, nor yet in all the yeere.
May may be fitly tearm'd (in my opinion)
The mistris of the moneths, and Nature's minion,
May, Nature's beauty, beautifying Nature,
May, Nature's joy, delighting every creature.
All Nature's impes she trimmes with colours
And glories her rich beauty to display,
Decking the bosome of the earth with flowres,
Nose-gayes for ladies and their paramours.
In May the little buddes do sprout and spring,
In May the little birds do chirpe and sing;
In May the earth is clad in gaudy greene,
To entertaine and welcome sommer's queene.
The winde doth whistle musicke to the leaves;
They dance for joy: thus ev'ry thing receives
Pleasure by Maye's approach, and true content,
And doth rejoyce with generall consent,
And strive (in emulation) who shall be
Most richly clad in Nature's livery;
To entertaine the parragon of Time,
Each thing is in his chiefest pomp and prime.
Oн, if a man whose guilt speakes in his face,
Whose sins exclude from all good hope of grace,
May dare attempt, with blood-polluted hands,
To touch thy pedestell, whereon there stands,
Wrought by Divine art, such a world of glory,
As to all worlds shall be an ample story,
Then let Ixyan (rich in nought but shame,
And all the adjuncts to a vast defame,)
With teares petitionarie thee desire
To purge his sins with thine immortall fire,
Clense what's corrupt, make pure what is most
fowle,
And of my speckled make a glorious soule:
The more my sin, the greater is my fame,
If thou do purge it with thy hallowed flame.
Will not yon christall-stellified gate
Ope, and with milde aspect adorne my fate?
Heare me, dread love, or if thou wilt not heare,
Yet take some notice of these penitent teares.
Could my tongue speak as loud as doth my sinne,
With my shril praiers ere now th'adst rouzed bin;
Yet still Ile pray, and with my dismall cries
Fan ope thy glories curtaine, the blew skies,
And, till my sinnes with mercie be commixt,
A kneeling living statue here be fixt.
At this th' appeased Heavens began to smile, And this great Deitie, that had all this while, With an attentive care, observed the Ixyon spent, his penitence and teares, (Prompted by pittie,) doth resolve once more To make Ixyon happier then before;
And for his kingdome's losse hee meanes to give A place of residence, where hee shall live.
From "Christ's Bloody Sweat."
THIS Man of men did in his troubled spirit
Into a streame of soft compassion melt
His icye bloud, that frailty might inherit
The sun of comfort, by the griefes he felt:
Each drop of bloud he shed, he shed it then
To wash a severall sin from severall men.
Here saw he princes in the awfull throne
Of eminencie, how wantonly they strove
For thirst of glory, to protect alone
Religious name, not for religious love;
Graceing the gracelesse, in whom grace was lost,
Such parasites as knew to flatter most.
For those he sweated bloud, that they whom Heaven
Created gods on earth, should so prophane,
By courses indirect and lawes un-even,
Of will and sensuall lust, the law first drawne
By that eternall royalty, who stood
To watch their faults: for kings he sweated bloud.
Here saw he such who under those were plac't
In seates of greatnesse and commaundes of state,
How fond in their madnesse they did wast
Their greatnesse in ambition and debate,
Ayming not to support, but scorne the good,
By unjust force: for such he sweated bloud.
Here saw he how in Moses' chayre there raign'd Scribes cloath'd in wool of lambes, and speaking well,
But wolves in nature, so coruptly stayn'd,
As if they were but messengers of hell;
Abusing unlearn'd soules and Levit's power,
More ready then to cherrish, to devoure.
Those whom the breath of God at first inspir'd
To shine as lampes, and speake the heavenly sound
With angels' tongues, were silent, if not hir'd;
More studying with the scriptures to compound
Their own traditions; and for those, indeed,
In heavy droppes the sweat of Christ did bleed.
Here saw he lawyers soberly engoun'd,
Wanting the robe of justice; not regarding
The poor man's right, nor where the case was
sound,
But giving judgment as he felt rewarding;
Whose tongue was bought against that side was weake,
Most times as well to hold his peace as speake: For them he sweated bloud. And here he saw Intrusted jurisdiction over-sway'd
By partiall favour, above forme of law,
Cold conscience, by which conscience was betray'd;
For those condemning, were condemn'd to much, As they condemn'd: he sweated bloud for such. Here saw he souldiers, toyling in the heat Of cruelty, not measuring the right
Why they bore armes, but, to content the great And their own lawlesse hate, prepar'd to fight, For prey and spoyle adventuring to rent
Their lives and soules: for those his bloud hee spent.
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