SECTION XV. HEARING. Now let us hear how she the ears employs : These wickets of the soul are plac'd on high, For should the voice directly strike the brain, As streams, which with their winding banks do play, Stopp'd by their creeks, run softly through the plain: So in th' ear's labyrinth the voice doth stray, This is the slowest, yet the daintiest sense; And though this sense first gentle music found, Her proper object is the speech of men; But that speech chiefly which God's heralds sound, When their tongues utter what his spirit did pen. Our eyes have lids, our ears still ope we see, Thus by the organs of the eye and ear, The soul with knowledge doth herself endue: "Thus she her prison may with pleasure bear, Having such prospects, all the world to view." These conduit-pipes of knowledge feed the mind, SECTION XVI. TASTE. THE body's life with meats and air is fed, Distinguish ev'ry relish, sweet and sour. This is the body's nurse; but since man's wit Than with the sword, famine, or pestilence. SECTION XVII. SMELLING. NEXT, in the nostrils she doth use the smell: As God the breath of life in them did give; So makes he now this pow'r in them to dwell, To judge all airs, whereby we breathe and live. This sense is also mistress of an art, Which to soft people sweet perfumes doth sell; Though this dear art doth little good impart, "Since they smell best, that do of nothing smell." And yet good scents do purify the brain, SECTION XVIII. FEELING. LASTLY, the feeling pow'r, which is life's root, Much like a subtle spider,* which doth sit * The spider's touch how exquisitely fine, Feels at each thread, and lives along the line. Pope's Essay on Man, If aught do touch the utmost thread of it, By touch, the first pure qualities we learn, dry: By touch, hard, soft, rough, smooth, we do discern: By touch, sweet pleasure and sharp pain we try. SECTION XIX. OF THE IMAGINATION, OR COMMON SENSE. THESE are the outward instruments of sense; pass, Ere it approach the mind's intelligence, Or touch the fantasy, wit's looking-glass. And yet these porters, which all things admit, Themselves perceive not, nor discern the things: One common pow'r doth in the forehead sit, Which all their proper forms together brings. For all those nerves, which spirits of sense do bear, And to those outward organs spreading go, United are, as in a centre, there; [know, And there this pow'r those sundry forms doth Those outward organs present things receive, This inward sense doth absent things retain; Yet straight transmits all forms she doth perceive, Unto an higher region of the brain. SECTION XX. FANTASY. WHERE fantasy, near hand-maid to the mind, Besides, those single forms she doth esteem, [seem, This busy pow'r is working day and night; SECTION XXI. SENSITIVE MEMORY. YET always all may not afore her be; This ledger-book lies in the brain behind, |