Like *Heav'n in moving, like in heav'nly firing ; Sweet heat and light, no burning flame inspiring; Yet, ah! too oft we find, they scorch with hot desiring. XXV. They mounted high, sit on a lofty hill ; Here stands the palace of the noblest sense: Here +Visus keeps, whose court than crystal smoother, And clearer seems; he, though a younger brother, Yet far more noble is, far fairer than the other. XXVI. Six bands are set to stir the moving tow'r : The first the proud band call'd, that lifts it higher; The other two, helping the compass roving, Above, Stwo compass groves (love's bended bows) That shuts and opens in a moment's space : The low part fix'd, the higher quick descending; Upon whose tops, spear-men their pikes intending, Watch there both night and day, the castle's port defending. *Plato affirmed, they were lighted up with heavenly fire, not burning, but shining. + Visus, or the sight, is the noblest of all the senses. These are six muscles moving the eye, thus termed by anatomists. § Above are the eye-brows, keeping off the sweat. The eye-lids serve to keep off dust, flies, &c. XXVIII. Three divers lakes within these bulwarks lie, Conveys them to the next, and breaks the light, And with a clear and whitish inundation, Restrains the nimble spirits from their too quick evasion. XXIX. In midst of both is plac'd the crystal↑ pond; Whose living water thick, and brightly shining Like sapphires or the sparkling diamond, His inward beams with outward light combining, The divers forms doth further still direct, Till by the nimble post they're brought to th' intellect. The third, like molten glass, all clear and white, Six Sinward walls fence in this tow'r of sight: Save in the midst, is left a circle's space, The second not so massy as the other, Yet thicker than the rest, and tougher fram'd, There are three humours in the eye: the first the watery, breaking the too vehement light, and stopping the spirits from going out too fast. The second is the crystalline, and is the chief instrument of sight. The third, from its likeness, is called the glassy humour, § There are six tunicles belonging to the eye, the first called the conjunċtive, solid, thick, compassing the whole eye, except the black window. The second is cornea or horny tunicle, transparent, and made of the hard mother. Takes his beginning from that harder mother; The third of softer mould, is like a grape, Which with a thought is narrow made, or wide . The +fourth of finest work, more slight and thin, XXXIV. His substance as the head spring perfect white; *The third is Uvea, or grapy, made of the tender mother, thin, and per vious by a small round window; is diversly coloured without, but exceeding black within. The fourth is thinner than any cobweb, compassing the crystalline humour. The fifth, reticularis, is a netty tunicle, framed of the substance of the brain. The last the glassy wall (that round encasing The moat of glass, is nam'd from that enlacing) The white and glassy wells, parts with his strict embracing. XXXV. Thus then is fram'd the noble Visus' bow'r ; Th' outward light by the first wall's circle sending His beams and hundred forms into the tow'r, The wall of horn, and that black gate transcending, And fully view'd in that white netty shine, Much as a one-eyed room, hung all with night, Two pair of rivers from the head-spring flow, The other pair, these walking tow'rs are moving; The sixth is called the glassy tunicle, clasping in the glassy humour. The eye hath two nerves, the optic or seeing nerve, and the moving one; the optic separate in their root, in the midst of their progress meet, and strengthen one another. The moving, rising from the same stem, are at length severed; therefore as one moves, so moves the other. XXXVIII. Auditus*, second of the Pentarchy†, Both which a goodly portal doth embrave, The portal hard and dry, all hung around Whose open gate drags in each voice and sound, The entrance winding, lest some violence This Scave's first part, fram'd with a steep ascent, Makes th' entrance hard, but easy the descent : The drum is made of substance hard and thin: Which if some falling moisture chance to wet, *Hearing is the second sense, less noble than the sight, but more needful, The five senses. The outward ear is of a gristly matter, covered with the common tunicle; framed of many crooks, lest the air should enter too forcibly. The inward ear consists of four passages, the first is steep, lest any thing should enter in. If the drum be wet with the falling of the rheum, we are hard of hearing, if it grow thick, we become irrecoverably deaf. |