7 When she, without a Pegasus, doth fly Swifter than lightning's fire from east to west; About the centre, and above the sky, She travels then, although the body rest. 8 When all her works she formeth first within, Proportions them, and sees their perfect end; Ere she in act doth any part begin, What instruments doth then the body lend? 9 When without hands she doth thus castles build, Sees without eyes, and without feet doth run; When she digests the world, yet is not fill'd: By her own powers these miracles are done. 10 When she defines, argues, divides, compounds, 11 These actions in her closet, all alone, Retired within herself, she doth fulfil; 12 Yet in the body's prison so she lies, As through the body's windows she must look, By gathering notes out of the world's great book. 13 Nor can herself discourse or judge of ought, But what the sense collects, and home doth bring; And yet the powers of her discoursing thought, From these collections is a diverse thing. 14 For though our eyes can nought but colours see, Yet colours give them not their power of sight; So, though these fruits of sense her objects be, Yet she discerns them by her proper light. 15 The workman on his stuff his skill doth show, And yet the stuff gives not the man his skill; Kings their affairs do by their servants know, But order them by their own royal will. 16 So, though this cunning mistress, and this queen, 17 Even as a prudent emperor, that reigns Sees by their eyes, and writeth by their hands: 18 But things of weight and consequence indeed, 19 Or as the man whom princes do advance, Doth common things of course and circumstance, 20 But when the cause itself must be decreed, Himself in person in his proper court, grave and solemn hearing doth proceed, Of every proof, and every by-report. Το 21 Then, like God's angel, he pronounceth right, And milk and honey from his tongue doth flow: Happy are they that still are in his sight, To reap the wisdom which his lips doth sow. 22 Right so the soul, which is a lady free, And doth the justice of her state maintain: Attending nigh about her court, the brain: 23 By them the forms of outward things she learns, 24 But when she sits to judge the good and ill, And to discern betwixt the false and true, She is not guided by the senses' skill, But doth each thing in her own mirror view. 25 Then she the senses checks, which oft do err, And even against their false reports decrees; And oft she doth condemn what they prefer; For with a power above the sense she sees. 26 Therefore no sense the precious joys conceives, 27 Her harmonies are sweet, and full of skill, 28 These tunes of reason are Amphion's lyre, Wherewith he did the Theban city found: These are the notes wherewith the heavenly choir, The praise of Him which made the heaven doth sound. 29 Then her self-being nature shines in this, SPIRITUALITY OF THE SOUL. 1 But though this substance be the root of sense, Sense knows her not, which doth but bodies know: She is a spirit, and heavenly influence, Which from the fountain of God's Spirit doth flow. 2 She is a spirit, yet not like air or wind; Nor like the spirits about the heart or brain; 3 For she all natures under heaven doth pass, Being like those spirits, which God's bright face do see, Or like Himself, whose image once she was, 4 For of all forms, she holds the first degree, 5 Were she a body, how could she remain Within this body, which is less than she? 6 All bodies are confined within some place, 7 No body can at once two forms admit, 8 All bodies are with other bodies fill'd, But she receives both heaven and earth together: Nor are their forms by rash encounter spill'd, For there they stand, and neither toucheth either. 9 Nor can her wide embracements filled be; For they that most and greatest things embrace, Enlarge thereby their mind's capacity, As streams enlarged, enlarge the channel's space. 10 All things received, do such proportion take, As those things have, wherein they are received: So little glasses little faces make, And narrow webs on narrow frames are weaved. 11 Then what vast body must we make the mind, Wherein are men, beasts, trees, towns, seas, and lands; And yet each thing a proper place doth find, * That it cannot be a body. |