Then ENS is represented as Father of the Predicaments, his ten Sons; whereof the eldest stood for SUBSTANCE with his Canons; which ENS, thus speaking, explains:
Good luck befriend thee, son; for at thy birth
The faery Ladies danced upon the hearth.
The drowsy Nurse hath sworn she did them spy 61
Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie,
And, sweetly singing round about thy bed,
Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping head.
She heard them give thee this, that thou shouldst still
From eyes of mortals walk invisible.
Yet there is something that doth force my fear;
For once it was my dismal hap to hear
A Sibyl old, bow-bent with crooked age, 69
That far events full wisely could presage,
And, in Time's long and dark prospectiveglass,
Foresaw what future days should bring to pass.
"Your Son," said she, "(nor can you it prevent,)
Shall subject be to many an Accident.
O'er all his Brethren he shall reign as King;
Yet every one shall make him underling,
And those that cannot live from him asunder
Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under.
In worth and excellence he shall outgo them;
Yet, being above them, he shall be below them. S0
From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
Yet on his Brothers shall depend for clothing.
To find a foe it shall not be his hap,
And peace shall lull him in her flowery lap;
Yet shall he live in strife, and at his door
Devouring war shall never cease to roar;
Yea, it shall be his natural property
To harbour those that are at enmity."
What power, what force, what mighty spell, if not
Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot? 90
��The next, QUANTITY and QUALITY, spake in prose: then RELATION was called by his name.
Rivers, arise: whether thou be the son Of utmost Tweed, or Ouse, or gulfy Dun, Or Trent, who, like some earth-born Giant, spreads
His thirty arms along the indented meads, Or sullen Mole, that runneth underneath, Or Sevren swift, guilty of maiden's death, Or rocky Avon, or of sedgy Lea, Or coaly Tyne, or ancient hallowed Dee, Or Humber loud, that keeps the Scythian's name, Or Medway smooth, or royal-towered
Thame. 100
The rest was prose.
THE PASSION
(1630)
This was begun as a companion-piece to the "Ode on the Nativity," and probably dates from the Easter Season of 1630. The chilly conceitfulness of many of the lines contrasts remarkably with the eager and inspired tone of the Ode. If it were not for the explicit statement of the opening lines, we should be inclined to attribute this poem to an earlier date.
Erewhile of music, and ethereal mirth,
Wherewith the stage of Air and Earth did ring,
And joyous news of heavenly Infant's birth,
My muse with Angels did divide to sing;
But headlong joy is ever on the wing,
In wintry solstice like the shortened light
Soon swallowed up in dark and long outliving night.
For now to sorrow must I tune my song,
And set my Harp to notes of saddest woe,
Which on our dearest Lord did seize ere long, 10
Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse than so,
Which he for us did freely undergo:
Most perfect Hero, tried in heaviest plight
Of labours huge and hard, too hard for human wight!
