The Mind
Blessed is the Man that doth meditate honest things by Wisedome. Ecclus. 14. 21
From Wittes Pilgrimage (1605)
DId Wisedome write, or speake the world to please
Shee were not wisedom in a pleasing Sence:
Then who doth please with any one of these
Doth please vnwísely, but the World, or Sence.
Then áre they worldly wise, or sensual
That doe soe write òr speake; but none of those
Can be in them whose words can sweeten Gall
Which Sweets do rest where sweetest Soules repose.
And they repose but in the Sweet of Sweets
[God only wise] or Bodies of the Blest:
In whom true Wisedome, Grace and Nature meets,
Whose gracefull Words are naturally exprest.
If Words inchaunt the Sense, and not the Soule
That Charme of Words coniures no holy Spright:
For, Such, such Words (not Such, such Words) controules
Soule-pleasing Words must, then, bee rare, and right.
Yet though a Sonnet bee as right, as rare
For Number, Measure, Waight, or Noucl .
Yet, if it sounds so, but to Senses Eare,
The Soule, as harshe, doth hold that Hermonie.
Then all our Straines that relishe double Loue,
(Sweet double-Relishe, worthie treble praise)
To Soule, and Bodie) Soule and Body moue.
(With ioy) to listen, as to Angells Lies!
These bee the Aires that gett the Aire of Fame,
[Of Fame whose Aire, diuinely is refinde]
That feeds, with purest praise immrt all Name;
Fitting the nature, of each mightie Minde.
And, they are only mightie that disdaine,
All that, that disagrees with Mightinesse:
As is light Loue, fraile Fancies, Shadowes vaine,
Weake Witt, base Blisse, Worlds weale, or Wretchednes.
Then [as to Nature curst, but kind to Grace]
I herehaue made a Rodd my selfe to beate,
Whose highest reach in Straines of Loue, is base,
Sith Lightnesse incasures them with heauie Feete.
Yet if this Lightnesse heauy make the Light
In Summing vp my Numbers totall Summe,
I hope the weight thereof. will bee of weight
Their Lightnesse [if it rise] to ouercome:
For, they are too Light that in Those but waigh
What Lusters. not what Louers ought to say.
Cite this poem
MLA
Hereford, John Davies of. “Blessed is the Man that doth meditate honest things by Wisedome. Ecclus. 14. 21.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/davies_jh/261/.
Chicago
Hereford, John Davies of. “Blessed is the Man that doth meditate honest things by Wisedome. Ecclus. 14. 21.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/davies_jh/261/.
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