Christ's Victory on Earth

There, all alone, she spied, alas the while!
In shady darkness, a poor desolate,
That now had measur'd many a weary mile,
Through a waste desert, whither heavenly fate
And His own will Him brought; He praying sate,
And Him to prey, as He to pray began,
The citizens of the wild forest ran,
And all with open throat would swallow whole the Man,

Soon did the lady to her graces cry,
And on their wings herself did nimbly strow,
After her coach a thousand loves did fly,
So down into the wilderness they throw;
Where she, and all her train that with her flow
Thorough the airy wave, with sails so gay,
Sinking into His breast that weary lay,
Made shipwreck of themselves, and vanished quite away.

Seemed that Man had them devoured all,
Whom to devour the beasts had made pretence;
But Him their savage thirst did naught appal,
Though weapons none He had for His defence:
What arms for Innocence, but innocence?
For when they saw their Lord's bright cognizance
Shine in His face, soon did they disadvance,
And some unto Him kneel, and some about Him dance.

Down fell the lordly lion's angry mood,
And he himself fell down in congees low,
Bidding Him welcome to his wasteful wood;
Sometime he kissed the grass where He did go,
And, as to wash His feet he well did know,
With fawning tongue he licked away the dust;
And every one would nearest to Him thrust,
And every one, with new, forgot his former lust.

Unmindful of himself, to mind his Lord,
The lamb stood gazing by the tiger's side,
As though between them they had made accord, —
And on the lion's back the goat did ride,
Forgetful of the roughness of the hide:
If He stood still, their eyes upon Him baited,
If walked, they all in order on Him waited,
And when He slept, they as His watch themselves conceited.

Wonder doth call me up to see — (O no,
I cannot see, and therefore sink in wonder)
The Man, that shines as bright as God, — not so,
For God He is Himself, that close lies under
That Man, — so close, that no time can dissunder
That band; yet not so close, but from Him break
Such beams, as mortal eyes are all too weak
Such sight to see, — or it, if they should see, to speak.

Upon a grassy hillock he was laid,
With woody primroses befreckled,
Over His head the wanton shadows played
Of a wild olive, that her boughs so spread,
As with her leaves she seemed to crown His head,
And her green arms to embrace the Prince of Peace;
The Sun so near, needs must the winter cease —
The Sun so near, another spring seemed to increase.

His hair was black, and in small curls did twine,
As though it were the shadow of some light;
And, underneath, His face, as day, did shine —
But sure the day shined not half so bright,
Nor the sun's shadow made so dark a night.
Under His lovely locks, her head to shroud,
Did make Humility herself grow proud: —
Hither, to light their lamps, did all the graces crowd.

One of ten thousand souls I am, and more,
That of His eyes, and their sweet wounds, complain:
Sweet are the wounds of love — never so sore —
Ah! might He often slay me so again!
He never lives that thus is never slain.
What boots it watch? those eyes, for all my art,
Mine own eyes looking on, have stole my heart:
In them love bends his bow, and dips his burning dart.

As when the sun, caught in an adverse cloud,
Flies 'cross the world, and there anew begets
The watery picture of his beauty proud,
Throws all abroad his sparkling spangelets,
And the whole world in dire amazement sets,
To see two days abroad at once, and all
Doubt whether now he rise, or now will fall:
So flamed the godly flesh, proud of his heavenly thrall.

His cheeks as snowy apples sopped in wine,
Had their red roses quenched with lilies white,
And like to garden strawberries did shine,
Washed in a bowl of milk, or rose-buds bright
Unbosoming their breasts against the light:
Here love-sick souls did eat, there drank, and made
Sweet-smelling posies, that could never fade, —
But worldly eyes Him thought more like some living shade.

For laughter never looked upon His brow,
Though in His face all smiling joys did bide;
No silken banners did about Him flow, —
Fools make their fetters ensigns of their pride:
He was best clothed when naked was His side.
A Lamb He was, and woollen fleece He bore,
Wove with one thread; His feet low sandals wore;
But bared were His legs, — so went the times of yore.

As two white marble pillars that uphold
God's holy place, where He in glory sits,
And rise with goodly grace and courage bold,
To bear His temple on their ample jets,
Veined every where with azure rivulets,
Whom all the people on some holy morn,
With boughs and flowery garlands do adorn, —
Of such, though fairer far, this temple was upborne.

Twice had Diana bent her golden bow,
And shot from heaven her silver shafts, to rouse
The sluggish savages, that den below,
And all the day in lazy covert drowse,
Since Him the silent wilderness did house:
The heaven His roof and arbour harbour was,
The ground His bed, and His moist pillow grass;
But fruit there none did grow, nor rivers none did pass.

At length an aged sire far off he saw
Come slowly footing; every step he guessed,
One of his feet he from the grave did draw;
Three legs he had — the wooden was the best;
And all the way he went, he ever blest
With benedicites, and prayers store,
But the bad ground was blessed ne'er the more;
And all his head with snow of age was waxen hoar.

A good old hermit he might seem to be,
That for devotion had the world forsaken,
And now was travelling some saint to see,
Since to his beads he had himself betaken,
Where all his former sins he might awaken,
And them might wash away with dropping brine,
And alms, and fasts, and church's discipline;
And dead, might rest his bones under the holy shrine.

But when he nearer came, he louted low
With prone obeisance, and with curtsey kind,
That at His feet his head he seemed to throw; —
What needs him now another saint to find?
Affections are the sails, and faith the wind,
That to this Saint a thousand souls convey
Each hour: O happy pilgrims thither stray!
What caren they for beasts, or for the weary way?

Soon the old palmer his devotions sung,
Like pleasing anthems, moduled in time;
For well that aged sire could tip his tongue
With golden foil of eloquence, and lime
And lick his rugged speech with phrases prime.
"Ah me! (quoth he) how many years have been,
Since these old eyes the sun of heaven have seen!
Certes the Son of Heaven they now behold I ween.

"Ah, mote my humble cell so blessed be,
As Heaven to welcome in his lowly roof,
And be the temple for Thy Deity!
Lo, how my cottage worships Thee aloof,
That underground hath hid his head, in proof
It doth adore Thee with the ceiling low, —
Here honey, milk, and chesnuts wild do grow,
The boughs a bed of leaves upon Thee shall bestow.

"But, oh! (he said, and therewith sighed full deep)
The heavens, alas! too envious are grown,
Because our fields Thy presence from them keep;
For stones do grow where corn was lately sown:
(So stooping down, he gathered up a stone:)
But Thou with corn canst make this stone to ear.
What needen we the angry heavens to fear?
Let them envy us still, so we enjoy Thee here."

Thus on they wandered: but those holy weeds
A monstrous serpent, and no man did cover:
So under greenest herbs the adder feeds;
And round about that stinking corpse did hover
The dismal prince of gloomy night, and over
His ever damned head the shadows erred
Of thousand peccant ghosts, unseen, unheard.
And all the tyrant fears — and all the tyrant feared.

He was the son of blackest Acheron,
Where many frozen souls do chattering lie,
And ruled the burning waves of Phlegethon,
Where many more in flaming sulphur fry,
At once compelled to live and forced to die;
Where nothing can be heard for the loud cry,
Of "Oh!" and "Ah!" and Out alas! that I
Or once again might live, or once at length might die!

Ere long they came near to a baleful bower.
Much like the mouth of that infernal cave,
That gaping stood all comers to devour,
"Dark, doleful, dreary — like a dreary grave,
That still for carrion carcasses doth crave":
The ground no herbs, but venomous, did bear.
Nor ragged trees did leaf, but everywhere
Dead bones and skulls were cast, and bodies hanged were.

Upon the roof the bird of sorrow sat
Elonging joyful day with her sad note,
And through the shady air, the fluttering bat
Did wave her leather sails, and blindly float,
While with her wings the fatal screech-owl smote
The unblessed house; there, on a craggy stone,
Celaeno hung, and made his direful moan,
And all about the murdered ghosts did shriek and groan.

Like cloudy moonshine, in some shadowy grove,
Such was the light in which Despair did dwell;
But he himself with night for darkness strove.
His black uncombed locks dishevelled fell
About his face, through which, as brands of hell,
Sunk in his skull, his staring eyes did glow,
That made him deadly look; their glimpse did show
Like cockatrice's eyes, that sparks of poison throw.

His clothes were ragged clouts, with thorns pinned fast;
And, as he musing lay, to stony fright
A thousand wild chimeras would him cast:
As when a fearful dream, in midst of night,
Skips to the brain, and fancies to the sight
Some winged fury, straight the hasty foot,
Eager to fly, cannot pluck up his root,
The voice dies in the tongue, and mouth gapes without boot.

Now he would dream that he from heaven fell,
And then would snatch the air, afraid to fall;
And now he thought he sinking was to hell,
And then would grasp the earth; and now his stall
Him seemed hell, and then he out would crawl;
And ever, as he crept, would squint aside,
Lest him, perhaps, some fury had espied,
And then, alas! he should in chains for ever bide.

Therefore he softly shrunk, and stole away,
Ne ever durst to draw his breath for fear,
Till to the door he came, and there he lay
Panting for breath, as though he dying were;
And still he thought he felt their crapples tear
Him by the heels back to his ugly den:
Out fain he would have leapt abroad, but then
The heaven, as hell, he feared, that punish guilty men.

Within the gloomy hole of this pale wight
The serpent wooed Him with his charms to inn;
There He might bait the day, and rest the night;
But under that same bait a fearful grin
Was ready to entangle Him in sin.
But He upon ambrosia daily fed,
That grew in Eden — thus he answered:
So both away were caught, and to the Temple fled.

Well knew our Saviour this the serpent was,
And the old serpent knew our Saviour well;
Never did any this in falsehood pass.
Never did any Him in truth excel:
With Him we fly to heaven, from heaven we fell
With him: but now they both together met
Upon the sacred pinnacles, that threat,
With their aspiring tops, Astraea's starry seat.

Here did Presumption her pavilion spread
Over the Temple, the bright stars among,
(Ah! that her foot should trample on the head
Of that most reverend place!) and a lewd throng
Of wanton boys sung her a pleasant song
Of love, long life, of mercy, and of grace;
And every one her dearly did embrace,
And she herself enamoured was of her own face—

A painted face, belied with vermeil store,
Which light Euelpis every day did trim,
That in one hand a gilded anchor wore,
Not fixed on the rock, but on the brim
Of the wide air, she let it loosely swing,
Her other hand a sprinkle carried,
And ever, when her lady wavered,
Court holy-water all upon her sprinkled.

Poor fool! she thought herself in wondrous price
With God, as if in paradise she were;
But, were she not in a fool's paradise,
She might have seen more reason to despair:
But Him she, like some ghastly fiend, did fear;
And therefore, as that wretch hewed out his cell
Under the bowels, in the heart of hell,
So she above the moon, amid the stars would dwell.

Her tent with sunny clouds was ceiled aloft,
And so exceeding shone with a false light,
That heaven itself to her it seemed oft,
Heaven without clouds to her deluded sight;
But clouds withouten heaven it was aright;
And as her house was built, so did her brain
Build castles in the air, with idle pain,
But heart she never had in all her body vain.

Like as a ship, in which no balance lies,
Without a pilot, on the sleeping waves,
Fairly along with wind and water flies,
And painted masts with silken sails embraves,
That Neptune's self the bragging vessel saves,
To laugh awhile at her so proud array;
Her waving streamers loosely she lets play,
And flagging colours shine as bright as smiling day:

But all so soon as Heaven his brows doth bend,
She veils her banners, and pulls in her beams,
The empty bark the raging billows send
Up to the Olympic waves, and Argus seems
Again to ride upon our lower streams:
Right so Presumption did herself behave,
Tossed about with every stormy wave,
And in white lawn she went, most like an angel brave.

Gently our Saviour she began to shrive,
Whether He were the Son of God, or no;
For any other she disdained to wive:
And if He were, she bid Him fearless throw
Himself to ground; and therewithal did show
A flight of little angels, that did wait,
Upon their glittering wings to latch Him straight,
And longed on their backs to feel His glorious weight.

But when she saw her speech prevailed naught,
Herself she tumbled headlong to the floor:
But Him the angels on their feathers caught,
And to an airy mountain nimbly bore,
Whose snowy shoulders, like some chalky shore,
Restless Olympus seemed to rest upon,
With all his swimming globes: so both are gone,
The dragon with the Lamb — Ah! unmeet paragon!

All suddenly the hill his snow devours,
In lieu whereof a goodly garden grew;
As if the snow had melted into flowers,
Which their sweet breath in subtle vapours threw,
That all about perfumed spirits flew:
For whatsoever might aggrate the sense,
In all the world, or please the appetence,
Here it was poured out in lavish affluence.

Not lovely Ida might with this compare,
Though many streams his banks besilvered,
Though Xanthus with his golden sands he bare;
Nor Hybla, though his thyme, depastured,
As fast again with honey blossomed;
Ne Rhodope, ne Tempe's flowery plain:
Adonis' garden was to this but vain,
Though Plato on his beds a flood of praise did rain.

For in all these, some one thing most did grow,
But in this one grew all things else beside;
For sweet variety herself did throw
To every bank: here all the ground she dyed
In lily white; there pinks eblazed wide,
And damasked all the earth; and here she shed
Blue violets, and there came roses red;
And every sight the yielding sense as captive led.

The garden like a lady fair was cut,
That lay as if she slumbered in delight,
And to the open skies her eyes did shut
The azure fields of heaven were 'sembled right
In a large round, set with the flowers of light
The flowers-de-luce, and the round sparks of dew,
That hung upon their azure leaves, did shew
Like twinkling stars, that sparkle in the evening blue.

Upon a hilly bank her head she cast,
On which the bower of Vain-delight was built;
White and red roses for her face were placed,
And for her tresses marigolds were spilt:
Them broadly she display'd, like flaming gilt,
Till in the ocean the glad day were drowned;
Then up again her yellow locks she wound,
And with green fillets in their pretty cauls them bound.

What should I here depaint her lily hand,
Her veins of violets, her ermine breast,
Which there in orient colours living stand;
Or how her gown with silken leaves is dressed;
Or how her watchman, armed with boughy crest,
A wall of prim hid in his bushes bears,
Shaking at every wind their leavie spears,
While she supinely sleeps, nor to be waked fears?

Over the hedge depends the graping elm,
Whose greener head, empurpled in wine,
Seemed to wonder at his bloody helm,
And half suspect the bunches of the vine;
Lest they, perhaps, his wit should undermine.
For well he knew such fruit he never bore:
But her weak arms embraced him the more,
And with her ruby grapes laughed at her paramour.

Under the shadow of these drunken elms
A fountain rose, where Pangloretta uses
(When her some flood of fancy overwhelms
And one of all her favourites she chooses)
To bathe herself, whom she in lust abuses
And from his wanton body sucks his soul
Which, drowned in pleasure, in that shaly bowl
And swimming in delight doth amorously roll.

The font of silver was, and so his showers
In silver fell, only the gilded bowls
(Like to a furnace, that the mineral pours)
Seemed to have molt it in their shining holes;
And on the water, like to burning coals,
On liquid silver, leaves of roses lay:
But when Panglory here did list to play,
Rose-water then it ran, and milk it rained, they say.

The roof thick clouds did paint, from which three boys
Three gaping mermaids with their ewers did feed,
Whose breasts let fall the stream, with sleepy noise,
To lions' mouths, from whence it leapt with speed,
And in the rosy laver seemed to bleed.
The naked boys unto the waters' fall,
Their stony nightingales had taught to call,
When Zephyr breathed into their watery enterall.

And all about, embayed in soft sleep,
A herd of charmed beasts aground were spread,
Which the fair witch in golden chains did keep,
And them in willing bondage fettered;
Once men they lived, but now the men were dead
And turned to beasts, — so fabled Homer old,
That Circe, with her potion, charmed in gold,
Used manly souls in beastly bodies to immould.

Through this false Eden, to his leman's bower,
(Whom thousand souls devoutly idolize)
Our first destroyer led our Saviour:
There in the lower room, in solemn wise,
They danced around, and poured their sacrifice
To plump Lyaeus, and, among the rest,
The jolly priest, in ivy garlands drest,
Chanted wild orgials, in honour of the feast.

Others within their arbours swilling sat,
(For all the room about was arboured),
With laughing Bacchus, that was grown so fat,
That stand he could not, but was carried,
And every evening freshly watered,
To quench his fiery cheeks, and all about
Small cocks broke through the wall and sallied out
Flagons of wine to set on fire that spewing rout.

This their inhumed souls esteemed their wealths.
To crown the boozing can from day to night,
And seek to drink themselves, with drinking healths,
Some vomiting, all drunken with delight,
Hence to a loft, carved all in ivory white,
They came, where whiter ladies naked went,
Melted in pleasure and soft languishment,
And sunk in beds of roses, amorous glances sent.

Fly, fly, Thou Holy Child, that wanton room,
And thou, my chaster muse, those harlots shun,
And with Him to a higher story come,
Where mounts of gold, and floods of silver run,
The while the owners, with their wealth undone,
Starve in their store, and in their plenty pine,
Tumbling themselves upon their heaps of mine,
Glutting their famished souls with the deceitful shine.

Ah! who was he such precious perils found?
How strongly nature did her treasures hide,
And threw upon them mountains of thick ground,
To dark their ory lustre! but quaint pride
Hath taught her sons to wound their mother's side,
And gauge the depth to search for flaming shells,
In whose bright bosom spumy Bacchus swells,
That neither heaven nor earth henceforth in safety dwells.

O sacred hunger of the greedy eye,
Whose need hath end, but no end covetise;
Empty in fulness, rich in poverty,
That having all things, nothing can suffice,
How thou befanciest the men most wise!
The poor man would be rich, the rich man great,
The great man king, the king, in God's own seat
Enthroned with mortal arm dares flames and thunder threat.

Therefore above the rest Ambition sate,
His court with glittering pearl was all inwalled,
And round about the wall, in chairs of state,
And most majestic splendour were installed
A hundred kings, whose temples were impalled
In golden diadems, set here and there
With diamonds, and gemmed everywhere,
And of their golden virges none desceptred were.

High over all, Panglory's blazing throne,
In her bright turret, all of crystal wrought,
Like Phoebus' lamp, in midst of heaven, shone;
Whose starry top, with pride infernal fraught,
Self-arching columns to uphold were taught,
In which her image still reflected was
By the smooth crystal, that most like her glass,
In beauty and in frailty did all others pass.

A silver wand the sorceress did sway,
And, for a crown of gold, her hair she wore;
Only a garland of rose-buds did play
About her locks, and in her hand she bore
A hollow globe of glass, that long before
She full of emptiness had bladdered,
And all the world therein depictured,
Whose colours, like the rainbow, ever vanished.

Such watery orbicles young boys do blow
Out from their soapy shells, and much admire
The swimming world, which tenderly they row
With easy breath till it be waved higher:
But if they chance but roughly once aspire,
The painted bubble instantly doth fall.
Here when He came, she 'gan for music call,
And sung this wooing song, to welcome Him withal

"Love is the blossom where there blows
Every thing that lives or grows:
Love doth make the heavens to move,
And the sun doth burn in love:
Love the strong and weak doth yoke,
And makes the ivy climb the oak;
Under whose shadows lions wild,
Softened by love, grow tame and mild.
Love no medicine can appease,
He burns the fishes in the seas;
Not all the skill his wounds can stench,
Not all the sea his fire can quench:
Love did make the bloody spear
Once a leavie coat to wear,
While in his leaves there shrouded lay
Sweet birds, for love, that sing and play:
And of all love's joyful flame,
I the bud and blossom am.
Only bend Thy knee to me,
Thy wooing shall Thy winning be.

"See, see the flowers that, below,
Now as fresh as morning blow;
And of all, the virgin rose,
That as bright Aurora shows:
How they all unleaved die,
Losing their virginity;
Like unto a summer shade,
But now born, and now they fade.
Every thing doth pass away,
There is danger in delay:
Come, come gather then the rose,
Gather it, or it you lose.
All the sand of Tagus' shore
Into my bosom casts his ore:
All the valleys' swimming corn
To my house is yearly borne:
Every grape of every vine
Is gladly bruised to make me wine,
While ten thousand kings, as proud
To carry up my train, have bowed,
And a world of ladies send me
In my chambers to attend me:

"All the stars in heaven that shine,
And ten thousand more are mine.
Only bend Thy knee to me,
Thy wooing shall Thy winning be."

Thus sought the dire enchantress in His mind
Her guileful bait to have embosomed;
But He her charms dispersed into wind,
And her of insolence admonished,
And all her optic glasses shattered.
So with her sire to hell she took her flight,
(The starting air flew from the damned sprite,)
Where deeply both aggrieved, plunged themselves in night.

But to their Lord, now musing in his thought,
A heavenly volley of light angels flew,
And from His Father Him a banquet brought,
Through the fine element; for well they knew,
After his Lenten fast, He hungry grew;
And, as He fed, the holy choirs combine
To sing a hymn of the celestial Trine;
All thought to pass, and each was past all thought divine.

The birds sweet notes, to sonnet out their joys,
Attempered to the lays angelical;
And to the birds the winds attune their noise;
And to the winds the waters hoarsely call,
And Echo back again revoked all;
That the whole valley rung with victory.
But now our Lord to rest doth homeward fly:
See how the night comes stealing from the mountains high!