The Second Week, First Day, Part IV: The Handi-Crafts

THE ARGUMENT.

The Prayse of Peace, the miserable states
Of Edens Exiles: their vn-curious Cates,
Their simple habit, silly habitation:
They finde out Fire. Their formost Propagation:
Their Childrens trades, their offerings; enuious Cain
His (better) Brother doth vnkindly brain:
With inward horror hurried vp and down,
He breaks a Horse, he builds a homely Town:
Iron's inuented, and sweet Instruments:
Adam fore-tells of After-Worlds euents.

HEavn's sacred Imp, fair Goddess that renew'st
Th' old golden Age, and brightly now re-blew'st
Our cloudy sky, making our fields to smile:
Hope of the vertuous, horror of the vile:
Virgin, vnseen in France this many a yeer,
O blessed Peace! we bid thee welcom heer.

Lo, at thy presence, how who late were prest
To spur their Steeds, & couch their staues in rest
For fierce incounter; cast away their spears,
And rapt with ioy, them enter-bathe with tears.
Lo, how our Marchant-vessels to and fro
Freely about our trade-full Waters go:
How the graue Senate with iust-gentle rigour,
Resumes his Robe; the Laws their ancient vigour:
Lo, how Obliuions Seas our strifes do drown:
How walls are built that war had thundred down:
Lo, how the Shops with busie Crafts-men swarm;
How Sheep and Cattle cover every Farm:
Behold the Bon-fires waving to the skies:
Hark, hark the cheerfull and re-chaunting cries
Of old and young; singing this ioyfull Dittie,
Iö, reioyce, reioyce through Town and Citie,
Let all our ayr, re-eccho with the praises
Of th' everlasting glorious God, who raises
Our ruin'd State: who giueth vs a good
We sought not for (or rather, we with-stood)
So that, to hear and see these consequences
Of wonders strange, we scarce beleeue our senses.
O! let the King, let Mounsieur and the Sover'n
That doth Nauarras Spayn-wrongd Scepter govern,
Be all, by all, their Countries Fathers cleapt:
O! let the honour of their names be kept,
And on brass leaves ingrav'n eternally
In the bright Temple of fair Memory,
For hauing quencht, so soon, so many fires,
Disarm'd our arms, appeas'd the heav'nly ires,
Calm'd the pale horror of intestin hates,
And damned-vp the bi-front Fathers gates.

Much more, let vs (deer, World-diuided Land)
Extoll the mercies of Heav'ns mighty hand,
That (while the World, Wars bloody rage hath rent)
To vs so long, so happy Peace hath lent.
(Maugre the malice of th' Italian Priest,
And Indian Pluto (prop of Anti-christ;
Whose Hoast, like Pharao's threatning Israel,
Our gaping Seas haue swallowed quick to hell)
Making our Ile a holy Safe-Retreat
For Saints exil'd in persecutions heat.

Much more, let vs with true-heart-tuned breath,
Recorde the Praises of ELIZABETH
(Our martiall Pallas and our milde Astraea,
Of grace and wisdom the divine Idea)
Whose prudent Rule, with rich religious Rest,
Wel-neer nine Lustres hath this Kingdom blest.
O! pray we him that from home-plotted dangers
And bloody threats of proud ambitious Strangers,
So many years hath so securely kept her,
In iust possession of this flowring Scepter;
That (to his glory and his deer Sonns honour)
All happy length of life may wait vppon her:
That we her Subiects, whom he blesseth by-her,
Psalming his praise, may sound the same the higher.

But, waiting (Lord) in som more learned Laies,
To sing thy glory, and my Soueraigns praise;
I sing the young Worlds Cradle, as a Proëm
Vnto so rare and so Divine a Poëm.

WHO, FVL OF wealth and honours blandishment,
Among great Lords his younger years hath spent;
And quaffing deeply of the Court-delights,
Vs'd nought but Tilts, Turneis, and Masks, and Sights:
If in his age, his Princes angry doom
With deep disgrace driue him to liue at home
In homely Cottage, where continually
The bitter smoak exhales abundantly
From his before-vn-sorrow-drained brain:
The brackish vapours of a siluer rain:
Where Vsher-less, both day and night, the North,
South, East, and West windes, enter and goe forth:
Where round-about, the lowe-rooft broken walls
(In stead of Arras) hang with Spiders cauls:
Where all at once he reacheth, as he stands,
With brows the roof, both walls with both his hands:
He weeps and sighs, and (shunning comforts ay)
Wisheth pale Death a thousand times a day:
And, yet at length falling to work, is glad
To bite a brown crust that the Mouse hath had,
And in a Dish (instead of Plate or Glass)
Sups Oaten drink in stead of Hypocras.
So (or much like) our rebell Elders, driuen
For ay from Eden (Earthly type of Heav'n)
Ly languishing neer Tigris grassie side,
With nummed limbs, and spirits stupefied.

But powrfull NEED (Arts antient Dame and Keeper,
The early watch-clock of the sloathfull sleeper)
Among the Mountains makes them seek their liuing,
And foaming Riuers, through the champain driuing:
For yet the Trees with thousand fruits y-fraught
In formall Checkers were not fairly brought:
The Pear and Apple liued Dwarf-like there,
With Oakes and Ashes shadowed euery-where:
And yet (al as!) their meanest simple cheer
Our wretched Parents bought full hard and deer:
To get a Plum, somtimes poor Adam rushes
With thousand wounds among a thousand bushes.
If they desire a Medlar for their food,
They must goe seek it through a fearefull wood;
Or a brown Mulbery, then the ragged Bramble
With thousand scratches doth their skin be-scramble.

Wherefore (as yet) more led by th' appetite
Of th' hungry belly then the tastes delight,
Liuing from hand to mouth, soon satisfi'd,
To earn their supper, th' after noon they ply'd,
Vn-stor'd of dinner till the morrow-day;
Pleas'd with an Apple, or som lesser pray.
Then, taught by Ver (richer in flowrs then fruit)
And hoary Winter, of both destitute,
Nuts, Filberds, Almonds, wisely vp they hoord,
The best prouisions that the woods affoord.

Touching their garments: for the shining wooll
Whence the roab-spinning precious Worms are full,
For gold and siluer wov'n in drapery,
For Cloth dipt double in the scarlet Dy,
For Gemms brightlustre, with excessiue cost
On rich embroideries by rare Art embost:
Somtimes they do the far-spred Gourd vnleave,
Sometime the Fig-tree of his branch bereave:
Somtimes the Plane, somtimes the Vine they shear,
Choosing their fairest tresses heer and there:
And with their sundry locks, thorn'd each to other,
Their tender limbs they hide from Cynthias Brother.

Somtimes the Iuie's climing stems they strip,
Which lovingly his lively prop doth clip:
And with green lace, in artificiall order,
The wrinkled bark of th' Acorn-Tree doth border,
And with his arms th' Oaks slender twigs entwining.
A many branches in one tissue ioyning,
Frames a loose Iacquet, whose light nimble quaking,
Wagg'd by the windes, is like the wanton shaking
Of golden spangles that in stately pride
Daunce on the tresses of a noble Bride.

But, while that Adam (waxen diligent)
Wearies his limbs for mutuall nourishment:
While craggy Mountains, Rocks, and thorny Plains,
And bristly Woods be witness of his pains:
Eue, walking forth about the Forrests, gathers
Speights, Parrots, Peacocks, Estrich scattered feathers,
And then with wax the smaller plumes she sears,
And sowes the greater with a white horse hairs,
(For they as yet did serue her in the steed
Of Hemp, and Towe, and Flax, and Silk, and Threed)
And thereof makes a medly coatso rare
That it resembles Nature's Mantle fair,
When in the Sunne, in pomp all glistering,
She seems with smiles to woo the gawdie Spring.

When (by stoln moments) this she had contriv'd,
Leaping for ioy, her cheerfull looks reviv'd,
Sh' admires her cunning; and incontinent
'Sayes on herself her manly ornament;
And then through path-less paths she runs apace,
To meet her husband comming from the Chase.

Sweet-heart (quoth shee, and then she kisseth him)
My Loue, my Life, my Blisse, my Ioy, my Gemm,
My souls deer Soule, take in good part (I pree-thee)
This pretty Present that I gladly giue-thee.
Thanks my deer All (quoth Adam then) for this,
And with three kisses he requites her kiss.
Then on he puts his painted garment new,
And Peacock-like himself doth often view,
Looks on his shadow, and in proud amaze
Admires the hand that had the Art to cause
So many seuerall parts to meet in one,
To fashion thus the quaint Mandilion.

But, when the Winters keener breath began
To crystallize the Baltike Ocean,
To glaze the Lakes, and bridle-vp the Floods,
And perriwig with wooll the bald-pate Woods;
Our Grand-sire, shrinking, 'gan to shake and shiver,
His teeth to chatter, and his beard to quiuer.
Spying therefore a flock of Muttons comming
(Whose freez-clad bodies feel not Winters numming)
He takes the fairest, and he knocks it down:
Then by good hap, finding vpon the Down
A sharp great fish-bone (which long time before
The roaring Flood had cast vpon the shore)
He cuts the throat, flayes it, and spreads the fell,
Then dries it, pares it, and he scrapes it well,
Then cloaths his wife therwith; and of such Hides
Slops, Hats, and Doublets for himself prouides.

A vaulted Rock, a hollow Tree, a Caue,
Were the first buildings that them shelter gaue:
But, finding th' one to bee too-moist a hold,
Th' other too-narrow, th' other ouer-cold;
Like Carpenters, within a Wood they choose
Sixteen fair Trees that neuer leaues doe loose,
Whose equall front in quadran form prospected,
As if of purpose Nature them erected:
Their shady boughs first bow they tenderly,
Then enterbraid, and binde them curiously;
That one would think that had this Arbor seen,
'T had been true seeling painted-ouer green.

After this triall, better yet to fense
Their tender flesh from th' ayry violence,
Vpon the top of their fit-forked stems,
They lay a-crosse bare Oaken boughs for beams
(Such as dispersed in the Woods they finde,
Torn-off in tempests by the stormy winde)
Then these again with leauy boughes they load,
So couering close their sorry cold abode,
And then they ply frō th' eau•s vnto the ground,
With mud-mixt Reed to wal their Mansion round
All saue a hole to th' East-ward situate,
Where straight they clap a hurdle for a gate
(Instead of hinges hanged on a With)
Which with a sleight both shuts and openeth.

Yet fire they lackt: but lo, the windes, that whistle
Amid the Groues, so oft the Laurell iustle
Against the Mulbery, that their angry claps
Do kindle fire, that burns the neighbour Cops.

When Adam saw a ruddy vapour rise
In glowing streams; astund with fear he flies,
It follows him, vntil a naked Plain
The greedy furie of the flame restrain:
Then back he turns, and comming somwhat nigher
The kindled shrubs, perceiuing that the fire
Dries his dank Cloaths, his Colour doth refresh,
And vnbenums his sinews and his flesh;
By th' vnburntend a good big brand he takes,
And hying home, a fire he quickly makes,
And still maintains it, till the starry Twins
Celestiall breath another fire begins.
But, Winter being comn again it griev'd him,
T' have lost so fondly what so much reliev'd him,
Trying a thousand waies, sith now no more
The iustling Trees his domage would restore.

While (else-where musing) one day he sate down
Vpon a steep Rocks craggy-forked crown,
A foaming beast come toward him he spies,
Within whose head stood burning coals for eys;
Then suddainly with boisterous arm he throwes
A knobbie flint that hummeth as it goes;
Hence flies the beast, th' il-aimed flint-shaft grounding
Against the Rock, and on it oftre bounding,
Shivers to cinders, whence there issued
Small sparks of fire no sooner born then dead.

This happy chance made Adam leap for glee,
And quickly calling his cold company,
In his left hand a shining flint he locks,
Which with another in his right he knocks
So vp and down, that from the coldest stone
At euery stroak small fiery sparkles shone.
Then with the dry leaves of a withered Bay
The which together handsomly they lay,
They take the falling fire, which like a Sun
Shines cleer and smoak-less in the leaf begun.

Eue, kneeling down, with hand her head sustaining,
And on the lowe ground with her elbowe leaning,
Blowes with her mouth: and with her gentle blowing
Stirs vp the heat, that from the dry leaves glowing,
Kindles the Reed, and then that hollow kix
First fires the small, and they the greater sticks.

And now, Man-kinde with fruitfull Race began
A little corner of the World to man:
First Cain is born, to tillage all addicted;
Then Abel, most to keeping flocks affected.
Abel, desirous still at hand to keep
His Milk and Cheese, vnwildes the gentle Sheep
To make a Flock; that when it tame became
For guard and guide should haue a Dog and Ram.
Cain more ambitious, giues but little ease
To's boysterous limbs: and seeing that the Pease,
And other Pulse, Beans, Lentils, Lupins, Rice,
Burnt in the Copses, as not held in price,
Som grains he gathers: and with busie toyl,
A-part hee sowes them in a better soyl,
Which first he rids of stones, and thorns, and weeds,
Then buries there his dying-liuing seeds.

By the next Haruest, finding that his pain
On this small plot was not in grately-vain;
To break more ground, that bigger Crop may bring
Without so often weary labouring,
He tames a Heifer, and on either side,
On either horn a three-fold twist he ti'd
Of Osiar twigs, and for a Plough he got
The horn or Tooth of som Rhinocerot.

Now, th' one in Cattle, th' other rich in grain,
On two steep Mountains build they Altars twain;
Where (humbly-sacred) th' one with zealous cry
Cleaues bright Olympus starry Canopy:
With fained lips, the other low'd-resounded
Hart-wanting Hymns, on self-deseruing founded:
Each on his Altar offreth to the Lord
The best that eithers flocks, or fields affoord.

Rein-searching God, thought-sounding Iudge, that tries
The will and heart more then the worke and guise,
Accepts good Abels gift: but hates the other
Profane oblation of his furious Brother;
Who feeling, deep th' effects of Gods displeasure,
Raues, frets, and fumes, and murmurs out of measure.

What boots it (Cain) O wretch! what boots it thee
T' haue opened first the fruitfull womb (quoth he)
Of the first mother; and first born, the rather
T' haue honour'd Adam first, with name of Father?
Vnfortunate, what boots thee to be wealthy,
Wise, actiue, valiant, strongly-limb'd, and healthy,
If this weake Girl-boy, in mans shape disguis'd,
To Heav'n and Earth be dear, and thou despis'd?
What boots it thee, for others night and day,
In painfull toyl to wear thy self away:
And (more for others then thine own relief)
To haue deuised of all Arts the chief;
If this dull Infant, of thy labour nurst
Shall reap the glory of thy deeds (accurst)?
Nay, rather quickly rid thee of the fool,
Down with his climbing hill, and timely cool
This kindling flame: and, that none ouer-crowe thee,
Re-seise the right that Birth and Vertue owe-thee.

Ay in his minde this counsail he reuolues,
And hundred times to act it he resolues,
And yet as oft relents; stopt worthily
By the pains horror, and sins tyranny.

But, one day drawing with dissembled loue
His harm-less brother far into a Groue,
Vpon the verdure of whose virgin-boughs
Bird had not pearcht, nor neuer beast did brouz;
With both his hands he takes a stone so huge,
That in our age three men could hardly bouge,
And iust vpon his tender brothers crown,
With all his might he cruell casts it down.

The murdred face lies printed in the mud,
And lowd for vengeance cries the martyr'd blood,
The battered brains fly in the murd'rers face.
The Sun, to shun this Tragike sight, a-pace
Turns back his Teem: th' amazed Parrs•ide
Doth all the Furies scourging whips abide:
Externall terrors, and th' internall Worm
A thousand kindes of liuing deaths doe form:
All day he hides him, wanders all the night,
Flies his owne friends, of his owne shade affright,
Scarr'd with a leaf, and starting at a Sparrow,
And all the World seems for his fear too-narrow.

But for his Children, born by three and three,
Produce him Nephews, that still multiply
With new increase; who yer their age be rise
Becom great-Grand-sires in their Grand-sires life:
Staying at length, he chose him out a dwelling,
For woods and floods, and ayr, and soyl excelling.

One fels down Firs, another of the same
With crossed poles a little Lodge doth frame:
Another mounds it with dry walls about,
And leaues a breach for passage in and out:
With Turf and Furse: som others yet more grosse
Their homely Sties in stead of walls inclose:
Som (like the Swallow) mud and hay do mix,
And that about their silly Cotes they fix:
Som make their Roofs with fearn, or reeds, or rushes,
And som with hides, with oase, with boughs, and bushes.

Hee, that still fearfull, seeketh still defence,
Shortly this Hamlet to a Towne augments.
For, with keen Coultar hauing bounded (witty)
The four-faç't Rampire of his simple Citty;
With stones soon gathered on the neighbour strand,
And clayie morter ready there at hand.
Well trode and tempered, he immures his Fort,
A stately Towr erecting on the Port:
Which awes his owne, and threats his enemies;
Securing som-what his pale tyrannies.

O Tigre! think'st thou (hellish fratricide)
Because with stone-heaps thou art fortifi'd,
Prince of som Peasants trained in thy tillage,
And silly Kingling of a simple Village;
Think'st thou to scape the storm of vengeance dread,
That hangs already o'r thy hatefull head?
No: wert thou (wretch) incamped at thy will
On strongest top of any steepest Hill:
Wert thou immur'd in triple brazen Wall,
Hauing for aid all Creatures in this All:
If skin and heart, of steel and yron were,
Thy pain thou could'st not, less auoid thy fear
Which chils thy bones, and runs through all thy vains,
Racking thy soule with twenty thousand pains.

Kain (as they say) by this deep fear disturbed,
Then first of all th' vntamed Courser curbed,
That while about on others feet he run
With dusty speed, he might his Deaths-man shun.
Among a hundred braue, light, lusty, Horses
(With curious ey, marking their comly forces)
He chooseth one for his industrious proof,
With round, high, hollow, smooth, brown, ietty hoof,
With Pasterns short, vpright (but yet in mean);
Drie sinnewie shanks; strong, flesh-less knees, and lean;
With Hart-like legs, broad brest, and large behinde,
With body large, smooth flanks, and double-chin'd:
A crested neck bowd like a half-bent Bowe,
Whereon along, thin, curled mane doth flowe;
A firm full tail, touching the lowely ground
With dock between two fair fat buttocks drownd;
A pricked ear, that rests as little space,
As his light foot; a lean, bare, bony, face,
Thin joule, and head but of a middling size,
Full, liuely-flaming, quickly rowling eys,
Great foaming mouth, hot-fuming nosthrill wide,
Of Chest-nut hai•, his fore-head starryfi'd,
Three milky feet, a feather on his brest,
Whom seav'n-years-old at the next grass he ghest.

This goodly Iennet gently first he wins,
And then to back him actiuely begins,
Steady and straight he sits, turning his sight
Still to the fore-part of his Palfrey light.
The chafed Horse, such thrall ill-suffering,
Begins to snuff, and snort, and leap, and fling;
And flying swift, his fearefull Rider makes,
Like som vnskilfull Lad, that vnder-takes
To hold som ships helm, while the head-long Tyde
Carries away the Vessell and her Guide;
Who neer deuoured in the iaws of Death,
Pale, fearefull, shivering, faint, and out of breath,
A thousand times (with Heav'n erected eys)
Repents him of so bold an enterprise.

But, sitting fast, less hurt then feared; Cain
Boldnes himself and his braue Beast again:
Brings him to pase, from pasing to the trot,
From trot to gallop: after runs him hot
In full career: and at his courage smiles;
And sitting still, to run so many miles.

His pase is fair and free; his trot as light
As Tigres course, as Swallows nimble flight:
And his braue gallop seems as swift to goe
As Biscan Darts, or shafts from Russian bowe:
But, roaring Canon, from his smoaking throat,
Neuer so speedy spews the thundring shot
(That in an Army mowes whole squadrons down,
And batters Bulwarks of a summon'd Town)
As this light Horse scuds, if he doe but feel
His bridle slack, and in his side the heel:
Shunning himself, his sinewie strength he stretches;
Flying the earth, the flying ayr he catches,
Born whirl-wind-like: he makes the trampled ground
Shrink vnder him, and shake with doubling sound:
And when the sight no more pursue him may,
In fieldy clouds hee vanisheth away.

The wise-waxt Rider, not esteeming best
To take too-much now of his lusty Beast,
Restrains his fury: then with learned wand
The triple Coruet makes him vnderstand:
With skilfull voice he gently cheers his pride:
And on his neck his flattering palm doth slide:
He stops him steady still, new breath to take,
And in the same path brings him softly back.

But th' angry Steed, rising and reaning proudly,
Striking the stones, stamping and neighing loudly,
Calls for the Combat, plunges, leaps, and praunces,
Befoams the path, with sparkling eys he glaunces,
Champs on his burnisht bit, and gloriously
His nimble fetlocks lifteth belly-high,
All side long iaunts, on either side he iustles,
And's wauing Crest courageously he bristles,
Making the gazers glad on euery side
To giue more room vnto his portly Pride.

Cain gently stroakes him, and now sure in seat,
Ambitiously seeks still som fresher feat
To be more famous; one while trots the Ring,
Another while he doth him back-ward bring,
Then of all foure he makes him lightly bound;
And to each hand to mannage rightly round;
To stoop, to stop, to caper, and to swim,
To daunce, to leap, to hold-vp any lim:
And all, so don, with time-grace-ordered skill,
As both had but one body and one will.
Th' one for his Art no little glory gains,
Th' other through practise by degrees attains
Grace in his gallop, in his pase agility,
Lightnes of head, and in his stop facility,
Strength in his leap, and stedfast managings,
Aptnes in all, and in his course new wings.

The vse of Horses thus discouered,
Each to his work more cheerly fetteled,
Each plyes his trade, and trauails for his age,
Following the paths of painfull Tuball sage.

While through a Forrest Tuball (with his Yew
And ready quiver) did a Bore pursue,
A burning Mountain from his fiery vain,
An yron River rowles along the Plain:
The witty Hunts-man, musing, thither hies,
And of the wonder deeply gan devise.
And first perceiving that this scalding mettle,
Becoming cold, in any shape would settle,
And growe so hard that with his sharpned side,
The firmest substance it would soon divide;
He casts a hundred plots, and yer he parts
He moulds the ground-work of a hundred Arts:
Like as a Hound, that (following loose, behinde
His pensiue Master) of a Hare doth finde;
Leaues whom he loues, vpon the sent doth ply,
Figs to and fro, and fals in cheerfull Cry,
And with vp-lifted head, and nosthrill wide
Winding his game, snuffs-yp the winde, his guide:
A hundred wayes he measures Vale and Hill:
Ears, eys, nor nose, nor foot, nor tail are still,
Till in her hot Form he haue found the pray
That he so long hath sought for every way.

For, now the way to thousand works reveald,
Which long shall liue maugre the rage of Eld:
In two square creases of vnequall sises
To turn two yron streamlings he deuises;
Cold, takes them thence: then off the dross he rakes,
And this a Hammer, that an Anuill makes;
And adding tongs to these two instruments,
He stores his house with yron implements:
As forks, rakes, hatchets, plough-shares, coultars, staples,
Boltes, hindges, hooks, nails, whittles, spokes, and grapples;
And grow'n more cunning, hollow things he formeth,
He hatcheth Files, and winding Vices wormeth,
He shapeth Sheers, and then a Saw indents,
Then beats a Blade, and then a Lock invents.

Happy device! we might as well want all
The Elements, as this hard minerall.
This, to the Plough-man, for great vses serues:
This, for the Builder, Wood and Marble carues:
This arms our bodies against aduerse force:
This clothes our backs: this rules th' vnruly Horse:
This makes vs dry-shod daunce in Neptunes Hall:
This brightens gold: this conquers self and all;
Fift Element, of Instruments the haft,
The Tool of Tools, and hand of Handy-Craft.

While (compast round with smoaking Cyclops rude,
Half-naked Bronts, and Sterops swarthy-hewd,
All well-neer weary) sweating Tubal stands,
Hastning the hot work in their sounding hands,
No time lost Iubal: th' vn-full Harmony
Of vn-even Hammers, beating diversly,
Wakens the tunes that his sweet numbery soule
Yer birth (som think) learn'd of the warbling Pole.

Thereon he harps, and ponders in his mindo,
And glad and fain som Instrument would finde
That in accord those discords might renew,
And th' Iron Anuils rattling sound ensew,
And iterate the beating Hammers noyse
In milder notes, and with a sweeter voice.
It chaunç't, that passing by a Pond, he found
An open Tortoise lying on the ground,
Within the which ther nothing else remained
Saue three dry sinewes on the shell stiff-strained:
This empty house Iubal doth gladly bear,
Strikes on those strings, and lends attentiue ear;
And by this mould frams the melodious Lute,
That makes woods •arken, and the windes be mute,
The Hills to daunce, the Heav'ns to retro-grade,
Lions be tame, and tempests quickly vade.

His Art, still waxing, sweetly marrieth
His quavering fingers to his warbling breath:
More little tongues to's charm-care Lute he brings,
More Instruments he makes: no Eccho rings
'Mid rocky concaves of the babbling vales,
And bubbling Rivers rowl'd with gentle gales,
But wyëry Cymbals, Rebecks sinews twin'd,
Sweet Virginals, and Cornets curled winde.

But Adam guides, through paths but seldom gone,
His other Sons to Vertues sacred throne:
And chiefly Seth (set in good Abels place)
Staff of his age, and glory of his race:
Him he instructeth in the wayes of Verity,
To worship God in spirit and sincerity:
To honour Parents with a reverentaw,
To train his children in religious law:
To loue his friends, his Country to defend,
And helpfull hands to all mankinde to lend:
To knowe Heav'ns course, and how their constant Swaies
Divide the yeer in months, the months in dayes:
What star brings Winter, what is Sommers guide;
What signe foul weather, what doth fair betide;
What creature's kinde, and what is curst to vs:
What plant is holesom, and what venimous.

No sooner he his lessons can commence,
But Seth hath hit the White of his intents,
Draws rule from rule, and of his short collations
In a short time a perfect Art he fashions.
The more he knowes the more he craues; as fewell
Kils not a fire, but kindles it more cruell.

While on a day by a cleer Brook they trauell,
Whose gurgling streams frizadoed on the gravell,
He thus bespake: If that I did not see
The zeal (deer Father) that you bear to me,
How still you watch me with your carefull eyn,
How still your voice with prudent discipline
My Prentize ear doth oft reverberate;
I should misdoubt to seem importunate:
And should content me to haue learned, how
The Lord the Heav'ns about this All did bow;
What things haue hot, and what haue cold effect;
And how my life and manners to direct.
But your milde Loue my studious hart advances
To aske you further of the various chances
Of future times: what off-spring spreading wide
Shall fill this World; What shall the World betide,
How long to last: What Magistrates, what Kings
With Iustice Mace shall govern mortall things?

Son (quoth the Sire) our thoughts internall ey,
Things past and present may by means descry;
But not the future, if by speciall grace
It read it not in th' One-Trines glorious face.

Thou then, that (onely) things to com dost knowe,
Not by Heav'ns course, nor guesse of things belowe,
Nor coupled points, nor flight of fatall Birds,
Nor trembling tripes of sacrificed Heards,
But by a clear and certain pre-science
As Seer and Agent of all accidents,
With whom at once the three-fold times doe fly,
And but a moment lasts Eternity;
O God, behold me, that I may behold
Thy crystall face: O Sun, reflect thy gold
On my pale Moon; that now my veiled eys
Earth-ward eclipst, may shine vnto the skies.
Ravish me Lord, O (my soules life) reviue
My spirit a-space, that I may see (a-lyue)
Heav'n yer I die: and make me now (good Lord)
The Eccho of thy all-cel estiall Word.

With sacred fury suddainly he glowes,
Not like the Bedlam Bacchanalian froes,
Who, dauncing, foaming, rowling furious-wise
Vnder their twinkling lids their torch-like eys,
With ghastly voice, with visage grizly grim;
Tost by the Fiend that fier cely tortures them,
Bleaking and blushing, painting, shreeking, swouning,
With wrath-les wounds their sense-les members wounding:
But as th' Imperiall, Airy peoples Prince
With stately pinions soaring hy from hence,
Cleaues through the clouds, and brauely-bold doth think
With his firm eye to make the Suns eye wink:
So Adam, mounted on the burning wings
Of a Seraphick loue, leaues earthly things,
Feeds on sweet Aether, cleaues the starry sphears,
And on Gods face his eys he fixtly bears:
His brows seem brandisht with a Sun-like fier,
And his purg'd body seems a cubit higher.

Then thus began hee: Th' ever-trembling field
Of scaly folk, the Arches starry seeld,
Where th' All-Creator hath disposed well
The Sun and Moon by turns for Sentinell;
The cleer cloud-bounding Ayr (the Camp assign'd
Where angry Auster and the rough North-winde
Meeting in battail, throwe down to the soil
The Woods that midling stand to part the broyl);
The Diapry Mansions where man-kinde doth trade,
Were built in Six Dayes: and the Seav'nth was made
The sacred Sabbaoth. So, Sea, Earth, and Ayr,
And azure-gilded Heav'ns Pavilions fair,
Shall stand Six Dayes, but longer diversly
Then the dayes bounded by the Worlds bright eye.

The First begins with me: the Seconds morn
Is the first Ship-wright, who doth first adorn
The hils with Vines: that Shepheard is the Third,
That after God through strange Lands leads his Heard,
And (past mans reason) crediting Gods word,
His onely Son slayes with a willing sword:
The Fourth's another valiant Shepheardling,
That for a Cannon takes his silly sling,
And to a Scepter turns his Shepheards staff,
Great Prince, great Prophet, Poet, Psalmograph:
The Fift begins from that sad Princes night
That sees his children murdred in his sight,
And on the banks of fruitfull Euphrates,
Poor Iuda led in Captiue heauiness:
Hoped Messias shineth in the Sixt;
Who, mockt, beat, banisht, buried, cruci-fixt,
For our foul sins (stil-selfly-innocent)
Hath fully born the hatefull punishment:
The Last, shall be the very Resting-Day,
Th' Ayr shall be mute, the Waters work shall stay;
The Earth her store, the stars shall leaue their measures,
The Sun his shine: and in eternall pleasures
We plung'd, in Heav'n shall ay solemnize, all,
Th' eternall Sabbaoths end-less Festiuall.

Alas! what may I of that race presume
Next th' irefull Flame that shall this Frame consume,
Whose gut their God, whose lust their law shall be,
Who shall not hear of God, nor yet of me?
Sith those outrageous, that began their birth
On th' holy groundsill of sweet Edens earth,
And (yet) the sound of Heav'ns drad Sentence hear,
And as ey-witness of mine Exile were,
Seem to despight God. Did it not suffize
(O lust full soule!) first to polygamize?
Suffiz'd it not (O Lamech) to distain
Thy Nuptiall bed? but that thou must ingrain
In thy great-Grand-sires Grand-sires reeking gore
Thy cruell blade? respecting nought (before)
The prohibition, and the threatning vow
Of him to whom infernall powrs do bow:
Neither his Pasports sealed Character
Set in the fore-head of the Murderer.

Courage, good Enos: re-advance the Standard
Of holy Faith, by humane reason slaunder'd,
And troden-down: Inuoke th' immortall powr;
Vpon his Altar, warm bloud-offrings pour:
His sacred nose perfume with pleasing vapour,
And teend again Trueth's neer-extinguisht Taper.

Thy pupil Henoch, selfly-dying wholly,
(Earths ornament) to God he liueth solely.
Lo, how he labours to endure the light
Which in th' Arch-essence shineth glorious-bright:
How rapt from sense, and free from fleshly lets,
Sometimes he climbs the sacred Cabinets
Of the diuine Ideas euer-lasting,
Having for wings, Faith, fervent l'rayer and Fasting:
How at sometimes, though clad in earthly clod,
He (sacred) sees, feels, all inioyes in God:
How at somtimes mounting from form to form,
In form of God he happy doth transform.
Lo, how th' all-fair, as burning all in loue
With his rare beauties, not content aboue
T' haue half, but all, and ever; sets the stairs
That lead from hence to Heav'n his chosen heirs:
Lo, now he climeth the supernall stories:
Adiew, deer Henoch: in eternall glories
Dwell there with God: thy body, chang'd in quality
Of Spirit or Angel, puts on immortality:
Thine eys already (now no longer eys,
But new bright stars) doe brandish in the skyes:
Thou drinkest deep of the celestiall wine:
Thy Sabbaoth's endless: without vail (in fine)
Thouseest God face to face; and neervnite
To th' ONE-TRINE Good, thou liv'st in th' Infinite.

But heer the while (new Angell) thou dost leaue
Fell wicked folk, whose hands are apt to reaue,
Whose Scorpion tongues delight in sowing strife,
Whose guts are gulfs, incestuous all their life.

O strange to be beleev'd! the blessed race,
The sacred Flock whom God by speciall grace
Adopts for his, even they (alas!) most shame-less
Do follow sin, most beastly-brute and tame-less,
With lustfull eys choosing for wanton Spouses
Mens wicked daughters; mingling so the houses
Of Seth and Cain: preferring foolishly
Frail beauties blaze to vertuous modesty.

From these profane, foul, cursed kisses sprung
A cruell brood, feeding on bloud and wrong;
Fell Gyants strange, of haughty hand and minde,
Plagues of the World, and scourges of Man-kinde

Then, righteous God (though ever prone to pa
Seeing his milde-ness but their malice harden,
List plead nolonger, but resolues the fall
Of man forth-with, and (for mans sake) of all:
Of all (at least) the living creatures gliding
Along the ayr, or on the earth abiding.

Heav'ns crystall windows with one hand he opes,
Whence on the World a thousand Seas he drops:
With th' other hand he gripes, and wringeth forth
The spungy Globeof th' execrable Earth,
So straightly prest, that it doth straight restore
All liquid flouds that it had drunk before:
In every Rock new Rivers doe begin;
And to his aid the snowes com tumbling in:
The Pines and Cedars haue but boughs to showe,
The shoars do shrink, the swelling waters growe.

Alas! so-many Nephews lose I heer
Amid these deeps, that but for mountains neer,
Vpon the rising of whoseridges lofty,
The lusty climbe on every side for safety,
I should be seed-less: but (alas!) the Water
Swallows those Hils, and all this wide Theater
Is all one Pond. O children, whither fly-you?
Alas! Heav'ns wrath pursues you to destroy-you:
The stormy waters strangely rage and roar,
Rivers and Seas haue all one common shoar,
(To wit) a sable, water-loaden Sky
Ready to rain new Oceans instantly.

O Sonn-less Father! O too fruitfull haunches!
O wretched root! O hurtfull, hatefull branches!
O gulfs vnknowen! O dungeons deep and black!
O worlds decay! O vniversall wrack!
O Heav'ns! O Seas! O Earth (now earth no more)
O flesh! O bloud! Heer, sorrow stopt the door.
Of his sad voice, and almost dead for woe,
The prophetizing spirit forsook him so.