Yet it creates, transcending these,
For other worlds, and other seas;
Annihilating all that's made

To a green thought in a green shade.

Here at the fountain's sliding foot
Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside

My soul into the boughs does glide;
There, like a bird, it sits and sings,
Then whets and claps its silver wings,
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.

Such was the happy garden-state
While man there walk'd without a mate;
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!
But 'twas beyond a mortal's share
To wander solitary there:
Two Paradises are in one,

To live in Paradise alone.

How well the skilful gardener drew
Of flowers and herbs this dial new!
Where, from above, the milder sun,
Does through a fragrant zodiac run;
And, as it works, th' industrious bee
Computes the time as well as we.

How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckon'd, but with herbs and flowers !

HERBERT

(OUTLINE HISTORY, § 45)

VIRTUE

SWEET day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,

The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,

For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season'd timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
They chiefly lives.

VAUGHAN

(OUTLINE HISTORY, § 45)

THE RETREAT

HAPPY those early days, when I
Shined in my angel-infancy!
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy aught
But a white, celestial thought;
When yet I had not walk'd above
A mile or two from my first Love,
And looking back, at that short space
Could see a glimpse of his bright face;
When on some gilded church or flower
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity;

Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscious with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispense
A several sin to every sense,

But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.

O how I long to travel back,

And tread again that ancient track!
That I might once more reach that plain,
Where first I left my glorious train;
From whence th' enlighten'd spirit sees
That shady City of Palm trees!
But ah! my soul with too much stay
Is drunk, and staggers in the way :-
Some men a forward motion love,
But I by backward steps would move;
And when this dust falls to the urn,
In that state I came, return.

COWLEY

(OUTLINE HISTORY, §§ 46, 47.)

FAITH AND REASON

(From Reason)

SOME blind themselves, 'cause possibly they may
Be led by others a right way;

They build on sands, which if unmov'd they find,
'Tis but because there was no wind.

Less hard 'tis, not to err ourselves, than know
If our forefathers err'd or no.

When we trust men concerning God, we then
Trust not God concerning men.

The Holy Book, like the eighth sphere, does shine
With thousand lights of truth divine.

So numberless the stars, that to the eye,
It makes but all one galaxy.

Yet Reason must assist too, for in seas

So vast and dangerous as these,

Our course by stars above we cannot know,
Without the compass too below.

Though Reason cannot through Faith's mysteries see,
It sees that there and such they be;

Leads to Heaven's door, and there does humbly keep, And there through chinks and key-holes peep.

Though it, like Moses, by a sad command,
Must not come in to th' Holy Land,
Yet thither it infallibly does guide;
And from afar 'tis all descry'd.

OF LIBERTY

(From Essays)

THE liberty of a people consists in being governed by laws which they have made themselves, under whatsoever form it be of government; the liberty of a private man, in being master of his own time and actions, as far as may consist with the laws of God, and of his country. Of this latter, only, we are here to discourse, and to inquire what estate of life does best seat us in the possession of it. This liberty of our actions is such a fundamental privilege of human nature, that God himself, notwithstanding all his infinite power and right over us, permits us to enjoy it, and that too after a forfeiture made by the rebellion of Adam. He takes so much care for the entire preservation of it to us, that he suffers neither his providence nor eternal decree to break or infringe it. Nor for our time, the same God, to whom we are but tenants-at-will for the whole, requires but the seventh part of it to be paid to him as a small quit-rent in acknowledgment of his title. It is man only that has the impudence to demand our whole time, though he neither gave it, nor can restore it, nor is able to pay any considerable value for the least part of it. This birth-right of mankind above all other creatures, some are forced by hunger to sell, like Esau, for bread and broth; but the greatest part of men make such a bargain for the delivery up of themselves, as Thamar did for Judah; instead of a kid, the necessary provisions for human life, they are contented to do it for rings and bracelets. The great dealers in this world may be divided into the ambitious, the covetous, and the voluptuous; and that all these men sell themselves to be slaves, though to the vulgar it may seem a Stoical paradox, will appear to the wise so plain and obvious, that they scarce think it deserves the labour of argumentation.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE

FAITH AND MYSTERY

(From Religio Laici)

As for those wingy mysteries in divinity, and airy subtleties in religion, which have unhinged the brains of better heads, they never stretched the pia mater of mine. Methinks there be not impossibilities enough in religion for an active faith: the deepest mysteries ours contains have not only been illustrated, but maintained, by syllogism and the rule of reason. I love to lose myself in a mystery; to pursue my reason to an O altitudo ! 'Tis my solitary recreation to pose my apprehension with those involved enigmas and riddles of the Trinity, incarnation, and resurrection. I can answer all the objections of Satan and my rebellious reason with that odd resolution I learned of Tertullian, Certum est quia impossibile est. I desire to exercise my faith in the difficultest point; for, to credit ordinary and visible objects, is not faith but persuasion. Some believe the better for seeing Christ's sepulchre; and, when they have seen the Red Sea, doubt not of the miracle. Now, contrarily, I bless myself, and am thankful, that I lived not in the days of miracles; that I never saw Christ nor His disciples. I would not have been one of those Israelites that passed the Red Sea; nor one of Christ's patients, on whom He wrought His wonders; then had my faith been thrust upon me; nor should I enjoy that greater blessing pronounced to all that believed and saw not. 'Tis an easy and necessary belief, to credit what our eye and sense hath examined. I believed He was dead, and buried, and rose again; and desire to see Him in His glory, rather than to contemplate Him in His cenotaph or sepulchre. Nor is this much to believe: as we have reason, we owe this faith unto history; they only had the advantage of a bold and noble faith, who lived before His coming, who, upon obscure prophecies and mystical types, could raise a belief, and expect apparent impossibilities.