Although they say, 'Come let us eat and drinke';
Our life is but a sparke, which quickly dies;
Though thus they say, they know not what to think,
But in their minds ten thousand doubts arise.

Therefore no heretikes desire to spread

Their light opinions, like these Epicures:2
For so the staggering thoughts are comfortèd,
And other men's assent their doubt assures.

Yet though these men against their conscience striue,
There are some sparkles in their flintie breasts
Which cannot be extinct, but still reuiue;

That though they would, they cannot quite bee beasts;

But who so makes a mirror of his mind,

And doth with patience view himselfe therein,
His Soule's eternitie shall clearely find,

Though th' other beauties be defac't with sin.

REASON I.

DRAWNE FROM THE DESIRE OF KNOWLEDGE.

IRST in Man's mind we find an appetite

FIRST

2 =

To learne and know the truth of euery thing;

disciples of Epicurus's Philosophy. G.

Bredd 757-8

Which is co-naturall, and borne with it,
And from the essence of the soule doth spring.

With this desire, shee hath a natiue might

To find out euery truth, if she had time;
Th' innumerable effects to sort aright,

And by degrees, from cause to cause to clime.

But sith our life so fast away doth slide,
As doth a hungry eagle through the wind,
Or as a ship transported with the tide ;
Which in their passage leaue no print behind;

Of which swift little time so much we spend,

While some few things we through the sense doe straine; That our short race of life is at an end,

Ere we the principles of skill attaine.

Or God (which to vaine ends hath nothing done)
In vaine this appetite and power hath giuen ;
Or else our knowledge, which is here begun,
Hereafter must bee perfected in heauen.

God neuer gaue a power to one whole kind,

But most part of that kind did vse the same;
Most eies haue perfect sight, though some be blind;
Most legs can nimbly run, though some be lame:

But in this life no soule the truth can know

So perfectly, as it hath power to doe;
If then perfection be not found below,

An higher place must make her mount thereto.

REASON II.

DRAWN FROM THE MOTION OF THE SOULE.

AGAINE how can shee but immortall bee?

When with the motions of both Will and Wit, She still aspireth to eternitie,

And neuer rests, till she attaine to it?

Water in conduit pipes, can rise no higher

Budivld 758-9

Then the wel-head, from whence it first doth spring:
Then sith to eternall GOD shee doth aspire,
Shee cannot be but an eternall thing.

"All mouing things to other things doe moue,

"Of the same kind, which shews their nature such ;
So earth falls downe and fire doth mount aboue,
Till both their proper elements doe touch.

THE SOUL COMPARED TO A RIUER.

And as the moysture, which the thirstie earth.
Suckes from the sea, to fill her emptie veines,

From out her wombe at last doth take a birth,
And runs a Nymph3 along the grassie plaines :

Long doth shee stay, as loth to leaue the land,
From whose soft side she first did issue make;
Shee tastes all places, turnes to euery hand,
Her flowry bankes vnwilling to forsake:

Yet Nature so her streames doth lead and carry,
As that her course doth make no finall stay,
Till she her selfe vnto the Ocean marry,
Within whose watry bosome first she lay :

Euen so the Soule which in this earthly mold
The Spirit of God doth secretly infuse;
Because at first she doth the earth behold,
And onely this materiall world she viewes :

At first her mother-earth she holdeth deare,

And doth embrace the world and worldly things:
She flies close by the ground, and houers here,
And mounts not vp with her celestiall wings.

3 Davies and Southey, as before, have the extraordinary misprint here of lymph.' Cf. 'Orchestra,' stanza 63, which explains the personification. G.

Yet vnder heauen she cannot light on ought

That with her heauenly nature doth agree;
She cannot rest, she cannot fix her thought,
She cannot in this world contented bee:

For who did euer yet, in honour, wealth,
Or pleasure of the sense, contentment find?
Who euer ceasd to wish, when he had health?
Or hauing wisedome was not vext in mind?

Then as a bee which among weeds doth fall,

Which seeme sweet flowers, with lustre fresh and gay ;
She lights on that, and this, and tasteth all,
But pleasd with none, doth rise, and soare away;

So, when the Soule finds here no true content,

And, like Noah's doue, can no sure footing take;
She doth returne from whence she first was sent,
And flies to Him that first her wings did make.

Wit, seeking Truth, from cause to cause ascends,
And neuer rests, till it the first attaine :
Will, seeking Good, finds many middle ends,
But neuer stayes, till it the last doe gaine.

Now God, the Truth, and First of Causes is:

God is the Last Good End, which lasteth still;