The Complete Poetical Works of George Chapman

by George Chapman

T’enflame our loues, and feruent faiths in thee,

  Then in them, truths diuine simplicitie,

  Twere full enough; for therein we may well

  See thy white finger furrowing blackest hell,

  In turning vp the errors that our sence

  And sensuall powres, incurre by negligence

  Of our eternall truth-exploring soule.

  All Churches powres, thy writ word doth controule;

  And mixt it with the fabulous Alchoran,

  A man might boult it out, as floure from branne;

  Easily discerning it, a heauenly birth,

  Brake it but now out, and but crept on earth.

  Yet (as if God lackt mans election,

  And shadowes were creators of the Sunne)

  Men must authorise it: antiquities

  Must be explor’d, to spirit, and giue it thies,

  And controuersies, thicke as flies at Spring,

  Must be maintain’d about th’ingenuous meaning;

  When no stile can expresse it selfe so cleare,

  Nor holds so euen, and firme a character.

  Those mysteries that are not to be reacht,

  Still to be striu’d with, make them more impeacht:

  And as the Mill fares with an ill pickt grist,

  When any stone, the stones is got betwist,

  Rumbling together, fill the graine with grit;

  Offends the eare, sets teeth an edge with it:

  Blunts the pict quarrie so, twill grinde no more,

  Spoyles bread, and scants the Millars custom’d store.

  So in the Church, when controuersie fais,

  It marres her musicke, shakes her batterd wals,

  Grates tender consciences, and weakens faith;

  The bread of life taints, & makes worke for Death;

  Darkens truths light, with her perplext Abysmes,

  And dustlike grinds men into sects and schismes.

  And what’s the cause? the words deficiencie?

  In volume, matter, perspecuitie?

  Ambition, lust, and damned auarice,

  Peruert, and each the sacred word applies

  To his prophane ends; all to profite giuen,

  And pursnets lay to catch the ioyes of heauen.

  Since truth, and reall worth, men seldome sease,

  Impostors most, and sleightest learnings please.

  And, where the true Church, like the nest should be

  Of chast, and prouident Alcione:

  (To which is onely one straight orifice,

  Which is so strictly fitted to her sise,

  That no bird bigger then her selfe, or lesse,

  Can pierce and keepe it, or discerne th’accesse:

  Nor which the sea it selfe, on which tis made,

  Can euer ouerflow, or once inuade;)

  Now wayes so many to her Altars are,

  So easie, so prophane, and populare:

  That torrents charg’d with weeds, and sin-drownd beasts,

  Breake in, lode, cracke them: sensuall ioyes and feasts

  Corrupt their pure fumes: and the slendrest flash

  Of lust, or profite, makes a standing plash

  Of sinne about them, which men will not passe.

  Looke (Lord) vpon them, build them wals of brasse,

  To keepe prophane feete off: do not thou

  In wounds and anguish euer ouerflow,

  And suffer such in ease, and sensualitie,

  Dare to reiect thy rules of humble life:

  The minds true peace, & turne their zeales to strife,

  For obiects earthly, and corporeall.

  A tricke of humblesse now they practise all,

  Confesse their no deserts, habilities none:

  Professe all frailties, and amend not one:

  As if a priuiledge they meant to claime

  In sinning by acknowledging the maime

  Sinne gaue in Adam: Nor the surplussage

  Of thy redemption, seeme to put in gage

  For his transgression: that thy vertuous paines

  (Deare Lord) haue eat out all their former staines;

  That thy most mightie innocence had powre

  To cleanse their guilts: that the vnualued dowre

  Thou mad’st the Church thy spouse, in pietie,

  And (to endure paines impious) constancie,

  Will and alacritie (if they inuoke)

  To beare the sweete lode, and the easie yoke

  Of thy iniunctions, in diffusing these

  (In thy perfection) through her faculties:

  In euery fiuer, suffering to her vse,

  And perfecting the forme thou didst infuse

  In mans creation: made him cleare as then

  Of all the frailties, since defiling men.

  And as a runner at th’Olympian games,

  With all the luggage he can lay on, frames

  His whole powres to ye race, bags, pockets, greaues

  Stuft full of sand he weares, which when he leaues,

  And doth his other weightie weeds vncouer,

  With which halfe smotherd, he is wrapt all ouer:

  Then seemes he light, and fresh as morning aire;

  Guirds him with silkes, swaddles with roulers faire

  His lightsome body: and away he scoures

  So swift, and light, he scarce treads down the flowrs:

  So to our game proposde, of endlesse ioy

  (Before thy deare death) when we did employ,

  Our tainted powres; we felt them clogd and chain’d

  With sinne and bondage, which did rust, and raign’d

  In our most mortall bodies: but when thou

  Strip’dst vs of these bands, and from foote to brow

  Guirt, rold, and trimd vs vp in thy deserts:

  Free were our feete, and hands; and spritely hearts

  Leapt in our bosoms; and (ascribing still

  All to thy merits: both our powre and will

  To euery thought of goodnesse, wrought by thee;

  That diuine scarlet, in which thou didst die

  Our cleansd consistence; lasting still in powre

  T’enable acts in vs, as the next howre

  To thy most sauing, glorious sufferance)

  We may make all our manly powres aduance

  Vp to thy Image; and these formes of earth,

  Beauties and mockeries, matcht in beastly birth:

  We may despise, with still aspiring spirits

  To thy high graces, in thy still fresh merits:

  Not touching at this base and spongie mould,

  For any springs of lust, or mines of gold.

  For else (milde Sauiour, pardon me to speake)

  How did thy foote, the Serpents forhead breake?

  How hath the Nectar of thy vertuous blood,

  The sinke of Adams forfeit ouerflow’d?

  How doth it set vs free, if we still stand

  (For all thy sufferings) bound both foote and hand

  Vassals to Sathan? Didst thou onely die,

  Thine owne diuine deserts to glorifie,

  And shew thou Couldst do this? O were not those

  Giuen to our vse in powre? If we shall lose

  By damn’d relapse, grace to enact that powre:

  And basely giue vp our redemptions towre,

  Before we trie our strengths, built all on thine,

  And with a humblesse, false, and Asinine,

  Flattering our senses, lay vpon our soûles

  The burthens of their conquests, and like Moules

  Grouell in earth still, being aduanc’t to heauen:

  (Cowes that we are) in heards how are we driuen

  To Sathans shambles? Wherein stand we for

  Thy heauenly image, Hels great Conqueror?

  Didst thou not offer, to restore our fall

  Thy sacrifice, full, once, and one for all?

  If we be still downe, how then can we rise

  Againe with thee, and seeke crownes in the skies?
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  But we excuse this; saying, We are but men,

  And must erre, must fall: what thou didst sustaine

  To free our beastly frailties, neuer can

  With all thy grace, by any powre in man

  Make good thy Rise to vs: O blasphemie

  In hypocriticall humilitie!

  As we are men, we death and hell controule,

  Since thou createdst man a liuing soule:

  As euerie houre we sinne, we do like beasts:

  Heedlesse, and wilfull, murthering in our breasts

  Thy saued image, out of which, one cals

  Our humane soules, mortall celestialls:

  When casting off a good lifes godlike grace,

  We fall from God; and then make good our place

  When we returne to him: and so are said

  To liue: when life like his true forme we leade,

  And die (as much as can immortall creature:)

  Not that we vtterly can ceasse to be,

  But that we fall from life’s best qualitie.

  But we are tost out of our humane Throne

  By pied and Protean opinion;

  We vouch thee onely, for pretext and fashion,

  And are not inward with thy death and passion.

  We slauishly renounce thy royaltie

  With which thou crownst vs in thy victorie:

  Spend all our manhood in the fiends defence,

  And drowne thy right, in beastly negligence.

  God neuer is deceiu’d so, to respect,

  His shade in Angels beauties, to neglect

  His owne most cleare and rap ting louelinesse:

  Nor Angels dote so on the species

  And grace giuen to our soule (which is their shade)

  That therefore they will let their owne formes fade.

  And yet our soule (which most deserues our woe,

  And that from which our whole mishap doth flow)

  So softn’d is, and rapt (as with a storme)

  With flatteries of our base corporeall forme,

  (Which is her shadow) that she quite forsakes

  Her proper noblesse, and for nothing takes

  The beauties that for her loue, thou putst on;

  In torments rarefied farre past the Sunne.

  Hence came the cruell fate that Orpheus

  Sings of Narcissus: who being amorous

  Of his shade in the water (which denotes

  Beautie in bodies, that like water flotes)

  Despisd himselfe, his soule, and so let fade

  His substance for a neuer-purchast shade.

  Since soûles of their vse, ignorant are still,

  With this vile bodies vse, men neuer fill.

  And, as the Suns light, in streames ne’re so faire

  Is but a shadow, to his light in aire,

  His splendor that in aire we so admire,

  Is but a shadow to his beames in fire:

  In fire his brightnesse, but a shadow is

  To radiance fir’d, in that pure brest of his:

  So as the subiect on which thy grace shines,

  Is thicke, or cleare; to earth or heauen inclines;

  So that truths light showes; so thy passion takes;

  With which, who inward is, and thy breast makes

  Bulwarke to his breast, against all the darts

  The foe stil shoots more, more his late blow smarts,

  And sea-like raues most, where tis most withstood.

  He tasts the strength and vertue of thy blood:

  He knows that when flesh is most sooth’d, & grac’t,

  Admir’d and magnified, ador’d, and plac’t

  In height of all the blouds Idolatry,

  And fed with all the spirits of Luxury,

  One thought of ioy, in any soule that knowes

  Her owne true strength, and thereon doth repose;

  Bringing her bodies organs to attend

  Chiefly her powres, to her eternall end;

  Makes all things outward; and the sweetest sin,

  That rauisheth the beastly flesh within;

  All but a fiend, prankt in an Angels plume:

  A shade, a fraud, before the wind a fume.

  Hayle then diuine Redeemer, still all haile,

  All glorie, gratitude, and all auaile,

  Be giuen thy all-deseruing agonie;

  Whose vineger thou Nectar mak’st in me,

  Whose goodnesse freely all my ill turnes good:

  Since thou being crusht, & straind throgh flesh & blood:

  Each nerue and artire needs must tast of thee.

  What odour burn’d in ayres that noisome be,

  Leaues not his sent there? O then how much more

  Must thou, whose sweetnesse swet eternall odour,

  Stick where it breath’d, & for whom thy sweet breath,

  Thou freely gau’st vp, to reuiue his death?

  Let those that shrink then as their conscience lodes,

  That fight in Sathans right, and faint in Gods,

  Still count them slaues to Sathan. I am none:

  Thy fight hath freed me, thine thou mak’st mine owne.

  O then (my sweetest and my onely life)

  Confirme this comfort, purchast with thy griefe,

  And my despisde soule of the world, loue thou:

  No thought to any other ioy I vow.

  Order these last steps of my abiect state,

  Straite on the marke a man should leuell at:

  And grant that while I striue to forme in me,

  Thy sacred image, no aduersitie

  May make me draw one limme, or line amisse:

  Let no vile fashion wrest my faculties

  From what becomes that Image. Quiet so

  My bodies powres, that neither weale nor we,

  May stirre one thought vp, gainst thy freest will.

  Grant, that in me, my mindes waues may be still:

  The world for no extreme may vse her voice;

  Nor Fortune treading reeds, make any noise.

  Amen.

  Complaine not whatsoeuer Need inuades,

  But heauiest fortunes beare as lightest shades.

  VIRGILS EPIGRAM

  of a good man.

  A good and wise man (such as hardly one

  Of millions, could be found out by the Sun)

  Is Iudge himselfe, of what stuffe he is wrought,

  And doth explore his whole man to a thought.

  What ere great men do; what their sawcie bawdes;

  What vulgar censure barks at, or applauds

  His carriage still is chearfull and secure;

  He, in himselfe, worldlike, full, round, and sure.

  Lest, through his polisht parts, the slendrest staine

  Of things without, in him should sit, and raigne;

  To whatsoeuer length, the fierie Sunne,

  Burning in Cancer, doth the day light runne;

  How faire soeuer Night shall stretch her shades,

  When Phoebus gloomie Capricorne inuades;

  He studies still; and with the equal beame,

  His ballance turnes; himselfe weighs to th’extreme.

  Lest any crannie gaspe, or angle swell

  Through his strict forme: and that he may compell

  His equall parts to meete in such a sphere,

  That with a compasse tried, it shall not erre:

  What euer subiect is, is solide still:

  Wound him, and with your violent fingers feele

  All parts within him, you shall neuer find

  An emptie corner, or an abiect mind.

  He neuer lets his watchfull lights descend,

  To those sweet sleepes that all iust men attend,

  Till all the acts the long day doth beget,

  With thought on thought laid, he doth oft repeate:

  Examines what hath past him, as forgot:

  What deed or word was vsde in time, what not.

  Why this deed of Decorum felt defect?

&
nbsp; Of reason, that? What left I by neglect?

  Why set I this opinion downe for true,

  That had bene better chang’d? Why did I rue

  Need in one poore so, that I felt my mind

  (To breach of her free powres) with griefe declin’d?

  Why will’d I what was better not to will?

  Why (wicked that I was) preferr’d I still

  Profite to honestie? Why any one

  Gaue I a foule word? or but lookt vpon,

  With count’nance churlish? Why should nature draw

  More my affects, then manly reasons law?

  Through all these thoughts, words works, thus making way,

  And all reuoluing, from the Euen till day:

  Angrie, with what amisse, abusde the light,

  Palme and reward he giues to what was right.

  A Great Man.

  A great and politicke man (which I oppose

  To good and wise) is neuer as he showes.

  Neuer explores himselfe to find his faults:

  But cloaking them, before his conscience halts,

  Flatters himselfe, and others flatteries buyes,

  Seemes made of truth, and is a forge of lies,

  Breeds bawdes and sycophants, and traitors makes

  To betray traitors; playes, and keepes the stakes,

  Is iudge and iuror, goes on life and death:

  And damns before the fault hath any breath.

  Weighs faith in falsehoods ballance; iustice does

  To cloake oppression; taile-down downward groes:

  Earth his whole end is: heauen he mockes, and hell:

  And thinkes that is not, that in him doth dwell.

  Good, with Gods right hand giuen, his left takes t’euil:

  When holy most he seemes, he most is euill.

  Ill vpon ill he layes: th’embroderie

  Wrought on his state, is like a leprosie,

  The whiter, still the fouler. What his like,

  What ill in all the bodie politike

  Thriues in, and most is curst: his most blisse fires:

  And of two ils, still to the worst aspires.

  When his thrift feeds, iustice and mercie feare him:

  And (Wolf-like fed) he gnars at all men nere him.

  Neuer is chearefull, but when flatterie trades

  On squatting profite; or when Policie vailes

  Some vile corruption: that lookes red with anguish

  Like wauing reeds, his windshook comforts languish.

  Paies neuer debt, but what he should not ow;

  Is sure and swift to hurt, yet thinks him slow.

  His bountie is most rare, but when it comes,

  Tis most superfluous, and with strook-vp drums.

  Lest any true good pierce him, with such good

  As ill breeds in him, Mortar, made with blood

  Heapes stone-wals in his heart, to keepe it out.

  His sensuall faith, his soules truth keepes in doubt,