If that thou wilt not read, let it alone:
Some love the meat, some love to pick a bone,
Yea, that I might them better moderate,
I did too with them thus expostulate:

May I not write in such a style as this?
In such a method too, and yet not miss

My end, thy good? Why may it not be done?
Dark clouds bring waters, when the bright bring none.
Yea, dark or bright, if they their silver drops
Cause to descend, the earth, by yielding crops,
Gives praise to both, and carpeth not at either,
But treasures up the fruit they yield together;
Yea, so commixes both, that in their fruit
None can distinguish this from that: they suit
Her well when hungry; but if she be full,
She casts out both, and makes their blessing null.

You see the ways the fisherman doth take
To catch the fish: what engines doth he make?
Behold! how he engageth all his wits;
Also his snares, lines, angles, hooks, and nets:
Yet fish there be, that neither hook, nor line,
Nor snare, nor net, nor engine, can make thine :
They must be groped for, and be tickled too,
Or they will not be catch'd whate'er you do.

How does the fowler seek to catch his game
By divers means? all which one cannot name:
His gun, his nets, his lime-twigs, light and bell:
He creeps, he goes, he stands: yea, who can tell
Of all his postures? yet, there's none of these
Will make him master of what fowls he please.
Yea, he must pipe and whistle, to catch this;
Yet, if he does so, that bird will he miss.
If that a pearl may in a toad's head dwell,
And may be found too in an oyster-shell;

If things that promise nothing do contain
What better is than gold; who will disdain,
That have an inkling of it, there to look
That they may find it. Now my little book
(Though void of all these paintings that may make
It with this or the other man to take)

Is not without those things that do excel,
What do in brave, but empty notions dwell.

Well, yet I am not fully satisfied,

That this your book will stand, when soundly tried.

Why, what's the matter? It is dark; What though?

But it is feigned: What of that? I trow,

Some men, by feigned words as dark as mine,
Make truth to spangle, and its rays to shine.
But they want solidness: speak, man, thy mind;
They drown the weak; metaphors make us blind.

Solidity, indeed, becomes the pen

Of him that writeth things divine to men:
But must I needs want solidness because

By metaphors I speak? Were not God's laws,
His gospel-laws, in older times held forth
By shadows, types, and metaphors? Yet loath
Will any sober man be to find fault
With them, lest he be found for to assault
The highest wisdom: no, he rather stoops,
And seeks to find out by what pins and loops,
By calves and sheep, by heifers and by rams,
By birds, and herbs, and by the blood of lambs,
God speaketh to him: and full happy he
That finds the light and grace that in them be.

Be not too forward, therefore, to conclude
That I want solidness; that I am rude:
All things solid in show, not solid be;
All things in parables despise not we

Lest things most hurtful lightly we receive, And things that good are, of our souls bereave.

My dark and cloudy words they do but hold The truth, as cabinets inclose the gold.

The prophets used much by metaphors To set forth truth: yea whoso considers Christ, his apostles too, shall plainly see That truths to this day in such mantles be.

I'm not afraid to say, That Holy Writ, Which for its style and praise puts down all wit, Is every where so full of all these things (Dark figures, allegories;) yet there springs From that same book, that lustre, and those rays Of light, that turn our darkest nights to days.

Come, let my carper to his life now look, And find there darker lines than in my book He findeth any: yea, and let him know, That in his best things there are worse lines too.

May we but stand before impartial men,
To his poor one I dare adventure ten,
That they will take my meaning in these lines
Far better than his lies in silver shrines.

Come, truth, although in swaddling clouts, I find,
Informs the judgment, rectifies the mind:
Pleases the understanding, makes the will
Submit, the memory too it doth fill
With what doth our imaginations please;
Likewise it tends our troubles to appease.

Sound words, I know, Timothy is to use,
And old wives' fables he is to refuse;
But yet grave Paul him no where did forbid
The use of parables, in which lay hid

That gold, those pearls, and precious stones that were
Worth digging for, and that with greatest care.

Let me add one word more: O man of God,
Art thou offended? Dost thou wish I had
Put forth my matter in another dress!
Or, that I had in things been more express?
To those that are my betters (as is fit)
Three things let me propound, then I submit.

1. I find not that I am denied the use Of this my method, so I no abuse

Put on the words, things, readers, or be rude
In handling figure, or similitude,

In application; but all that I may

Seek the advance of truth this or that way.
Denied, did I say? Nay, I have leave
(Examples too, and that from them that have
God better pleased by their words or ways,
Than any man that breatheth now a days)
Thus to express my mind, thus to declare
Things unto thee that excellentest are.

2. I find that men (as high as trees) will write
Dialogue-wise; yet no man doth them slight
For writing so. Indeed, if they abuse
Truth, cursed be they, and the craft they use
To that intent; but yet let truth be free
To make her sallies upon thee and me,
Which way it pleases God: for who knows how,
Better than he that taught us first to plow,
To guide our minds and pens for his design?
And he makes base things usher in divine.

3. I find that Holy Writ, in many places,
Hath semblance with this method, where the cases
Do call for one thing to set forth another:

Use it I may then, and yet nothing smother

Truth's golden beams; nay, by this method may
Make it cast forth its rays as light as day.

And now, before I do put up my pen, I'll shew the profits of my book, and then Commit both thee and it unto that hand

That pulls the strong down, and makes weak ones stand.

This book, it chalketh out before thine eyes
The man that seeks the everlasting prize :
It shews you whence he comes, whither he goes;
What he leaves undone; also what he does;
It also shews you how he runs and runs
Till he unto the gate of glory comes.

It shews too, who set out for life amain,
As if the lasting crown they would obtain :
Heré also you may see the reason why
They lose their labour, and like fools do die.

This book will make a traveller of thee,
If by its counsel thou wilt ruled be;
It will direct thee to the Holy Land,
If thou wilt its directions understand:
Yea, it will make the slothful active be;
The blind also delightful things to see.

Art thou for something rare and profitable?
Wouldest thou see a truth within a fable?
Art thou forgetful? Wouldest thou remember
From new-year's day to the last of December?
Then read my fancies, they will stick like burs,
And may be to the helpless comforters.

This book is writ in such a dialect
As may the minds of listless men affect:
It seems a novelty, and yet contains

Nothing but sound and honest gospel-strains.