Mountains of myrrh and beds of spices,
And ten thousand paradises,
The soul that tastes thee takes from thence.
How many unknown worlds there are
Of comforts, which thou hast in keeping!
How many thousand mercies there
In pity's soft lap lie a-sleeping!
Happy he who has the art
To awake them,
And to take them
Home, and lodge them in his heart.
Oh, that it were as it was wont to be,
When thy old friends, on fire all full of thee,
Fought against frowns with smiles; gave glorious chase
To persecutions; and against the face
Of death and fiercest dangers, durst with brave
And sober pace march on to meet a grave.
On their bold breasts about the world they bore thee,
And to the teeth of hell stood up to teach thee;
In centre of their inmost souls they wore thee,
Where racks and torments strived in vain to reach thee.
Little, alas! thought they
Who tore the fair breasts of thy friends,
Their fury but made way
For thee, and served them in thy glorious ends.
What did their weapons, but with wider pores
Enlarge thy flaming-breasted lovers,
More freely to transpire
That impatient fire
The heart that hides thee hardly covers?
What did their weapons, but set wide the doors
For thee? fair purple doors, of love's devising;
The ruby windows which enriched the east
Of thy so oft-repeated rising.
Each wound of theirs was thy new morning,
And re-enthroned thee in thy rosy nest,
With blush of thine own blood thy day adorning :
It was the wit of love o'erflowed the bounds
Of wrath, and made the way through all these wounds. Welcome, dear, all-adored name!
For sure there is no knee
That knows not thee;
Or if there be such sons of shame,
Alas! what will they do,
When stubborn rocks shall bow,
And hills hang down their heav'n-saluting heads
To seek for humble beds
Of dust, where, in the bashful shades of night,
Next to their own low nothing they may lie,
And couch before the dazzling light of thy dread Majesty.
They that by love's mild dictate now
Will not adore thee,
Shall then, with just confusion, bow
And break before thee.
TWO WENT UP TO THE TEMPLE TO PRAY.
Two went to pray? O rather say,
One went to brag, the other to pray:
One stands up close and treads on high,
Where the other dares not lend his eye.
One nearer to God's altar trod,
The other to the altar's God.
THE only work of note written by Butler is "Hudibras," a burlesque upon the Puritans. It is a witty, comic poem on the model of "Don Quixote," and of course gives a very extravagant view of the peculiarities of the Puritan times. Butler was born in 1612 at Strensham, in Worcestershire. His father was only able to give him a limited education, and it appears that Butler's whole life was a struggle with poverty. He seems to have made little or nothing by his work, which was originally published in parts; the first part in 1663, the second three years later, and the third not till 1678. He died in London in 1680.
RELIGION OF HUDIBRAS.
FOR his religion, it was fit
To match his learning and his wit.
'Twas Presbyterian true blue;
For he was of that stubborn crew
Of errant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true church militant;
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun;
Decide all controversies by
And prove their doctrine orthodox
By apostolic blows and knocks;
Call fire, and sword, and desolation,
A godly, thorough reformation,
Which always must be carried on,
And still be doing, never done;
As if religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended;
A sect whose chief devotion lies
In odd perverse antipathies;
In falling out with that or this,
And finding somewhat still amiss;
More peevish, cross, and splenetic,
Than dog distraught or monkey sick;
That with more care keep holiday
The wrong, than others the right way;
Compound for sins they are inclined to,
By damning those they have no mind to.
Still so perverse and opposite,
As if they worshipped God for spite;
The self-same thing they will abhor
One way, and long another for;
Freewill they one way disavow,
Another, nothing else allow ;
All piety consists therein
In them, in other men all sin;
Rather than fail, they will defy
That which they love most tenderly ;
Quarrel with minced pies, and disparage
Their best and dearest friend, plum-porridge;
Fat pig and goose itself oppose,
And blaspheme custard through the nose.
Th' apostles of this fierce religion,
Like Mahomet's, were ass and widgeon,
To whom our knight, by fast instinct
Of wit and temper, was so linked,
As if hypocrisy and nonsense
Had got th' advowson of his conscience.
THE ELEPHANT IN THE MOON (Abridged).
(A Satire upon the Royal Society.)
A LEARNED Society of late,
The glory of a foreign state,
Agreed, upon a summer's night,
To search the moon by her own light;
To take an invent'ry of all
Her real estate, and personal;
And make an accurate survey
Of all her lands, and how they lay,
As true as that of Ireland, where
The sly surveyors stole a shire;
This was the purpose of their meeting,
For which they chose a time as fitting,
When, at the full, her radiant light
And influence too were at their height.
And now the lofty tube, the scale
With which they heav'n itself assail,
Was mounted full against the moon,
And all stood ready to fall on,
Impatient who should have the honour
To plant an ensign first upon her.
When one, who for his deep belief
Was virtuoso then in chief,
Approved the most profound, and wise,
To solve impossibilities,
Advancing gravely, to apply
To th' optic glass his judging eye,
Quoth he: "Th' inhabitants o' the moon,
Who, when the sun shines hot at noon,
Do live in cellars under ground,
Of eight miles deep and eighty round-
In which at once they fortify
Against the sun and th' enemy
Which they count towns and cities there,
Because their people's civiller
Than those rude peasants that are found
To live upon the upper ground,
Called Prevolvans, with whom they are
Perpetually in open war;
And now both armies, highly enraged,
Are in a bloody fight engaged,
And many fall on both sides slain,
As by the glass 'tis clear and plain.
Look quickly then, that every one
May see the fight before 'tis done.'
With that a great philosopher,
Admired and famous far and near,
As one of singular invention,
But universal comprehension,
Applied one eye and half a nose
Unto the optic engine close;
Observed his best, and then cried out:
'The battle's desperately fought;
The gallant Subvolvani rally,
And from their trenches make a sally
Upon the stubborn enemy,
Who now begin to rout and fly.
While thus the learned man entertains
Th' assembly with the Prevolvans,
Another, of as great renown,
And solid judgment, in the moon,
That understood her various soils,
And which produced best jennet-mules,
And in the register of fame
Had entered his long-living name,
After he had pored long and hard
I' th' engine, give a start, and stared-
Quoth he: A stranger sight appears
Than e'er was seen in all the spheres;
A wonder more unparalleled
Than ever mortal tube beheld;
An elephant from one of those
Two mighty armies is broke loose,
And with the horror of the fight
Appears amazed, and in a fright:
Look quickly, lest the sight of us
Should cause the startled beast t' emboss.
Meanwhile the rest had had a sight
Of all particulars o' the fight,
And ev'ry man, with equal care,
Perused of th' elephant his share;
When one, who, for his excellence
In height'ning words and shad'wing sense,
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