[print edition page number: 189]

Lucy Hutchinson

Order and Disorder:
Or, the World Made and Undone (1679)

 

Figure 6. Title page of Lucy Hutchinson’s Order and Disorder.
Reproduced by permission of the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Canto 1
My ravished soul a pious ardor fires
To sing those mystic wonders it admires,
Contemplating the rise of everything
That with time’s birth flowed from th’eternal spring;
And the no less stupendous providence 5
By which discording natures ever since
Have kept up universal harmony,
While in one joint obedience all agree,
Performing that to which they were designed
With ready inclination; but mankind 10
Alone rebels against his maker’s will, [190] Isaiah 10:5–7, etc.[1]
Which, though opposing, he must yet fulfill.
And so that wise power who each crooked stream
Most rightly guides becomes the glorious theme
Of endless admiration, while we see, 15
Whatever mortals’ vain endeavors be,
They must be broken who with power contend, Eccl.6:10
And cannot frustrate their Creator’s end, Isaiah 27:4
Whose wisdom, goodness, might and glory shines Gen. 45:4–5
In guiding men’s unto his own designs. Acts 2:23, Gen. 50:20[2]
In these outgoings would I sing his praise, 21
But my weak sense with the too glorious rays
Is struck with such confusion that I find
Only the world’s first Chaos in my mind,
Where light and beauty lie wrapped up in seed 25
And cannot be from the dark prison freed
Except that power by whom the world was made
My soul in her imperfect strugglings aid,
Her rude conceptions into forms dispose,
And words impart which may those forms disclose.[3] 30
O thou eternal spring of glory, whence
All other streams derive their excellence, James 1:17
From whose love issues every good desire,
Quicken my dull earth with celestial fire,
And let the sacred theme that is my choice 35
Give utterance and music to my voice,
Singing the works by which thou art revealed. Romans 1:15
What dark eternity hath kept concealed
From mortals’ apprehensions, what hath been
Before the race of time did first begin, 40
It were presumptuous folly to inquire. [191] Deut. 29:29
Let not my thoughts beyond their bounds aspire:
Time limits mortals, and time had its birth,
In whose Beginning God made Heaven and Earth. Gen. 1:1
God, the great Elohim,[4] to say no more, 45
Whose sacred name we rather must adore
Than venture to explain — for he alone Job 11:7
Dwells in himself, and to himself is known. 1 Tim. 6:16, 1:17
And so even that by which we have our sight
His covering is: He clothes himself with light. Psalm 104:2 50
Easier we may the winds in prison shut,
The whole vast ocean in a nutshell put,
The mountains in a little balance weigh, Isaiah 40:12
And with a bulrush[5] plumb the deepest sea,
Than stretch frail human thought unto the height 55
Of the great God, immense and infinite,
Containing all things in himself alone, Job 38
Being at once in all, contained in none.
Yet as a hidden spring appears in streams,
The sun is seen in its reflected beams, 60
Whose high-embodied glory is too bright,
Too strong an object for weak mortal sight;
So in God’s visible productions we Romans 1:20
What is invisible in some sort see; Hebrews 11:27[6]
While we, considering each created thing, 65
Are led up to an uncreated spring,
And by gradations of successive time
At last unto eternity do climb; Isaiah 44:6
As we in tracks of second causes tread,
Unto the first uncausèd cause are led; 70
And know, while we perpetual motion see,
There must a first self-moving power be
To whom all the inferior motions tend,[192] Romans 11:36
In whom they are begun, and where they end.[7] Acts 17:24, 26, 28
This first eternal cause, th’original 75
Of being, life, and motion, GOD we call,
In whom all wisdom, goodness, glory, might,
Whatever can himself or us delight,
Unite, centering in his perfection,
Whose nature can admit but only one. Ephes. 4:5 80
Divided sovereignty makes neither great,
Wanting what’s shared to make the sum complete.
And yet this sovereign sacred unity The Trinity
Is not alone, for in this one are three, 1 John 5:7
Distinguished, not divided, so that what Matt. 28:19 85
One person is, the other is not that. Matt. 3:16–17
Yet all the three are but one God most high,
One uncompounded, pure divinity,
Wherein subsist so the mysterious three
That they in power and glory equal be.[8] 90
Each doth himself and all the rest possess John 14:10
In undisturbèd joy and blessedness. Proverbs 8:22, 30
There’s no inferior, nor no later there, John 1:1
All coeternal, all coequal are. Phil. 2:6
And yet this parity order admits: [193] John 5:18 95
The Father first eternally begets
Within himself, his Son, substantial Word John 1:14
And Wisdom as his second, and their third 1 Cor. 1:14
The ever-blessèd Spirit is, which doth John 16:13–14
Alike all eternally proceed from both. John 15:16 100
These three distinctly thus in one divine,
Pure, perfect, self-supplying essence shine;
And all cooperate in all works done John 5:17
Exteriorly, yet so as every one
In a peculiar manner suited to 105
His person doth the common action do.
Herein the Father is the principal, Hebrews 12:19
Whose sacred counsels are th’original Isaiah 42:4
Of every act; producèd by the Son, John 5:26
By the Spirit wrought up to perfection.[9] 1 Cor. 8:6 110
I’the creation thus, by the Father’s wise decree John 5:19
Such things should in such time and order be, Ephes. 1:11
The first foundation of the world was laid. 2 Tim. 1:9
The fabric by th’eternal Word was made John 1:3
Not as th’instrument, but joint actor, who Hebrews 1:2 115
Joyed to fulfill the counsels which he knew. John 5:19, etc.
By the concurrent Spirit all parts were Genesis 1:2
Fitly disposed, distinguished, rendered fair, Job 26:13
In such harmonious and wise order set
As universal beauty did complete. 120
This most mysterious triple unity,
In essence one, and in subsistence three,
Was the great Elohim who first designed,
Then made, the worlds, that angels and mankind
Him in his rich out-goings might adore, Rev. 4:11 125
And celebrate his praise for evermore; Psalms 147 and 148
Who from eternity himself supplied, Act 17:24
And had no need of anything beside,
Nor any other cause that did him move
To make a world but his extensive love, 130
Itself delighting to communicate,
Its glory in the creatures to dilate,
While they are led by their own excellence
T’admire the first, pure high intelligence; Job 33:12
By all the powers and virtues which they have, Psalm 95:31 135
To that omnipotence who those powers gave; [194] Rev. 19:6
By all their glories and their joys to his
Who is the fountain of all joy and bliss; Psalm 16:11
By all their wants and imbecilities[10] Gen. 17:10
To the full magazine[11] of rich supplies, 140
Where power, love, justice, and mercy shine
In their still-fixèd[12] heights, and ne’er decline.
No streams can shrink the self-supplying spring,
No retributions can more fullness bring Job 35:7
To the eternal fountain which doth run Psalm 16:2 145
In sacred circles, ends where it begun, Rev. 1:8
And thence with inexhausted life and force Isaiah 41:4
Begins again anew, yet the same course
It instituted in time’s infant birth,
When the Creator first made Heaven and Earth. Gen. 1:1 150
Time, though it all things into motion bring, Time
Is not itself any substantial thing, Be resheth[13]
But only motion’s measure, as a twin In Capite,
Born with it; and they both at once begin Principio
With the existence of the rolling sphere, 155
Before which neither time nor motion were;
Time being a still-continued number, made
By the vicissitude of light and shade,
By the moon’s growth, and by her waxing old,
By the successive reign of heat and cold, 160
Thus leading back all ages to the womb
Of vast eternity from whence they come,[14]
And bringing new successions forth until
Heaven its last revolutions shall fulfill, [195]
And all things unto their first state restore 165
When, motion ceasing, time shall be no more, Rev. 10:6
But with the visible heavens shall expire
While they consume in[15] the world’s funeral fire. 2 Peter 3:12
Th’invisible heavens, being still the same, Hebrews 12:27–28
Shall not be touched by the devouring flame. 170
Treating of which, let’s waive Platonic dreams
Of worlds made in Idea,[16] fitter themes
For poets’ fancies than the reverent view
Of contemplation, fixed on what is true
And only certain, kept upon record 175
In the Creator’s own revealèd Word,
Which, when it taught us how our world was made,
Wrapped up th’invisible in mystic shade.
Yet through those clouds we see God did create Heaven
A place his presence doth irradiate, 180
Where he doth in his brightest luster shine; Hebrews 11:10
Yet doth not his own Heaven him confine, Isaiah 66:1
Although the paradise of the fair world above, Matt. 5:34, 6.9
Each-where perfumed with sweet-respiring love, 1 Kings 8:27–28
Refreshed with pleasure’s never shrinking streams, Luke 23:43 185
Illustrated with light’s unclouded beams,
The happy land of peace and endless rest 1 Cor. 13:13
Which doth both soul and sense with full joys feast, 1 John 4:16
Feasts that extinguish not the appetite, Psalm 16:11
Which is renewed to heighten the delight. Rev. 20:5 190
Here stands the Tree of Life, decked with fair fruit, Hebrews 4:9
Whose leaves health to the nations contribute: Rev. 14:13, 22:2
The spreading, true, celestial vine
Where fruitful grafts and noble clusters shine. John 15:1
Here majesty and grace together meet; 195
The grace is glorious, and the glory sweet. [196]
Here is the throne of th’universal king, Rev. 21:25–26
To which the suppliant world addresses bring.
Here next him doth his Son in triumph sit,
Waiting till all his foes lie at his feet. Psalm 110:1 200
Here is the temple of his holiness, Exod. 15:17–18
The sanctuary for all sad distress.
Here is the saints’ most sure inheritance, Rev. 7:17
To which they all their thoughts and hopes advance. 1 Peter 1:4
Here their rich recompense and safe rest lies, Col. 3:1–2,24 205
For this they all th’inferior world despise; Hebrews 12:2
Yet not for this alone, though this excel,
But for that deity who here doth dwell;
For Heaven itself to saints no Heaven were Psalm 73:25
Did not their God afford his presence there. 210
But now, as he inhabits it, it is
The treasure-house of everlasting bliss,
The Father’s house, the pilgrim’s home, the port 2 Tim. 4:8
Of happiness, th’illustrious regal court, John 14:21
The city that on the world’s summit stands, Heb. 11:16 215
United in itself, not made with hands; Psalms 15:1 and 122:3
Whose citizens, walls, pavements are so bright Hebrews 12:22
They need no sun in God’s more radiant light. 2 Cor. 5:1
The pure air being not thickened with dark clouds, Rev. 21:23
No sable night the constant glory shrouds, 220
Nor needs there night, when no dull lassitude
Doth into the unwearied soul intrude;
New vigor flowing in with that dear joy
Whose contemplation doth their lives employ.
This Heaven, the third to us within, 2 Cor.12:2 225
The first, if from the outside we begin,
Is incorruptible and still the same, 1 Peter 1:4
Confirmed by him who did its substance frame.
No time its strong foundations can decay,
Its renewed glory fadeth not away. 230
The other heavens which it doth enfold Joel 2:30, Isaiah 34:4
In tract of time as garments shall wax old, Psalm 102:26
And all their outworn glory shall expire 1 Peter 3:7, 12
In the world’s dreadful last devouring fire;[17]
But this shall still unchangeable remain 235
While all the rolling spheres which it contains
Shall be again into their Chaos whirled
At the last dissolution of the world.
For God, who made this blessèd place to be
The habitation of his sanctity, 240
Admitting nothing to it that is vile, Rev. 21:27
Nothing that can corrupt or can defile,
Never withdraws his gracious presence thence
But is on all the glory a defense.[18] Isaiah 4:5
Nor are his gates e’er shut by night or day; 245
His only dread keeps all his foes far away.[19]
He not for need, but for majestic state, Angels
Innumerable hosts of angels did create
To be his out-guards, in respect of whom
He doth his name El-tzeboim[20] assume. Isaiah 48:2 250
These perfect, pure intelligences be, Matt. 26:53
Excel in might and in celerity, 2 Sam. 14:17
Whose sublime natures and whose agile powers
Are vastly so superior unto ours 2 Thes. 1:7
Our narrow thoughts cannot to them extend Daniel 9:21 255
And things so far above us comprehend Isaiah 6:6
As in themselves, although in part we know Col. 2:18
Some scantlings by appearances below
And sacred writ, wherein we find there be
Distinguished orders in their hierarchy: Rom. 8:38 260
Archangels, cherubims, and seraphims, 1 Thes. 4:16
Who celebrate their God with holy hymns;
Ten thousand thousand vulgar angels stand Psalm 103:20–21
All in their ranks, waiting the Lord’s command, Gen. 3:24
Which with prompt inclination of their will [198] Daniel 7:10 265
And cheerful, swift obedience they fulfill; Matt. 6:10
Whether he them to save poor men employ
Or send them armed, proud rebels to destroy; Psalm 91:11–12
Whether he them to mighty monarchs send 2 Kings 19:35[21]
Or bid them on poor pilgrim saints attend; Gen. 32:1 270
Whether they must in heavenly luster go, Luke 2:13–14
Or walk in mortal mean disguise below;
So kind, so humble are they, though so high, Gen. 32:1–2
They do it with the same alacrity. Gen. 19:1
Why blush we not at our vain pride, when we Ps.104:4 275
Such condescension in Heaven’s courtiers see, Luke 16:20
That they who sit on heavenly thrones above
Scorn not to serve poor worms with fervent love,
And joyful praises to th’Almighty sing,
When they a mortal to their own home bring? 280
How gracious is the Lord of all, that he Matt. 13:29
Should thus consider poor mortality,
Such powers for us into those powers diffuse,
Such glorious servants in our service use,
Who, whether they with light or Heaven had 285
Creation, were within the six days made?
But leave we looking through the veil, nor pry
Too long on things wrapped up in mystery,
Reserved to be our wonder at that time Hebrews 12:22
When we shall up to their high mountain climb. 290
Besides th’empyrean Heaven, we are told
Of diverse other heavens which we behold
Only by reason’s eye; yet were not they,
If made, at least distinguished the first day.
Then from the height we cannot comprehend, 295
Let us to our inferior world descend.
The earth at first was a vast empty place, Earth’s Chaos
A rude congestion[22] without form or grace,
A confused mass of undistinguished seed. Gen. 1:2
Darkness the deep, the deep the solid hid,[199] 300
Where things did in imperfect causes sleep,
Until God’s Spirit moved the quiet deep,
Brooding the creatures under wings of love,
As tender birds hatched by a turtle-dove.[23]
Light first of all its radiant wings displayed; 305
God called forth light: that Word the creature made. Gen. 1:3–5
Whether it were the natures more divine,
Or the bright mansions where just souls must shine,
Or the first matter of those tapers which
The since-made firmament do still enrich, 310
It is not yet agreed among the wise:
But thus the day did out of Chaos rise,
And cast its bright beams on the floating world,
O’er which soon envious night her black mists hurled,
Damping the new-born splendor for a space 315
Till the next morning did her shadows chase,
With restored beauty and triumphant force
Returning to begin another course:
An emblem of that everlasting feud John 3:19–21
’Twixt sons of light and darkness still pursued; 320
And of that frail, imperfect state wherein Col. 1:12–13
The wasting lights of mortal men begin;
Whose comforts, honors, lives, soon as they shine 1 Peter 1:24
Must all to sorrows, changes, death resign;
Even their wisdom’s and their virtue’s light 325
Are hid by envy’s interposing night.
But though these splendors all in graves are thrown,
Wherever the true seed of light is sown
The powers of darkness may contend in vain, Psalm 97:11
It shall a conqueror rise and ever reign. 330
For when God the victorious morning viewed,
Approving his own work he said ’twas good,
And of inanimate creatures sure the best,
As that which shows and beautifies the rest;
Those melancholy thoughts which night creates [200] 335
And feeds in mortal bosoms, dissipates;
In its own nature subtle, swift, and pure,
Which no polluted mirror can endure.
By it th’Almighty Maker doth dispense
To earthy creatures heavenly influence; 340
By it with angels’ swiftness are our eyes
Exalted to the glory of the skies,
In whose bright character the light divine,
Which flesh cannot behold, doth dimly shine.
Thus was the first day made; God so called light, 345
Severed from darkness; darkness was the night.
Canto 2
Again spoke God; the trembling waters move. Gen. 1:6
Part fly up in thick mists, made clouds above,
Part closer shrink about the earth below, The Firmament
But did not yet the mountains’ dry heads show.
Th’all-forming Word[24] stretched out the firmament 5
Like azure curtains round his glorious tent, Psalm 104:2–3
And in its hidden chambers did dispose
The magazines of hail, and rain, and snows,
Amongst those thicker clouds from whose dark womb Job 38:22–23
Th’imprisoned winds in flame and thunder come; 10
Those clouds which over all the wondrous arch
Like hosts of various-formèd creatures march
And change the scenes in our admiring eyes,
Who sometimes see them like vast mountains rise,
Sometimes like pleasant seas with clear waves glide, 15
Sometimes like ships on foaming billows ride;
Sometimes like mounted warriors they advance,
And seem to fire the smoking ordinance;
Sometimes like shady forests they appear,
Here monsters walking, castles rising there. 20
Scorn, princes, your embroidered canopies
And painted roofs: the poor whom you despise
With far more ravishing delight are fed [201]
While various clouds sail o’er th’unhousèd head,
And their heaved eyes with nobler scenes present 25
Than your poetic courtiers can invent.
Thus the exalted waters were disposed 2 Peter 3:5
And liquid skies the solid world enclosed
To magnify the most almighty hand Job 37:18
That makes thin floods like rocks of crystal stand, 30
Not quenching, nor drunk up by that bright wall
Of fire which, neighboring them, encircles all.
The new-built firmament God “Heaven” named,
And over all the arch his windows framed;
From whence his liberal hand at due time pours 35
Upon the thirsty earth refreshing showers; Psalm 147:16–18
And clothes her bosom with descending snow[25] Job 26 to the end
To cherish the young seeds when cold winds blow.
Hence every night his fattening dews he sheds, Psalm 18:8–14
And scatters pearls amidst th’enamelled beds. 40
But when presumptuous sins the bright arch scale,
He beats them back with terrifying hail, Job 38:27 etc.
Which like small shot amidst his foes he sends,
Till flaming thunder, his great ordnance, rends
The clouds which, big with horror, ready stand 45
To pour their burdens forth at his command. Exodus 9:2
But th’unpolluted air as yet had not
From mortals’ impious breath infection got;
Enlightened then by a superior ray,
A serene luster decked the second day. 50
Th’inferior globe was fashioned on the third, Gen. 1:10 etc.
When waters at the all-commanding Word
Did hastily into their channels glide, Psalm 104:6–10
And the uncovered hills as soon were dried.
In the same body thus, distinct and joined, 55
Water and earth, as flesh and blood, we find.
The late-collected waters God called seas.
Springs, lakes, streams, and broad rivers are from these
Branched, like life-feeding veins, in every land,
Yet wheresoe’er they seem to flow or stand, 60
As all in the vast ocean’s bosom bred, Ecclesiastes 1:7
They daily reassemble in their head,[202]
Which thorough[26] secret conduits back conveys
To every spring the tribute that it pays.
So ages from th’eternal bosom creep, Eccles. 1:4 65
So lose themselves again in that vast deep.
So empires, so all other human things,
With winding streams run to their native springs.
So all the goodness mortals exercise Romans 4:22
Flows back to God out of his own supplies. 70
Now, the great fabric[27] in all parts complete,
Beauty was called forth to adorn the seat;
Where earth, fixed in the center, was the ground,[28] Psalm 102:25
A mantle of light air compassed it round; Job 26:7
Then first the watery, then the fiery wall, 75
And glittery Heaven last involving all.
Earth’s fair green robe vied with the azure skies,
Her proud woods near the flaming towers did rise.
The valleys’ trees, though less in breadth and height,
Yet, hung with various fruit, as much delight. Gen 2:9 80
Beneath these little shrubs and bushes sprung,
With fair flowers clothed, and with rich berries hung,
Whose more delightful fruits seemed to upbraid
The tall trees yielding only barren shade.
Then sprouted grass and herbs and flowers and plants,[29]Ps. 104:14 85
Prepared to feed the earth’s inhabitants,
To glad their nostrils and delight their eyes,
Revive their spirits, cure their maladies.
Nor by these are the senses only fed,
But th’understanding too, while we may read 90
In every leaf, lectures of providence,
Eternal wisdom, love, omnipotence;
Which th’eye that sees not with hell’s mists is blind,
That which regards not is of brutish kind.
The various colors, figures, powers of these 95
Are their Creator’s growing witnesses; [203]
Their glories emblems are wherein we see Psalm 90:5–6
How frail our human lives and beauties be:
Even like those flowers which at the sunrise spread Job 14:2
Their gaudy leaves, and are at evening dead, Isaiah 40:6–8 100
Yet while they in their native luster shine,
The eastern monarchs are not half so fine.[30] Matt. 6:28–30
In richer robes God clothes the dirty soil
Than men can purchase by their sin and toil. James 1:10–11
Then rather fields than painted courts admire, 105
Yet seeing both, think both must feed the fire;
Only God’s works have roots and seeds, from whence Job 14:7–8
They spring again in grace and excellence,
But men’s have none: like hasty lightning they
Flash out, and so forever pass away. 1 Cor. 3:15 110
This fair creation finished the third day,
In whose end God did the whole work survey,
The seas, the skies, the trees, and less plants viewed,
And by his approbation made them good;
In all the plants did living seeds enclose, Gen. 1:12 115
Whence their successive generations rose;
Gave them those powers which in them still remain,
Whereby they man and beast with food sustain.
Thrice had the day to gloomy night resigned, The fourth day
And thrice victorious o’er darkness shined, 120
Before the mediate cause of it, the sun
Or any star had their creation,[31]
For with th’omnipotent it all is one
To cause the day without, or by the sun.
God in the world by second causes reigns, 125
But is not tied to those means he ordains.[32]
Let no heart faint, then, that on him depends,
When the means fail that lead to their wished ends; [204]
For God the thing, if good, will bring about
With instruments we see not, or without. 130
The fourth light having now expelled the shade,
God on that day the luminaries[33] made, Gen. 1:14 etc.
And placed them all in their peculiar spheres
To measure out our days, and months, and years,
Which by their various motions are renewed, 135
And heat and cold have their vicissitude.
So springs and autumns still successive be,
Till ages lose them in eternity.
The sun, whom th’Hebrews God’s great servant call, Sun
Placed in the middle orb, as lord of all, 140
Is in a radiant, flaming chariot whirled,
And daily carried round about the world Psalm 19:4–6
By the First Mover’s force, who in that race
Scatters his light and heat in every place,
Yet not at once. Now in the east he shines, 145
And then again to the western deep declines,
Seeming to quench his blazing taper there
While it enlightens the other hemisphere.
Thus he their share of day and night divides
Unto each world in their altérnate tides. 150
But then its orb, by its own motion rolled,
Varies the seasons, brings in heat and cold,
As it projects its rays in a straight line
Or more obliquely on the earth doth shine.
And thus doth he to the low world dispense 155
Life-feeding and engendering influence.
This lord of day with his reflected light Moon
Gilds the pale moon, the empress of the night,
Whose dim orb monthly wastes and grows,
Doth at the first sharp-pointed horns disclose, 160
Then half, then her full shining globe reveals,
Which, waning, she by like degrees conceals.
The other glittering planets now appear Stars
Each as a king enthroned in his own sphere;
Then the eighth heaven[34] in fuller luster shines 165
Thick-set with stars. All these were made for signs, [205]
That mortals by observing them might know
Due times to cultivate the earth below,
To gather fruits, plant trees, and sow their seed,
To cure their herds and let their fair flocks breed, 170
Into safe harbors to retire their ships, Acts 27:10
Again to launch out into the calm deeps,
Their wandering vessels in broad seas to guide
When the lost shores no longer are descried;
Physicians to direct in their great art, 175
And other useful knowledge to impart.
Nor were they only made for signs to show
Fit opportunities for things we do,
But in their various aspects too we read
Various events which shall in time succeed: 180
Droughts, inundations, famines, plagues, and wars,
By several[35] conjunctions of the stars
At least shown, if not caused, through the strong powers
And workings astral bodies have on ours,
Which, as above they variously are joined, 185
So are their subjects here below inclined
To sadness, mirth, dread, quiet, love, or hate —
All that may calm or trouble any state.[36]
Yet they are but a second cause, which God
Shakes over sinners as a flaming rod, 190
And further manages in his own hands
To scourge the pride of all rebellious lands.
Falsely and vainly do blind mortals then
To them impute the fates and ills of men,
When their sinister operations be 195
Only th’effects of men’s iniquity,
Which makes the Lord his glittering hosts thus send
To execute the just threats they portend.
Nor are they characters of wrath alone, Judges 5[37]
They sometimes have God’s grace to mankind shown. [206] 200
Such was that new star which did heaven adorn Matt. 2
When the great king of the whole world was born.[38]
Such were those stars that fought for Israel
When Jabin’s vanquished host by God’s host fell.
Even those stars which threaten misery and woe 205
To wicked men, to saints deliverance show:
For when God cuts the bloody tyrant down, Luke 2:28
He will their lives with peace and blessings crown.
Thus the fourth evening did the fourth day close,
And where the sun went down, the stars arose. 210
New triumph now the fifth day celebrates.
The perfumed morning opes her purple gates,
Through which the sun’s pavilion doth appear Psalm 19
And he, arrayed in all his luster there,
Like a fresh bridegroom, with majestic grace 215
And joy diffusing vigor in his face,
Comes gladly forth to greet his virgin bride
Tricked up in all her ornaments and pride.
Her lovely maids at his approach unfold
Their gaudy vests,[39] on which he scatters gold, 220
Both cheering and enriching every place
Through which he passes in his glorious race.
But though he found a noble theater,
And yet in it no living creatures were;
Though flowery carpets spread the whole earth’s face 225
And rich embroideries the upper arch did grace,
And standards on the mountains stood between,
Bearing festoons like pillars wreathed with green,
The velvet couches and the mossy seats,
The open walks and the more close retreats 230
Were all prepared; yet no foot trod the woods,
Nor no mouth yet had touched the pleasant floods;
No weary creature had reposed its head
Among the sweet perfumes of the low bed;
The air was not respired in living breath, 235
Throughout a general stillness reigned, like death;
The king of day came forth but, unadmired,
Like unpraised gallants blushingly retired; [207]
As an uncourted beauty, night’s pale queen
Grew sick to shine where she could not be seen; 240
When the Creator first for mute herds calls,
And bade the waters bring forth animals.
Then was all shell-fish and each scaly race Gen. 1:20 etc.
At once produced in their assigned place;
The crooked dolphins, great Leviathan, 245
And all the monsters of the ocean[40]
Like wanton kids among the billows played; Job 41
Nor was there after on the dry land made
Any one beast of less or greater kind
Whose like we do not in the waters find; 250
Where every greater fish devours the less,
As mighty lords poor commoners oppress.
Next the Almighty by his forming Word
Made the whole plumy race, and every bird
Its proper place assigned, while with light wings 255
All mounted heaven. Some o’er the lakes and springs,
Some over the vast fens and seas did fly,
Some near the ground, some in the cloudy sky,
Some in high trees their proud nests built, some chose
The humble shrubs for their more safe repose, 260
Some did the marshes, some the rivers love,
Some the cornfields, and some the shady grove.
That silence which reigned everywhere before
Its universal empire held no more.
Even night and darkness, its own dear retreat, 265
Could not preserve it in their reign complete.
The nightingales with their complaining notes,
Ravens and owls with their ill-boding throats,
And all the birds of night, shrill-crowing cocks
Whose due-kept times made them the world’s first clocks, 270
All interrupted it, even in the night;
But at the first appearance of the light
A thousand voices, the greenwood’s whole choir,
With their loud music do the day admire.
The lark doth with her single carol rise 275
To welcome the fair morning in the skies;
The amorous and still-complaining dove
Courts not the day, but woos her own fair love;
The jays and crows against each other rail,
And chattering pies[41] begin their gossips’ tale. [208] 280
Thus life was carried on, which first begun
In growth of plants, in fishes’ motion,[42]
And next declared itself in living sound,
Whilst various noise the yielding air did wound.
Various instincts the birds by nature have, 285
Which God to them in their creation gave,
That unto their observers do declare
The storms and calms approaching in the air;
That teach them how to build their nests at spring
And hatch their young under their nursing wing, 290
To lead abroad and guard their tender brood,
To know their hurtful and their healing food,
To feed them till their strength be perfect grown,
And after teach them how to feed alone.
Could we the lessons they hold forth improve, 295
We might from some learn chaste and constant love,
Conjugal kindness of the pairèd swans,
Paternal bounty of the pelicans,
While they are prodigal of their own blood
To feed their chickens with that precious food.[43] 300
Wisdom of those who, when storms threat the sky,
In thick assemblies to their shelter fly,
And those who, seeing devourers in the air,
To the safe covert of the wing repair.
The gall-less doves would teach us innocence, Matt. 10:16 305
And the whole race to hang on providence; Matt. 8:26 and 10:19
Since not the least bird that divides the air
Exempted is from the Almighty’s care,
Whose bounty in due seasons feeds them all,
Prepares them berries when the thick snows fall, 310
Clothes them in many-colored plumes, which vain
Men borrow; yet the peacock’s gaudy train
More beautifully is by nature dressed
Than art can make it on the gallant’s crest.
This privilege these creatures had, to raise 315
Their voices first in their great Maker’s praise,
Which when the morning opes her rosy gate,
They with consenting music celebrate;
Again, with hunger pinched, to God they cry,
And from his liberal hand receive supply; [209] 320
Who them and all his watery creatures viewed,
And saw that they in all their kinds were good,
Then blessed them that for due successions they
Might multiply. So closed he the fifth day.
And now the sun the third time raised his head 325
And rose the sixth day from his watery bed, Gen. 1:24
When God commands the teeming earth to bring
Forth great and lesser beasts, each reptile thing
That on her bosom creeps; the Word obeyed;
Immediately were all the creatures made. 330
Like hermits some made hollow rocks their cell,
And did in their preparèd mansions dwell.
The vermin, weasels, fulmots,[44] and blind moles
Lay hid in clefts of trees, in crannies and in holes.
The serpents lodged in marishes[45] and fens, 335
The savage beasts sought thickets, caves, and dens.
Tame herds and flocks in open pastures stayed,
And wanton kids upon the mountains played.
Here life almost to its perfection grew
While God these various creatures did endue[46] 340
With various properties and various sense,
But little short of human excellence,
Save[47] what we in the brutes dispersèd find
Is all collected in man’s nobler mind,
Who to the high perfection of his sense 345
Hath added a more high intelligence.
Yet several brutes have noble faculties:
Some apprehensive are, some subtle, wise,
Some have invention and docility,
Some wonderful in imitation be, 350
Some with high generous courage are endued,
With kindness some, and some with gratitude,
With memory some, and some with providence,
With natural love, and with meek innocence;
Some watchful are, and some laborious be, 355
Some have obedience, some true loyalty.
Among them too, we all the passions find,
Some more to love, some more to hate inclined.
The musing hare and the light-footed deer
Are under the predominance of fear; [210] 360
Goats and hot monkeys are with lust possessed,
Rage governs in the savage tiger’s breast;
Jealousy doth the hearts of fierce bulls move,
Impatient of all rivals in their love.
Some sportive and some melancholy be, 365
Some proner to revenge and cruelty.
The kingly lion in his bosom hath
The fiery seed of self-provoking wrath.
Joy is no stranger to the savage breast,
As oft with love, hate, and desire possessed, 370
Through the aversion and the appetite
Which all these passions in their hearts excite.
God clothed them all in several wools and hair,
Whereof some meaner, some more precious are,
Which men now into garments weave and spin, 375
Nor only wear their fleeces, but their skin;
Besides employ their teeth, bones, claws, and horn;
Some medicines be, and some the house adorn.
A thousand other various ways we find,
Wherein alive and dead they serve mankind, 380
Who from th’obedience they to him afford
Might learn his duty to his sovereign lord. Isaiah 1:3
Canto 3
Now was the glorious universe complete
And everything in beauteous order set,
When God, about to make the king of all,[48]
Did in himself a sacred council call;
Not that he needed to deliberate, 5
But pleased t’allow solemnity and state
To wait upon that noble creature’s birth
For whom he had designed both heaven and earth: Psalm 8:6
“Let us,” said God, “with sovereign power endued, Genesis 1:26
Make man after our own similitude; 10
Let him our sacred impressed image bear, Ephes. 4:24
Ruling o’er all in earth and sea and air.” Psalm 8
Then made the Lord a curious mould of clay
Which lifeless on the earth’s cold bosom lay
When God did it with living breath inspire, [211] 15
A soul in all, and every part entire,
Where life rose above motion, sound, and sense
To higher reason and intelligence;
And this is truly termèd life alone
Which makes life’s fountain to the living known. 20
This life into itself doth gather all
The rest maintained by its original,
Which gives it being, motion, sense, warmth, breath,
And those chief powers that are not lost in death.
Thus was the noblest creature the last made, 25
As he in whom the rest perfection had,
In whom both parts of the great world were joined,
Earth in his members, Heaven in his mind;
Whose vast reach the whole universe comprised,
And saw it in himself epitomized.[49] Eccles. 3:11 30
Yet not the center nor circumference can
Fill the more comprehensive soul of man,
Whose life is but a progress of desire,
Which still, enjoyed, doth something else require,
Unsatisfied with all it hath pursued 35
Until it rest in God, the sovereign good. Matt. 11:25
The earthly mansions of this heavenly guest
Peculiar privileges too possessed.
Whereas all other creatures clothèd were
In shells, scales, gaudy plumes, or wools, or hair, 40
Only a fair smooth skin o’er man was drawn,
Like damask roses blushing through pure lawn.[50]
The azure veins, where blood and spirits flow,[51]
Like violets in a field of lilies show.
As others have a down-bent countenance, 45
He only doth his head to heaven advance,
Resembling thus a tree whose noble root Psalm 144:12
In heaven grows, whence all his graces shoot.
He only on two upright columns stands,
He only hath, and knows, the use of hands, 50
Which God’s rich bounties for the rest receive, [212]
And aid to all the other members give.
He only hath a voice articulate,
Varied by joy, grief, anger, love, and hate,
And every other motion of the mind 55
Which hereby doth an apt expression find.
Hereby glad mirth in laughter is alone
By man expressed; in a peculiar groan
His grief comes forth, accompanied with tears;
Peculiar shrieks utter his sudden fears. 60
Herein is music too, which sweetly charms
The sense, and the most savage heart disarms. Proverbs 15:1
The gate of this God in the head did place,
The head which is the body’s chiefest grace,
The noble palace of the royal guest 65
Within by fancy and invention dressed,
With many pleasant, useful ornaments
Which new imagination still presents,
Adorned without by majesty and grace:
O who can tell the wonders of a face! 70
In none of all his fabrics more than here
Doth the Creator’s glorious power appear,
That of so many thousands which we see
All human creatures like, all different be.
If the front be the glory of man’s frame, 75
Those lamps which in its upper windows flame
Illustrate it, and as day’s radiant star
In the clear heaven of a bright face are.[52]
Here love takes stand, and here ardent desire
Enters the soul, as fire drawn in by fire. 80
At two ports on each side, the hearing sense
Still waits to take in fresh intelligence,
But the false spies both at the ears and eyes
Conspire with strangers for the soul’s surprise
And let all life-perturbing passions in, James 5:11 85
Which with tears, sighs, and groans issue again.
Nor do those labyrinths which like breast-works are
About those secret ports serve for a bar
To the false sorcerers conducted by
Man’s own imprudent curiosity. Proverbs 1:10–12
There is an arch i’the middle of the face 91
Of equal-necessary use and grace, [213]
For there men suck up the life-feeding air,
And panting bosoms are dischargèd there.
Beneath it is the chief and beauteous gate 95
About which various pleasant graces wait,
When smiles the ruby doors a little way
Unfold, or laughter doth them quite display,
And, opening the vermilion curtains, shows
The ivory piles set in two even rows 100
Before the portal, as a double guard
By which the busy tongue is helped and barred; Proverbs 25:11
Whose sweet sounds charm, when love doth it inspire, Ecclesiastes 12:11
And when hate moves it, set the world on fire. James 3:6
Within this portal’s inner vault is placed 105
The palate, where sense meets its joys in taste.
On rising cheeks, beauty in white and red
Strives with itself, white on the forehead spread
Its undisputed glory there maintains,
And is illustrated with azure veins. 110
The brows love’s bow and beauty’s shadow are.
A thick-set grove of soft and shining hair
Adorns the head, and shows like crowning rays,
While th’air’s soft breath among the loose curls plays.
Besides the colors and the features, we 115
Admire their just and perfect symmetry,
Whose ravishing resultance[53] is that air
That graces all, and is not anywhere;
Whereof we cannot well say what it is,
Yet beauty’s chiefest excellence lies in this; 120
Which mocks the painters in their best designs,
And is not held by their exactest lines.
But while we gaze upon our own fair frame,
Let us remember too from whence it came,
And that, by sin corrupted now, it must 125
Return to its originary dust. Job 4:19
How undecently doth pride then lift that head
On which the meanest feet must shortly tread?
Yet at the first it was with glory crowned, Ecclesiastes 7:29
Till Satan’s fraud gave it the mortal wound. 130
This excellent creature God did “Adam” call
To mind him of his low original,[54]
Whom he had formed out of the common ground
Which then with various pleasures did abound.
The whole earth was one large delightful field 135
That, till man sinned, no hurtful briars did yield,
But God, enclosing one part from the rest, Gen. 2:8
A paradise in the rich spicy East
Had stored with nature’s wealthy magazine,
Where every plant did in its luster shine, 140
But did not grow promiscuously there:
They all disposed in such rich order were
As did augment their single native grace
And pérfected the pleasure of the place
To such a height that th’apelike art[55] of man, 145
Licentious pens or pencils, never can,
With all th’essays[56] of all-presuming wit,
Or form or feign aught that approaches it.
Whether it were a fruitful hill or vale,
Whether high rocks or trees did it impale, 150
Or rivers with their clear and kind embrace
Into a pleasant island formed the place,
Whether its noble situation were
On earth, in the bright moon, or in the air,
In what forms stood the various trees and flowers, 155
The disposition of the walks and bowers,
Whereof no certain word nor sign remains,
We dare not take from men’s inventive brains.[57]
We know there was a pleasant and noble shade
Which the tall-growing pines and cedars made, 160
And thicker coverts,[58] which the light and heat Gen. 3:8
Even at noonday could scarcely penetrate. Gen. 2:10
A crystal river, on whose verdant banks
The crownèd fruit-trees stood in lovely ranks,
His gentle wave thorough the garden led, 165
And all the spreading roots with moisture fed; [215]
But past th’enclosure, thence the single stream,
Parted in four, four noble floods became:
Pison, whose large arms Havilah enfold, Gen. 2:11
A wealthy land enriched with finest gold, 170
Where also many precious stones are found;
The second river, Gihon, doth surround Gen. 2:13
All that fair land where Chus[59] inhabited,
Where tyranny first raised up her proud head
And led her bloodhounds all along the shore, 175
Polluting the pure stream with crimson gore.
Eden’s third river Hiddekel they call,
Whose waters eastward in Assyria fall.
The fourth, Euphrates, whose swift stream did run Gen. 2:14
About the stately walls of Babylon 180
And in the revolution of some years[60]
Swelled high, fed with the captived Hebrews’ tears.
God in the midst of Paradise did place
Two trees that stood up dressed in all the grace, Gen. 2:9
The verdure, beauty, sweetness, excellence, 185
With which all else could tempt or feast the sense.
On one, apples of knowledge did abound,
And life-confirming fruit the other crowned.
And now did God the new-created king[61]
Into the pleasures of his earthly palace bring. 190
The air spice, balm, and amber did respire,
His ears were feasted by the sylvan choir;
Like country girls, grass, flowers did dispute
Their humble beauties with the highborn fruit;[62]
Both high and low their gaudy colors vied, 195
As courtiers do in their contentious pride,
Striving which of them should yield most delight [216]
And stand the finest in their sovereign’s sight.
The shrubs, with berries crowned like precious gems,
Offered their supreme lord their diadems, 200
Which did no single sense alone invite,
Courting alike the eyes and appetite.
Among all these the eye-refreshing green,
Sometimes alone, sometimes in mixture seen,
O’er all the banks and all the flat ground spread, 205
Seemed an embroidered or plain velvet bed.
And, that each sense might its refreshment have,
The gentle air soft pleasant touches gave
Unto his panting limbs, whenever they
Upon the sweet and mossy couches lay. 210
A shady eminence there was whereon
The noble creature sat, as on his throne, Gen. 2:19 etc.
When God brought every fowl and every brute
That he might name unto their natures suit,
Whose comprehensive understanding knew 215
How to distinguish them at their first view;
And they, retaining those names ever since,
Are monuments of his first excellence
And the Creator’s providential grace,
Who in those names left us some prints to trace; 220
Nature, mysterious grown since we grew blind,
Whose labyrinths we should less easily find
If those first appellations as a clue
Did not in some sort serve to lead us through
And rectify that frequent gross mistake 225
Which our weak judgments and sick senses make
Since, man ambitious to know more, that sin
Brought dullness, ignorance, and error in.
Though God himself to man did condescend, Society
Though his knowledge to all natures did extend, 230
Though heaven and earth thus centered in his mind,
Yet, being the only one of his whole kind,
He found himself without an equal mate
To whom he might his joys communicate,
And by communication multiply. 235
Too far out of his reach was God on high,
Too much below him brutish creatures were.
God could at first have made a human pair,
But that it was his will to let man see
The need and sweetness of society; 240
Who, though he were his Maker’s favorite,
Feasted in paradise with all delight, [217]
Though all the creatures paid him homage, yet
Was not his unimparted joy complete,
While there was not a second of his kind 245
Endued with such a form and such a mind
As might alike his soul and senses feast:
He saw that every bird and every beast
Its own resemblance in its female viewed,
And only union with its like pursued. 250
Hence birds with birds, and fish with fish abide,
Nor those with beasts, nor beasts with these reside;
According to their several species too,
As several households in one city do,
So they with their own kinds associate: 255
The kingly eagle hath no buzzard mate;
The ravens more their own black feather love
Than painted pheasants, or the fair-necked dove.
So bears to rough bears rather do incline
Than to majestic lions, or fair kine.[63] 260
If it be thus with brutes, much less then can
The brutish conversation suit with man.
’Tis only like desires like things unite:
In union likeness only feeds delight.
Where unlike natures in conjunction are, 265
There is no product but perpetual war,
Such as there was in nature’s troubled womb
Until the severed births from thence did come.
For the whole world nor order had, nor grace,
Till severed elements each their own place 270
Assignèd were, and while in them they keep,
Heaven still smiles above, th’untroubled deep
With kind salutes embraces the dry land,
Firm doth the earth on its foundation stand,
A cheerful light streams from th’ethereal fire 275
And all in universal joy conspire.
But if with their unlike they attempt to mix,
Their rude congressions everything unfix; [218][64]
Darkness again invades the troubled skies,
Earth trembling under angry heaven lies; 280
The sea, swollen high with rage, comes to the shore
And swallows that which it but kissed before;
Th’unbounded fire breaks forth with dreadful light
And horrid cracks which dying nature fright,
Till that high power which all power regulates 285
The disagreeing natures separates,
The like to like rejoining as before,
So the world’s peace, joy, safety doth restore.
Yet if man could not find in bird or brute
That conversation which might aptly suit 290
His higher nature, was it not sublime
Enough, above the lower world to climb
And in angelic converse to delight,
Although it could not reach the supreme height?
No; for though man partake intelligence, 295
Yet that, being joined to an inferior sense,
Dulled by corporeal vapors, cannot be
Refined enough for angels’ company.
As strings screwed up too high, as bows still bent
Or break themselves, or[65] crack the instrument, 300
So drops neglected flesh into the grave,
If it no share in the soul’s pleasure have.
Man like himself needs an associate,
Who doth both soul and sense participate:
Not the swift horse, the eager hawk or hound, 305
Dogs, parrots, monkeys, ’mongst whom Adam found
No meet companion, thinking them too base
For the society of human race,
Though his degenerate offspring choose that now
Which his sound reason could not then allow, 310
But found himself amongst them all alone.
Whether he begged a mate it is not known.[66]
Likely his want might send him to the spring;
For God, who freely gives us everything,
Mercy endears by instilling the desire, [219]
And granting that which humbly we require.[67] Ezekiel 36:37 315
Howe’er it was, God saw his solitude
And gave his sentence that it was not good.
Yet not a natural, nor a moral ill, Gen. 2:18
Because his solitude was not his will, 320
Opposing his creator’s end, as they
Who into caves and deserts run away,
Seeking perfection in that state wherein
A good was wanting when man had no sin.
For without help to propagate mankind 325
God’s glory had been to one breast confined,
Which multiplièd saints do now conspire
Throughout their generations to admire. Hebrews 12:23
Man’s nature had not been the sacred shrine,
Partner and bride of that which is divine; 330
The Church, fruit of this union, had not come
To light, but perished, stifled in the womb.
Again, ’tis not particularly good
For man to waste his life in solitude,[68]
Whose nature, for society designed, 335
Can no full joy without a second find
To whom he may communicate his heart Ecclesiastes 4:8 etc.
And pay back all the pleasures they impart;
For all the joys that we enjoy alone,
And all our unseen luster, is as none. 340
If thus want of a partner did abate
Man’s happiness in man’s most perfect state,
Much more hath human nature, now decayed,
Need of a suitable and a kind aid.
It is not good virtue should lie obscure, 345
That barren rocks rich treasures should immure,
Which our kind Lord to some, for all men gave, 1 Cor. 12:5–12
That all might share of all his bounties have;
Not good, dark lanterns should shut up the light Matt. 5:15–16
Of fair example, made for the dark night; [220] 350
Not good, experience should her candle hide,
When weak ones perish, wanting her bright guide;
Not good to let unactive graces chill,
No lively warmth receive, no good instill
By quickening converse. Thus nor are the great, 355
The wise, the firm, permitted to retreat,
Betraying so deserted innocence,
To which God made them conduct and defense;
Nor may the simple and the weak expose
Themselves alone to strong and subtle foes; 360
Men for each other’s mutual help were made,
The meanest may afford the highest aid,
The highest to necessity must yield:
Even princes are beholden to the field. Ecclesiastes 5:9
He that from mortal converse steals away 365
Injures himself, and others doth betray
Whom providence committed to his trust,
And in that act nor prudent is nor just.
For sweet friends, both in pleasure and distress,
Augment the joy and make the torment less. 370
Equal delight it is to learn and teach,
To be held up to that we cannot reach,
And others from the abject earth to raise
To merit, and to give deservèd praise.
Wisdom imparted, like th’increasing bread 375
Wherewith the Lord so many thousands fed, Matt. 15:36
By distribution adds to its own store,
And still the more it gives it hath the more.
Extended power reaches itself a crown,
Gathering up those whom misery casts down. 380
Love raiseth us, itself to heaven doth rise
By virtue’s varied mutual exercise,
Sweet love, the life of life, which cannot shine Romans 13:9–10
But lies like gold concealèd in the mine,
Till it through much exchange a brightness take 385
And conversation doth it current make.
God, having showed his creature thus the need
Of human helps, a help for man decreed.
“I will,” said he, “the man’s meet aid provide.”
But that he from his waking view might hide 390
Such a mysterious work, the Lord did keep
All Adam’s senses fast locked up in sleep. Gen. 2:21–22
Then from his opened side took without pain
A clothèd rib, and closed the flesh again,
And of the bone did a fair virgin frame [221] 395
Who, by her maker brought, to Adam came
And was in matrimonial union joined,
By love and nature happily combined.
Adam’s clear understanding at first view
His wife’s original[69] and nature knew; 400
His will, as pure, did thankfully embrace
His father’s bounty, and admired his grace.
And as her sweet charms did his heart surprise,
He spoke his joy in these glad ecstasies:
“Thou art my better self, my flesh, my bone, 405
We, late of one made two, again in one Gen. 2:23–24
Shall reunite, and with the frequent birth
Of our joint issue, people the vast earth.
To show that thou wert taken out of me,
Isha shall be thy name;[70] as unto thee, 410
Ravished with love and joy, my soul doth cleave,
So men hereafter shall their fathers leave,
And all relations else which are most dear, Ephesians 5:31
That they may only to their wives adhere; Matt. 19:5
When marriage male and female doth combine, 415
Children in one flesh shall two parents join.”
Lastly, God, who the sacred knot had tied,
With blessing his own ordinance sanctified:
“Increase,” said he, “and multiply your race,
Fill th’earth allotted for your dwelling-place. Gen. 1:28 etc. 420
I give you right to all her fruits and plants,
Dominion over her inhabitants;
The fish that in the flood’s deep bosom lie,
All fowls that in the airy region fly,
Whatever lives and feeds on the dry land, 425
Are all made subject under your command.
The grass and green herbs let your cattle eat,
And let the richer fruits be your own meat,
Except the tree of knowing good and ill:
That, by the precept of my sovereign will, 430
You must not eat, for in the day you do,[222]
Inevitable death shall seize on you.”
Thus God did the first marriage celebrate
While man was in his unpolluted state, Gen. 2:22
And th’undefilèd bed with honor decked, Heb. 13:4 435
Though perverse men the ordinance reject,
And, pulling all its sacred ensigns[71] down,
To the white virgin only give the crown. Proverbs 18:22
Nor yet is marriage grown less sacred since
Man fell from his created excellence. 440
Necessity now raises its esteem,
Which doth mankind from death’s vast jaws redeem,
Who even in their graves are yet alive
While they in their posterity survive.[72]
In it they find a comfort and an aid 445
In all the ills which human life invade.
This curbs and cures wild passions that arise, Psalm 127:3–5
Repairs time’s daily wastes with new supplies;
When the declining mother’s youthful grace
Lies dead and buried in her wrinkled face, 450
In her fair daughter it revives and grows
And her dead cinder in their new flames glows.
And though this state may sometimes prove accursed,
For of best things, still the corruption’s worst,
Sin so destroys an institution good, 455
Provided against death and solitude.
Eve, out of sleeping Adam formèd thus,
A sweet instructive emblem is to us
How waking providence is active still Psalm 121:3–5
To do us good and to avert our ill 460
When we locked up in stupefaction lie, Job 32:15–17 etc.
Not dreaming that our blessings are so nigh,
Blessings wrought out by providence alone Deut. 32:36
Without the least assistance of our own.
Man’s help produced in death-like sleep doth show Romans 4:19 465
Our choicest mercies out of dead wombs flow.
So from the second Adam’s bleeding side John 19:34
God formed the Gospel Church, his mystic bride, [223] [73] 1 John 5:6, 1 Tim. 5:5
Whose strength was only of his firmness made: Phil. 4:13, 2 Cor. 12:9
His blood quick spirits into ours conveyed, John 5:2 470
His wasted flesh our wasted flesh supplied, Ephes. 2:1, 5–6 etc.
And we were then revivèd when he died; 2 Tim. 1:10, Isaiah 53:5
Who, waked from that short sleep, with joy did view Acts 20:28
The virgin fair that out of his wounds grew, Ephes. 5:25–27
Presented by th’eternal Father’s grace Rev. 5:19 475
Unto his everlasting kind embrace. John 17:9–10
“My spouse, my sister,” said he,[74] “thou art mine;
I and my death, I and my life are thine; Psalm 2:8
For thee I did my heavenly Father quit Song of Songs 2:16, 4:10
That thou with me on my high throne mayst sit, 1 Cor. 3:22–23 480
My mother’s human flesh in death did leave John 6:38–39
For thee, that I to thee might only cleave, Rev. 5:9–10
Redeem thee from the confines of dark hell, Phil. 2:9, John 19:27
And evermore in thy dear bosom dwell. Col. 2:13–15 484
From Heaven I did descend to fetch up thee, 1 Cor. 15:54–55, 21–22
Rose from the grave that thou mightst reign with me. John 17:23–24, 14:3
Henceforth no longer two but one we are. Eph. 4:9–10 etc.,
Thou dost my merit, life, grace, glory share. Rom. 8:17–18, 2 Tim. 2:12
As my victorious triumphs are all thine, Col.1
So are thy injuries and sufferings mine, Eph.1 490
Which I for thee will vanquish as my own, John 1:16
And give thee rest in the celestial throne.” Acts 9:25, Matt. 25:34ff.
The bride, with these caresses entertained, Heb. 4:13
In naked beauty doth before him stand, Heb. 10:19–20 etc.
And knows no shame, purged from all foul desire 1 Pet. 1:2 495
Whose secret guilt kindles the blushing fire. Heb. 13:12, 1 Pet. 1:10–12
Her glorious Lord is naked too, no more Ephes. 3:9–10
Concealed in types and shadows as before. Hebrews 8:5
So our first parents innocently did [224]
Behold that nakedness which since is hid 500
That lust may not catch fire from beauty’s flame, 2 Pet. 2:14
Engendering thoughts which dye the cheeks with shame. Matt. 5:28
Thus Heaven and earth their full perfection had, Gen. 2:1
Thus all their hosts and ornaments were made.
Armies of angels had the highest place, 505
Bright starry hosts the lower heaven did grace,
The mutes encampèd in the waters were,
The wingèd troops were quartered in the air,
The walking animals, as th’infantry
Of th’universal host, at large did lie 510
Spread over all the earth’s most ample face,
Each regiment in its assignèd place.
Paradise the headquarter was, and there
The emperor to his viceroy did appear, Gen. 2:16
Him in his regal office did install, 515
A general muster of his hosts did call,
Resigning up into his sole command Gen. 2:19
The numerous tribes that fill both sea and land.
As each kind severally had before
Blessing and approbation, so once more, 520
When all together God his works reviewed,
The blessing was confirmèd and renewed, Gen. 1:31
And with the sixth day the creation ceased.
The seventh day the Lord himself did rest,
And made it a perpetual ordinance then Gen. 2:2–3 525
To be observed by every age of men Exod. 20:8
That after six days’ honest labor they
His precept and example should obey,
As he did his, their works surcease, and spend
That day in sacred rest till that day end,[75] 530
And in its number back again return,
Still consecrated, till it have outworn
All other time, and that alone remain
When neither toil nor burden shall again
The weary lives of mortal men infest, 535
Nor intermit their holy, happy rest.
Nor is this rest sacred to idleness:
God, a perpetual act, sloth cannot bless.
He ceased not from his own celestial joy,
Which doth himself perpetually employ [225] 540
In contemplation of himself and those Proverbs 8:22, 30–31
Most excellent works wherein himself he shows; Matt. 3:17
He only ceased from making lower things, John 5:17, 20–21
By which, as steps, the mounting soul he brings
To th’upmost height, and, having finished these, 545
Himself did in his own productions please, Jer. 9:24
Full satisfied in their perfection,[76] Psalms 104, 147, 145
Rested from what he had completely done;
And made his pattern our instruction,[77]
That we, as far as finite creatures may 550
Trace him that’s infinite, should in our way
Rest as our Father did, work as he wrought,
Nor cease till we have to perfection brought Ecclesiastes 9:10
Whatever to his glory we intend, Hebrews 6:1
Still making ours the same which was his end. Phil. 3:19 555
As his works in commands begin, and have 1 Cor. 10:30
Conclusions in the blessings which he gave,
So must his Word give being to all ours; 1 John 5:3
And since th’events are not in our powers, Psalm 119:9
We must his blessing beg, his great name bless, 560
And make our thanks the crown of our success.
As God first Heaven did for man prepare,
Men last for Heaven created were:
So should we all our actions regulate, Matt. 6:33
Which Heaven, both first and last, should terminate, Col. 3:1 565
And in whatever circle else they run,
There should they end, there should they be begun,
There seek their pattern, and derive from thence
Their whole direction and their influence.
As, when th’Almighty this low world did frame, 570
Life by degrees to its perfection came,
In vegetation first sprung up, to sense
Ascended next, and climbed to reason thence, Hebrews 5:12–14
So we, pursuing our attainments, should
Press forward from what’s positively good, 575
Still climbing higher, until we reach the best,
And, that acquired, forever fix our rest,
Our souls so ravished with the joys divine
That they no more to creatures can decline.
As God’s rest was but a more high retreat 580
From the delights of this inferior seat, [226]
So must our souls upon our Sabbaths climb
Above the world, sequestered for that time Isaiah 58:13
From those legitimate delights which may
Rejoice us here upon a common day. 585
As God, his works completed, did retire
To be adored by the angelic choir,
So, when on us the seventh day’s light doth shine,
Should we ourselves to God’s assemblies join,
Thither all hearts as one pure offering bring, Job 1:6 590
And all with one accord adore our King. Hebrews 10:25
This seventh day the Lord to mankind gave,
Nor is it the least privilege we have — Matt. 2:27
And ours peculiarly. The orbs above Ezekiel 20:12
As well the seventh as the sixth day move, 595
The rain descends and the fierce tempest blows,
On it the restless ocean ebbs and flows;
Bees that day fill the hive, and on that day
Ants their provisions in their store-house lay;
All creatures ply their works, no beast 600
But those which mankind use share in that rest,
Which God indulged only to human race
That they in it might come before his face
To celebrate his worship and his praise
And gain a blessing upon all their days. 605
O wretched souls of perverse men, who slight
So great a grace, refuse such rich delight,
Which the inferior creatures cannot share,
To which alone their natures fitted are, 609
And whereby favored men admitted be Hebrews 4:9, 12:22
Into the angels’ blessed society.
Yet is this rest but a far distant view
Of that celestial life which we pursue,
By Satan oft so interrupted here
That little of its glory doth appear, 615
Nor can our souls’ sick, languid appetite
Feast upon such substantial, strong delight.
As music pains the grievèd, aching head,
With which the healthful sense is sweetly fed, Amos 8:5
So duties wherein sound hearts full joys find 620
Fetters and sad loads are to a sick mind
Till it thereto by force itself inure,
And from a loathing fall to love its cure.
God for his worship kept one day of seven;
The other six to man for man’s use given, 625
Adam, although so highly dignified, [227]
Was not to spend in idle ease and pride,
Nor supine sleep, drunk with his sensual pleasures,
Profusely wasting th’empire’s sacred treasures,
As now his fall’n sons do, that arrogate 630
His forfeited dominion and high state;
But God his daily business did ordain
That kings, hence taught, might in their realms maintain
Fair order, serving those whom they command
As guardians, not as owners of the land, Rom. 13:3–4 635
Not being set there to pluck up and destroy
Those plants whose culture should their cares employ.
Nor doth this precept only kings comprise, 1 Thes. 4:11
The meanest must his little paradise 1 Tim. 5:8
With no less vigilance and care attend 640
Than princes on their vast enclosures spend.
All hence must learn their duty, to suppress
Th’intrusions of a sordid idleness.
Who formed, could have preserved the garden fair
Without th’employment of man’s busy care, 645
But that he willed that our delight should be
The wages of our constant industry,
That we his ever-bounteous hand might bless
Crowning our honest labors with success,
And taste the joy men reap in their own fruit, 650
Loving that more to which they contribute
Either the labor of their hands or brains
Than better things produced by others’ pains.
Led by desire, fed with fair hope, the fruit
Oft-times delights not more than the pursuit. 655
For man a nature hath to action prone,
That languishes and sickens finding none.
As standing pools corrupt, water that flows
More pure by its continual current grows,
So humankind by active exercise 660
Do to the heights of their perfection rise,
While their stocked glory comes to no ripe growth
Whose lives corrupt in idleness and sloth,
Which is not natural, but a disease
That doth upon the flesh-cloyed spirit seize. 665
Where health untainted is, then the sound mind
In its employment doth its pleasure find.
But when death or its representer sleep
Upon the mortals’ tired members creep,
This during its dull reign doth life suspend 670
That, ceasing action, puts it to an end. [228]
Lastly, since God himself did man employ
To dress up Paradise, that moderate joy
Which from this fair creation we derive
Is not our sin, but our prerogative, 675
If bounded so as we fix not our rest 1 Tim. 4:4–5
In creatures, which but transient are at best; 1 John 2:17
Yet ’tis sin to neglect, not use or prize, 1 Cor. 7:31, 20
As well as ’tis to waste and idolize.
Canto 4
Good were all natures as God made them all, Gen. 1:31
Good was his will, permitting some to fall: Romans 9:21–23
That th’rest, renouncing their frail strength, might stand Romans 11
Humble and firm in his supporting hand; Romans 3:6
His wisdom and omnipotence might own Gen. 18:25 5
When his foes’ power and craft is overthrown; Romans 11:33
Seeing his hate of sin, might thence confess 1 Cor. 10:12
His pure, innate, and perfect holiness,
And that the glory of his justice might Romans 16:20
In the rebels’ torturing flames seem bright; Psalm 2 10
That th’ever-blessed Redeemer might take place Jos. 24:19
To illustrate his rich mercy and free grace
Whereby he fallen sinners doth restore Ps. 5:4–6, 7:11 etc., 11:5–6
To fuller bliss than they enjoyed before;
That virtue might in its clear brightness shine, 1 Pet. 1–10 15
Which, like rich ore concealèd in the mine, Ephesians 1:4, 11
Had not been known but that opposing vice John 3:16, Ephesians 2:5
Illustrates it by frequent exercise. Rom. 8:35–39, 5:5
If all were good, whence then arose the ill?[78] 1 Pet. 4:12–14
’Twas not in God’s, but in the creatures’ will, 20
Averting from that good which is supreme,
Corrupted so, as a declining stream Ecclesiastes 7:29
That breaks off its communion with its head, Jude 6
By whom its life and sweetness late were fed, John 8:44
Turns to a noisome, dead, and poisonous lake, 25
Infecting all who the foul waters take; [229]
Or as a branch cut from the living tree
Passes into contempt immediately,
And dies divided from its glorious stock,
So strength disjoinèd from the living rock 30
Turns to contemnèd imbecility,[79]
And doth to all its grace and glory die. Jer. 2:13
Some new-made angels thus, not more sublime Devils
In nature than transcending in their crime,
Quitting th’eternal fountain of their light, 35
Became the first-born sons of woe and night, Ephesians 2:2
Princes of darkness and the sad abyss, Acts 26:18
Which now their cursèd place and portion is, Matt. 25:41
Where they no more must see God’s glorious face Rev. 20:10
Nor ever taste of his refreshing grace, 40
But in the fire of his fierce anger dwell,
Which though it burns, enlightens not their hell.
But circumstances that we cannot know
Of their rebellion and their overthrow
We will not dare t’invent, nor will we take 45
Guesses from the reports themselves did make
To their old priests, to whim they did devise
To inspire some truths, wrapped up in many lies;[80]
Such as their gross poetic fables are,
Saturn’s extrusion, the bold giants’ war, 50
Division of the universal realm
To gods that in high heaven steer the helm,
Others who all things in the ocean guide,
And those who in th’infernal court preside,
Who there a vast and gloomy empire sway, 55
Whom all the furies and the ghosts obey.[81]
But not to name these foolish impious tales,
Which stifle truth in her pretended veils,
Let us in its own blazing conduct go
And look no further than that light doth show; 60
Wherein we see the present powers of hell,
Before they under God’s displeasure fell,
Were once endued with grace and excellence
Beyond the comprehension of our sense. [230] Luke 10:18
Pure holy lights in the bright Heaven were 65
Blazing about the throne, but not fixed there; Jude 6
Where, by the apostasy of their own will
Precipitating them into all ill,
And God’s just wrath, whose eyes are far too pure 2 Pet. 2:4
Stained and polluted objects to endure, Hab. 1:13 70
They fell like lightning, hurled in his fierce ire, Luke 10:18
And, falling, set the lower world on fire; James 3:6
Which their loose prison is where they remain, John 8:44
And walk as criminals under God’s chain Jude 6
Until the last and great assizes[82] come, 75
When execution shall seal up their doom. 1 Cor. 6:3, Matt. 8:29
Thus are they now to their created light, Gen. 3:15
Unto all truth and goodness opposite, 1 Pet. 5:8
Hating the peace and joy that reigns above, Job 1:7 etc.
Vainly contending to extinguish love, Rev. 20:10 80
Ruin God’s sacred empire, and destroy
That blessedness they never can enjoy.
A chief they have, whose sovereign power and place Mark 3:22–26
But adds to’s sin, his torture, and disgrace. Rev. 20:10
An order too there is in their dire state, 85
Though they all orders else disturb and hate.
Ten thousand thousand wicked spirits stand Luke 8:30
Attending their black prince at his command,
To all imaginable evils pressed
That may promote their common interest. 90
Nor are they linkèd thus by faith and love
But hate of God and goodness, which doth move
The same endeavors and desires in all
Lest civil wars should make their empire fall. Matt. 12:25–26
An empire which the Almighty doth permit, 95
Yet so as he controls and limits it, Rev. 20:2, 7–8
Suffering their rage sometimes to take effect Job 2:6
Only to be the more severely checked
When he produces a contrary end Col. 2:14–15, Heb. 2:9, 14
From what they did maliciously intend, 100
Befools their wisdom, crosses their designs, Luke 22:3
And blows them up in their own crafty mines, 2 Tim. 2:25–26
Allows them play in the entangling net
So to be faster in damnation set, Ephes. 6:11–12 etc.
Submits them to each other’s tyrannies 1 Pet. 5:8 105
Who did God’s softer, sacred bonds despise, [231]
Lets them still fight who never can prevail, Rev. 12:12
More cursed if they succeed than if they fail,
Since every soul the rebels gain from God
Adds but another scorpion to that rod,[83] 110
Bound up, that they may mutual torturers be, Luke 16:24
Tormented and tormenting equally. Rev. 14:10–11
As a wise general that doth design Matt. 25:41
To keep his army still in discipline
Suffers the embodying[84] of some slighter foes 115
Which he at his own pleasure can enclose
And vanquish, that he justly may chastise
Their folly, and his own troops exercise,
Their vigilance, their faith and valor prove;
Endearing them thereby to his own love, 120
As he alike endears himself to theirs Luke 22:31–32
By his continual succors and kind cares;
So the Almighty gives the devils scope, John 17:20
Who, though they are excluded from all hope Matt 4
Of e’er escaping, no reluctance have, Heb. 2:18, 4:15, 7:25
But, like the desperate villain they make brave, 126
To death pursue their bold attempts, that all Romans 16:20
O’er whom they cannot reign with them may fall.
And though God’s watchful guards besiege them round
That none can pass their strict prescribèd bound, 130
Yet make they daily sallies in their pride, Rev. 12:7–8, Matt. 4:11
Which, still repulsed, the holy host deride, Jude 9
Their malice in itself and its event
Being equally a crime and punishment.
Thus though sin in itself be ill, ’tis good 135
That sin should be, for thereby rectitude
Thorough opposed iniquity, as light
By shades, is more conspicuous and more bright.
The wonderful creation of mankind,
For lasting glory and rich grace designed, 140
The blessèd angels looked on with delight,
Gladded to see us climb so near their height, Luke 15:10, 16:22
Above all other works, next in degree, Hebrews 12:22
And capable of their society.
But ’twas far otherwise with those that fell: [232] 145
Man’s destined Heaven increasèd their hell,
While they burned with a proud malicious spite
To see a new-made, earth-born favorite John 8:44
For their high seats and empty thrones designed.
Therefore both against God and man combined 150
To hinder God’s decree from taking place
And to divest man of his Maker’s grace,
Which while he in a pure obedience stood 1 Pet. 3:13
They knew, not all their force nor cunning could,
But if they could with any false pretense 155
Inveigle him to quit his innocence,
They hoped death would prevent[85] the dreaded womb
From when their happier successors must come.
Wherefore th’accursèd sovereign of hell,
Thinking no other devil could so well 160
Act this ill part, whose consequence was high Gen. 3:1 etc.
Enough to engage his hateful majesty,
Himself exposes for the common cause,
And with his hellish kingdom’s full applause
Goes forth, putting himself into disguise, 165
And so within a bright-scaled serpent lies,
Folded about the fair forbidden tree,
Watching a wished-for opportunity;
Which Eve soon gave him, coming there alone[86]
So to be first and easier overthrown; 170
On whose weak side th’assault had not been made
Had she not from her firm protection strayed;
But so the Devil then, so lewd men now
Prevail, when women privacies allow,[87] 2 Tim. 3:6
And to those flattering whispers lend an ear 175
Which even impudence itself would fear
To utter in the presence of a friend,
Whose virtuous awe our frailty might defend.
Though unexperience might excuse Eve’s fault, [233]
Yet those who now give way to an assault, 180
By suffering it alone, none can exempt
From the just blame that they their tempters tempt,
And by vain confidence themselves betray,
Fondly secure in a known desperate way.
As Eve stood near the tree, the subtle beast, 185
By Satan moved, his speech to her addressed:
“Hath God,” said he, “forbid that you should taste
These pleasant fruits which in your eyes are placed?
Why are the tempting boughs exposed if you
May not delight your palates with your view?” 190
“God,” said the woman, “gives us liberty
To eat without restraint of every tree
Which in the garden grows, but only one;
Restrained by such a prohibition,[88]
We dare not touch it,[89] for whene’er we do 195
A certain death will our offense ensue.”
Then did the wicked subtle beast reply:
“Ah, simple wretch, you shall not surely die,
God enviously to you this fruit denies.
He knows that eating it will make you wise, 200
Of good and ill give you discerning sense,
And raise you to a God-like excellence.”
Eve, quickly caught in the foul hunter’s net,
Believed that death was only a vain threat.
Her unbelief, quenching religious dread, 205
Infectious counsel in her bosom bred,
Dissatisfaction with her present state
And fond ambition of a God-like height;
Who now applies herself to its pursuit,
With longing eyes looks on the lovely fruit, 210
First nicely plucks, then eats with full delight,
And gratifies her murderous appetite.
Poisoned with the sweet relish of her sin [234]
Before her inward torturing pangs begin,
The pleasure to her husband she commends, 215
And he by her persuasion too offends
As by the serpent’s she before had done.
Hence learn pernicious counselors to shun. Proverbs 1:10 etc.
Within the snake the crafty tempter smiled
To see mankind so easily beguiled; 220
But laugh not, Satan: God shall thee deride.
The Son of God and Man shall scourge thy pride,
And in the time of vengeance shall exact 1 John 3:8
A punishment on thee for this accurséd fact.[90] John 16:11
Now wrought the poison on the guilty pair, 225
Who with confusion on each other stare
While death possession takes, and enters in
At the wide breach laid open by their sin. Romans 5:12
Sound health and joy before th’intruder fled,
Sickness and sorrow coming in their stead. 230
Their late sweet calm did now forever cease,
Storms in all quarters drove away their peace;
Dread, guilt, remorse in the benighted soul Isaiah 48:22
Like raging billows on each other roll;
Death’s harbingers waste in each province make, 235
While thundering terrors man’s whole island shake.
Within, without, disordered in the storm,
The color fades and tremblings change the form,
Heat melts their substance, cold their joints benumbs,
Dull languishment their vigor overcomes. 240
Grief-conquered beauty lays down all her arms,
And mightier woe dissolves her late-strong charms. Psalm 39:11
Shame doth their looks deject, no cheerful grace,
No pleasant smiles, appear in their sad face,
They see themselves fooled, cheated, and betrayed, 245
And naked in the view of Heaven made.
No glory compasses the drooping head,
The sight of their own ugliness they dread,
And curtains of broad, thin fig-leaves devise
To hide themselves from their own weeping eyes. 250
But ah! These coverings were too slight and thin
To ward their shame off, or to keep out sin,
Or the keen air’s quick-piercing shafts, which through
Both leaves and pores into the bowels flew.
While they remained in their pure innocence [235] 255
It was their robe of glory and defense;
But when sin tore that mantle off, they found
Their members were all naked, all uncrowned,
Their purity in every place defiled,
Their vest of righteousness all torn and spoiled. 260
Wherefore through guilt the late-loved light they shun,
And into the obscurest shadow run; Psalm 139:11
But in no darkness can their quiet find,
Carrying within them a disturbèd mind
Which doth their cureless folly represent 265
And makes them curse their late experiment,
Wishing they had been pure and ignorant still,
Nor coveted the knowledge of their ill.
Ah, thus it is that yet we learn our good,
Till it be lost but seldom understood; 270
Rich blessings, while we have them, little prize
Until their want[91] their value magnifies,
And equally doth our remorse increase
For having cast away such happiness.
O wretched man! who at so dear a rate 275
Purchased the knowledge of his own frail state,
Knowledge of small advantage to the wise Ecclesiastes 1:18
Which only their affliction multiplies,
While they in painful study vex their brain,
Pursuing what they never can attain 280
And what would not avail them if acquired,
Till at the length, with fruitless labor tired,
All that the learnèd and the wise can find
Is but a vain disturbance of the mind,
A sense of man’s inevitable woes 285
Which he but little feels who little knows.
While mortals, holding on their error, still
Pursue the knowledge both of good and ill, Proverbs 1:7
They neither of them perfectly attain Psalm 111:10
But in a dark tumultuous state remain; 1 Cor. 1:20–21, 2:14
Till sense of ill, increasing like night’s shade, James 3:15–17 291
Or[92] hath a blot of good impressions made,
Or good, victorious as the morning light,
Triumph over the vanquished opposite:
For both at once abide not in one place, 295
Good knowledge flies from them who ill embrace.
So were our parents filled with guilt and fear [236]
When in the groves they God’s approaches hear,
And from the terror of his presence fled;
Whether their own convictions caused their dread, 300
For inward guilt of conscience might suffice
To chase vile sinners from his purer eyes;[93]
Or nature felt an angry God’s descent
Which shook the earth, and tore the firmament;
We are not told, nor will too far inquire.[94] 305
Lightnings and tempests might speak forth his ire;
For at the day of universal doom
The great Judge shall in flaming vengeance come,
An all-consuming fire shall go before,
Whirlwinds and thunder shall about him roar, Psalm 97:3–4 310
Horror shall darken the whole troubled skies Isaiah 9:5, 66:15–16
And bloody veils shall hide the world’s bright eyes, 2 Thes. 1:8
While stars from the dissolving heaven drop down 2 Pet. 3:12
And funeral blazes every turret crown.
The clouds shall be confounded with the waves, Rev. 1:7 315
The yawning earth shall open all her graves, Joel 3:15–16
Loud fragors[95] shall firm rocks in sunder rend,
Cleft mountains shall hell’s fiery jaws distend, Matt. 24:29
Vomiting cinders, sulphur, pitch, and flame,
Which shall consume the world’s unjointed[96] frame 320
And turn the paradises we admire
Into an ever-boiling lake of fire. Rev. 19:20
But God then in his rich grace did delay
These dismal terrors till the last great day.
Yet even his first approach created dread 325
And the poor mortals from his anger fled
Until a calmer voice their sense did greet.
Love even when it chides is kind and sweet. Hebrews 12:11
The sense of wrath far from the feared power drives,
The sense of love brings home the fugitives. Ps. 89:31–33 330
Souls flying God into despair next fall,
Thence into hate, till black hell close up all. [237] Gen. 4:14[97]
But if sweet mercy meet them on the way,[98] Acts 9
That milder voice first doth their mad flight stay
And their ill-quitted hope again restore, Ps. 130:7, 4 335
Then love that was forsaking them before
Returns with a more flaming strong desire
Of those sweet joys from which it did retire,
And in their absence woe and terror found, Lamentations 3:1 etc.
And all those plagues that can a poor soul wound. 340
While thus this love with holy ardor burns,
The bleeding sinner to his God returns
And prostrate at his throne of grace doth lie, Matt. 27:46
If death he cannot shun, yet there to die Job 13:15
Where mercy still doth fainting souls revive Hos. 6:1–3 345
And in its kind embraces keep alive
A gentler fire than what it lately felt
Under the sense of wrath. The soul doth melt
Like precious ore, which when men would refine
Doth in its liquefaction brightly shine; 350
In cleansing penitential meltings so
Foul sinners once again illustrious[99] grow,
When Christ’s all-heating, softening spirit hath Mal. 3:2–3
Their furnace been, and his pure blood their bath. Rev. 1:5
Now though God’s wrath bring not the sinner home, 355
Who only by sweet love attracted come,
Yet is it necessary that the sense Romans 12:1
Of it should make us know the excellence John 16:9–10
And taste the pleasantness of pardoning grace, Matt. 11:28
That we may it with fuller joy embrace; 360
Which, when it brings a frightened wretch from hell,
Makes it love more than those who never fell; Luke 7:47
But mankind’s love to God grows by degrees 1 John 4:10
As he more clearly God’s sweet mercy sees,
And God at first reveals not all his grace 365
That men more ardently may seek his face,
Averted by their folly and their pride,
Which makes them their confounded faces hide.
As still the sun’s the same behind the clouds,
Such is God’s love, which his kind anger shrouds, Lam. 3:22–23 370
Which doth not all at once itself reveal [238]
But first in the thick shadows that conceal
Its glory doth attenuation cause;
Then the black, dismal curtain softly draws Lam. 3:26, 29 etc.
And lets some glimmering light of hope appear, 375
Which rather is a lessening of our fear Hosea 2:15
Than an assurance of our joy and peace,
A truce with misery, rather than release.
Thus had not God come in, mankind had died
Without repair; yet came he first to chide, 380
To urge[100] their sin, with its sad consequence,
And make them feel the weight of their offense,
To examine and arraign them at his bar[101]
And show them what vile criminals they were.
But ah! Our utterance here is choked with woe; 385
With tardy steps from Paradise we go.
Then let us pause on our lost joys a while
Before we enter on our sad exile.
Canto 5
Sad nature’s sighs gave the alarms,[102]
And all her frightened hosts stood to their arms,
Waiting whom the great Sovereign would employ
His all-deserted rebels to destroy,
When God descended out of Heaven above Gen. 3:8 5
His disobedient viceroy to remove.
Yet, though himself had seen the forfeiture
Which distance could not from his eyes obscure,
To teach his future substitutes how they
Should judgments execute in a right way, 10
He would not unexamined facts[103] condemn, [239] 2 Sam. 23:3
Nor punish sinners without hearing them;
Therefore cites to his bar the criminals,
And Adam first out of his covert[104] calls.
“Where art thou, Adam?” the Almighty said. 15
“Here, Lord,” the trembling sinner answer made,
“Amongst the trees I in the garden heard
Thy voice and, being naked, was afeared,
Nor durst I so thy purer sight abide;
Therefore myself did in this shelter hide.” 20
“Hast thou,” said God, “eat[105] the forbidden tree,
Or who declared thy nakedness to thee?”
“She,” answered Adam, “whom thou didst create
To be my helper and associate
Gave me the fatal fruit, and I did eat.” 25
Then Eve was also called from her retreat.
“Woman, what hast thou done?” th’Almighty said. Gen. 3:13
“Lord,” answered she, “the serpent me betrayed
And I did eat.” Thus did they both confess
Their guilt, and vainly sought to make it less 30
By such extenuations as, well weighed,
The sin, so circumstanced, more sinful made —
A course which still half-softened sinners use:
Transferring blame their own faults to excuse,
They care not how, nor where; and oftentimes 35
On God himself obliquely charge their crimes,
Expostulating in their discontent Romans 9:19
As if he caused what he did not prevent; Ezekiel 18:2
Which Adam wickedly implies, when he James 1:13–15
Cries, “’Twas the woman that thou gavest me;” 40
Oft-times make that the Devil’s guilt alone
Which was as well and equally their own.
His lies could never have prevailed on Eve
But that she wished them truth and did believe
A forgery that suited her desire, 45
Whose haughty heart was prone enough to aspire.
The tempting and the urging was his ill,
But the compliance was in her own will.
And herein truly lies the difference
Of natural and gracious penitence: 50
The first transferreth and extenuates
The guilt, which the other owns and aggravates. Psalms 51:3–5, 32:5
While sin is but regarded slight and small [240]
It makes the value of rich mercy fall;
But as our crimes seem greater in our eyes, 55
So doth our grateful sense of pardon rise. 1 John 1:8–10
Poor mankind at God’s righteous bar was cast
And set for judgment by, when at the last
Satan within the serpent had his doom,
Whose execrable malice left no room 60
For plea or pardon, but was sentenced first:
“Thou,” said the Lord, “above all beasts accursed,
Shalt on thy belly creep, on dust shalt feed;
Between thee and the woman, and her seed
And thine, I will put lasting enmity; 1 Pet. 5:8 65
Thou in this war his heel shalt bruise, but he
Thy head shall break.” More various mystery
Ne’er did within so short a sentence lie.[106] Matt. 13:25
Here is irrevocable vengeance, here Jude 6
Love as immutable. Here doth appear Mal. 13:25 70
Infinite wisdom plotting with free grace, Zac. 6:13
Even by man’s fall, th’advance of human race. 1 Cor. 2:9
Severity here utterly confounds, Romans 11:22
Here mercy cures by kind and gentle wounds;
The Father here the Gospel first reveals, 75
Here fleshly veils th’eternal Son conceals. Isaiah 7:14
The law of life and spirit here takes place, Romans 8:2–4
Given with the promise of assisting grace. Acts 13:10
Here is an oracle foretelling all Matt. 3:7
Which shall the two opposèd seeds befall. Psalm 22:30 80
The great war hath its first beginning here, Jer. 31:22
Carried along more than five thousand year Eph. 6:12
With various success on either side, John 8:44
And each age with new combatants supplied. Jude 9, Gen. 6:2, 4–5
Two sovereign champions here we find, Heb. 2:10 85
Satan and Christ contending for mankind. Acts 5:31, Eph. 2:2
Two empires here, two opposite cities rise, [241] John 15:18–19
Dividing all in two societies:
The little Church and the world’s larger State, Luke 12:32
Pursuing it with ceaseless spite and hate. Ps. 105:12–15 90
Each party here erecting their own walls,
As one advances, so the other falls.
Hope in the promise the weak Church confirms, Isaiah 9:6–7
Hell and the world fight upon desperate terms.
By this most certain oracle they know Rev. 12:12 95
Their war must end in final overthrow.
Some little present mischief they may do, John 16:30, 20
And this with eager malice they pursue.
The angels whom God’s justice did divide Matt. 10:34
Engage their mighty powers on either side: Ps. 2:1 100
Hell’s gloomy princes the world’s rulers made, Rev. 12:7–9
Heaven’s unseen host the Church’s guard and aid; Daniel 10:13, 21
Till the frail woman’s conquering Son shall tread Psalm 104:4
Beneath his feet the serpent’s broken head. Rom. 16:20
Though God the speech to man’s false foe address, 105
The words rich grace to fallen man express,
Which God will not to him himself declare
Till he implore it by submissive prayer; Ps. 50:15
Sufficient ’tis to know a latitude Isaiah 41:9
For hope, which doth no penitent exclude. Ps. 130:4 110
Had death’s sad sentence passed on man before Luke 1:74
The promise of that seed which should restore Gal. 3:8, 16
His fallen state, destroying death and sin, 1 Cor. 15:54, 57
Cureless as Satan’s had his misery been.
But though free grace did future help provide, 115
Yet must he present loss and woe abide 1 Cor. 3:15
And feel the bitter curse, that he may so
The sweet release of saving mercy know. Gen. 3:13
Prepared with late-indulgèd hope, on Eve Gen. 3:16 etc.
Th’Almighty next did gentler sentence give. 120
“I will,” said he, “greatly augment thy woes
And thy conceptions, which with painful throes
Thou shalt bring forth, yet shall they be to thee
But a successive crop of misery.
Thy husband shall thy ruler be, whose sway 125
Thou shalt with passionate desires obey.” [242] [107]
Alas! How sadly to this day we find
Th’effect of this dire curse on womankind;
Eve sinned in fruit forbid, and God requires
Her penance in the fruit of her desires. 130
When first to men their inclinations move,
How are they tortured with distracting love![108] Gen. 39:7
What disappointments find they in the end,
Constant uneasinesses which attend 134
The best condition of the wedded state, 1 Cor. 7:34, 39–40
Giving all wives sense of the curse’s weight, 1 Pet. 3:5
Which makes them ease and liberty refuse,
And with strong passion their own shackles choose.
Now though they easier under wise rule prove,
And every burden is made light by love, Gen. 29:20 140
Yet golden fetters, soft-lined yokes,[109] still be
Though gentler curbs, but curbs of liberty,
As well as the harsh tyrant’s iron yoke;
More sorely galling them whom they provoke
To loathe their bondage and despise the rule 145
Of an unmanly, fickle, froward[110] fool. 1 Sam. 25:25
Whate’er the husbands be, they covet fruit, Gen. 30:1, 35:18
And their own wishes to their sorrows contribute.
How painfully the fruit within them grows, Matt. 24:19
What tortures do their ripened births disclose, 150
How great, how various, how uneasy are
The breeding-sicknesses, pangs that prepare
The violent openings of life’s narrow door, John 16:21
Whose fatal issues we as oft deplore!
What weaknesses, what languishments ensue, 155
Scattering dead lilies where fresh roses grew.
What broken rest afflicts the careful nurse,
Extending to the breasts the mother’s curse,
Which ceases not when there her milk she dries,
The froward child draws new streams from her eyes. 160
How much more bitter anguish do we find
Laboring to raise up virtue in the mind
Than when the members in our bowels grew; [243]
What sad abortions, what cross births ensue; Prov. 10:1
What monsters, what unnatural vipers come 165
Eating their passage through their parent’s womb; Prov. 15:20
How are the tortures of their births renewed,
Unrecompensed with love and gratitude.
Even the good, who would our cares requite,
Would be our crowns, joys, pillars, and delight, 170
Affect us yet with other griefs and fears,
Opening the sluices of our ne’er dried tears.
Death, danger, sickness, losses, and the ill Luke 2:48, 35
That on the children falls, the mothers feel, Matt. 2:18
Repeating with worse pangs the pangs that bore 175
Them into life; and though some may have more
Of sweet and gentle mixture, some of worse,
Yet every mother’s cup tastes of the curse,
And when the heavy load her faint heart tires,
Makes her too oft repent her fond desires. Gen. 27:46 180
Now last of all, as Adam last had been
Drawn into the prevaricating[111] sin,
His sentence came: “Because that thou didst yield,” Gen. 3:17
Said God, “to thy enticing wife, the field,
Producing briars and fruitless thorns to thee, 185
Accursèd for thy sake and sins shall be.
Thy careful brows in constant toils shall sweat,
Thus thou thy bread shalt all thy whole life eat
Till thou return into the earth’s vast womb,
Whence, taken first, thou didst a man become; 190
For dust thou art, and dust again shalt be
When life’s declining spark goes out in thee.” Prov. 103:14, 104:29
In all these sentences we strangely find
God’s admirable love to lost mankind;
Who, though he never will his word recall 195
Or let his threats like shafts at random fall,
Yet can his wisdom order curses so
That blessings may out of their bowels flow.
Thus death the door of lasting life became, 2 Cor. 4:6
Dissolving nature to rebuild her frame 200
On such a sure foundation as shall break 2 Tim. 1:10
All the attempts hell’s cursèd empire make.
Thus God revenged man’s quarrel on his foe,
To whom th’Almighty would no mercy show,
Making his reign, his respite, and success, Luke 18:7–8 205
All augmentations of his cursedness. [244]
Thus gave he us a powerful chief and head, Zac. 9:10–12
By whom we shall be out of bondage led,
And made the penalties of our offense
Precepts and rules of new obedience, 210
Fitted in all things to our fallen state Matt. 11:29–30
Under sweet promises that ease their weight.
Our first injunction is to hate and fly
The flatteries of our first grand enemy; Prov. 1:10 etc.
To have no friendship with his cursèd race, 215
The interest of the opposite seed t’embrace, Eph. 5:11
Where though we toil in fights, though bruised we be, 1 Tim. 6:12
Yet shall our combat end in victory, Jude 3
Eternal glory healing our slight wound Rev. 2:10
When all our labors are with triumph crowned. Micah 7:6–17 220
The next command is, mothers should maintain
Posterity, not frightened with the pain,
Which, though it make us mourn under the sense
Of the first mother’s disobedience,
Yet hath a promise that thereby she shall 1 Tim. 2:16 225
Recover all the hurt of her first fall
When, in mysterious manner, from her womb Isaiah 9:6[112]
Her father, brother, husband, son shall come. Heb. 2:12–13
Subjection to the husband’s rule enjoined
In the next place — that yoke with love is lined, Eph. 5:25 etc. 230
Love too a precept made, where God requires Luke 1:35
We should perform our duties with desires; 1 Peter 3:1–2
And promises t’incline our averse will,
Whose satisfaction takes away the ill
Of every toil and every suffering 235
That can from unenforced submission spring.
The last command God with man’s curse did give
Was that men should in honest callings live,
Eating their own bread, fruit of their own sweat,
Nor feed like drones on that which others get. 1 Thes. 4:11–12 240
And this command a promise doth imply
That bread should recompense our industry. 2 Thes. 3:12
One mercy more his sentence did include,
That mortal toils, faintings and lassitude Rev. 14:13
Should not beyond death’s fixèd bound extend, 245
But there in everlasting quiet end. [245] Matt. 10:28
When men out of the troubled air depart,
And to their first material dust revert, Job 3:17–19
The utmost power that death or woe can have Eccl. 3:20
Is but to shut us prisoners in the grave, 250
Bruising the flesh, that heel whereon we tread;
But we shall trample on the serpent’s head. 1 Thes. 4:14
Our scattered atoms shall again condense,
And be again inspired with living sense; Isa. 26:19
Captivity shall then a captive be, 255
Death shall be swallowed up in victory, Job 19:26–27
And God shall man to Paradise restore, 1 Cor. 15:20–22, 26, 54–57
Where the foul tempter shall seduce no more. Acts 2:24
How far our parents, whose sad eyes were fixed
On woe and terror, saw the mercy mixed Ps. 68:18 260
We can but make a wild, uncertain guess,[113]
As we are now affected in distress,
Who less regard the mitigation still Isaiah 43:2 etc.
Than the slight smart of our afflicting ill; 1 Pet. 4:12–13
And while we groan under the hated yoke, 265
Our gratitude for its soft lining choke. Jer. 30:11 etc.
But God, having th’amazèd sinners doomed, Mic. 7:18–19
Put off the judge’s frown and reassumed
A tender father’s kind and melting face, Isaiah 49:15
Opening his gracious arms for new embrace, Jer. 31:20 270
Taught them to expiate their heinous guilt Psalm 50:5
By spotless sacrifice and pure blood spilt, 1 Pet. 1:19
Which, done in faith, did their faint hearts sustain Heb. 11:4
Till the intended Lamb of God was slain, Daniel 9:26–27
Whose death, whose merit, and whose innocence John 1:29 275
The forfeit paid and blotted out th’offense. Ps. 40:6–7
The skins of the slain beasts God vestures made[114] 1 John 2:2
Wherein the naked sinners were arrayed, Rev. 1:5 etc., 9–10
Not without mystery, which typified Rev. 5:10, 19
That righteousness that doth our foul shame hide. Col. 2:14 280
As when a rotting patient must endure Ps. 32:1–2
Painful excisions to effect his cure, Rev. 19:8
His spirits we with cordials fortify, Rom. 3:22, 13–14
Lest, unsupported, he should faint and die, [246] Gal. 3:27
So with our parents the Almighty dealt; Zac. 3:4–5 285
Before their necessary woes they felt,
Their feeble souls rich promises upheld Deut. 33:27
And their deliverance was in types revealed.
Even their bodies God himself did arm
With clothes that kept them from the weather’s harm. Matt. 6:30 290
But after all, they must be driven away, Ps. 89:32–34
Nor in their forfeit Paradise must stay.
Then said the Lord with holy irony, Gen. 3:22
Whence man the folly of his pride might see,
“The earthy man like one of us is grown, 295
To whom, as God, both good and ill is known.
Now lest he also eat of th’other tree,
Whose fruit gives life, and an immortal be,
Let us by just and timely banishment
His further sinful arrogance prevent.” 300
Then did he them out of the garden chase
And set a cherubim to guard the place,
Who waved a flaming sword before the door
Through which the wretches must return no more.
May we not liken to this sword of flame 305
The threatening law which from Mount Sinai came Heb. 12:7, 12:18–21
With such thick flashes of prodigious fire
As made the mountains shake and men retire,
Forbidding them all forward hope that they
Could enter into life that dreadful way? 310
What’er it was, whate’er it signifies,
It kept our parents out of Paradise,
Who now, returning to their place of birth,
Found themselves strangers in their native earth.
Their fatal breach of God’s most strict command 1 Pet. 2:11 315
Had there dissolved all concord, the sweet band Heb. 11:13
Of universal loveliness and peace, Ps. 39:12
And now the calm in every part did cease.
Love, though immutable, its smiles did shroud
Under the dark veil of an angry cloud, Rev. 3:19 320
And while he seemed withdrawn whose grace upheld
The order of all things, confusion filled Psalm 75:3
The universe. The air became impure
And frequent dreadful conflicts did endure
With every other angry element; 325
The whirling fires its tender body rent.
From earth and seas gross vapors did arise,
Turned to prodigious meteors in the skies;
The blustering winds let loose their furious rage [247]
And in their battles did the floods engage. Ps. 107:25–27 330
The sun confounded was with nature’s shame
And the pale moon shrunk in her sickly flame; Jude 5:20
The rude congressions[115] of the angry stars
In heaven begun the universal wars,
While their malicious influence from above 335
On earth did various perturbations move.
Droughts, inundations, blastings killed the plants;
Worse influence wrought on th’inhabitants,
Inspiring lust, rage, ravenous appetite, Ps. 78:45–48
Which made the creatures in all regions fight. 340
The little insects in great clouds did rise
And, in battalions spread, obscured the skies;
Armies of birds encountered in the air,
With hideous cries deciding battles there;
The birds of prey, to gorge their appetite, 345
Seized harmless fowl in their unwary flight.
When the dim evening had shut in the day,
Troops of wild beasts, all marching out for prey,
To the resistless[116] flocks would go, and there Ps. 104:20–22
Oft-times by other troops assailèd were, 350
Who snatched out of their jaws the new-slain food
And made them purchase it again with blood.
Thus sin the whole Creation did divide
Into th’oppressing and the suffering side.
Those, still employing craft and violence 355
T’ensnare and murder simple innocence,
True emblems were of Satan’s craft and power
In daily ambuscado[117] to devour; 1 Pet. 5:8
Nor only emblems were, but organs too, Rev. 12:8, 12
In and by whom he did his mischiefs do, 360
While persecuting cruelty and rage
Them in his cursèd party did engage.
Love, meekness, patience, gentleness, combined
The tamer brood with those of their own kind;
Wherefore God chose them for his sacrifice 365
When he the proud and mighty did despise,
And his most certain oracles declare Romans 8:20–21
They man’s restorèd peace at last shall share.
But to our parents then, sad was the change [248] Isaiah 11:7, 65:25
Which them from peace and safety did estrange, 370
Brought universal woe and discord in,
The never-failing consequents of sin; Isaiah 57:20–21
Nor only made all things without them jar, Eph. 2:12–14
But in their breasts raised up a civil war.
Reason and sense maintained continual fight, 375
Urging th’aversion and the appetite,
Which led two different troops of passions out,
Confounding all in their tumultuous rout.
The less world with the great proportion held.
As winds the caverns, sighs the bosoms filled, 380
So flowing tears did beauty’s fair fields drown,
As inundations kept within no bound.
Fear earthquakes made, lust in the fancy whirled,
Turned into flame and, bursting, fired the world;
Spite, hate, revenge, ambition, avarice 385
Made innocence a prey to monstrous vice.
The cold and hot diseases represent
The perturbations of the element.
Thus woe and danger had beset them round,
Distressed without, within no comfort found. 390
Even as a monarch’s favorite in disgrace
Suffers contempt both from the high and base,[118]
And the most abject most insult o’er them
Whom the offended sovereigns condemn;
So after man th’Almighty disobeyed, 395
Each little fly durst his late king invade
As well as the wood’s monsters, wolves and bears,
And all things else that exercise his fears.
Methinks I hear sad Eve in some dark vale
Her woeful state with such sad plaints bewail: 400
“Ah! Why doth death its latest stroke delay?
If we must leave the light, why do we stay
By slow degrees more painfully to die
And languish in a long calamity?[119]
Have we not lost by one false cheating sin 405
All peace without, all sweet repose within?
Is there a pleasure yet that life can show?
Doth not each moment multiply our woe, [249]
And while we live thus in perpetual dread,
Our hope and comfort long before us dead, 410
Why should we not our angry Maker pray Job 3
At once to take our wretched lives away? Jonah 4:3
Hath not our sin all nature’s pure leagues rent
And armed against us every element?
Have not our subjects their allegiance broke? 415
Doth not each worm scorn our unworthy yoke?
Are we not half with griping hunger pined
Before we bread amongst the brambles find?
All pale diseases in our members reign,
Anguish and grief no less our sick souls pain. 420
Wherever I my eyes or thoughts convert,[120]
Each object adds new tortures to my heart.
If I look up, I dread Heaven’s threatening frown;
Thorns prick my eyes when shame hath cast them down;
Dangers I see, looking on either hand; 425
Before me all in fighting posture stand.
If I cast back my sorrow-drownèd eyes,
I see our ne’er to be recovered Paradise,
The flaming sword which doth us thence exclude,
By sad remorse and ugly guilt pursued. 430
If I on thee a private glance reflect,
Confusion doth my shameful eyes deject,
Seeing the man I love by me betrayed,
By me, who for his mutual help was made,
Who to preserve thy life ought to have died, 435
And I have killed thee by my foolish pride,
Defiled thy glory and pulled down thy throne.
O that I had but sinned and died alone!
Then had my torture and my woe been less,
I yet had flourished in thy happiness.” 440
If these words Adam’s melting soul did move,
He might reply with kind rebuking love:
“Cease, cease, O foolish woman, to dispute,
God’s sovereign will and power are absolute. Ps. 115:3
If he will have us soon or slow to die, 445
Frail worms must yield, but must not question why. Rom. 9:20–23
When his great hand appears, we must conclude
All that he doth is wise and just and good. Ps. 119:68
Though our poor, sin-benighted souls are blind, Rom. 3:4
Nor can the mysteries of his wisdom find, [250] Ps. 51:4 450
Yet in our present case we must confess Gen. 18:25
His justice and our own unrighteousness.
He warned us of this fatal consequence,
That death must wait on disobedience; Rom. 6:23
Yet we despised his threat and broke his law, 455
So did destruction on our own heads draw.
Now under his afflicting hand we lie,
Reaping the fruit of our iniquity;
Which, had not he prevented when we fell,
At once had plunged us in the lowest hell. Gen. 6:3 460
But by his mercy yet we have reprieve, 1 Pet. 3:20
And yet are showed how we in death may live,
If we improve our short-indulgèd space
To understand, prize, and accept his grace. John 11:25
Did all of us[121] at once like brutes expire 465
And cease to be, we might quick death desire.
But since our chief and immaterial part,
Not framed of dust, doth not to dust revert,
Its death not an annihilation is,
But to be cut off from its supreme bliss; Matt. 25:41, 46 470
Whatever here to mortals can befall
Compared to future miseries is small. Luke 16:21–22
The saddest, sharpest, and the longest have
Their final consummations in the grave; Matt. 10:28
These have their intermissions and allays, 475
Though black and gloomy ones, these nights have days.
The worst calamities we here endure Psalm 130:1
Admit a possibility of cure.
Our miseries here are varied in their kind, Ps. 107
And in that change the wretched some ease find. 480
Sleep here our painèd senses stupefies Isaiah 29:8
And cheating streams in our sick fancies rise.
But in our future sufferings ’tis not so,
There is no end, no intermitted woe,
No more return from the accursèd place, Luke 16:26 485
No hope, no possibility of grace,
No sleepy intervals, no pleasant dreams,
No mitigations of those sad extremes,
No gentle mixtures, no soft changes there, Rom. 2:8–9
Perpetual tortures heightened with despair, Jude 13 490
Eternal horror and eternal night, Matt. 13:50
Eternal burnings with no glance of light, Luke 16:24
Eternal pain. O, ’tis a thought too great, [251] Matt. 8:12, 22, 14
Too terrible, for any to repeat
Who have not ’scaped the dread. Let’s not to shun Rev. 19:20 495
Heaven’s scorching rays, into hell’s furnace run; Hos. 13:9, Rom. 3:16
But having slain ourselves, let’s fly to him Ps. 103–104
Who only can our souls from death redeem.
To undo what’s done is not within our power,
No more than to call back the last fled hour. 500
To think we can our fallen state restore,
Or without hope our ruin to deplore,
Are equal aggravating crimes; the first
Repeats that sin for which we were accursed, Eph. 2:4, 6–10
While we with foolish arrogating pride 505
More in ourselves than in our God confide; Rom. 3:27
The last is both ungrateful and unjust
That doth his goodness or his power distrust,
Which whereso’er we look, without, within,
Above, beneath, in every place is seen. 510
Doth Heaven frown? Above the sullen shrouds Ps. 36:5–6
God sits, and sees through all the blackest clouds
Sin casts about us, like the misty night,
Which hides his pleasing glances from our sight; Isaiah 44:22, Lam.
Nor only sees, but darts on us his beams, 3:44, 31–32, 25 515
Ministering comfort in our worst extremes.
When lightnings fly, dire storm and thunder roars, Job 37:11–13
He guides the shafts, the serene calm restores.
When shadows occupy day’s vacant room, Isaiah 40:1–2, 57:18–19
He makes new glory spring from night’s dark womb. 520
When the black prince of air lets loose the winds,
The furious warriors he in prison binds. John 14:18
If burning stars do conflagrations threat,
He gives the cool breezes to allay the heat. Isaiah 25:4
When cold doth in its rigid season reign, Ps. 78:16–17 525
He melts the snows and thaws the air again; Ps. 30:5
Restoring the vicissitude of things, Luke 8:24–25, Isaiah 27:8,
He still new good from every evil brings. 4:6, Cant. 2:11–12, Gen. 8:22
He holds together the world’s shaken frame, Ps. 147:17–18, Isaiah 45:6–8
Ordaining every change, is still the same. Ps. 75:3 530
If he permit the elements to fight, James 1:17
The rage of storms, the blackness of the night, Ps. 102:26–27
’Tis that his power, love, and wisdom may Mal. 3:6
More glory have, restoring calm and day; Isaiah 54:6–10
That we may more the pleasant blessings prize, Jer. 31:35–36 535
Laid in the balance with their contraries.
Though dangers, then, like gaping monsters stand 2 Cor. 4:17
Ready to swallow us on either hand, [252] Isaiah 54:6–10
Let us despise them, firm in this faith still,
If God will save, they can nor hurt nor kill; Ps. 46:1–2 540
If by his just permission we are slain,
His power can heal and quicken us again. Isaiah 8:9–14
If briars and thorns which from our sins arise,
Looking on earth, pierce through our guilty eyes, Isaiah 51:11 etc.
Let’s yet give thanks they have not choked the seed 545
Which should with better fruit our sad lives feed. Gen. 50:20
If discord set the inward world on fire, 2 Sam. 17:14
With haste let’s to the living spring retire, Esther 5:14, 6:13, 7:10
There quench and quiet the disturbèd soul,
There on love’s sweet refreshing green banks roll, 550
Where, ecstasied with joy, we shall not feel Ezekiel 37:1 etc.
The serpent’s little nibblings at our heel.
If we look back on Paradise, late lost, Isaiah 19:22
Joys vanished like swift dreams, thawed like a frost, Jer. 30:17
Converting pleasant walks to dirt and mire, Acts 14:17 555
Would we such frail delights again desire, John 7:37–38
Which at their best, however excellent, Ps. 23:1–2, 6–7
Had this defect, they were not permanent? Col. 3:1–2
If sin, remorse, and guilt give us the chase, Ps. 107:33–36
Let us lie close in mercy’s sweet embrace, 1 Cor. 7:31, Eccl. 1:2
Which when it us ashamed and naked found, 2 Cor. 4:18 561
In the soft arms of melting pity bound, Rev. 3:18, 20
Eternal glorious triumphs did prepare, Ps. 32:1–2
Armed us with clothes against the wounding air,
By expiating sacrifices taught 1 John 2:25 565
How new life shall by death to light be brought.
If we before us look, although we see
All things in present fighting posture be;
Yet in the promise we a prospect have
Of victory swallowing up the empty grave; 1 Cor. 15:54–55, 26
Our foes all vanquished, death itself lies dead, 571
And we shall trample on the monster’s head, Hos. 13:14
Entering into a new and perfect joy Rom. 16:20
Which neither sin nor sorrow can destroy — Matt. 25:21
A lasting and refined felicity, Rev. 20:4 575
For which even we ourselves refined must be. Mal. 3:2–3
Then shall we laugh at our now childish woes Col. 1:12
And hug the birth that issues from these throes. John 16:21–22
Let not my share of grief afflict thy mind,
But let me comfort in thy courage find; 580
’Twas not thy malice, but thy ignorance
That lately my destruction did advance;
Nor can I my own self excuse; ’twas I [253]
Undid myself by my facility.
Let’s not in vain each other now upbraid, 585
But rather strive to afford each other aid,
And our most gracious Lord with due thanks bless,
Who hath not left us single in distress.
When fear chills thee, my hope shall make thee warm,
When I grow faint, thou shalt my courage arm; 590
When both our spirits at a low ebb are,
We both will join in mutual fervent prayer
To him whose gracious succor never fails
When sin and death poor feeble man assails,
He that our final triumph hath decreed 595
And promised thee salvation in thy seed.”
Ah! Can I this in Adam’s person say
While fruitless tears melt my poor life away?
Of all the ills to mortals incident,
None more pernicious is than discontent, 600
That brat[122] of unbelief and stubborn pride
And sensual lust, with no joy satisfied,
That doth ingratitude and murmur nurse,
And is a sin which carries its own curse;
This is the only smart of every ill. 605
But can we without it sad tortures feel?
Yes: if our souls above our sense remain,
And take not in th’afflicted body’s pain;
When they descend and mix with the disease,
Then doth the anguish live, reign, and increase, 610
Which when the soul is not in it, grows faint
And wastes its strength, not nourished with complaint.
Submissive, humble, happy, sweet content
A thousand deaths by one death doth prevent,
When our rebellious wills, subdued thereby 615
Into th’eternal will and wisdom, die; Gal. 2:20
Nor is that will harsh or irrational,
But sweet in that which we most bitter call, Matt. 11
Who err in judging what is ill or good,
Only by studying that will understood. 620
What we admire in a low paradise,
If they our souls from heavenly thoughts entice,
Here terminating our most strong desire
Which should to perfect permanence aspire,
From being good to us they are so far 625
That they our fetters, yokes, and poisons are, [254]
The obstacles of our felicity,
The ruin of our soul’s most firm healths be,
Quenching that life-maintaining appetite
Which makes substantial fruit our sound delight. 630
The evils, so miscalled, that we endure
Are wholesome medicines tending to our cure;
Only disease to these aversion breeds,
The healthy soul on them with due thanks feeds.
If for a prince, a mistress, or a friend, 635
Many do joy their bloods and lives to spend,
Wealth, honor, ease, dangers, and wounds despise, Luke 9:23–24
Should we not more to God’s will sacrifice
And by free gift prevent that else-sure loss?
Whate’er our will is, we must bear the cross, 640
Which freely taken up, the weight is less
And hurts not, carried on with cheerfulness.
Besides, what we can lose are gliding streams,
Light airy shadows, unsubstantial dreams, Ps. 90:5–6, 9, Ps. 49:10–13
Wherein we no propriety could have 645
But that which our own cheating fancy gave.
The right of them was due to God alone, Luke 12:20
And when with thanks we render him his own
Either he gives us back our offerings
Or our submission pays with better things. 650
Were ills as real as our fancies make, Job 1:21, 42:10–12
They soon must us, or we must them forsake;
We cannot miss ease and vicissitude
Till our last rest our labors shall conclude.
Natural tears there are which in due bound 655
Do not the soul with sinful sorrow drown;
Repentant tears, too, are no fretting brine, 2 Cor. 7:10
But love’s soft meltings, which the soul refine;
Like gentle showers that usher in the spring,
These make the soul more fair and flourishing. 660
No murmuring winds of passions here prevail,
But the life-breathing spirit’s sweet fresh gale,
Which by those fruitful drops all graces feeds
And draws rich extracts form the soakèd seeds;
But worldly sorrow, like rough winter’s storms, 665
All graces kills, all loveliness deforms,
Augments the evils of our present state
And doth eternal woes anticipate.
Vain is that grief which can no ill redress
But adds affliction to uneasiness, 670
Unnerving the soul’s powers then when they should [255]
Most exercise their constant fortitude.
With these most certain truths let’s wind up all:
Whatever doth to mortal men befall
Not casual is, like shafts at random shot, 675
But providence distributes every lot,
In which th’obedient and the meek rejoice,
Above their own preferring[123] God’s wise choice.
Nor is his providence less good than wise,
Though our gross sense pierce not its mysteries. 680
As there’s but one most true substantial good,
And God himself is that beatitude,
So we can suffer but one real ill:
Divorce from him by our repugnant will;
Which when to just submission it returns 685
The reunited soul no longer mourns,
His serene rays dry up its former tears,
Dispel the tempest of its carnal fears,
Which dread what either never may arrive,
Or not as seen in their false perspective;[124] 690
For in the crystal mirror of God’s grace
All things appear with a new lovely face.
When that doth Heaven’s more glorious palace show,
We cease t’admire a Paradise below,
Rejoice in that which lately was our loss, 695
And see a crown made up of every cross.
Return, return, my soul, to thy true rest, Psalm 116:7
As young, benighted birds unto their nest;
There hide thyself under the wings of love
Till the bright morning all thy clouds remove. [256] 700

 

Figure 7. Title page of Sarah Fyge’s The Female Advocate.
Reproduced by permission of the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

 

  1. Like many of the other scriptural references that, following the practice of the first edition of 1679, are included in the margin of our edition, this text operates as a comment and gloss upon the poem in its early historical contexts. Because this prophetic passage rails against “an hypocritical nation” (KJV) or “a dissembling nation” (Geneva Bible), the connection between the post-Restoration epic and the overturning of the revolutionary governments of the English Republic and Cromwellian Protectorate becomes more concrete through the biblical allusion. Just as the prophet Isaiah attacks the apostasy of the Israelites, so the poet here activates political allegory through her embroidery of poetic image and scriptural reference. The evocation of discord leading providentially to harmony connects the will of the English people to restore the monarchy and conform to the established church of England with the Assyrian tyranny over the nation of Israel. As the gloss on the passage in the 1599 Geneva Bible explains, “God’s intention is to chastise them for their amendment, and the Assyrians’ purpose is to destroy them to enrich themselves: thus in respect of God’s justice, it is God’s work, but in respect of their own malice, it is the work of the Devil.” Although commentary on all of Hutchinson’s scriptural references would be prohibitively lengthy for our notes, we include comments and quotations where necessary and encourage readers more generally to pursue the marginal references where the poem becomes most relevant to their interpretive concerns.  ↵
  2. This run of biblical citations illustrates one of Hutchinson’s modes of employing chains of scripture thematically to reinforce her theme. The central, shared concern of these passages is embodied in the two references to the story of Joseph, sold into Egyptian bondage by his brothers, who ultimately becomes their savior. Together with the citation from Peter’s Pentecost Sermon from Acts, the other texts suggest a typological link between the divine will and the suffering of God’s true servants, which prefigures the crucifixion of Jesus. Like the passage from Isaiah with which these marginal references began, these citations seem to bring together the sufferings of the dissenting English with God’s providential plan.  ↵
  3. Except . . . disclose: i.e., unless God’s creative power aids my soul in her imperfect struggling to put her lowly ideas into forms and imparts words that will reveal those forms. In this invocation, Hutchinson seeks to align her poetic creation with God’s creation of the universe, a theme with which Milton also contends in the opening to the first book of Paradise Lost.  ↵
  4. Elohim: One of the names of God in Genesis. Two separate texts depicting the creation, usually called the Priestly and the Yahwist, or “P” and “J” narratives, were according to biblical scholars woven together to form the received text of the book of Genesis. In the “P” text, the name of the deity is “Elohim,” usually translated into English as “the Lord God.”  ↵
  5. Bulrush: a tall, naked stalk or reed from a plant that grows near water; in the Bible applied to the papyrus of Egypt.  ↵
  6. Apparently continuing the political layer of allegory, the verse from the Epistle to the Hebrews unites salvation through faith in Christ with the faith of Moses in his resistance to Pharaoh’s power: “By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible” (KJV).  ↵
  7. In the preceding and following sentences, Hutchinson employs a conventional combination of the “ontological argument” and the “argument from design” to establish the existence of God. As her qualification to line 64 (“we / What is invisible in some sort see”) suggests, the poet holds a theological reservation about the potential for idolatry in claiming to “see” God in signs visible through the created world, a reservation common among Protestants throughout the early modern period. In the 11th century, St. Anselm of Canterbury developed the “ontological argument,” the notion of a being greater than any other that could be conceived, and in his Proslogion argued that if such a being failed to exist, a greater being could be imagined; therefore the ability to imagine a being greater than any other that could be imagined means such a being must exist. The concept of a first uncausèd cause (line 70) or a prime mover (primum movens immobile) derives from Aristotle’s Metaphysics 12, and was developed most influentially in the 13th century by St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica 1) in conjunction with the arguments from contingency and necessity to establish a logical basis for the existence of the Christian God. Also known as the teleological argument, the “argument from design” is the last of Aquinas’s five proofs of God’s existence, and it seeks to prove that a divine hand guides all natural things whether they know it or not toward their proper ends “as an arrow is directed by an archer.”  ↵
  8. In the early modern period, the Trinity was commonly held to subsist (line 89), i.e. “to have its being or existence in a certain manner, form, or state, or by a certain condition,” according to the OED, which cites Richard Hooker: “In which essential unity of God a trinity personal nevertheless subsisteth” (Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity 1.2.2).  ↵
  9. perfection: the word must have four syllables — per-fect-i-on — for the meter to work and for the rhyme to receive proper accent; this practice of extending words that end with the suffix -tion was conventional among early modern poets.  ↵
  10. Imbecilities: weaknesses, impotencies.  ↵
  11. Magazine: a warehouse or depot.  ↵
  12. Still-fixèd: ever-stable, securely placed.  ↵
  13. Be resheth: This and the following two marginal notes (“In Capite” and “In Principio”) are the first words/phrases of Genesis in Hebrew, a Latin rendering of Aquila’s Greek translation, and the Latin Vulgate, respectively.  ↵
  14. A Lucretian commonplace given memorable and compact expression in reference to the primordial Chaos in Paradise Lost 2.911: “The womb of nature and perhaps her grave.” The original line is from Lucretius’s De rerum natura 5.259, which Hutchinson herself translated as: “Earth for her part made by her fruitful womb / The general mother is, is common tomb” (5.272–73; ed. Hugh de Quehen [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996]). Hutchinson’s detailed study of the epicurean poem marks her depictions of cosmological topics throughout Order and Disorder and provides an important counterpoint to the more orthodox theology of the poem. See Reid Barbour, “Between Atoms and the Spirit: Lucy Hutchinson’s Translation of Lucretius,” Renaissance Papers (1994): 1–16; see also the introduction to de Quehen’s edition.  ↵
  15. Consume in: the modern idiom would call for the passive construction “are consumed in.”  ↵
  16. Platonic . . . Idea: The concept of a structural pattern or essence that preceded material existence — like a blueprint from which the world was made — was a commonplace of Platonic philosophy. Plato’s Timaeus depicts the creation of the cosmos along these lines. This cosmology, as well as most of the main concepts from the dialogues, later appeared in the philosophy of Plotinus and, largely through his influence, entered western Christian philosophy by way of the writings of Boethius and St. Augustine. Nonetheless, when placed in sharp contrast with the more fundamentalist Christianity of the Protestant sects, Platonic concepts, even when operative, were frequently dismissed as the “ridiculous lies” and “rubbish” of heathen thinkers, from which Hutchinson seeks to “vindicate” herself in the Preface to Order and Disorder.  ↵
  17. [197]For the phrase tract of time, in which tract means a stretch or length, compare Paradise Lost 5.498. The biblical texts that illustrate this passage bring together prophetic doom and domestic, marital politics through the exhortation to husbands to “give honor to the woman, as unto the weaker vessel, even as they which are heirs together of the grace of life” (1 Peter 3:7). Psalm 102:26 alludes to the heavens and earth waxing old like a garment and being changed; Isaiah 34:4 tells how “the heavens shall be folden like a book, and all their hosts shall fall as the leaf falleth from the vine, and as it falleth from the fig tree” (Geneva Bible).  ↵
  18. The marginal scriptural text (Isaiah 4:5) is quoted nearly verbatim, though Hutchinson brings the tense closer to the present by constructing her sentence with a more suspended syntax. The Geneva Bible reads: “And the Lord shall create upon every place of Mount Zion, and upon the assemblies thereof, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defense.” The accompanying gloss on the passage extends its sense thus: “The faithful are called the glory of God, because his image and tokens of his grace shine in them.”  ↵
  19. His only dread . . . away: i.e., the fear alone of God is enough to keep all his enemies far away.  ↵
  20. El-tzeboim: Hebrew from the verse cited in the margin, which means “the Lord of Hosts.”  ↵
  21. The mighty monarchs of line 269 suggests the restored Stuart monarchy; the text cited in the margin reinforces the political allegory suggested by several of the other prophetic texts cited throughout, particularly Isaiah, in which the Assyrian tyranny over the Israelites may represent punishment for the chosen nation’s idolatry and apostasy. 2 Kings 19:35 follows the prophecy of Isaiah against Sennnacherib: “And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed . . .” (KJV).  ↵
  22. Rude congestion: an unformed accumulation or heap  ↵
  23. The image of God’s nurturance of creation has analogues in other early modern texts; see Paradise Lost 1.21f., referring to the Spirit of creation, which “Dovelike satst brooding on the vast abyss / And madst it pregnant.” In the sixteenth-century Protestant Latin Bible, specifically the Junius-Tremellius version of the Old Testament (reprinted in London, 1579–1580), the opening of Genesis includes the image: “Spiritus Dei incubat superficiei aquarum.” Whereas the KJV has the Spirit of God “moved upon the face of the waters,” Junius-Tremellius says “the Spirit of God brooded over the surface of the water” (incubare: to brood over or lie on). The dove was a common symbol of the Holy Spirit in Christian iconography across the arts throughout the Renaissance.  ↵
  24. According to an ancient Christian tradition with its roots in the Proem to the Gospel of John (1:1–14), the Creation takes place through the agency of the divine Word: “without him was not any thing made that was made” (1:3, KJV). John rewrites the Creation from Genesis as an act of the Trinity, but places emphasis on the agency of Jesus Christ: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (1:1, KJV).  ↵
  25. Clothes . . . snow: Compare a related image from Milton’s ode, “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” (1629): Nature hides “her guilty front with innocent snow, / And on her naked shame, / Pollute with sinful blame, / The saintly veil of maiden white to throw. . .” (ll. 39–42).  ↵
  26. thorough: an archaic form of “through.”  ↵
  27. fabric: a frame, structure, or body formed by the conjunction of dissimilar parts.  ↵
  28. The biblical verse cited in the margin alludes to the foundation of the earth, here called the ground; but this scriptural passage does not refer to the position of the earth as fixed in the center — a commonplace of the older, Ptolemaic cosmology that had begun to be replaced by the Copernican and Galilean concept of heliocentric astronomy.  ↵
  29. The first edition of 1679 does not print “and flowers,” but the addition of these words in the manuscript of the poem held in the Osborne Collection of Yale University’s Beinecke Library corrects the printed edition’s incomplete and faulty meter by adding an iamb.  ↵
  30. The fabled wealth of the eastern monarchs goes back at least as far as the idea of there being a distinct West, as for example in the ancient Greek historian Herodotus’ depiction of the lavish excesses of the courts of the Persian emperors. The passage from the Gospel of Matthew cited in the margin does not refer to eastern wealth, but follows the same line of politicized emphasis on humility as the lines that follow, while at the same time glancing back at the notion from lines 90–91 that “we may read / In every leaf, lectures of providence.” Jesus asks, “Why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin . . .” (Matthew 6:28, KJV).  ↵
  31. creation: another conventional metric extension to four syllables, pronounced: cre-a-ti-on.  ↵
  32. second causes: i.e., causes secondary to God’s primary ones; see n.7 to line 1.74 above.  ↵
  33. luminaries: stars  ↵
  34. eighth heaven: the eighth Ptolemaic sphere or stellatum. The ancient theory of the celestial spheres, still influential in early modern astronomy, held that stars, planets, and other heavenly bodies are embedded within a series of concentric spheres that revolve around the earth (in the Ptolemaic, geocentric model) or, later, around the sun (in the Copernican, heliocentric model). See also Southwell, “An Elegy,” n. 2.  ↵
  35. several: for metrical consistency, pronounced with three syllables: sev-er-al.  ↵
  36. Although the political astrology of the period was still taken seriously in some quarters, so that eclipses and astronomical irregularities could be read as signs of discord reflected in the cosmos, Hutchinson seems skeptical of the prophetic and especially causal power granted astrology, and in the following lines argues that this is a false attribution.  ↵
  37. This chapter of the Book of Judges is the song and thanksgiving of Deborah and Barak after the victory over the idolatrous king Jabin of Canaan. Jael, an Israelite woman and Heber’s wife, had killed Sisera, Jabin’s commander, by driving a nail into his temples while he was sleeping (Judges 4:21). In Judges 5:20, Deborah and Barak say that “they fought from heaven, even the stars in their courses fought against Sisera” (Geneva Bible).  ↵
  38. Here we follow Norbrook’s conflating emendation of the 1679 edition, which reads “the whole word,” by correcting to “world” with the guidance of the Yale manuscript, which reads “all the world.”  ↵
  39. gaudy vests: brilliantly fine robes or gowns  ↵
  40. ocean: a three-syllable extension to fill out the meter, pronounced: o-ce-an.  ↵
  41. pies: magpies. ↵
  42. motion: extended to three syllables, pronounced: mo-ti-on.  ↵
  43. It was commonly held that mother pelicans fed their young by pecking at their chests until blood ran down to feed their chickens, or babies. The pelican was often seen as a type of Christ, giving his own blood to save humanity.  ↵
  44. fulmots: polecats  ↵
  45. marish: an archaic form of the word “marsh.”  ↵
  46. endue: invest or endow with qualities.  ↵
  47. save: except.  ↵
  48. the king of all: in this case, Adam, who is granted dominion over all the earth and its creatures in Genesis 1:26. See 3.421–26.  ↵
  49. epitomized: in the Renaissance, the human form was often considered to be a microcosm or epitome of the universe. Compare, e.g., John Donne’s Holy Sonnet that begins, “I am a little world made cunningly / Of elements and an angelic sprite . . .”  ↵
  50. damask rose: a species of rose supposed to have originated in Damascus. lawn: a fine linen.  ↵
  51. blood and spirits flow: Before William Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of blood (published in 1628), it was thought that blood vessels carried both blood and air or “spirits.”  ↵
  52. If the front . . . face are: if the forehead (front) is the glory of man’s body (frame), those eyes (lamps) which flame in its upper windows illuminate (illustrate) it, and are as the sun (day’s radiant star) in the clear sky (heaven) of a bright face.  ↵
  53. resultance: effect or outcome.  ↵
  54. [214] low original: lowly origin; the pun derives from the Hebrew: ’adam means “the man,” and ’adamah means “the soil, the ground.” Hence the wordplay in Genesis 2:7, where “the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (KJV). Although there is some debate about where in the text of the Hebrew Bible “Adam” first appears as a proper noun, the word is used more descriptively here; Genesis 4:25 certainly uses the word as a name.  ↵
  55. apelike art: the art of counterfeiting or mimicking reality in an inferior manner, as apes were held to mimic human gestures, appearances, and behavior.  ↵
  56. essays: trials or attempts, from the French verb essayer.  ↵
  57. Compare with Calthorpe’s “A Description of the Garden of Eden” in this volume.  ↵
  58. covert: a shelter, covering.  ↵
  59. Chus: Chus, the eldest son of Noah’s son Ham, is the father of Nimrod, the builder of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1–9 and the type of all tyrants. Following the Vulgate Bible, the Bishops’ Bible (1568) uses this form of the name; the Geneva and KJV Bibles refer to him as Cush. See Genesis 10:6–8 and 1 Chronicles 1:8–10.  ↵
  60. in the revolution of some years: over the course of some years; alluding to (e.g.) Psalm 137 on the Babylonian captivity.  ↵
  61. new-created king: again referring to Adam’s dominion over the earth’s other creatures.  ↵
  62. In following the text of the 1679 edition, we depart from Norbrook’s standard modern edition and the Yale manuscript. Norbrook (p. 38) prints “Like country girls, gross flowers did dispute / Their humble beauties with the high-born fruit,” which favors the Yale manuscript’s reading of “gross flowers,” whereas we retain “grass” and re-punctuate so that the grass and flowers, both “low-born,” dispute with “high-born” fruit.  ↵
  63. kine: an archaic plural of “cow.”  ↵
  64. Hutchinson deploys the image of a cosmic civil war, in which rude congressions or “collisions” create chaos by unfixing everything. Compare 5.333 below and, as Norbrook notes in his edition (p. 41), Hutchinson’s translation of Lucretius, where this infrequent usage occurs three times within ten lines (5.434–43). It is also worth noticing how comparatively sparse the marginal biblical citations become in Canto 3 as Hutchinson moves away from the letter of the scriptural account in order to embroider her poetic representation of the creation of Eve and thus human society.  ↵
  65. Or . . . or: this syntactic form, common in early modern English, is the equivalent of the modern “either . . . or” formulation.  ↵
  66. Presumably this is because Genesis does not directly supply an answer. Compare 4.48, 4.305, and 5.261, where Hutchinson cautiously avoids the appearance of blasphemy that might arise from curious inquiry into or conjecture about the foundations of belief.  ↵
  67. The theme is supported by the text from the prophet Ezekiel cited in the margin, which says: “Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be sought of the house of Israel, to perform it unto them: I will increase them with men like a flock” (36:37, Geneva Bible). The marginal note to the verse before this interprets the context in a way that is consonant with Hutchinson’s moralization: “He declareth that it ought not to be referred to the soil or plentifulness of the earth that any country is rich and abundant, but only to God’s mercies, as his plagues and curses declare, when he maketh it barren.”  ↵
  68. Again . . . in solitude: This sentiment is in keeping with the Protestant abolition of enclosed monastic life, especially in its contemplative forms.  ↵
  69. original: origin. The reference might be seen as ambiguous: does he see God or himself in her (or both)?  ↵
  70. The poetic line echoes Genesis 2:23: “Then the man said, This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of the man” (Geneva Bible). The Geneva gloss explains the significance of the word Hutchinson uses: “[Woman:] Or, maness, because she commeth out of man: for in Hebrew Ish is man, and Ishah the woman.” Hutchinson also imitates the Hebraic play on words in the next line, where ravished contains an internal rhyme with Ish.  ↵
  71. ensign: a sign, emblem, or token.  ↵
  72. A poetic commonplace of the Renaissance, most memorably expressed in different forms throughout the first 17 of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, e.g., when the young man is urged “to breed another thee”: “Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart, / Leaving thee living in posterity?” (Sonnet 6, 11–12).  ↵
  73. According to typological convention, Christ is the second Adam, as in Romans 5:19: “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous” (KJV). After his death, Christ was wounded in the side by a Roman centurion in the Gospel of John 19:34; the flow of blood and water from the wound was interpreted as a miracle by Origen, St. Thomas Aquinas, Cornelius a Lapide, and others. The Church was commonly represented as the spouse or bride of Christ following the tradition that interpreted the Song of Solomon as an allegory of the love of Christ for the Church. Compare Lady Anne Southwell’s poem, “All Married Men Desire to Have Good Wives,” also in this volume.  ↵
  74. A potential ambiguity of antecedent for the pronoun in this line nicely conveys the sense of typological figuration. In other words, the fact that it is momentarily unclear whether “he” is Adam or Christ, and whether his “spouse” and “sister” is Eve or the Church, reveals the significance of the episode for Christian readers. Hutchinson purposefully speaks on both levels at once to illustrate the principle at work in her reading of Scripture, which was common.  ↵
  75. The idea that the Sabbath should be observed as a day of sacred rest was typical of Puritans in the early modern period, as are the Canto’s emphases upon the sacredness of marriage and labor.  ↵
  76. perfection: extended to four syllables for the meter, pronounced: per-fec-ti-on.  ↵
  77. instruction: likewise extended: in-struc-ti-on. Note that this word completes a rare triplet of rhymed lines.  ↵
  78. The ancient question of the problem of evil, unde malum? or “whence evil?” as asked by Latin Church Fathers Tertullian and St. Augustine. The response to this question has come to be known since Leibniz in the early 18th century as theodicy, or, in Milton’s famous phrase, the effort to “justify the ways of God to men” (Paradise Lost 1.26). The simplest solution is suggested by the marginal text, which urges believers to “rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings,” etc. (1 Peter 4:13, KJV).  ↵
  79. contemnèd imbecility: hated weakness  ↵
  80. Compare 3.312, 4.305, and 5.261, where Hutchinson cautiously avoids the appearance of blasphemy that might arise from curious inquiry into or conjecture about the foundations of belief.  ↵
  81. Compare Milton’s encompassing critique of mythological “fables” in book 1 of Paradise Lost, esp. 1.196–200, 1.507–21, and 1.739–48.  ↵
  82. great assizes: assizes are trials; hence the great assizes are the trials of all souls by Christ at the Last Judgment.  ↵
  83. scorpion to that rod: following the scriptural references to scorpions as a means of chastisement, the term stands as a symbol of oppression and denotes a whip or lash with knotted cords or steel spikes to inflict greater suffering; see 1 Kings 12:11, 2 Chronicles 10:11, and Paradise Lost 2.701.  ↵
  84. embodying: organizing into a military body or company  ↵
  85. prevent: anticipate or act in advance  ↵
  86. Like Milton in book 9 of Paradise Lost, Hutchinson exploits a potential ambiguity in the episode from Genesis in order to emphasize that Eve is alone when tempted by Satan in the serpent.  ↵
  87. In the verse referred to in the margin, St. Paul describes the enemies of truth as lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God: “For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with diverse lusts, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:6–7, KJV). As Norbrook notes (p. 58), Hutchinson elsewhere warns her own daughter against heresy by quoting the same passage.  ↵
  88. prohibition: extended to five syllables to fill out the meter, pronounced: pro-hi-bi-ti-on.  ↵
  89. Genesis 3:3 reads: “But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die” (KJV). A great debate surrounds Eve’s addition of the phrase “neither shall ye touch it,” which Hutchinson emphasizes by leaving the injunction against tasting implicit. At Genesis 2:17, when God admonishes Adam, he does not mention the sense of touch at all, but merely says “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (KJV). Is this Eve’s embellishment, or is Adam responsible for adding the phrase when he tells Eve of the admonition?  ↵
  90. This line is in iambic hexameter, a rare variation on the pentameter norm of the poem.  ↵
  91. want: lack  ↵
  92. Or . . . Or: Either . . . or.  ↵
  93. This first suggestion follows Martin Luther’s early allegorization of Genesis quite closely.  ↵
  94. Compare 3.312, 4.43, and 5.261, where Hutchinson cautiously avoids the appearance of blasphemy that might arise from curious inquiry into or conjecture about the foundations of belief.  ↵
  95. fragors: harsh noises, crashes.  ↵
  96. unjointed: unconnected, incoherent  ↵
  97. The passage cited here contains Cain’s words to the Lord after he has been cursed for killing his brother Abel. The parallel to the passage in the poem is not direct, but rather typological and anticipatory.  ↵
  98. on the way: the phrase wittily plays off of the archetypal conversion narrative of St. Paul alluded to in the marginal citation of Acts 9, in which then Saul of Tarsus is blinded by heavenly light and hears the voice of Jesus on the road to Damascus (9:3–9).  ↵
  99. illustrious: shining, bright  ↵
  100. urge: Although the primary meaning of the word in early modern English is allege, affirm, or state, particularly in justification or defense, the secondary and more common modern meaning (advocate or advise earnestly; press, claim, or demand) might be relevant were the phrase to appear before rather than after the Fall. Nonetheless, for modern readers, the phrase does seem unavoidably to activate both opposing meanings in this idiom.  ↵
  101. bar: intended of course in the legal sense, an in contemporary usage for the “bar exam.” The bar was the barrier marking off the judge’s seat, and prisoners stood at the bar for arraignment, trial, and sentencing.  ↵
  102. This line is in iambic tetrameter, a rare variation on the pentameter norm of the poem.  ↵
  103. facts: things done, deeds; here evil deeds or crimes ↵
  104. covert: hiding place  ↵
  105. eat: eaten of or from  ↵
  106. The mystery to which Hutchinson alludes is the presence of the Gospel within the text of the Old Testament. This form of typological interpretation, common among Christians of all sects but especially emphasized within Protestantism, was used to see in the actions and occurrences of the Hebrew Bible the promise of future salvation under Jesus Christ. Thus the protevangelium as it was called consisted of the text of the curse upon the serpent, understood as Satan, who would bruise the heel of man, or the merely mortal part, while Christ on the cross would break the head of Satan and destroy sin forever. In this way Christ becomes the second Adam who answers the sin of the first, and Mary become the second Eve who gives birth to the savior necessitated by the transgression and fall of the first. The marginal citations variously reinforce this figural interpretation.  ↵
  107. Although the claim that patriarchal rule serves as part of the curse of Eve is scriptural, the passionate desires in Hutchinson’s line receive distinctive emphasis, as the following passage shows. The biblical text reads: “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee” (Genesis 3:16, KJV).  ↵
  108. Distracting love is in this case adulterous, as the marginal text suggests: “And it came to pass after these things, that his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with me” (Genesis 39:7, KJV).  ↵
  109. yokes: contrivances designed to hold the necks of two beasts such as oxen together so that they can pull a plough or cart together; hence a common symbol since antiquity of oppression and servitude.  ↵
  110. froward: perverse, naughty  ↵
  111. prevaricating: swerving from the proper course  ↵
  112. Cited here, following the apparent equation of grace with anti-monarchical sentiment, this passage from Isaiah was conventionally read as foretelling Christ’s birth and kingdom; compare 5.93, where the text is also cited in the margin to gloss the promise of the “weak Church.”  ↵
  113. Compare 3.312, 4.48, and 4.305, where Hutchinson cautiously avoids the appearance of blasphemy that might arise from curious inquiry into or conjecture about the foundations of belief.  ↵
  114. The skins . . . made: Compare patristic exegesis of Genesis 3:21: according to Origen, the animal-skin clothing worn by Adam and Eve signified postlapsarian human bodies.  ↵
  115. congressions: collisions. See the note to 3.278 (n. 64).  ↵
  116. resistless: unresisting. The 1679 edition reads “restless” instead, but we follow the Yale MS and Norbrook in emending to more contextually relevant resistless.  ↵
  117. ambuscado: ambush  ↵
  118. The vehicle of this simile seems to glance at the duke of Buckingham, who a generation earlier had been the favorite of King James I and his son, Charles I, but was vastly unpopular among both nobility and commoners before his assassination in 1628.  ↵
  119. Milton’s Adam has similar questions after the Fall in Paradise Lost 10.771–75, 852–59.  ↵
  120. convert: turn, perhaps also suggesting that the reaction is a result of the speaker’s spiritual condition  ↵
  121. all of us: i.e., each in our entirety; the whole of each one of us  ↵
  122. brat: offspring, product  ↵
  123. preferring: The 1679 edition prints “preserving,” though the idiom seems to suggest that the Yale MS reading of preferring is more correct.  ↵
  124. false perspective: according to early modern usage, a perspective was an optical instrument such as a magnifying glass or telescope through which one looked to alter one’s vision; the sense extends to the pictures produced by mirrors and similar effects, which represent images anamorphically — in other words, in a distorted way until one views from the right position.  ↵

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Early Modern Women on the Fall: An Anthology Copyright © 2012 by Arizona Board of Regents for Arizona State University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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