C. Charles Best. Of the Fall of Man in Adam. Edward Farr, ed. 1845. Select Poetry, Chiefly Devotional, of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth

Verse > Anthologies > Edward Farr, comp. > Elizabethan Poetry

CONTENTS · GLOSSARY · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edward Farr, ed. Select Poetry of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. 1845.

Of the Fall of Man in Adam

C. Charles Best


THE POORE 1 man belou’d, for virtue approu’d,
Right blessed is he;
Where couetous chuff, who neuer hath enough,
Accursed shall be.

Who goodnesse reiecteth, and euil effecteth,	5
Shall fall in the pit:
No plenty of pence shall free him from thence;
No power, nor wit.

Both vnespassable and vnsatiable
That gulph will appeare;	10
Imbogg’d he shall be, where nought he shall see
But horror and feare.

Adam vnstable and Eve variable,
The very first time,
By falling from God deserued this rod;	15
Oh! horrible crime!

For had they adhered to God, and him feared,
By keeping his reede,
Then death had not come on the man or the woman,
Or any their seede.	20

But when as the man from God’s will began
Basely to reuolt,
For his grieuous sin death came rushing in,
And on him laid holt.

This was the great crime, which at the first time,	25
By craft of the deuill,
Did bring in the seed of sickness and need,
And all other evill.

This was the sinne, which first did begin
Our parents to kill,	30
And heauenly food, prepared for our goud,
Did vtterly spill.

Vnhappy the fate, which first such a state
Such sorrow did bring,
To him that had lost so much to our cost,	35
Our heauenly King.

The credulous Eve, ’twas she that did giue
The cause of such euill,
Hoping that honor would come more vpon her,
Decerned by the deuill.	40

Beleeuing of him did make her to sinne,
To all our great losse;
For mankind ere sence receiued from hence
An horrible crosse.

For all the nations, through all generations	45
Which after haue beene,
With griefe of their heart haue tasted the smart
Of that primitiue sinne.

Note 1. C. Charles Best.—One of the contributors to Davison’s “Poetical Rhapsody;” beyond which nothing is known to the editor concerning him. [back]

CONTENTS · GLOSSARY · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Click here to shop the Bartleby Bookstore.

Shakespeare · Bible · Saints · Anatomy · Harvard Classics · Lit. History · Quotations · Poetry