| |
| PEACE, 1 catiffe body, earth possest, | |
| Cease to pretend to things too high: | |
| ’Tis not thy place of peace and rest, | |
| For thou art mortall, and must die. | |
| |
Body. Poor soul, one Spirit made us both, | 5 |
| Both from the wombe of nothing came; | |
| And though to yeeld ought thou art loth, | |
| Yet I the elder brother am. | |
| |
| I, as at home, can heare and see, | |
| And feele and tast of euery good; | 10 |
| But thou a stranger envy’st mee, | |
| My ease and pleasure, health and food. | |
| |
| Then dream of shadowes, make thy coate | |
| Of tinsel’d cobwebs; get thy head | |
| Lyn’d with chymeras got by roate; | 15 |
| And for thy food eat fairy bread. | |
| |
Soule. Stay, if thou can’st, thy mad career; | |
| Represse the storme of fruitless words; | |
| He that would by thy compasse steer, | |
| Must hear what reason truth affords. | 20 |
| |
| ’Tis true thou elder brother art; | |
| So wormes and beasts thy elder are; | |
| Rude nature’s first, then polisht art— | |
| The chaos was before a starre. | |
| |
| My food and cloth are most divine; | 25 |
| The bread of angels, robes of glory: | |
| Whilst all that sensuall stuff of thine | |
| Is of a vaine life the sad story. | |
| |
| Sences I have, but so refined, | |
| As wel become their mother soule, | 30 |
| Which sute the pleasures of the mind, | |
| And scale the heavens without controule. | |
| |
| I little care for such a feast, | |
| Which beasts can taste as well as I; | |
| Nor am content to set my rest | 35 |
| On goods in show, in deed a lie. | |
| |
| Such cates and joyes do I bequeath | |
| To thee, fond body, which must die; | |
| For I pretend unto a wreath | |
| Wherein is writ eternity. | 40 |
| |
| Thou to thy earth must strait returne, | |
| Whilst I, whose birth is from above, | |
| Shall upward move, and euer burne | |
| In gentle flames of heavenly loue. | |
| |
Body. But I one person am with thee, | 45 |
| And at the first was form’d by God; | |
| Then must I needs for ever be | |
| Dead ashes, or a senceless clod? | |
| |
Soule. Or that, or worse: but quit thy sence | |
| To boast all body; learne to fly | 50 |
| Up with me, and for recompence | |
| At length thou blest shalt be as I. | |
| |
Body. Then farewel, pleasures; I nor care | |
| What you pretend, or what you doe; | |
| Ile henceforth feed on angels’ fare, | 55 |
| For I an angell will be too. | |
| |
| And for the way I am prepar’d | |
| To answer every ill with this; | |
| “No way is long, or dark, or hard, | |
| That leads to everlasting bliss.” | 60 |
| |
Soule. Then w’are agreed; and for thy fare, | |
| It wil be euery day a feast; | |
| Love playes the cooke, and takes the care | |
| Nobly to entertaine her guest. | |
| |
| As for the trouble of the way, | 65 |
| Which dark or streight, cannot be long, | |
| Faith wil inlarge, turne night to day, | |
| So wee’l to heaven goe in a song. | |
