That is, of you, who are a firmament
Of virtues, where no one is grown or spent;
They 're your materials, not your ornament.
Others, whom we call virtuous, are not so
In their whole substance; but their virtues grow
But in their humours, and at seasons show.
For when, thro' tasteless flat humility,
In dough-bak'd men some harmlessness we see,
'Tis but his flegm that 's virtuous, and not he:
So is the blood sometimes. Who ever ran
To danger unimportun'd, he was then
No better than a sanguine-virtuous man.
So cloister'd men, who, in pretence of fear,
All contributions to this life forbear,
Have virtue in melancholy, and only there.
Spiritual choleric critics, which in all
Religions find faults, and forgive no fall,
Have, thro' this zeal, virtue but in their gall.
We're thus but parcel guilt; to gold we 're grown,
When virtue is our soul's complexion;
Who knows his virtue's name or place hath none.
Virtue 's but aguish, when 't is several,
By occasion wak'd and circumstantial;
True virtue's soul always in all deeds all.
This virtue thinking to give dignity
To your soul, found there no infirmity;
For your soul was as good virtue as she.
She therefore wrought upon that part of you
Which is scarce less than soul, as she could do,
And so hath made your beauty virtue too.
Hence comes it that your beauty wounds not hearts,
As others, with prophane and sensual darts,
But, as an influence, virtuous thoughts imparts.
But if such friends by th' honour of your sight
Grow capable of this so great a light,
As to partake your virtues and their might,
What must I think that iufluence must do
Where it finds sympathy and matter too,
Virtue and beauty, of the same stuff as you?
Which is your noble worthy sister; she
Of whom, if what in this my ecstasy
And revelation of you both I see,
I should write here as in shört galleries,
The master at the end large glasses ties,
So to present the room twice to our eyes;
So I should give this letter length, and say
That which I said of you: there is no way
From either, but to th' other not to stray.
May therefore this be' enough to testify
My true devotion, free from flattery.
He that believes himself doth never lie.
THE COUNTESS OF SALISBURY... AUGUST, 1614.
FAIR, great, and good! since seeing you we see
What Heav'n can do, what any earth can be;
Since now your beauty shines, now when the sun,
Grown stale, is to so low a value run,
That his dishevell'd beams and scatter'd fires
Serve but for ladies' periwigs and tires
In lovers' sonnets; you come to repair
God's book of creatures, teaching what is fair.
Since now, when all is wither'd, shrunk, and dry'd,
All virtues ebb'd out to a dead low tide,
All the world's frame being crumbled into sand,
Where ev'ry man thinks by himself to stand,
Integrity, friendship, and confidence,
(Cements of greatness) being vapour'd hence,
And narrow man being fill'd with little shares,
Courts, city, church, are all shops of small wares,
All having blown to sparks their noble fire,
And drawn their sound gold ingot into wire;
All trying, by a love of littleness,
To make abridgments and to draw to less,
Even that nothing which at first we were:
Since in these times your greatness doth appear,
And that we learn by it that man to get
Towards him that 's infinite must first be great:
Since in an age so ill, as none is fit
So much as to accuse, much less mend it,
(For who can judge or witness of those times
Where all alike are guilty of the crimes?)
Where he that would be good is thought by all
A monster, or at best phantastical:
Since now you durst be good, and that I do
Discern, by daring to contemplate you,
That there may be degrees of fair, great, good,
Thro' your light, largeness, virtue understood:
If in this sacrifice of mine be shown
Any small spark of these, call it your own;
And if things like these have been said by me
Of others, call not that idolatry;
For had God made man first, and man had seen !.. The third day's fruits and flowers, and various green,
He might have said the best that he could say
Of those fair creatures which were made that day;
And when next day he had admir'd the birth
Of sun, moon, stars, fairer than late-prais'd earth,
He might have said the best that he could say,
And not be chid for praising yesterday:
So tho' some things are not together true,
As that another's worthiest, and that you;
Yet to say so doth not condemn a man
If, when he spoke them, they were both true then. 50
How fair a proof of this in our soul grows ?
We first have souls of growth and sense; and those,
When our last soul, our soul immortal, came,
Were swallow'd into it, and have no name:
Nor doth he injure those souls which doth cast
The power and praise of both them on the last:
No more do I wrong any if I adore
The same things now which I ador'd before,
The subject chang'd, and measure. The same thing
In a low constable and in the king
I reverence his power to work on me;
So did I humbly reverence each degree
Of fair, great, good; but more now I am come
From having found their walks to find their home:
And as I owe my first soul's thanks, that they
For my last soul did fit and mould my clay;
So am I debtor unto them whose worth
Enabled me to profit; and take forth
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