Sonnet Xx: An Evil Spirit
An evil spirit, your beauty haunts me still,
Wherewith, alas, I have been long possest,
Which ceaseth not to tempt me to each ill,
Nor gives me once but one poor minute's rest;
In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake,
And when by means to drive it out I try,
With greater torments then it me doth take,
And tortures me in most extremity;
Before my face it lays down my despairs,
And hastes me on unto a sudden death,
Now tempting me to drown myself in tears,
And then in sighing to give up my breath.
Thus am I still provok'd to every evil
By this good wicked spirit, sweet angel-devil.
Sonnet Xii: That Learned Father
To the Soul
That learned Father, who so firmly proves
The Soul of man immortal and divine,
And doth the several offices define:
Anima - Gives her that name, as she the Body moves;
Amor - Then is she Love, embracing charity;
Animus - Moving a Will in us, it is the Mind
Mens - Retaining knowledge, still the same in kind;
Memoria - As intellectual, it is Memory;
Ratio - In judging, Reason only is her name;
Sensus - In speedy apprehension, it is Sense;
Conscientia - In right or wrong, they call her Conscience;
Spiritus - The Spirit, when it to Godward doth inflame.
These of the Soul the several functions be,
Which my Heart, lighten'd by thy love, doth see.
Noah's Flood (Excerpts)
Eternal and all-working God, which wast
Before the world, whose frame by Thee was cast,
And beautified with beamful lamps above,
By thy great wisdom set how they should move
To guide the seasons, equally to all,
Which come and go as they do rise and fall.
My mighty Maker, O do thou infuse
Such life and spirit into my labouring Muse,
That I may sing (what but from Noah thou hid'st)
The greatest thing that ever yet thou didst
Since the creation; that the world may see
The Muse is heavenly and deriv'd from Thee.
O let Thy glorious Angel which since kept
That gorgeous Eden, where once Adam slept,
When tempting Eve was taken from his side,
Let him great God not only be my guide,
But with his fiery faucheon still be nie,
To keep affliction far from me, that I
With a free soul thy wondrous works may show,
Then like that deluge shall my numbers flow,
Telling the state wherein the earth then stood,
The giant race, the universal flood.
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