The Apostasy
One star
Is better far
Than many precious stones;
One sun, which is by its own luster seen,
Is worth ten thousand golden thrones;
A juicy herb, or spire of grass,
In useful virtue, native green,
An em'rald doth surpass,
Hath in 't more value, though less seen.
No wars,
Nor mortal jars,
Nor bloody feuds, nor coin,
Nor griefs which those occasions, saw I then;
Nor wicked thieves which this purloin;
I had not thoughts that were impure;
Esteeming both women and men
God's work, I was secure,
And reckoned peace my choicest gem.
As Eve,
I did believe
Myself in Eden set,
Affecting neither gold nor ermined crowns,
Nor aught else that I need foget;
No mud did foul my limpid streams,
Nor mist eclipsed my sun with frowns;
Set off with heav'nly beams,
My joys were meadows, fields, and towns.
Those things
Which cherubins
Did not at first behold
Among God's works, which Adam did not see --
As robes, and stones enchased in gold,
Rich cabinets, and such-like fine
Inventions -- could not ravish me;
I thought not bowls of wine
Needful for my felicity.
All bliss
Consists in this,
To do as Adam did,
And not to know those superficial joys
Which were from him in Eden hid,
Those little new-invented things,
Fine lace and silks, such childish toys
As ribands are and rings,
Or worldly pelf that us destroys.
For God,
Both great and good,
The seeds of melancholy
Created not, but only foolish men,
Grown mad with customary folly
Which doth increase their wants, so dote
As when they elder grow they then
Such baubles chiefly note;
More fools at twenty years than ten.
But I,
I know not why,
Did learn among them too,
At length; and when I once with blemished eyes
Began their pence and toys to view,
Drowned in their customs, I became
A stranger to the shining skies,
Lost as a dying flame,
And hobby-horses brought to prize.
The sun
And moon forgone
As if unmade, appear
No more to me; to God and heaven dead
I was, as though they never were;
Upon some useless gaudy book,
When what I knew of God was fled,
The child being taught to look,
His soul was quickly murtherëd.
O fine!
O most divine!
O brave! they cried; and showed
Some tinsel thing whose glittering did amaze,
And to their cries its beauty owed;
Thus I on riches, by degrees,
Of a new stamp did learn to gaze,
While all the world for these
I lost, my joy turned to a blaze.
Dumbness
Sure Man was born to meditate on things,
And to contemplate the eternal springs
Of God and Nature, glory, bliss, and pleasure;
That life and love might be his Heavenly treasure;
And therefore speechless made at first, that He
Might in himself profoundly busied be:
And not vent out, before he hath ta’en in
Those antidotes that guard his soul from sin.
Wise Nature made him deaf, too, that He might
Not be disturbed, while he doth take delight
In inward things, nor be depraved with tongues,
Nor injured by the errors and the wrongs
That mortal words convey. For sin and death
Are most infused by accursed breath,
That flowing from corrupted entrails, bear
Those hidden plagues which souls may justly fear.
This, my dear friends, this was my blessed case;
For nothing spoke to me but the fair face
Of Heaven and Earth, before myself could speak,
I then my Bliss did, when my silence, break.
My non-intelligence of human words
Ten thousand pleasures unto me affords;
For while I knew not what they to me said,
Before their souls were into mine conveyed,
Before their living vehicle of wind
Could breathe into me their infected mind,
Before my thoughts were leavened with theirs, before
There any mixture was; the Holy Door,
Or gate of souls was close, and mine being one
Within itself to me alone was known.
Then did I dwell within a world of light,
Distinct and separate from all men’s sight,
Where I did feel strange thoughts, and such things see
That were, or seemed, only revealed to me,
There I saw all the world enjoyed by one;
There I was in the world myself alone;
No business serious seemed but one; no work
But one was found; and that did in me lurk.
D’ye ask me what? It was with clearer eyes
To see all creatures full of Deities;
Especially one’s self: And to admire
The satisfaction of all true desire:
’Twas to be pleased with all that God hath done;
’Twas to enjoy even all beneath the sun:
’Twas with a steady and immediate sense
To feel and measure all the excellence
Of things; ’twas to inherit endless treasure,
And to be filled with everlasting pleasure:
To reign in silence, and to sing alone,
To see, love, covet, have, enjoy and praise, in one:
To prize and to be ravished; to be true,
Sincere and single in a blessed view
Of all His gifts. Thus was I pent within
A fort, impregnable to any sin:
Until the avenues being open laid
Whole legions entered, and the forts betrayed:
Before which time a pulpit in my mind,
A temple and a teacher I did find,
With a large text to comment on. No ear
But eyes themselves were all the hearers there,
And every stone, and every star a tongue,
And every gale of wind a curious song.
The Heavens were an oracle, and spake
Divinity: the Earth did undertake
The office of a priest; and I being dumb
(Nothing besides was dum , all things did come
With voices and instructions; but when I
Had gained a tongue, their power began to die.
Mine ears let other noises in, not theirs,
A noise disturbing all my songs and prayers.
My foes pulled down the temple to the ground;
They my adoring soul did deeply wound
And casting that into a swoon, destroyed
The Oracle, and all I there enjoyed:
And having once inspired me with a sense
Of foreign vanities, they march out thence
In troops that cover and despoil my coasts,
Being the invisible, most hurtful hosts.
Yet the first words mine infancy did hear,
The things which in my dumbness did appear
Preventing all the rest, got such a root
Within my heart, and stick so close unto’t,
It may be trampled on, but still will grow
And nutriment to soil itself will owe.
The first Impressions are Immortal all,
And let mine enemies hoop, cry, roar, or call,
Yet these will whisper if I will but hear,
And penetrate the heart, if not the ear.
