ABBEY S.
AM no enemy to religion;
But what is done, it is for England's good:
What did they serve for, but to feed a fort
Of lazy abbots, and of full fed fryars?
They neither plough, nor fow, and yet
they reap
The fat ofall the land, and fuck the poor:
Look what was, theirs, is in king Henry's hands,
His wealth before lay in the abbey-lands.
2. Indeed these things you have alledg'd, my lord,
When, God doth know, the infant yet unborn,
Will curfe the time the abbies were pull'd down;
I pray now where is hospitality?
Where now may poor diftreffed people go,
For to relieve their need, or reft their bones,
When weary travel doth opprefs their limbs?
And where religious men fhould take them in,
Shall now be kept back by a mastiff dog.
William Shakespear's Cromwelt.
For those walls which the credulous, devout,
And apt believing ignorant did found,
With willing zeal, which never call'd in doubt,
That time their works fhould ever fo confound,
Lie like confufed heaps as under ground;
And what their ignorance esteem'd fo holy,
The wifer ages do account as folly.
Samuel Daniel's Rofamund.
(Weary'd with toil, in feeking out fome one
That had a spark of true devotion ;)
It was my chance (chance only helpeth need)
To find an house ybuilt for holy deed,
With goodly architect, and cloisters wide,
With groves and walks along a river's fide;
The place itfelf afforded admiration,
And ev'ry spray a theme of contemplation.
But (woe is me) when knocking at the
gan entreat an entrance thereat;
The porter ask'd my name; I told he fwell'd,
And bad me thence: wherewith in grief repell'd,
I fought for fhelter to a ruin'd houfe,
Harb'ring the weafel, and the duft-bred mouse;
And others none, except the two-kind bat,
Which all the day there melancholy fate:
Here fate I down; with wind and rain ybeat;
Grief fed my mind, and did my body eat.
Yet idleness I faw (lam'd with the gout)
Had entrance, when poor truth was kept without;
There faw I drunkennefs, with dropfies fwoll'n;
And pamper'd luft, that many a night had stol'n
Over the abby-wall, when gates were lock'd,
To be in Venus' wanton bofom rock'd:
And gluttony that furfeiting had been,
Knock at the gate, and ftraight way taken in.
William Brown's Paftorals.
Religious houfes are thofe hives, where bees
Make honey for men's fouls: 1 tell thee, boy,
A friery is a cube, which ftrongly ftands,
Fashion'd by men, fupported by heaven's hands:
Orders of holy priesthood are as high
I' th' eyes of angels, as a king's dignity:
Both thefe unto a crown give the full weight.
Sam. Rowley's Noble Spanish Soldier,
This holy cell
Is dedicated to the fon of peace;
The foot of war never prophan'd this floor,
Nor doth wrath here with his consuming voice
Affright these buildings; charity with prayer,
Humility with abftinence combin'd,
Are here the guardians of a grieved mind.
ABSENCE.
Like as the culver on the bared bough,
Sits mourning for the absence of her mate,
And in her fongs fends many a wifhful vow,
For his return, that feems to linger late:
So I alone, now left difconfolate,
Mourn to myself the abfence of my love;
And wandering here and there all defolate,
Seek with my plaints to match that mournful dove.
Ne joy of aught that under heaven doth hove,
Can comfort me, but her own joyous fight:
Whose sweet aspect both God and man can move,
In her unspotted pleafance to delight.
Dark is my day, while her fair light I miss,
And dead my life, that wants fuch lively blifs.
Tho' abfent, present in defires they be, Our foul much further than our eyes can fee.
Dull fublunary lover's love
(Whose foul is fenfe) cannot admit
Of abfence, 'cause it doth remove The thing, which elemented it.
But we by a love fo far refin'd,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-affured of the mind,
Careless eyes, lips, and hands to mifs.
Our two fouls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expanfion;
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two fo
As ftiff twin compaffes are two,
The foul, the fixt foot makes no shew
To move, but doth, if th' other do.
And tho' it in the center fit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle juft,
And makes me end where I begun.
It is as if a night fhould fhade noon-day, Or that the fun was here, but forc'd away; And we were left under that hemifphere, Where we must feel it dark for half a year.
Stop the chafed boar, or play With the lyon's paw, yet fear From the lover's fide to tear
The idol of his foul away.
Though love enter by the fight
To the heart, it doth not flie
From the mind, when from the eye
The fair objects take their flight.
But fince want provokes defire,
When we lose what we before
Have enjoy'd, as we want more,
So is love more fet on fire.
Love doth with an hungry eye
Glut on beauty, and you may
Safer fnatch the tyger's prey,
Than his vital food away.
Yet though abfence for a space,
Sharpen the keen appetite,
Long continuance doth quité
All love's characters efface.
For the fenfe not fed, denies
Nourishment unto the mind,
Which with expectation pin'd,
Love of a confumption dies.
Wonder not if I ftay not here: Hurt lovers (like to wounded deer) Muft shift the place; for ftanding still Leaves too much time to know our ill: Where there is a traitor eye,
That lets in from an enemy
All that may fupplant an heart,
'Tis time the chief fhould use fome art:
Who parts the object from the fense,
Wifely cuts off intelligence.
Oh how quickly men muft die
Should they ftand all love's battery!
Perfindae's eyes great mifchief do,
So do we know the cannon too;
But men are fafe at distance ftill:
Where they reach not they cannot kill.
Love is a fit, and foon is past,
Ill diet only makes it last ;
Who is still looking, gazing ever,
Drinks wine in th' very height o' th' fever.
Thus abfence dies, and dying proves
No abfence can fubfift with loves
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