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What is this knowledge but the sky-stol'n fire, For which the thief1 still chain'd in ice dóth sit? And which the poor rude satyr did admire,

And needs would kiss, but burnt his lips with it.

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In fine, what is it but the fiery coach

Which the youth sought, and sought his death withal,

Or the boy's wings which, when he did approach The sun's hot beams, did melt and let him fall?

And yet, alas! when all our lamps are burn'd,
Our bodies wasted and our spirits spent ;
When we have all the learned volumes turn'd,
Which yield men's wits both strength and ornament,

What can we know, or what can we discern,
When error chokes the windows of the mind?
The divers forms of things how can we learn,
That have been ever from our birth-day blind?

When reason's lamp, that, like the sun in sky,
Throughout man's little world her beams did spread,
Is now become a sparkle, which doth lie
Under the ashes, half extinct and dead.

How can we hope, that through the eye and ear,
This dying sparkle, in this cloudy space,
Can recollect these beams of knowledge clear,
Which were infus'd in the first minds by grace?
1 Prometheus.-2 Phaeton.-3 Icarus.

So might the heir whose father hath in play
Wasted a thousand pounds of ancient rent,
By painful earning of one groat a day
Hope to restore the patrimony spent.

The wits that div'd most deep and soar'd most high, Seeking man's powers, have found his weakness such;

Skill comes so slow, and time so fast doth fly,

We learn so little and forget so much.

For this the wisest of all moral men

Said, "he knew nought but that he did not know." And the great mocking master mock'd not then, When he said truth was buried deep below.

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As spiders, touch'd, seek their web's inmost part;
As bees, in storms, back to their hives return;
As blood in danger gathers to the heart;
As men seek towns when foes the country burn:

If aught can teach us aught, affliction's looks
(Making us pry into ourselves so near),
Teach us to know ourselves beyond all books,
Or all the learned schools that ever were.

She within lists my ranging mind hath brought,
That now beyond myself I will not go:
Myself am centre of my circling thought:
Only myself I study, learn, and know.

I know my body's of so frail a kind,
As force without, fevers within can kill;
I know the heavenly nature of my mind,
But 'tis corrupted both in wit and will.

I know my soul hath power to know all things,
Yet is she blind and ignorant in all;

I know I'm one of nature's little kings,
Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall.

I know my life's a pain, and but a span;
I know my sense is mock'd in every thing:
And, to conclude, I know myself a man,
Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.

We seek to know the moving of each sphere,
And the strange cause of th' ebbs and floods of Nile ;
But of that clock within our breasts we bear,
The subtle motions we forget the while.

For this few know themselves; for merchants broke
View their estate with discontent and pain;
And as the seas troubl'd, when they do revoke
Their flowing waves into themselves again.

And while the face of outward things we find
Pleasing and fair, agreeable and sweet,
These things transport and carry out the mind,
That with herself the mind can never meet.

Yet if affliction once her wars begin,

And threat the feebler sense with sword and fire,
The mind contracts herself and shrinketh in,
And to herself she gladly doth retire.

THAT THE SOUL IS MORE THAN A PERFECTION OR
REFLEXION OF THE SENSE.

ARE they not senseless, then, that think the soul
Nought but a fine perfection of the sense,
Or of the forms which fancy doth enrol,
A quick resulting and a consequence?

What is it, then, that doth the sense accuse
Both of false judgments and fond appetites?
What makes us do what sense doth most refuse,
Which oft in torment of the sense delights?

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Could any pow'rs of sense the Roman move,
To burn his own right hand with courage stout?
Could sense make Marius sit unbound, and
The cruel lancing of the knotty gout?

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prove

Sense outsides knows the soul through all things

sees;

Sense, circumstance; she doth the substance viewe Sense sees the bark, but she the life of trees;

Sense hears the sounds, but she the concord true.

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Then is the soul a nature which contains
The power of sense within a greater power,
Which doth employ and use the sense's pains,
But sits and rules within her private bower.

THAT THE SOUL IS MORE THAN THE TEMPERATURE OF THE HUMOURS OF THE BODY.

Ir she doth, then, the subtle sense excel,
How gross are they that drown her in the blood,
Or in the body's humours temper'd well?

As if in them such high perfection stood.

As if most skill in that musician were,
Which had the best, and best tun'd, instrument;
As if the pencil neat, and colours clear,
Had pow'r to make the painter excellent.

Why doth not beauty, then, refine the wit,
And good complexion rectify the will?
Why doth not health bring wisdom still with it?
Why doth not sickness make men brutish still?

Who can in memory, or wit, or will,
Or air, or fire, or earth, or water, find;
What alchymist can draw, with all his skill,
The quintessences of these from out the mind

If th' elements, which have nor life nor sense,
Can breed in us so great a power as this,

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