(Misc. MS. Poems, Mus. Brit. Bib. Sloan. No. 1446.)
I knowe no painte of poetry
Can mend such colour’d imag’ry
In sullen inke, yet (Fayreford) I
May rellish thy fair memory.
Such is the echoe’s fainter sound,
Such is the light when the sunn’s drown’d,
So did the fancy look upon
The work before it was begun.
Yet when those showes are out of sight,
My weaker colours may delight.
Those images doe faithfullie
Report true feature to the eie,
As you may think each picture was
Some visage in a looking-glass;
Not a glass window face, unless
Such as Cheapside hath, where a press
Of painted gallants, looking out,
Bedeck the casement rounde about.
But these have holy phisnomy;
Each paine instructs the laity
With silent eloquence; for heere
Devotion leads the eie, not eare,
To note the cathechisinge paint,
Whose easie phrase doth soe acquainte
Our sense with Gospell, that the Creede
In such an hand the weake may reade.
Such tipes e’en yett of vertue bee,
And Christ as in a glass we see—
When with a fishinge rod the clarke
St. Peter’s draught of fish doth marke,
Such is the scale, the eie, the finn,
You’d thinke they strive and leape within;
But if the nett, which holdes them, brake,
Hee with his angle some would take.
But would you walke a turn in Paules,
Looke up, one little pane inrouls
A fairer temple. Flinge a stone,
The church is out at the windowe flowne.
Consider not, but aske your eies,
And ghosts at mid-day seem to rise,
The saintes there seemeing to descend,
Are past the glass, and downwards bend.
Look there! The Devill! all would cry,
Did they not see that Christ was by.
See where he suffers for thee! See
His body taken from the tree!
Had ever death such life before?
The limber corps, be-sully’d o’er
With meagre paleness, does display
A middle state ’twixt flesh and clay.
His armes and leggs, his head and crown,
Like a true lambskin dangle downe:
Whoe can forbeare, the grave being nigh,
To bringe fresh ointment in his eye?
The wond’rous art hath equall fate,
Unfixt, and yet inviolate.
The Puritans were sure deceav’d
Whoe thought those shaddowes mov’d and heav’d,
So held from stoninge Christ; the winde
And boysterous tempests were so kinde,
As on his image not to prey,
Whome both the winde and seas obey.
At Momus’ wish bee not amaz’d;
For if each Christian’s heart were glaz’d
With such a windowe, then each brest
Might bee his owne evangelist.