Lucy Hutchinson (1620–1681). Order and Disorder. 1679.
Canto III
N
And every thing in beauteous order set,
When God, about to make the King of all,
Did in himself a sacred council call;
Not that he needed to deliberate,
But pleas’d t’ allow solemnity and state,
To wait upon that noble creatures birth
Make man after our own similitude,
Then made the Lord a curious mold of clay,
Which lifeless on the earths cold bosome lay,
When God did it with living breath inspire,
A soul in all, and every part entire,
Where life ris’ above motion, sound and sense
To higher reason and intelligence;
And this is truly termed life alone,
Which makes lifes fountain to the living known.
This life into it self doth gather all
The rest maintain’d by its original,
Which gives it Being, Motion, Sense, Warmth, Breath,
And those chief Powers that are not lost in death.
Thus was the noblest creature the last made,
As he in whom the rest perfection had,
In whom both parts of the great world were joyn’d,
Earth in his members, Heaven in his mind;
Whose vast reach the whole Universe compriz’d,
Yet not the Centre nor circumference can
Fill the more comprehensive soul of Man,
Whose life is but a progress of desire,
Which still enjoy’d, doth something else require,
Unsatisfied with all it hath pursued
The earthly mansion of this heavenly guest
Peculiar priviledges too possest.
Whereas all other creatures clothed were
In Shells, Scales, guady Plumes, or Woolls, or Hair,
Only a fair smooth skin o’re man was drawn,
Like Damask roses blushing through pure Lawn.
The azure veins, where blood and spirits flow,
Like Violets in a field of Lillies show.
As others have a down bent countenance,
He only doth his head to heaven advance,
In heaven grows, whence all his graces shoot.
He only on two upright columns stands,
He only hath, and knows the use of hands,
Which Gods rich bounties for the rest receive,
And aid to all the other members give.
He only hath a voice articulate,
Varied by joy, grief, anger, love and hate,
And every other motion of the mind
Which hereby doth an apt expression find.
Hereby glad mirth in laughter is alone
By man exprest; in a peculiar groan,
His grief comes forth, accompanied with tears,
Peculiar shrieks utter his suddain fears.
Herein is Musick too, which sweetly charms
The Gate of this God in the head did place,
The head which is the bodies chiefest grace,
The noble Palace of the Royal guest
Within by Fancy and Invention drest,
With many pleasant useful Ornaments
Which new Imagination still presents,
Adorn’d without, by Majesty and Grace,
O who can tell the wonders of a face!
In none of all his fabriques more than here
Doth the Creators glorious Power appear,
That of so many thousands which we see
All humane creatures like, all different be;
If the Front be the glory of mans frame,
Those Lamps which in its upper windows flame,
Illustrate it, and as days radiant Star,
In the clear heaven of a bright face are.
Still waits to take in fresh intelligence,
But the false spies both at the ears and eyes,
Conspire with strangers for the souls surprize,
Which with tears, sighs and groans issue again.
Nor do those Labyrinths which like brest-works are,
About those secret Ports, serve for a Bar
To the false Sorcerers conducted by
There is an Arch i’the middle of the face
Of equal necessary use and grace,
For there men suck up the life-feeding air,
And panting bosomes are discharged there;
Beneath it is the chief and beauteous gate,
About which various pleasant graces wait,
When smiles the Rubie doors a little way
Unfold, or laughter doth them quite display,
And opening the Vermillion Curtains shows
The Ivory piles set in two even rows,
Before the portal, as a double guard,
And when hate moves it, set the world on fire.
The palate where sense meets its joys in tast;
On rising cheeks, beauty in white and red
Strives with it self, white on the forehead spread
Its undisputed glory there maintains,
And is illustrated with azure veins.
The Brows, Loves bow, and beauties shadow are,
A thick set grove of soft and shining hair
Adorns the head, and shews like crowning rays,
While th’airs soft breath among the loose curls plays.
Besides the colours and the features, we
Admire their just and perfect Symmetrie,
Whose ravishing resultance is that air
That graces all, and is not any where;
Whereof we cannot well say what it is,
Yet Beauties chiefest excellence lies in this;
Which mocks the Painters in their best designs,
And is not held by their exactest lines.
But while we gaze upon our own fair frame
Let us remember too from whence it came,
And that by sin corrupted now, it must
How undecently doth pride then lift that head
On which the meanest feet must shortly tread?
Till Satans fraud gave it the mortal wound.
This excellent creature God did Adam call
To mind him of his low Original,
Whom he had form’d out of the common ground
Which then with various pleasures did abound.
The whole Earth was one large delightful Field,
That till man sin’d no hurtful briars did yield,
A Paradise in the rich spicie East
Had stor’d with Natures wealthy Magazine,
Where every plant did in its lustre shine,
But did not grow promiscuously there,
They all dispos’d in such rich order were
As did augment their single native grace,
And perfected the pleasure of the place,
To such a height that th’ apelike art of man,
Licentious Pens, or Pencils never can
With all th’ essays of all persuming wit,
Or form or feign ought that approaches it.
Whether it were a fruitful Hill or Vale,
Whether high Rocks, or Trees did it impale,
Or Rivers with their clear and kind embrace
Into a pleasant Island form’d the place,
Whether its noble seituation were
On Earth, in the bright Moon, or in the Air,
In what forms stood the various trees and flowers,
The disposition of the walks and bowers,
Whereof no certain word, nor sign remains,
We dare not take from mens inventive brains.
We know there was pleasant and noble shade
Which the tall growing Pines and Cedars made,
A crystal River on whose verdant banks
The crowned fruit-trees stood in lovely ranks,
His gentle wave thorough the garden led,
And all the spreading roots with moysture fed.
But past th’ enclosure, thence the single stream
Parted in four, four noble floods became;
A wealthy land enricht with finest gold,
Where also many precious stones are found;
All that fair land where Chus inhabited,
Where Tryanny first rais’d up her proud head,
And led her blood-hounds all along the shore,
Polluting the pure stream with crimson gore.
Edens third river Hiddekell they call,
Whose waters Eastward in Assiria fall.
About the stately walls of Babylon;
And in the revolution of some years
Swell’d high, fed with the captiv’d Hebrews tears.
God in the midst of Paradise did place
The verdure, beauty, sweetness, excellence,
With which all else could tempt or feast the sense:
On one apples of knowledge did abound,
And life-confirming fruit the other crown’d.
And now did God the new created King
Into the pleasures of his earthly palace bring:
The air, spice, balm, and amber did respire,
His ears were feasted by the Sylvan Quire,
Like country girls, grass flowers did dispute
Their humble beauties with the high born fruit;
Both high and low their gawdy colours vied,
As Courtiers do in their contentious pride,
Striving which of them should yield most delight,
And stand the finest in their Soveraigns sight.
The shrubs with berries crown’d like precious gems,
Offer’d their supreme Lord their Diadems
Which did no single sense alone invite,
Courting alike the eyes and appetite.
Among all these the eye-refreshing green,
Sometimes alone, sometimes in mixture seen,
O’re all the banks and all the flat ground spread,
Seem’d an embroider’d, or plain velvet bed.
And that each sense might its refreshment have,
The gentle air soft pleasant touches gave
Unto his panting limbs, whenever they
Upon the sweet and mossie couches lay.
A shady Eminence there was, whereon
When God brought every Fowl, and every Brute,
That he might Names unto their natures suit,
Whose comprehensive understanding knew
How to distinguish them, at their first view;
And they retaining those names ever since,
Are monuments of his first excellence,
And the Creators providential grace,
Who in those names, left us some prints to trace;
Nature, mysterious grown, since we grew blind,
Whose Labyrinths we should less easily find
If those first appellations, as a clue,
Did not in some sort serve to lead us through,
And rectifie that frequent gross mistake,
Which our weak judgements and sick senses make,
Since man ambitious to know more, that sin
Brought dulness, ignorance and error in.
Society.Though God himself to man did condescend,
Though his knowledge to all natures did extend;
Though heaven and earth thus centred in his mind,
Yet being the only one of his whole kind,
He found himself without an equal mate,
To whom he might his joys communicate,
And by communication multiply.
Too far out of his reach was God on high,
Too much below him bruitish creatures were,
God could at first have made a humane pair,
But that it was his will to let man see
The need and sweetness of societie;
Who, though he were his Makers Favourite,
Feasted in Paradise with all delight,
Though all the creatures paid him homage, yet
Was not his unimparted joy compleat,
While there was not a second of his kind,
Indued with such a form and such a mind,
As might alike his soul and senses feast:
He saw that every bird and every beast
Its own resemblance in its female viewed,
And only union with its like pursued.
Hence birds with birds, and fish with fish abide,
Nor those with beasts, nor beasts with these reside:
According to their several species too,
As several housholds in one City do,
So they with their own kinds associate:
The Kingly eagle hath no buzzard mate;
The ravens, more their own black feather love,
Than painted pheasants, or the fair-neck’d dove.
So Bears to rough Bears rather do encline
Than to majestick Lions, or fair kine.
If it be thus with brutes, much less then can
The bruitish conversation suit with man.
’Tis only like desires like things unite:
In union likeness only feeds delight.
Where unlike natures in conjunction are,
There is no product but perpetual war,
Such as there was in Natures troubled womb,
Until the sever’d births from thence did come,
For the whole world nor order had, nor grace
Till sever’d elements each their own place
Assigned were, and while in them they keep,
Heaven still smiles above, th’ untroubled deep
With kind salutes embraces the dry land,
Firm doth the earth on its foundation stand;
A chearful light streams from th’ ætherial fire,
And all in universal joy conspire.
But if with their unlike they attempt to mix,
Their rude congressions every thing unfix;
Darkness again invades the troubled skies,
Earth trembling, under angry heaven lies;
The Sea, swoln high with rage, comes to the shore
And swallows that, which it but kist before;
Th’ unbounded fire breaks forth with dreadful light,
And horrid cracks which dying nature fright,
Till that high power, which all powers regulates,
The disagreeing natures separates,
The like to like rejoyning as before,
So the worlds peace, joy, safety doth restore.
Yet if man could not find in bird or brute
That conversation which might aptly suit
His higher nature, was it not sublime
Enough, above the lower world to climb,
And in Angelick converse to delight,
Although it could not reach the supreme height?
No; for though man partake intelligence,
Yet that being joyn’d to an inferiour sense,
Dull’d by corporeal vapours, cannot be
Refin’d enough for angels company:
As strings screw’d up too high, as bows still bent
Or break themselves, or crack the instrument;
So drops neglected flesh into the grave,
If it no share in the souls pleasures have.
Man like himself needs an associate,
Who doth both soul and sense participate.
Not the swift Horse, the eager Hawk, or Hound,
Dogs, Parrots, Monkies ’mongst whom Adam found
No meet companion, thinking them too base
For the society of humane race,
Though his degenerate offspring chuse that now
Which his sound reason could not then allow,
But found himself amongst them all alone.
Whether he beg’d a mate it is not known,
Likely his want might send him to the spring;
For God who freely gives us every thing,
Mercy endears by instilling the desire,
Howe’re it was, God saw his solitude
Yet not a natural, nor a moral ill,
Because his solitude was not his will
Opposing his Creators End, as they
Who into caves and desarts run away,
Seeking perfection in that state, wherein
A good was wanting when man had so sin.
For without help to propagate mankind
Gods glory had been to one brest confin’d,
Which multiplied Saints, do now conspire
Mans nature had not been the sacred shrine,
Partner and bride of that which is divine;
The Church, fruit of this union, had not come
To light, but perisht, stifled in the womb.
Again ’tis not particularly good
For man to waste his life in solitude,
Whose nature for society design’d
Can no full joy without a second find,
And pay back all the pleasures they impart;
For all the joys that we enjoy alone,
And all our unseen lustre, is as none.
If thus want of a partner did abate
Mans happiness in mans most perfect state,
Much more hath humane nature, now decay’d,
Need of a suitable and a kind aid:
It is not good, vertue should lie obscure,
That barren rocks, rich treasures should immure,
That all might share of all his bounties have.
Not good, experience should her candle hide,
When weak ones perish, wanting her bright guide.
Not good, to let unactive graces chill,
No lively warmth receive, no good instil
By quickning converse. Thus nor are the great,
The wise, and firm, permitted to retreat,
Betraying so deserted innocence,
To which God made them conduct and defence.
Nor may the simple and the weak expose
Themselves alone, to strong and subtile foes;
Men for each others mutual help were made,
The meanest may afford the highest aid.
The highest to necessity must yield,
He that from mortal converse steals away
Injures himself, and others doth betray,
Whom Providence committed to his trust,
And in that act, nor prudent is nor just.
For sweet friends both in pleasure and distress,
Augment the joy, and make the torment less.
Equal delight it is to learn and teach,
To be held up to that we cannot reach,
And others from the abject earth to raise
To merit, and to give deserved praise.
Wisdom imparted like th’ encreasing bread,
By distribution adds to its own store,
And still the more it gives it hath the more.
Extended Power reaches it self a crown,
Gathering up those whom misery casts down.
Love raiseth us, it self to heaven doth rise,
By vertues varied mutual exercise.
But lies like Gold concealed in the Mine,
And Conversation doth it current make.
God having shew’d his creature thus the need
Of humane helps, a help for man decreed:
I will, said he, the mans meet aid provide.
But that he from his waking view might hide
Such a mysterious work, the Lord did keep
Then from his open’d side took without pain
A cloathed rib, and clos’d the flesh again,
And of the bone did a fair virgin frame
Who, by her Maker brought, to Adam came
And was in matrimonial Union joyn’d,
By love and nature happily combin’d.
Adam’s clear understanding at first view
His wives original and nature knew;
His will, as pure, did thankfully embrace,
His fathers bounty, and admir’d his grace.
And as her sweet charms did his heart surprise
He spoke his joy in these glad ecstacies,
Thou art my better self, my flesh, my bone,
Shall reunite, and with the frequent birth
Of our joynt issue, people the vast earth.
To shew that thou wert taken out of me
Isha shall be thy name; As unto thee
Ravisht with love and joy my soul doth cleave,
So men hereafter shall their fathers leave,
When marriage male and female doth combine
Children in one flesh shall two parents joyn.
Lastly, God, who the sacred knot had tied,
With blessing his own Ordinance sanctified,
Encrease, said he, and multiply your race,
I give you right to all her fruits and plants,
Dominion over her inhabitants;
The fish that in the floods deep bosome lie,
All Fowls that in the airy region flie,
Whatever lives and feeds on the dry land,
Are all made subject under your command.
The grass and green herbs let your cattle eat,
And let the richer fruits be your own meat,
Except the Tree of knowing good and ill,
That by the precept of my Soveraign will
You must not eat, for in the day you do,
Inevitable death shall seize on you.
Thus God did the first marriage celebrate
Though perverse men the Ordinance reject,
To the white Virgin only give the crown.
Nor yet is marriage grown less sacred since
Man fell from his created excellence,
Necessity now raises its esteem,
Which doth mankind from deaths vast jaws redeem,
Who even in their graves are yet alive,
While they in their posterity survive.
In it they find a comfort and an aid,
In all the ills which humane life invade.
Repairs times daily wasts, with new supplies;
When the declining mothers youthful grace
Lies dead and buried in her wrinkled face,
In her fair daughters it revives and grows,
And her dead Cinder in their new flames glows.
And though this state may sometimes prove accurst,
For of best things, still the corruption’s worst,
Sin so destroys an institution good,
Provided against death and solitude.
Eve out of sleeping Adam formed thus
A sweet instructive emblem is to us,
To do us good, and to avert our ill,
Not dreaming that our blessings are so nigh.
Without the least assistance of our own.
Our choicest mercies out of dead wombs flow.
Presented by th’ eternal Fathers grace
And evermore in thy dear bosome dwell:
Joh. 1.16. Act. 9.4. Mat. 25.34. and forward.
Conceal’d in types and shadows as before.
Thus all their hosts and ornaments were made,
Armies of Angels had the highest place,
Bright starry hosts the lower heaven did grace,
The Mutes encamped in the waters were,
The winged troops were quartered in the air,
The walking animals, as th’ infantry
Of th’ Universal Host, at large did lie
Spread over all the earths most ample face,
Each regiment in its assigned place.
Paradise the head quarter was, and there
Him in his regal Office did install,
Resigning up into his sole command
The numerous Tribes, that fill both sea and land.
As each kind severally had before
Blessing and approbation, so once more,
When all together God his works review’d,
And with the sixth day the Creation ceast.
The seventh day the Lord himself did rest,
That after six days honest labour they
His precept and example should obey,
As he did his, their works surcease, and spend
That day in sacred rest, till that day end,
And in its number back again return,
Still consecrated, till it have outworn
All other time, and that alone remain,
When neither toyl, nor burthen, shall again
The weary lives of mortal men infest,
Nor intermit their holy, happy rest.
Nor is this Rest sacred to idleness,
God, a perpetual Act, sloth cannot bless.
He ceast not from his own celestial joy,
To th’ upmost height, and having finisht these
That we, as far as finite creature may
Trace him that’s infinite, should in our way
Rest as our Father did, work as he wrought,
As his works in commands begin, and have
We must his blessing beg, his great name bless,
And make our thanks the crown of our success.
As God first heaven did for man prepare,
Men last for heaven created were,
And in whatever circle else they run,
There should they end, there should they be begun,
There seek their pattern, and derive from thence
Their whole direction and their influence.
As when th’ Almighty this low world did frame,
Life by degrees to its perfection came,
Ascended next, and climb’d to reason thence,
So we, pursuing our attainments, should
Press forward from what’s positively good,
Still climbing higher, until we reach the best,
And that acquir’d for ever fix our rest.
Our souls so ravisht with the joys divine
That they no more to creatures can decline.
As Gods Rest was but a more high retreat
From the delights of this inferiour feat,
So must our souls upon our Sabbaths climb,
From those legitimate delights, which may
Rejoyce us here upon a common day.
As God, his works compleated, did retire
To be ador’d by the Angelick Quire,
So when on us the seventh days light doth shine,
Should we our selves to Gods assemblies joyn,
This seventh day the Lord to mankind gave,
Aswell the seventh as the sixth day move,
The rain descends and the fierce tempest blows,
On it the restless Ocean ebbs and flows:
Bees that day fill the hive, and on that day
Ants their provisions in their store-house lay,
All creatures plie their works, no beast
But those which mankind use, share in that rest:
Which God indulg’d only to humane race,
That they in it might come before his face
To celebrate his worship and his praise,
And gain a blessing upon all their days.
O wretched souls of perverse men, who slight
So great a grace, refuse such rich delight,
Which the inferiour creatures cannot share,
To which alone their natures fitted are,
Yet is this Rest but a far distant view
Of that celestial life which we pursue,
By Satan oft so interrupted here,
That little of its glory doth appear,
Nor can our souls sick, languid appetite
Feast upon such substantial, strong delight.
As musick pains the grieved aking head,
So duties wherein sound hearts full joys find,
Fetters and sad loads are to a sick mind,
Till it thereto by force it self mure,
And from a loathing fall to love its cure.
God for his worship kept one day of seven,
The other six to man for mans use given;
Adam, although so highly dignified,
Was not to spend in idle ease and pride
Nor supine sleep, drunk with his sensual pleasures,
Profusely wasting th’ Empires sacred treasures,
As now his faln sons do, that arrogate
His forfeited dominion, and high state;
But God his dayly Business did ordain
That Kings, hence taught, might in their Realms maintain
Fair order, serving those whom they command,
Not being set there, to pluck up and destroy
Those plants, whose culture should their cares employ.
With no less vigilance and care attend
Than Princes on their vast enclosures spend.
All hence must learn their duty, to suppress
Without th’ employment of mans busie care,
But that he will’d that our delight should be
The wages of our constant industrie,
That we his ever bounteous hand might bless
Crowning our honest labours with success,
And tast the joy men reap in their own fruit,
Loving that more to which they contribute
Either the labour of their hands or brains,
Than better things produc’d by others pains.
Led by desire, fed with fair hope, the fruit
Oft-times delights not more than the pursuit.
For man a nature hath to action prone,
That languishes, and sickens finding none.
As standing pools corrupt, water that flows,
More pure, by its continual current, grows,
So humane kind by active exercise,
Do to the heights of their perfection rise,
While their stock’d glory comes to no ripe growth,
Whose lives corrupt in idleness and sloth
Which is not natural, but a disease,
That doth upon the flesh-cloy’d spirit seize.
Where health untainted is, then the sound mind
In its employment doth its pleasure find.
But when death, or its representer sleep
Upon the mortals tired members creep,
This during its dull reign doth life suspend,
That ceasing action, puts it to an end.
Lastly since God himself did man employ
To dress up Paradise, that moderate joy
Which from this fair creation we derive,
Is not our sin but our prerogative,
As well as ’tis to wast and idolize.