LIII. Samuel Rowlands

WEEPE not, but weepe; stint tears, shower eies;

Cease sorrowes, yet begin lament:

Weepe for your children and alies;

Weepe not for me, ’tis tears mispent:

Bewaile the offspring of your wombe,

Sentenc’d succeeding vengeance doome.

No cause you should my case bemone;

My death’s the death of Death and Hell:

Great cause you haue to weepe your owne,

And rue the cittie where they dwell:

Know how to weepe when greefes complaine,

Or teares and sighs are meerly vaine.

If this be done vnto the tree,

Green in perfection’s perfect prime,

In what state shall the barren bee

That’s iuicelesse, drie, and spent by time?

When thus they fell downe fruitfull greene,

Where shall the fruitlesse stock bee seene?

This was reply without demand

To tongues, eies, hearts, mute, wet, and weake,

Vnlesse by teares we vnderstand

That waterie eies haue power to speake:

Their weeping spake to Iesus’ eares;

He turn’d about, and answer’d teares.

Where sinne-stain’d Adam first was plast,

Three kind of trees were growing there:

The first was for delicious tast,

Fruitful, ordained food to beare:

Life’s arbour next, which grace did fill;

And knowledge-tree of good and ill.

Where, sinne’s hie ransome, Iesus di’de,

Three trees vpon that dunghill stood:

One greene with grace; the other dri’de

Bearing two theeues, the bad and good:

In midst, the tree of life, the crosse,

Bare Adam’s guilt, restored his losse.

Great negligence, great loue and paines,

First gardner had, last did supplie:

His tree was watred from his veines;

In Paradise they carelesse die:

His blood for his hath moisture bin;

His thornes a hedge to guard it in.