ON MAN'S RESEMBLANCE TO GOD. (FROM DU BARTAS.)
O complete creature! who the starry spheres
Canst make to move, who 'bove the heavenly bears
Extend'st thy power, who guidest with thy hand
The day's bright chariot, and the nightly brand:
This curious lust to imitate the best
And fairest works of the Almightiest,
By rare effects bears record of thy lineage
And high descent; and that his sacred image
Was in thy soul engraven, when first his Spirit,
The spring of life, did in thy limbs inspire it.
For, as his beauties are past all compare,
So is thy soul all beautiful and fair:
As he's immortal, and is never idle,
Thy soul's immortal, and can brook no bridle
Of sloth, to curb her busy intellect:
He ponders all; thou peizest[1] each effect:
And thy mature and settled sapience
Hath some alliance with his providence:
He works by reason, thou by rule: he's glory
Of the heavenly stages, thou of th' earthly story:
He's great High Priest, thou his great vicar here:
He's sovereign Prince, and thou his viceroy dear.
For soon as ever he had framed thee,
Into thy hands he put this monarchy:
Made all the creatures know thee for their lord,
And come before thee of their own accord:
And gave thee power as master, to impose
Fit sense-full names unto the host that rows
In watery regions; and the wand'ring herds
Of forest people; and the painted birds:
Oh, too, too happy! had that fall of thine
Not cancell'd so the character divine.
But, since our souls' now sin-obscured light
Shines through the lanthorn of our flesh so bright;
What sacred splendour will this star send forth,
When it shall shine without this vail of earth?
The Soul here lodged is like a man that dwells
In an ill air, annoy'd with noisome smells;
In an old house, open to wind and weather;
Never in health not half an hour together:
Or, almost, like a spider who, confined
In her web's centre, shakes with every wind;
Moves in an instant, if the buzzing fly
Stir but a string of her lawn canopy.
[1] 'Peizest:' weighest.