As other men, so I myself do muse
Why in this sort I wrest invention so,
And why these giddy metaphors I use,
Leaving the path the greater part do go.
I will resolve you. I'm a lunatic;
And ever this in madmen you shall find,
What they last thought of when the brain grew sick,
In most distraction they keep that in mind.
Thus talking idly in this bedlam fit,
Reason and I, you must conceive, are twain;
'Tis nine years now since first I lost my wit.
Bear with me then though troubled be my brain.
With diet and correction men distraught,
Not too far past, may to their wits be brought.
X
To nothing fitter can I thee compare
Than to the son of some rich penny-father,
Who having now brought on his end with care,
Leaves to his son all he had heaped together.
This new rich novice, lavish of his chest,
To one man gives, doth on another spend;
Then here he riots; yet amongst the rest,
Haps to lend some to one true honest friend.
Thy gifts thou in obscurity dost waste:
False friends, thy kindness born but to deceive thee;
Thy love that is on the unworthy placed;
Time hath thy beauty which with age will leave thee.
Only that little which to me was lent,
I give thee back when all the rest is spent.
XI
You're not alone when you are still alone;
O God! from you that I could private be!
Since you one were, I never since was one;
Since you in me, myself since out of me.
Transported from myself into your being,
Though either distant, present yet to either;
Senseless with too much joy, each other seeing;
And only absent when we are together.
Give me my self, and take your self again!
Devise some means but how I may forsake you!
So much is mine that doth with you remain,
That taking what is mine, with me I take you.
You do bewitch me! O that I could fly
From my self you, or from your own self I!
TO THE SOUL
XII
That learned Father which so firmly proves
The soul of man immortal and divine,
And doth the several offices define
Anima. Gives her that name, as she the body moves.
Amor. Then is she love, embracing charity.
Animus. Moving a will in us, it is the mind;
Mens. Retaining knowledge, still the same in kind.
Memoria. As intellectual, it is memory.
Ratio. In judging, reason only is her name.
Sensus. In speedy apprehension, it is sense.
Conscientia. In right and wrong they call her conscience;
Spiritus. The spirit, when it to God-ward doth inflame:
These of the soul the several functions be,
Which my heart lightened by thy love doth see.