4
SIR JOHN DAVIES
On the Immortality of the Soul
(Sect. iv. Stanzas 12-14.)
Doubtless, this could not be, but that she turns
Bodies to spirits, by sublimation strange;
As fire converts to fire the things it burns;
As we our meats into our nature change.
From their gross matter she abstracts the forms, 5
And draws a kind of quintessence from things;
Which to her proper nature she transforms,
To bear them light, on her celestial wings.
This doth she, when, from things particular,
She doth abstract the universal kinds, 10
Which bodiless and immaterial are,
And can be only lodg'd within our minds.
Stanza 12 Doubtless, &c.
l. 2 Bodies to spirit, &c.