That it cannot be a Body.
Were she a body how could she remaine
Within this body, which is lesse then she?
Or how could she the world's great shape contain,
And in our narrow brests containèd bee?
All bodies are confin'd within some place,
But she all place within her selfe confines;
All bodies haue their measure, and their space,
But who can draw the Soule's dimensiue lines?
No body can at once two formes admit,
Except the one the other doe deface;
But in the soule ten thousand formes do sit,
And none intrudes into her neighbour's place.
All bodies are with other bodies fild,
But she receiues both heauen and earth together;
Nor are their formes by rash incounter spild,
For there they stand, and neither toucheth either.
Nor can her wide imbracements fillèd bee;
For they that most, and greatest things embrace,
Inlarge thereby their minds' capacitie,
As streames inlarg'd, inlarge the channel's space.[103]
All things receiu'd, doe such proportion take,
As those things haue, wherein they are receiu'd:
So little glasses little faces make,
And narrow webs on narrow frames be weau'd;
Then what vast body must we make the mind
Wherin are men, beasts, trees, towns, seas, and lands;
And yet each thing a proper place doth find,
And each thing in the true proportion stands?
Doubtlesse this could not bee, but that she turnes
Bodies to spirits, by sublimation strange;
As fire conuerts to fire the things it burnes
As we our meats into our nature change.
From their grosse matter she abstracts the formes,
And drawes a kind of quintessence from things;
Which to her proper nature she transformes,
To bear them light on her celestiall wings: