These are the outward instruments of Sense,
These are the guards which euery thing must passe
Ere it approch the mind's intelligence,
Or touch the Fantasie, Wit's looking-glasse.
The Imagination or Common Sense.
And yet these porters, which all things admit,
Themselues perceiue not, nor discerne the things;
One common power doth in the forehead sit,
Which all their proper formes together brings.
For all those nerues, which spirits of Sence doe beare,
And to those outward organs spreading goe;
Vnited are, as in a center there,
And there this power those sundry formes doth know.
Those outward organs present things receiue,
This inward Sense doth absent things retaine;
Yet straight transmits all formes shee doth perceiue,
Vnto a higher region of the braine.
The Fantasie.
Where Fantasie, neere hand-maid to the mind,
Sits and beholds, and doth discerne them[130] all;
Compounds in one, things diuers in their kind;
Compares the black and white, the great and small.
Besides, those single formes she doth esteeme,
And in her ballance doth their values trie;
Where some things good, and some things ill doe seem,
And neutrall some, in her fantasticke[131] eye.
This busie power is working day and night;
For when the outward senses rest doe take,
A thousand dreames, fantasticall and light,
With fluttring wings doe keepe her still awake.[132]