For even, at first reflection, she espies Such strange CHIMERAS and such monsters there! Such toys! such antics! and such vanities! As she retires, and shrinks for shame and fear. And as the man loves least at home to be, That hath a sluttish house, haunted with sprites; So she, impatient her own faults to see, Turns from herself, and in strange things delights. For this, few _know themselves_! for merchants broke, View their estate with discontent and pain; And seas are troubled, when they do revoke Their flowing waves into themselves again. And while the face of outward things we find, Pleasing and fair, agreeable and sweet; These things transport and carry out the mind, That with herself, herself can never meet. Yet if Affliction once her wars begin, And threat the feeble Sense with sword and fire; The Mind contracts herself, and shrinketh in, And to herself she gladly doth retire, As spiders touched, seek their web's inmost part; As bees in storms, unto their hives return; As blood in danger, gathers to the heart; And men seek towns, when foes the country burn. If ought can teach us ought, Affliction's looks (Making us look into ourselves so near) Teach us to _know ourselves_, beyond all books, Or all the learned Schools that ever were! This Mistress, lately, plucked me by the ear, And many a golden lesson hath me taught, Hath made my Senses quick, and Reason clear, Reformed my Will, and rectified my Thought. So do the winds and thunders cleanse the air; So working lees settle and purge the wine; So lopt and pruned trees do flourish fair; So doth the fire the drossy gold refine. Neither MINERVA, nor the learned Muse, Nor Rules of Art, nor Precepts of the Wise, Could in my brain, those beams of skill infuse, As but the glance of this Dame's angry eyes. She, within lists, my ranging mind hath brought, That now beyond myself I list not go; Myself am Centre of my circling thought, Only Myself, I study, learn, and know. I _know_ my Body's of so frail a kind, As force without, fevers within, can kill; I _know_ the heavenly nature of my Mind; But 'tis corrupted, both in Wit and Will. I _know_ my Soul hath power to know all things, Yet is she blind and ignorant in all; I _know_ I am one of Nature's little kings, Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall! I _know_ my Life's a pain, and but a span; I _know_ my Sense is mocked with every thing: And to conclude, I _know_ myself a Man; Which is a proud, and yet a wretched thing! [Illustration] Of the Soul of Man; and the Immortality thereof. [Illustration]