GOD, only-Wise! to punish Pride of Wit, Among men's wits hath this confusion wrought! As the proud Tower, whose points the clouds did hit, By Tongues' Confusion, was to ruin brought. But, Thou! which didst Man's Soul, of nothing make! And when to nothing, it was fallen again; To make it new, the Form of Man didst take, And, GOD with GOD, becam'st a Man with men! Thou! that hast fashioned twice, this Soul of ours, So that She is, by double title, Thine; Thou, only, knowest her nature and her powers, Her subtle form, Thou, only, canst define! To judge herself, She must herself transcend, As greater circles comprehend the less: But She wants power, her own powers to extend, As fettered men cannot their strength express. But Thou, bright morning Star! Thou, rising Sun! Which, in these later times, has brought to light Those mysteries, that, since the world began, Lay hid in darkness and eternal night! Thou, like the sun, doth with indifferent ray, Into the palace and the cottage shine! And showest the Soul, both to the Clerk and Lay, By the clear Lamp of thy Oracle Divine! This Lamp, through all the regions of my brain, Where my Soul sits, doth spread such beams of grace, As now, methinks! I do distinguish plain Each subtle line of her immortal face. [Sidenote: What the Soul is?] The Soul, a Substance and a Spirit is, Which GOD Himself doth in the body make, Which makes the Man; for every man, from this, The Nature of a man and Name doth take. And though the Spirit be to the Body knit, As an apt meane her powers to exercise; Which are Life, Motion, Sense, and Will, and Wit: Yet she survives, although the Body dies. [Sidenote: That the Soul is a thing subsisting by itself, without the Body.] She is a Substance, and a real thing, 1. Which hath, itself, an actual working Might, 2. Which neither from the Sense's power doth spring, 3. Nor from the Body's humours tempered right. She is a Vine, which doth no propping need, To make her spread herself, or spring upright; She is a Star, whose beams do not proceed From any sun, but from a native light. [Sidenote: That the Soul hath a proper operation, without the Body.] For when She sorts things present with the past, And thereby things to come doth oft foresee; When She doth doubt at first, and choose at last: These acts her own, without the Body, be. When of the dew, which the Eye and Ear do take, From flowers abroad, and bring into the brain; She doth, within, both wax and honey make: This work is hers, this is her proper pain!