If She doth then the subtle Sense excel, How gross are they, that drown her in the blood! Or in the Body's humours tempered well, As if in them, such high perfection stood. As if most skill in that musician were, Which had the best and best-tuned instrument; As if the pencil neat, and colours clear Had power to make the painter excellent Why doth not Beauty then refine the Wit? And good Complexion rectify the Will? Why doth not Health bring Wisdom still with it? Why doth not Sickness make men brutish still? Who can in Memory, or Wit, or Will; Or Air! or Fire! or Earth! or Water find! What alchemist can draw, with all his skill, The Quintessence of these, out of the Mind? If th'Elements (which have, nor Life, nor Sense) Can breed in us so great a power as this! Why give they not themselves, like excellence, Or other things wherein their mixture is? If She were but the Body's quality Then would She be, with it, sick! maimed! and blind! But we perceive, when these privations be, A healthy, perfect, and sharp-sighted Mind. If She, the Body's nature did partake, Her strength would, with the Body's strength decay; But when the Body's strongest sinews slake, Then is the Soul most active! quick! and gay! If She were but the Body's accident, And her sole Being did in it subsist As white in snow; She might herself absent! And in the Body's substance not the mist. But it on Her, not She on it depends, For She the Body doth sustain and cherish. Such secret powers of life to it, She lends; That when they fail, then doth the Body perish. Since, then, the Soul works by herself alone, Springs not from Sense, nor Humours well agreeing; Her nature is peculiar, and her own. She is a Substance! and a Perfect Being. [Sidenote: That the Soul is a Spirit.] But though this Substance be the root of Sense, Sense knows her not! (which doth but bodies know) She is a Spirit, and a heavenly influence; Which from the fountain of GOD's Spirit doth flow. She is a Spirit; yet not like air, or wind, Nor like the spirits about the heart or brain, Nor like those spirits which alchemists do find, When they, in everything, seek gold, _in vain_. For She, all natures under heaven doth pass; Being like those spirits, which GOD's bright face do see, Or like Himself! whose Image once She was, Though now, alas, She scarce his Shadow be. Yet of the forms, She holds the first degree, That are to gross material bodies knit; Yet She herself is bodiless and free, And, though confined, is almost infinite. [Sidenote: That it cannot be a Body.]