AGNOSTUS

TO S the world's eye not yet asleep? What, hath Hesperus forgotten tolight heavens tapers up? Or be the Chariot wheels of Night over loaded with the leaden weights of sleep, That she delays to throw her misty veil upon the face of things? I hate her because she is light: I say she is The Mistress of disquiet and unrest, and breeds More troubles in the world then one of my young Hungry Lawyers does in a Commonwealth, Or a schismatical selfeconceited Coxcomb in and ancient Corporation. O that I could Ulysses- Like burn out the eye Of that Celestial Polypheme; Or raise dull Chaos from Demogorgons Cell To quench the world's unnecessary luminaries. Then mischief lend me all thy guilty nerves: Let flames of boundless fury quite dispel Lethaean dulness from my Clouded brain. Assist our great design, you subterraneous powers, That utterly abhor to view the glaring light: Let not the weakness of my Crazed intellectuals, Nor yet this loathed deficience of my sense, Be prejudicial to the bent of our design: Poneria, act thy partly, for I am thine. My deer Poneria, I am yours. It fits me exceeding well. I am thy slave, divine Poneria: O admirable rare Artist that I am! How heavy is the burden of authority? Twice twenty times and ten, hath Titan run Quite through the Zodiac, since I begun To converse with wise fiends, that I might get The golden key of Nature's Cabinet. By industry I God immortal same, For ignorance begets contempt and shame: So perfect in the Magic Arts I grew, That nature's secrets most abstruse I knew; The spirits of air and earth did me dread, And did at my venite come with speed; The silly ghosts from graves I did forth call. The earth I make to bellow, stars to fallen. The world at my great awful charms did quake, Nature her self for very fear did shake: To change midday to midnight, or to cause Estiuall snows, or break the vipers jaws, Or to drive rivers back to their spring heads, And make seas stand unmoved, or to strike dead The vernal blossom, or the harvest ear: A man would think these strange conclusions were, But I account them of small weight: I know The use of herbs, and whatsoever grow; The cause to the effect I can apply, And work strange things by hidden sympathies. I do exactly know the compositions Of unctious Philters, and loves potions: Figures, suspensions, and ligations, Characters and suffumigations. For I the virtues of all simples know From whence; effects that seem impossible I show. The gall of shriek Owls, & harsh night Ravens tongues Guts of Panthers, and Chamelions lungs, A black Bulls eyes, a speckled oads dried head, Frankincense, camphire, and white poppy-seed; Poysenous Melanthion, and a white Cocks blood, Sweet Myrrh, Bay-berries, precious balsome wood, A Hearts marrow that hath devoured a snake, And scalps which from a wild beasts jaws we take, The bone that lies ith' left side of a Frog, A stone that is bitten with a mad dog. The Mandrake root, the blood of a black Cat, A Turtles liver, the brains of a Batt, Hyaenas heart, the Cockatrices blood, That are against so many evils good: The hair of a thief that hangs on a tree; The nails of ships that wracked be, The blood of a wretched man that was slain, The eyes of a Dragon and Weasels brains. These precious simples, and a thousand more I could produce; I have them all in store: And though they seem to men mere trifling things, Each one (I vow) ore'weighes ransoms of Kings. The blindness of these times cannot descry The virtues rare that in these simples lie. I cannot brook this thin and piercing air. What hast plucked up the flowers by the roots, Or is all Thessaly in a combustion? Then I hope their painted pride shall quickly be abated. Poneria, I adore thy art and wisdom. O great profound Poneria: never yet Was any that could parallel thy wit. Nay good Poneria, I find my self unfitting for the wars. Nay sweet Poneria, I am thy slave. But I am altogether ignorant in the words of come manned, And know not one posture neither of Musket or Pike. If this be all, I hope, in time, to be as famous As ever was Caesar, or great Pompey. I am at your service, Madam Poneria: I am a man of Actium, I confess. How suddenly by one contrarious gust, Is all our honour tumbled into dust. (RHodon) my honoured, soul-united friend, Cast oft that dusky melancholy veil. Too vile a robe for thy majestic brow, Blast not the pride of Hybla's happiness With thy offensive passion. Now, me thinks, I could confute a College of Divines A Synod of Doctors, a Lycaeum of Philosophers; Yet me thinks my brains are not right, And somewhat too weak to maintain a paradox. Belphegor, Zazel, Astragoth, Golguth, Machon Malortor.