NATURE

O husband! Our union hath been vain; our offspring proves A rebel to our peace, and nature's laws. Light fire descends to earth, beneath whose weight He groans to be delivered, till with struggling He lifts earth up, in whose repression air Contracts his forces to extinguish fire. Again; fire from this mutinous assault Doubles his strength; when straight ambitious water Climbing his seat consumes her self in flames. Thus fire, air, water, earth, each would be all, And are made neither; but a confused mass, And indigested Chaos. See; the dissentious come Mazed in the errors of their own confusion: As if their dissolution should precede Their yet not perfect being. How my griefs Press down the organs of my utterance, And choke words in their passage! Speak good Janus. Gentle husband try Persuasions strength: Perhaps it'll better work Upon the temper of their fiercer nature. I am your mother; let me reconcile ye: That in your peace I may preserve the order Of my intended work. Should fire forsake His lofty mansion, and infect his flames With grosser weight, it would benumb his activeness, And make his motion dull. Were my pure air Penned in his sisters entrails, her foul veins Would soon infect him. What creation meant In your diversities, your rash ambitions Must not pervert. Since providence hath made ye The means for many ends, dispute not them, Nor your own thought-defects: each I supplied With a perfection, and and equal worth Distinguished in proportion; but the excellence Of your own attributes cannot appear, While you disturb the distribution Of them to other forms, which from your mixtures Must enter different bodies of the first, Second, third, fourth, fifth composition. Vapours & exhalations; meteors; vegetables And minerals; animals, and lastly man, Homo dicitur in non-Latin alphabet ; non ab humo, ut alii volunt. Called so from concord for he does contain A harmony of parts, and in them figure His end of being. Let not then your wills Persist in this rebellious mutiny, And hinder high intendments. Pray agree, And leave the reason of such acts to me. What shall we do? The universal fabric Will be everted, if this war continue: Let's sue to Love; his power may be prevailing. O gentle power Thou that art Nature's soul, and the beginning Of every humane thing: that givest them laws, And to thy self art law. Figure of peace; That to thy godheads attribute and next The quiet order of the world's vast frame To have its form and being from thy rule; Which must be now imperious or its ruin Will prevent time. The mutinous elements Have rased rebellion, and disjointed quite The order of their fabric. The pure heavens (Whose motion should be harmony) roll cross, And bend their Axletree, Till both the poles Do kiss each others ends. Then rectify Great Love this dire confusion. Nature must pay Love thanks for this great work Of reconciliation. May the peace Be lasting as your selves, and no ambition Move a new war: but from your loving mixtures New generation follow. Look hither Thou comfort of my love that gave thee being To figure greater power. See, Love hath brought Thy wish a spouse of's own immortal raze, Clad in the glory of her innocence. Do not defile her, yet she's virgin white, And joined unto thee, that thou mayest enjoy Knowledge and virtue, not thy sensual pleasures, For being linked unto thee she is made As sensible of thy corrupted passion, As thou of mortal griefs. Let her direct Thy powers of appetite. Shee'l show thee heaven, And the reward of good; and if thou miss The path she guides thee in, thou will enforce her To share thy ruin, and pervert the ends Of her eternity. Which if thou tread By her directions, she communicates, And makes thee Like her self. She must be changed According to thy disposition. Then let my counsel be so deep impressed The prosecution of't may make thee blessed.