"A sweete preferment! for it was my first:
A straunge advancement in another realme,
A pleasant draft to quench ambition's thirst,
A joyfull note to wake me from my dreame,
A fruitfull spring to send so faire a streame:
What man but me could fortune thus advance,
In peace, in warre, in England, and in France?

My solemne consecration beeing ended,

And holy miter placed on my head,

With falling mists the darksome night extended

Hir sable wings, and gently overspread

Heav'ns gloomy vaile, whence Phoebus lamp was fled;

Dead time of rest to every mortall wight,

No musicke to the silence of the night.

"To cheerfull minds that bringeth wanton sleepe,
With many a phantasme and deluding toy;
And pensive heart it doth detaine and keepe
From tedious company, that would annoy
Dull saturnists, that have abjur'd all joy:

To me, whose day was all in pleasure spent,
This wondrous vision it did represent.

"From that rich valley where the angels laid him,

His unknowne sepulchre in Moab's land,
Moses, that Israel led, and they obaid him,
In glorious view before my face did stand,
Bearing the folded tables in his hand

Wherein the doome of life, and death's despair,
By God's owne finger was ingraven faire.

"He passing forth, a joyfull troope ensued
Of worthy judges and triumphant kings;
Victorious Josuah, that in armes subdued
Prophane usurpers of their hallowed things,
And smote their leaders, breaking al their wings:
With him, as joyning hearts with meeke consent,
Princes of Israel and of Juda went.

"Next whom, with solemne note of trumpets sound, The tabernacle of the Lord was brought:

About it holy priests assembled round,

With sacred ephods, girdles richly wrought,

Such garments as the Lord had Aaron taught; With warbling harpe, and crownet on his head, The ghost of David loftie measures lead.

"To these in order all the prophets came;

Mysterious prophets, cloth'd in poore array,
Pronouncing oft Jehovah's dreadfull name,

Crying to Syon—' Learne, O learne the way!
"Your desolation hast'neth every day!'
These were refusde: for none regarded them
In all the daughters of Jerusalem.

“The next in ranke were holy martyres bleeding,
Whose every wound in perfect glory shines:
Then they which wrote our Saviour's just proceeding,
His life and death, in everlasting lines!

And last of all, the best of all divines,

To whome deepe mysteries of things conceal'd,

At Pathmos' Ile in vision were reveal'd.

"Now from th' æthereall pallace of her rest,
In perfect semblance they appear'd to me:
But, O my soule! how are thy pow'res opprest,
That sleeping saw'st, and waking canst not see.
O God! if so thy gracious pleasure be,
Such beauty be reveal'd to mortall men;
Direct, O soone direct, my wandring pen!

"In chariot framed of celestiall mould,

And simple purenesse of the purest skie,
A more than heav'nly Nymph I did behold,

Who glauncing on me with her gracious eie,
So gave me leave her beautie to espie-
For sure no sence such sight can comprehend,
Except her beames their faire reflection lend.

"Her beauty with eternitie began,

And onely unto God was ever seene; When Eden was possest with sinfull man,

She came to him, and gladly would have beene

The long succeeding world's eternal queene!

But they refused her, (O hainous deede!)

And from that garden banish't was their seede.

"Since when, at sundry times and sundrie waies, Atheisme and blinded Ignorance conspire

How to obscure those holy burning raies,
And quench that zeale of heart-inflaming fire,
As makes our soules to heav'nly things aspire:
But al in vaine; for, mauger all their might,
Shee never lost one sparkle of her light.

"Pearles may be foild, and gold be turn'd to drosse,

The sun obscur'd, the moon be turn'd to bloud, The world may sorrow for Astrea's losse,

The heav'ns be darkned like a dusky wood,

Waste desarts lie where watry fountaines stood;

But faire Theologie (for so she hight)

Shall never loose one sparkle of her light.

"Such one she was, as in his Hebrew song

The wisest King for fairest creature prooves;

Embracing her the cedar-trees among,

Comparing her to roses and to doves,

Preferring her before all other loves; Such one she was, and every whit as faire; Beside these two was never such a paire.

"Her handmaides, in Amazon-like attire,

Went chaste and modest, like Dianae's traine;

One, by her gazing lookes, seem'd to aspire

Beyond the moone, and in a high disdaine

To deeme the world and worldly treasures vaine :

She hight Astrology, on whose bright lawne

Spheres, astrolabes, and skillful globes are drawne.