The Motion of the Soule

.... how can shee but immortall bee?When with the motions of both Will and Wit,She still aspireth to eternitie,And neuer rests, till she attaine to it?

Water in conduit pipes, can rise no higherThen the wel-head, from whence it first doth spring:Then sith to eternall GOD shee doth aspire,Shee cannot be but an eternall thing.

'The soul aspiring, pants its source to mount,As streams meander level with their fount.'

"Nor can her wide imbracements fillèd bee;For they that most, and greatest things embrace,Inlarge thereby their minds' capacitie,As streames inlarg'd, inlarge the channel's space.

All things receiu'd, doe such proportion take,As those things haue, wherein they are receiu'd:So little glasses little faces make,And narrow webs on narrow frames be weau'd;

Then what vast body must we make the mindWherin are men, beasts, trees, towns, seas, and lands;And yet each thing a proper place doth find,And each thing in the true proportion stands?

Doubtlesse this could not bee, but that she turnesBodies to spirits, by sublimation strange;As fire conuerts to fire the things it burnesAs we our meats into our nature change.

From their grosse matter she abstracts the formes,And draws a kind of quintessence from things;Which to her proper nature she transformes,To bear them light on her celestiall wings:

This doth she, when, from things particular,She doth abstract the universall kinds;Which bodilesse and immateriall are,And can be lodg'd but onely in our minds:

And thus from diuers accidents and acts,Which doe within her obseruation fall,She goddesses, and powers diuine, abstracts:As Nature, Fortune, and the Vertues all."