An Anatomy of the World

When that rich Soule which to her heaven is gone,Whom all do celebrate, who know they have one,(For who is sure he hath a Soule, unlesseIt see, and judge, and follow worthinesse,And by Deedes praise it? hee who doth not this,May lodge an In-mate soule, but 'tis not his.)When that Queene ended here her progresse time,And, as t'her standing house to heaven did climbe,Where loath to make the Saints attend her long,She's now a part both of the Quire, and Song,This World, in that great earthquake languished;For in a common bath of teares it bled,Which drew the strongest vitall spirits out:But succour'd then with a perplexed doubt,Whether the world did lose, or gaine in this,(Because since now no other way there is,But goodnesse, to see her, whom all would see,All must endeavour to be good as shee,)This great consumption to a fever turn'd,And so the world had fits; it joy'd, it mourn'd;And, as men thinke, that Agues physick are,And th'Ague being spent, give over care,So thou sicke World, mistak'st thy selfe to beeWell, when alas, thou'rt in a Lethargie.Her death did wound and tame thee than, and thanThou might'st have better spar'd the Sunne, or Man.That wound was deep, but 'tis more misery,That thou hast lost thy sense and memory.'Twas heavy then to heare thy voyce of mone,But this is worse, that thou art speechlesse growne.Thou hast forgot thy name, thou hadst; thou wastNothing but shee, and her thou hast o'rpast.For as a child kept from the Font, untillA prince, expected long, come to fulfillThe ceremonies, thou unnam'd had'st laid,Had not her comming, thee her Palace made:Her name defin'd thee, gave thee forme, and frame,And thou forgett'st to celebrate thy name.Some moneths she hath beene dead (but being dead,Measures of times are all determined)But long she'ath beene away, long, long, yet noneOffers to tell us who it is that's gone.But as in states doubtfull of future heires,When sicknesse without remedie empairesThe present Prince, they're loth it should be said,The Prince doth languish, or the Prince is dead:So mankinde feeling now a generall thaw,A strong example gone, equall to law,The Cyment which did faithfully compact,And glue all vertues, now resolv'd, and slack'd,Thought it some blasphemy to say sh'was dead,Or that our weaknesse was discoveredIn that confession; therefore spoke no moreThen tongues, the Soule being gone, the losse deplore.But though it be too late to succour thee,Sicke World, yea, dead, yea putrified, since sheeThy'intrinsique balme, and thy preservative,Can never be renew'd, thou never live,I (since no man can make thee live) will try,What wee may gaine by thy Anatomy.Her death hath taught us dearely, that thou artCorrupt and mortall in thy purest part.Let no man say, the world it selfe being dead,'Tis labour lost to have discoveredThe worlds infirmities, since there is noneAlive to study this dissection;For there's a kinde of World remaining still,Though shee which did inanimate and fillThe world, be gone, yet in this last long night,Her Ghost doth walke; that is, a glimmering light,A faint weake love of vertue, and of good,Reflects from her, on them which understoodHer worth; and though she have shut in all day,The twilight of her memory doth stay;Which, from the carcasse of the old world, free,Creates a new world, and new creatures beeProduc'd: the matter and the stuffe of this,Her vertue, and the forme our practice is:And though to be thus elemented, armeThese creatures, from home-borne intrinsique harme,(For all assum'd unto this dignitie,So many weedlesse Paradises bee,Which of themselves produce no venemous sinne,Except some forraine Serpent bring it in)Yet, because outward stormes the strongest breake,And strength it selfe by confidence growes weake,This new world may be safer, being toldThe dangers and diseases of the old:For with due temper men doe then forgoe,Or covet things, when they their true worth know.There is no health; Physitians say that wee,At best, enjoy but a neutralitie.And can there bee worse sicknesse, then to knowThat we are never well, nor can be so?Wee are borne ruinous: poore mothers cry,That children come not right, nor orderly;Except they headlong come and fall uponAn ominous precipitation.How witty's ruine! how importunateUpon mankinde! it labour'd to frustrateEven Gods purpose; and made woman, sentFor mans reliefe, cause of his languishment.They were to good ends, and they are so still,But accessory, and principall in ill;For that first marriage was our funerall:One woman at one blow, then kill'd us all,And singly, one by one, they kill us now.We doe delightfully our selves allowTo that consumption; and profusely blinde,Wee kill our selves to propagate our kinde.And yet we do not that; we are not men:There is not now that mankinde, which was then,When as, the Sunne and man did seeme to strive,(Joynt tenants of the world) who should survive;When, Stagge, and Raven, and the long-liv'd tree,Compar'd with man, dy'd in minoritie;When, if a slow pac'd starre had stolne awayFrom the observers marking, he might stayTwo or three hundred yeares to see't againe,And then make up his observation plaine;When, as the age was long, the sise was great;Mans growth confess'd, and recompenc'd the meat;So spacious and large, that every SouleDid a faire Kingdome, and large Realme controule:And when the very stature, thus erect,Did that soule a good way towards heaven direct.Where is this mankinde now? who lives to age,Fit to be made Methusalem his page?Alas, we scarce live long enough to tryWhether a true made clocke run right, or lie.Old Grandsires talke of yesterday with sorrow,And for our children wee reserve to morrow.So short is life, that every peasant strives,In a torne house, or field, to have three lives.And as in lasting, so in length is manContracted to an inch, who was a spanne;For had a man at first in forrests stray'd,Or shipwrack'd in the Sea, one would have laidA wager, that an Elephant, or Whale,That met him, would not hastily assaileA thing so equall to him: now alas,The Fairies, and the Pigmies well may passeAs credible; mankinde decayes so soone,We'are scarce our Fathers shadowes cast at noone:Onely death addes t'our length: nor are wee growneIn stature to be men, till we are none.But this were light, did our lesse volume holdAll the old Text; or had wee chang'd to goldTheir silver; or dispos'd into lesse glasseSpirits of vertue, which then scatter'd was.But 'tis not so: w'are not retir'd, but dampt;And as our bodies, so our mindes are crampt:'Tis shrinking, not close weaving that hath thus,In minde, and body both bedwarfed us.Wee seeme ambitious, Gods whole worke t'undoe;Of nothing hee made us, and we strive too,To bring our selves to nothing backe; and weeDoe what wee can, to do't so soone as hee.With new diseases on our selves we warre,And with new Physicke, a worse Engin farre.Thus man, this worlds Vice-Emperour, in whomAll faculties, all graces are at home;And if in other creatures they appeare,They're but mans Ministers, and Legats there,To worke on their rebellions, and reduceThem to Civility, and to mans use:This man, whom God did wooe, and loth t'attendTill man came up, did downe to man descend,This man, so great, that all that is, is his,Oh what a trifle, and poore thing he is!If man were any thing, he's nothing now:Helpe, or at least some time to wast, allowT'his other wants, yet when he did departWith her whom we lament, hee lost his heart.She, of whom th'Ancients seem'd to prophesie,When they call'd vertues by the name of shee;Shee in whom vertue was so much refin'd,That for Allay unto so pure a mindeShee tooke the weaker Sex; shee that could driveThe poysonous tincture, and the staine of Eve,Out of her thoughts, and deeds; and purifieAll, by a true religious Alchymie;Shee, shee is dead; shee's dead: when thou knowest this,Thou knowest how poore a trifling thing man is.And learn'st thus much by our Anatomie,The heart being perish'd, no part can be free.And that except thou feed (not banquet) onThe supernaturall food, Religion,Thy better Growth growes withered, and scant;Be more then man, or thou'rt lesse then an Ant.Then, as mankinde, so is the worlds whole frameQuite out of joynt, almost created lame:For, before God had made up all the rest,Corruption entred, and deprav'd the best:It seis'd the Angels, and then first of allThe world did in her cradle take a fall,And turn'd her braines, and tooke a generall maime,Wronging each joynt of th'universall frame.The noblest part, man, felt it first; and thanBoth beasts and plants, curst in the curse of man.So did the world from the first houre decay,That evening was beginning of the day,And now the Springs and Sommers which we see,Like sonnes of women after fiftie bee.And new Philosophy calls all in doubt,The Element of fire is quite put out;The Sun is lost, and th'earth, and no mans witCan well direct him where to looke for it.And freely men confesse that this world's spent,When in the Planets, and the FirmamentThey seeke so many new; they see that thisIs crumbled out againe to his Atomies.'Tis all in peeces, all cohaerence gone;All just supply, and all Relation:Prince, Subject, Father, Sonne, are things forgot,For every man alone thinkes he hath gotTo be a Phœnix, and that then can beeNone of that kinde, of which he is, but hee.This is the worlds condition now, and nowShe that should all parts to reunion bow,She that had all Magnetique force alone,To draw, and fasten sundred parts in one;She whom wise nature had invented thenWhen she observ'd that every sort of menDid in their voyage in this worlds Sea stray,And needed a new compasse for their way;She that was best, and first originallOf all faire copies, and the generallSteward to Fate; she whose rich eyes, and brestGuilt the West Indies, and perfum'd the East;Whose having breath'd in this world, did bestowSpice on those Iles, and bad them still smell so,And that rich Indie which doth gold interre,Is but as single money, coyn'd from her:She to whom this world must it selfe refer,As Suburbs, or the Microcosme of her,Shee, shee is dead; shee's dead: when thou knowst this,Thou knowst how lame a cripple this world is.And learn'st thus much by our Anatomy,That this worlds generall sickenesse doth not lieIn any humour, or one certaine part;But as thou sawest it rotten at the heart,Thou seest a Hectique feaver hath got holdOf the whole substance, not to be contrould,And that thou hast but one way, not t'admitThe worlds infection, to be none of it.For the worlds subtilst immateriall partsFeele this consuming wound, and ages darts.For the worlds beauty is decai'd, or gone,Beauty, that's colour, and proportion.We thinke the heavens enjoy their Sphericall,Their round proportion embracing all.But yet their various and perplexed course,Observ'd in divers ages, doth enforceMen to finde out so many Eccentrique parts,Such divers downe-right lines, such overthwarts,As disproportion that pure forme: It tearesThe Firmament in eight and forty sheires,And in these Constellations then ariseNew starres, and old doe vanish from our eyes:As though heav'n suffered earthquakes, peace or war,When new Towers rise, and old demolish't are.They have impal'd within a ZodiakeThe free-borne Sun, and keepe twelve Signes awakeTo watch his steps; the Goat and Crab controule,And fright him backe, who else to either Pole(Did not these Tropiques fetter him) might runne:For his course is not round; nor can the SunnePerfit a Circle, or maintaine his wayOne inch direct; but where he rose to-dayHe comes no more, but with a couzening line,Steales by that point, and so is Serpentine:And seeming weary with his reeling thus,He meanes to sleepe, being now falne nearer us.So, of the Starres which boast that they doe runneIn Circle still, none ends where he begun.All their proportion's lame, it sinkes, it swels.For of Meridians, and Parallels,Man hath weav'd out a net, and this net throwneUpon the Heavens, and now they are his owne.Loth to goe up the hill, or labour thusTo goe to heaven, we make heaven come to us.We spur, we reine the starres, and in their raceThey're diversly content t'obey our pace.But keepes the earth her round proportion still?Doth not a Tenarif, or higher HillRise so high like a Rocke, that one might thinkeThe floating Moone would shipwracke there, and sinke?Seas are so deepe, that Whales being strooke to day,Perchance to morrow, scarse at middle wayOf their wish'd journies end, the bottome, die.And men, to sound depths, so much line untie,As one might justly thinke, that there would riseAt end thereof, one of th'Antipodies:If under all, a Vault infernall bee,(Which sure is spacious, except that weInvent another torment, that there mustMillions into a straight hot roome be thrust)Then solidnesse, and roundnesse have no place.Are these but warts, and pock-holes in the faceOf th'earth? Thinke so: but yet confesse, in thisThe worlds proportion disfigured is;That those two legges whereon it doth rely,Reward and punishment are bent awry.That beauties best, proportion, is dead,Since even griefe it selfe, which now aloneIs left us, is without proportion.Shee by whose lines proportion should beeExamin'd, measure of all Symmetree,Whom had that Ancient seen, who thought soules madeOf Harmony, he would at next have saidThat Harmony was shee, and thence infer,That soules were but Resultances from her,And did from her into our bodies goe,As to our eyes, the formes from objects flow:Shee, who if those great Doctors truly saidThat the Arke to mans proportions was made,Had been a type for that, as that might beA type of her in this, that contraryBoth Elements, and Passions liv'd at peaceIn her, who caus'd all Civill war to cease.Shee, after whom, what forme so'er we see,Is discord, and rude incongruitie;Shee, shee is dead, shee's dead; when thou knowst thisThou knowst how ugly a monster this world is:And learn'st thus much by our Anatomie,That here is nothing to enamour thee:And that, not only faults in inward parts,Corruptions in our braines, or in our hearts,Poysoning the fountaines, whence our actions spring,Endanger us: but that if every thingBe not done fitly'and in proportion,To satisfie wise, and good lookers on,(Since most men be such as most thinke they bee)They're lothsome too, by this Deformitee.For good, and well, must in our actions meete;Wicked is not much worse than indiscreet.But beauties other second Element,Colour, and lustre now, is as neere spent.And had the world his just proportion,Were it a ring still, yet the stone is gone.As a compassionate Turcoyse which doth tellBy looking pale, the wearer is not well,As gold falls sicke being stung with Mercury,All the worlds parts of such complexion bee.When nature was most busie, the first weeke,Swadling the new borne earth, God seem'd to likeThat she should sport her selfe sometimes, and play,To mingle, and vary colours every day:And then, as though shee could not make inow,Himselfe his various Rainbow did allow.Sight is the noblest sense of any one,Yet sight hath only colour to feed on,And colour is decai'd: summers robe growesDuskie, and like an oft dyed garment showes.Our blushing red, which us'd in cheekes to spred,Is inward sunke, and only our soules are red.Perchance the world might have recovered,If she whom we lament had not beene dead:But shee, in whom all white, and red, and blew(Beauties ingredients) voluntary grew,As in an unvext Paradise; from whomDid all things verdure, and their lustre come,Whose composition was miraculous,Being all colour, all Diaphanous,(For Ayre, and Fire but thick grosse bodies were,And liveliest stones but drowsie, and pale to her,)Shee, shee, is dead; shee's dead: when thou know'st this,Thou knowst how wan a Ghost this our world is:And learn'st thus much by our Anatomie,That it should more affright, then pleasure thee.And that, since all faire colour then did sinke,'Tis now but wicked vanitie, to thinkeTo colour vicious deeds with good pretence,Or with bought colors to illude mens sense.Nor in ought more this worlds decay appeares,Then that her influence the heav'n forbeares,Or that the Elements doe not feele this,The father, or the mother barren is.The cloudes conceive not raine, or doe not powre,In the due birth time, downe the balmy showre;Th'Ayre doth not motherly sit on the earth,To hatch her seasons, and give all things birth;Spring-times were common cradles, but are tombes;And false-conceptions fill the generall wombes;Th'Ayre showes such Meteors, as none can see,Not only what they meane, but what they bee;Earth such new wormes, as would have troubled muchTh'Ægyptian Mages to have made more such.What Artist now dares boast that he can bringHeaven hither, or constellate any thing,So as the influence of those starres may beeImprison'd in an Hearbe, or Charme, or Tree,And doe by touch, all which those stars could doe?The art is lost, and correspondence too.For heaven gives little, and the earth takes lesse,And man least knowes their trade and purposes.If this commerce twixt heaven and earth were notEmbarr'd, and all this traffique quite forgot,She, for whose losse we have lamented thus,Would worke more fully, and pow'rfully on us:Since herbes, and roots, by dying lose not all,But they, yea Ashes too, are medicinall,Death could not quench her vertue so, but thatIt would be (if not follow'd) wondred at:And all the world would be one dying Swan,To sing her funerall praise, and vanish than.But as some Serpents poyson hurteth not,Except it be from the live Serpent shot,So doth her vertue need her here, to fitThat unto us; shee working more then it.But shee, in whom to such maturityVertue was growne, past growth, that it must die;She, from whose influence all Impressions came,But, by Receivers impotencies, lame,Who, though she could not transubstantiateAll states to gold, yet guilded every state,So that some Princes have some temperance;Some Counsellers some purpose to advanceThe common profit; and some people haveSome stay, no more then Kings should give, to crave;Some women have some taciturnity,Some nunneries some graines of chastitie.She that did thus much, and much more could doe,But that our age was Iron, and rustie too,Shee, shee is dead; shee's dead; when thou knowst this,Thou knowst how drie a Cinder this world is.And learn'st thus much by our Anatomy,That 'tis in vaine to dew, or mollifieIt with thy teares, or sweat, or blood: nothingIs worth our travaile, griefe, or perishing,But those rich joyes, which did possesse her heart,Of which she's now partaker, and a part.But as in cutting up a man that's dead,The body will not last out, to have readOn every part, and therefore men directTheir speech to parts, that are of most effect;So the worlds carcasse would not last, if IWere punctuall in this Anatomy;Nor smels it well to hearers, if one tellThem their disease, who faine would think they're well.Here therefore be the end: And, blessed maid,Of whom is meant what ever hath been said,Or shall be spoken well by any tongue,Whose name refines course lines, and makes prose song,Accept this tribute, and his first yeares rent,Who till his darke short tapers end be spent,As oft as thy feast sees this widowed earth,Will yearely celebrate thy second birth,That is, thy death; for though the soule of manBe got when man is made, 'tis borne but thanWhen man doth die; our body's as the wombe,And, as a Mid-wife, death directs it home.And you her creatures, whom she workes upon,And have your last, and best concoctionFrom her example, and her vertue, if youIn reverence to her, do thinke it due,That no one should her praises thus rehearse,As matter fit for Chronicle, not verse;Vouchsafe to call to minde that God did makeA last, and lasting'st peece, a song. He spakeTo Moses to deliver unto all,That song, because hee knew they would let fallThe Law, the Prophets, and the History,But keepe the song still in their memory:Such an opinion (in due measure) madeMe this great Office boldly to invade:Nor could incomprehensiblenesse deterreMee, from thus trying to emprison her,Which when I saw that a strict grave could doe,I saw not why verse might not do so too.Verse hath a middle nature: heaven keepes Soules,The Grave keepes bodies, Verse the Fame enroules.