<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=478863" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Apollyonists - Canto 1</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I<br>Of men, nay beasts; worse, monsters; worst of all,<br>Incarnate fiends, English Italianate;<br>Of priests, O no! mass-priests, priests-cannibal, <br>Who make their Maker, chew, grind, feed, grow fat<br>With flesh divine; of that great city's fall,<br>Which born, nursed, grown with blood, the earth's empress sat,<br>Cleansed, spoused to Christ, yet back to whoredom fell,<br>None can enough, something I fain would tell.<br>How black are quenched lights! Fallen heaven's a double hell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II. <br>Great Lord, who graspest all creatures in Thy hand,<br>Who in Thy lap layest down proud Thetis' head,<br>And bindest her white curled locks in cauls of sand,<br>Who gatherest in Thy fist and layest in bed<br>The sturdy winds, who groundest the floating land<br>On fleeting seas, and over all hast spread<br>Heaven's brooding wings to foster all below,<br>Who makest the sun without all fire to glow,<br>The spring of heat and light, the moon to ebb and flow,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III.<br>Thou world's sole Pilot, who in this poor isle<br>(So small a bottom) hast embarked Thy light,<br>And glorious Self and steerest it safe, the while<br>Hoarse drumming seas and winds' loud trumpets fight,<br>Who causest stormy heavens here only smile,<br>Steer me, poor ship-boy, steer my course aright;<br>Breathe, gracious Spirit, breathe gently on these lays;<br>Be Thou my compass, needle to my ways;<br>Thy glorious work's my freight; my haven is Thy praise.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV. <br>Thou purple whore, mounted on scarlet beast,<br>Gorged with the flesh, drunk with the blood of saints,<br>Whose amorous golden cup and charmed feast<br>All earthly kings, all earthly men attaints,<br>See thy live pictures, see thine own, thy best,<br>Thy dearest sons, and cheer thy heart that faints.<br>Hark! thou saved island, hark! and never cease<br>To praise that hand which held thy head in peace;<br>Else hadst thou swum as deep in blood as now in seas.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">V. <br>The cloudy night came whirling up the sky <br>And scatt'ring round the dews, which first she drew<br>From milky poppies, loads and drowsy eye.<br>The wat'ry moon, cold Vesper, and his crew<br>Light up their tapers; to the sun they fly <br>And at his blazing flame their sparks renew. <br>Oh, why should earthly lights then scorn to tine<br>Their lamps alone at the first Sun divine?<br>Hence as false as falling stars, as rotton wood, they shine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI. <br>Her sable mantle was embroidered gay<br>With silver beams, with spangles round beset;<br>Four steeds her chariot drew: the first was gray,<br>The second blue, third brown, fourth black as jet.<br>The hollowing owl, her post, prepares the way;<br>And winged dreams, as gnat swarms flutt'ring, let<br>Sad sleep, who fain his eyes in rest would steep.<br>Why then at death do weary mortals weep?<br>Sleep's but a shorter death; death's but a longer sleep.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VII.<br>And now the world, and dreams themselves were drowned<br>In deadly sleep; the laborer snorteth fast,<br>His brawny arms unbent, his limbs unbound,<br>As dead, forget all toil to come, or past;<br>Only sad guilt and troubled greatness, crowned<br>With heavy gold and care, no rest can taste.<br>Go then, vain man, go pill the live and dead,<br>Buy, sell, fawn, flatter, rise, then couch thy head<br>In proud, but dangerous gold, in silk, but restless bed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VIII.<br>When lo! a sudden noise breaks the empty air:<br>A dreadful noise, which every creature daunts,<br>Frights home the blood, shoots up the limber hair;<br>For through the silent heaven hell's pursuivants,<br>Cutting their way, command foul spirits repair<br>With haste to Pluto, who their counsel wants.<br>Their hoarse bass-horns like fenny bitterns sound;<br>The earth shakes, dogs howl, and heaven itself, astound,<br>Shuts all his eyes; the stars in clouds their candles drowned.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IX.<br>Meantime, hell's iron gates by fiends beneath<br>Are open flung, which framed with wondrous art<br>To every guilty soul yields entrance eath;<br>But never wight but He could thence depart,<br>Who dying once, was death to endless death.<br>So where the liver's channel to the heart<br>Pays purple tribute, with their three-forked mace<br>Three Tritons stand and speed his flowing race,<br>But stop the ebbing stream if once it back would pace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">X.<br>The porter to the infernal gate is Sin,<br>A shapeless shape, a foul deformed thing,<br>Nor nothing, nor a substance, as those thin<br>And empty forms which through the air fling<br>Their wandering shapes, at length they're fastened in<br>The crystal sight. It serves, yet reigns as king;<br>It lives, yet's death; it pleases, full of pain;<br>Monster! ah, who, who can thy being feign?<br>Thou shapeless shape, live death, pain pleasing, servile reign!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XI.<br>Of that first woman and the old serpent bred,<br>By lust and custom nursed, whom when her mother <br>Saw so deformed, how fain would she have fled<br>Her birth, and self! But she her dam would smother,<br>And all her brood, had not He rescued<br>Who was His mother's sire, His children's brother:<br>Eternity, who yet was born and died;<br>His own creator, earth's scorn, heaven's pride,<br>Who the Deity infleshed, and man's flesh deified.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XII.<br>Her former parts her mother seems resemble,<br>Yet only seems to flesh and weaker sight,<br>For she with art and paint could fine dissemble<br>Her loathsome face. Her back parts, black as night,<br>Like to her horrid sire, would force to tremble<br>The boldest heart. To the eye that meets her right<br>She seems a lovely sweet, of beauty rare;<br>But at the parting, he that shall compare,<br>Hell will more lovely deem, the devil's self more fair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIII.<br>Her rosy cheek, quick eye, her naked breast,<br>And whatsoe'er loose fancy might entice,<br>She bare exposed to sight, all lovely dressed<br>In beauty's livery and quaint device.<br>Thus she bewitches many a boy unblest,<br>Who drenched in hell, dreams of all paradise:<br>Her breasts, his spheres; her arms, his circling sky;<br>Her pleasures, heaven; her love, eternity.<br>For her he longs to live; with her he longs to die.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIV.<br>But He that gave a stone power to descry <br>'Twixt natures hid, and check that metal's pride<br>That dares aspire to gold's fair purity, <br>Hath left a touchstone erring eyes to guide,<br>Which clears their sight and strips hypocrisy.<br>They see, they loathe, they curse her painted hide;<br>Her as a crawling carrion they esteem;<br>Her worst of ills, and worse than that, they deem,<br>Yet know her worse than they can think, or she can seem.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XV.<br>Close by her sat Despair, sad ghastly sprite,<br>With staring looks, unmoved, fast nailed to Sin;<br>Her body all of earth, her soul of fright,<br>About her thousand deaths, but more within;<br>Pale, pined cheeks, black hair, torn, rudely dight,<br>Short breath, long nails, dull eyes, sharp-pointed chin;<br>Light, life, heaven, earth, herself, and all she fled.<br>Fain would she die, but could not; yet half dead,<br>A breathing corse she seemed, wrapped up in living lead.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVI. <br>In the entrance Sickness and faint Languor dwelt,<br>Who with sad groans toll out their passing knell,<br>Late fear, fright, horror that already felt <br>The torturer's claws, preventing death and hell.<br>Within loud Grief and roaring Pangs that swelt<br>In sulphur flames, did weep and howl and yell.<br>A thousand souls in endless dolors lie,<br>Who burn, fry, hiss, and never cease to cry,<br>'Oh, that I ne'er had lived; oh, that I once could die!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVII.<br>And now the infernal powers through the air driving,<br>For speed their leather pinions broad display;<br>Now at eternal death's wide gate arriving,<br>Sin gives them passage; still they cut their way<br>Till to the bottom of hell's palace diving,<br>They enter Dis' deep conclave. There they stay,<br>Waiting the rest, and now they all are set,<br>The horrid court, big swoll'n with the hideous council sweat.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVIII.<br>The midst, but lowest (in hell's heraldry<br>The deepest is the highest room) in state<br>Sat lordly Lucifer; his fiery eye,<br>Much swoll'n with pride, but more with rage and hate,<br>As censor mustered all his company,<br>Who round about with awful silence sate.<br>This do, this let rebellious spirits gain,<br>Change God for Satan, heaven's for hell's sovereign:<br>O let him serve in hell, who scorns in heaven to reign!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIX.<br>Ah, wretch! who with ambitious cares oppressed,<br>Longest still for future, feelest no present good;<br>Despising to be better, wouldst be best,<br>Good never; who wilt serve thy lusting mood,<br>Yet all command : not he who raised his crest,<br>But pulled it down, hath high and formly stood.<br>Fool! serve thy towering lusts, grow still, still, crave,<br>Rule, reign; this comfort from thy greatness have,<br>Now at thy top thou art a great commanding slave.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XX.<br>Thus fell this Prince of Darkness, once a bright<br>And glorious star; he willful turned away<br>His borrowed glove from that eternal light;<br>Himself he sought, so lost himself: his ray<br>Vanished to smoke, his morning sunk in night,<br>And never more shall see the springing day.<br>To be in heaven the second he disdains;<br>So now the first in hell and flames he reigns,<br>Crowned once with joy and light, crowned now with fire and pains.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXI. <br>As where the warlike Dane the scepter sways,<br>They crown usurpers with a wreath of lead,<br>And with hot steel, while loud the traitor brays,<br>They melt and drop it down into his head,-<br>Crowned he would live, and crowned he ends his days;<br>All so in heaven's courts his traitor sped,<br>Who now, when he had overlooked his train,<br>Rising upon his throne, with bitter strain<br>Thus 'gan to whet their rage and chide their frustrate pain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXII.<br>'See, see, you Spirits (I know not whether more<br>Hated, or hating heaven) ah! see the earth<br>Smiling in quiet peace and plenteous store.<br>Men fearless live in ease, in love, and mirth;<br>Where arms did rage, the drum and cannon roar;<br>Where hate, strife, envy reigned, and meager dearth,<br>Now lutes and viols charm the ravished ear;<br>Men plow with swords; horse-heels their armors wear;<br>Ah! shortly scarce they'll know what war and armors were.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIII.<br>'Under their sprouting vines they sporting sit.<br>The old tell of evils past; youth laugh and play<br>And to their wanton heads sweet garlands fit, <br>Roses with lilies, myrtles weaved with bay.<br>The world's at rest; Erinny's, forced to quit <br>Her strongest holds, from earth is driven away.<br>Even Turks forget their empire to increase;<br>War's self is slain and whips of Furies cease.<br>We, we ourselves, I fear, will shortly live in peace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIV. <br>'Meantime (I burn, I broil, I burst with spite)<br>In midst of peace that sharp two-edged sword<br>Cuts through our darkness, cleaves the misty night,<br>Discovers all our snares; that sacred word,<br>Locked up by Rome, breaks prison, spreads the light,<br>Speaks every tongue, paints, and points out the Lord,<br>His birth, life, death, and cross; our gilded stocks,<br>Our laymen's books, the boy and woman mocks;<br>They laugh, they fleer, and say, 'Blocks teach and worship blocks.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXV.<br>'Springtides of light divine the air surround<br>And bring down heaven to earth; deaf Ignorance,<br>Vexed with the day, her head in hell hath drowned;<br>Fond Superstition, frighted with the glance<br>Of sudden beams, in vain hath crossed her round;<br>Truth and Religion everywhere advance<br>Their conquering standards; Error's lost and fled;<br>Earth burns in love to Heaven; Heaven yields her bed<br>To earth, and common grown, smiles to be ravished.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXVI.<br>'That little swimming isle above the rest,<br>Spite of our spite and all our plots, remains<br>And grows in happiness: but late our nest,<br>Where we and Rome, and blood, and all our trains,<br>Monks, nuns, dead and alive idols, safe did rest.<br>Now there, next the oath of God, that wrestler reigns,<br>Who fills the land and world with peace; his spear<br>Is but a pen, with which he down doth bear<br>Blind ignorance, false gods, and superstitious fear.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXVII.<br>'There God hath framed another paradise,<br>Fat olives dropping peace, victorious palms;<br>Nor in the midst, but everywhere doth rise<br>That hated tree of life, whose precious balms<br>Cure every sinful wound, give light to the eyes,<br>Unlock the ear, recover fainting qualms.<br>There richly grows what makes a people blest,<br>A garden planted by Himself and dressed,<br>Where He Himself doth walk, where He Himself doth rest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXVIII.<br>'There every star sheds his sweet influence<br>And radiant beams; great, little, old, and new,<br>Their glittering rays and frequent confluence<br>The milky path to God's high palace strew;<br>The unwearied pastors with steeled confidence,<br>Conquered and conquering, fresh their fight renew.<br>Our strongest holds that thundering ordinance<br>Beats down and makes our proudest turrets dance,<br>Yoking men's iron necks in His sweet governance.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIX.<br>'Nor can the old world content ambitious light;<br>Virginia, our soil, our seat, and throne,<br>(To which so long possessions gives us right,<br>As long as hell's) Virginia's self is gone;<br>That stormy isle, which the Isle of Devils hight,<br>Peopled with faith, truth, grace religion.<br>What's next but hell? That now alone remains,<br>And that subdued, even here He rules and reigns,<br>And mortals 'gin to dream of long, but endless pains.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXX.<br>'While we, good harmless creatures, sleep or play,<br>Forget our former loss and following pain,<br>Earth sweats for heaven, but hell keeps holiday.<br>Shall we repent, good souls, or shall we plain?<br>Shall we groan, sigh, weep, mourn, for mercy pray?<br>Lay down our spite, wash out our sinful stain?<br>Maybe He'll yield, forget, and use us well,<br>Forgive, join hands, restore us whence we fell; <br>Maybe He'll yield us heaven and fall Himself to hell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXI.<br>'But me, O never let me, Spirits, forget<br>That glorious day when I your standard bore,<br>And scorning in the second place to sit, <br>With you assaulted heaven, His yoke forswore!<br>My dauntless heart yet longs to bleed and sweat<br>In such a fray; the more I burn, the more<br>I hate: should He yet offer grace and ease,<br>If subject we our arms and spite surcease,<br>Such offer should I hate, and scorn so base a peace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXII.<br>'Where are those Spirits? Where that haughty rage<br>That durst with me invade eternal light?<br>What! Are our hearts fallen too? Droop we with age? <br>Can we yet fall from hell and hellish spite?<br>Can smart our wrath, can grief out hate assuage?<br>Dare we with heaven, and not with earth to fight?<br>Your arms, allies, yourselves as strong as ever;<br>Your foes, their weapons, numbers, weaker never.<br>For shame, tread down this earth! What wants but your endeavour?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXIII.<br>'Now by yourselves and thunder-daunted arms,<br>But never-daunted hate, I you implore,<br>Command, adjure, reinforce your fierce alarms;<br>Kindle, I pray, who never prayed before,<br>Kindle your darts, treble repay our harms.<br>Oh, our short time, too short, stands at the door!<br>Double your rage; if now we do not ply<br>We lone in hell, without due company,<br>And worse, without desert, without revenge shall lie. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXIV.<br>'He, Spirits, (ah, that, that's our main torment!) He<br>Can feel no wounds, laughs at the sword and dart,<br>Himself from grief, from suffering wholly free;<br>His simple nature cannot taste of smart,<br>Yet in His members we Him grieved see;<br>For, and in them, He suffers; where His heart<br>Lies bare and naked, there dart your fiery steel,<br>Cut, wound, burn, sear, if not the head, the heel.<br>Let him in every part some pain and torment feel.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXV.<br>'That light comes posting on, that cursed light,<br>When they as He, all glorious, all divine, <br>(Their flesh clothed with the sun, and much more bright,<br>Yet brighter spirits) shall in His image shine,<br>And see Him as He is; there no despite,<br>No force, no art their state can undermine:<br>Full of unmeasured bliss, yet still receiving,<br>Their souls still childing joy, yet still conceiving, <br>Delights beyond the wish, beyond quick thoughts perceiving.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXVI.<br>'But we fast pinioned with dark fiery chains,<br>Shall suffer every ill, but do no more;<br>The guilty spirit there feels extremest pains,<br>Yet fears worse than it feels; and finding store<br>Of present deaths, death's absense sore complains:<br>Oceans of ills without or ebb, or shore,<br>A life that ever dies, a death that lives,<br>And, worst of all, God's absent presence gives<br>A thousand living woes, a thousand dying griefs.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXVII.<br>'But when he sums his time and turns his eye<br>First to the past, then future pangs, past days<br>(And every day's an age of misery)<br>In torment spent, by thousands down he lays,<br>Future by millions, yet eternity <br>Grows nothing less, nor past to come allays.<br>Through every pang and grief he wild doth run,<br>And challenge coward death; doth nothing shun<br>That he may nothing be, does all to be undone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXVIII.<br>'Oh, let our work equal our wages, let<br>Our Judge fall short, and when His plagues are spent,<br>Owe more than He hath paid, live in our debt;<br>Let heaven want vengeance, hell want punishment<br>To give our dues; when we with flames beset,<br>Still dying, live in endless languishment,<br>This be our comfort: we did get and win<br>The fires and tortures we are whelmed in;<br>We have kept pace, outrun His justice with our sin.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXXIX. <br>'And now you States of Hell, give your advice,<br>And to these ruins lend your helping hand.'<br>This said and ceased; straight humming murmurs rise:<br>Some chafe, some fret, some sad and thoughtful stand,<br>Some chat, and some new stratagems devise;<br>And everyone heaven's stronger powers banned,<br>And tear for madness their uncombed snakes;<br>And everyone his fiery weapon shakes,<br>And everyone expects who first the answer makes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">L. <br>So when the falling sun hangs o'er the main,<br>Ready to drop into the western wave<br>By yellow Cam, where all the Muses reign,<br>And with their towers his reedy head embrave,<br>The warlike gnat their flutt'ring armies train;<br>All have sharp spears, and all shrill trumpets have;<br>Their files they double, loud their cornets sound,<br>Now march at length, their troops now gather round;<br>The banks, the broken noise, and turrets fair rebound.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Phineas+Fletcher">Phineas Fletcher</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=478863" data-title="The Apollyonists - Canto 1 de Phineas Fletcher" data-description="I Of men, nay beasts; worse, monsters; worst of all, Incarnate fiends, English Italianate; Of priests, O no! mass-priests, priests-cannibal, Who make their Maker, chew, grind, feed, grow fat With flesh divine; of that great city's fall, Which bor..."></div> </div> </div>

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