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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=530201" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Third Satire Of Dr. John Donne</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Compassion checks my spleen, yet Scorn denies<br>The tears a passage thro' my swelling eyes;<br>To laugh or weep at sins, might idly show,<br>Unheedful passion, or unfruitful woe.<br>Satyr! arise, and try thy sharper ways,<br>If ever Satyr cur'd an old disease.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Is not Religion (Heav'n-descended dame)<br>As worthy all our soul's devoutest flame,<br>As Moral Virtue in her early sway,<br>When the best Heathens saw by doubtful day?<br>Are not the joys, the promis'd joys above,<br>As great and strong to vanquish earthly love,<br>As earthly glory, fame, respect and show,<br>As all rewards their virtue found below?<br>Alas! Religion proper means prepares,<br>These means are ours, and must its End be theirs?<br>And shall thy Father's spirit meet the sight<br>Of Heathen Sages cloath'd in heavenly light,<br>Whose Merit of strict life, severely suited<br>To Reason's dictates, may be faith imputed?<br>Whilst thou, to whom he taught the nearer road,<br>Art ever banish'd from the bless'd abode.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh! if thy temper such a fear can find,<br>This fear were valour of the noblest kind.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Dar'st thou provoke, when rebel souls aspire,<br>Thy Maker's Vengeance, and thy Monarch's Ire?<br>Or live entomb'd in ships, thy leader's prey,<br>Spoil of the war, the famine, or the sea? <br>In search of pearl, in depth of ocean breathe,<br>Or live, exil'd the sun, in mines beneath?<br>Or, where in tempests icy mountains roll,<br>Attempt a passage by the Northern pole?<br>Or dar'st thou parch within the fires of Spain,<br>Or burn beneath the line, for Indian gain?<br>Or for some Idol of thy Fancy draw,<br>Some loose-gown'd dame; O courage made of straw!<br>Thus, desp'rate Coward! would'st thou bold appear,<br>Yet when thy God has plac'd thee Centry here,<br>To thy own foes, to his, ignobly yield,<br>And leave, for wars forbid, the appointed field?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Know thy own foes; th' Apostate Angel, he<br>You strive to please, the foremost of the Three;<br>He makes the pleasures of his realm the bait,<br>But can he give for Love, that acts in Hate?<br>The World's thy second Love, thy second Foe,<br>The World, whose beauties perish as they blow,<br>They fly, she fades herself, and at the best<br>You grasp a wither'd strumpet to your breast.<br>The Flesh is next, which in fruition wasts,<br>High flush'd with all the sensual joys it tasts,<br>While men the fair, the goodly Soul destroy,<br>From whence the flesh has pow'r to tast a joy.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Seek thou Religion, primitively sound—<br>Well, gentle friend, but where may she be found?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">By Faith Implicite blind Ignaro led,<br>Thinks the bright Seraph from his Country fled,<br>And seeks her seat at Rome, because we know<br>She there was seen a thousand years ago;<br>And loves her Relick rags, as men obey<br>The foot-cloth where the Prince sat yesterday.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">These pageant Forms are whining Obed's scorn,<br>Who seeks Religion at Geneva born,<br>A sullen thing, whose coarsness suits the crowd,<br>Tho' young, unhandsome; tho' unhandsome, proud:<br>Thus, with the wanton, some perversely judge<br>All girls unhealthy but the Country drudge.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">No foreign schemes make easy Cæpio roam,<br>The man contented takes his Church at home;<br>Nay should some Preachers, servile bawds of gain,<br>Shou'd some new Laws, which like new-fashions reign,<br>Command his faith to count Salvation ty'd <br>To visit his, and visit none beside,<br>He grants Salvation centers in his own,<br>And grants it centers but in his alone:<br>From youth to age he grasps the proffer'd dame,<br>And they confer his Faith, who give his Name:<br>So from the Guardian's hands, the Wards who live<br>Enthral'd to Guardians, take the wives they give.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">From all professions careless Airy flies,<br>For, all professions can't be good, he cries,<br>And here a fault, and there another views,<br>And lives unfix'd for want to heart to chuse:<br>So men, who know what some loose girls have done,<br>For fear of marrying such, will marry none.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Charms of all, obsequious Courtly strike;<br>On each he doats, on each attends alike;<br>And thinks, as diff'rent countrys deck the dame,<br>The dresses altering, and the sex the same;<br>So fares Religion, chang'd in outward show,<br>But 'tis Religion still, where'er we go:<br>This blindness springs from an excess of light,<br>And men embrace the wrong to chuse the right.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But thou of force must one Religion own,<br>And only one, and that the Right alone.<br>To find that Right one, ask thy Reverend Sire;<br>Let him of his, and him of his enquire;<br>Tho' Truth and Falshood seem as twins ally'd,<br>There's Eldership on Truth's delightful side,<br>Her seek with heed—who seeks the soundest First <br>Is not of No Religion, nor the worst.<br>T' adore, or scorn an Image, or protest,<br>May all be bad: doubt wisely for the best;<br>'Twere wrong to sleep, or headlong run astray;<br>It is not wandring, to inquire the way.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">On a large mountain, at the Basis wide,<br>Steep to the top, and craggy at the side,<br>Sits sacred Truth enthron'd; and he, who means<br>To reach the summit, mounts with weary pains,<br>Winds round and round, and every turn essays<br>Where sudden breaks resist the shorter ways.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet labour so, that, e're faint age arrive,<br>Thy searching soul possess her Rest alive;<br>To work by twilight were to work too late,<br>And Age is twilight to the night of fate. <br>To will implyes delay, therefore now do: <br>Hard deeds, the bodie's pain; hard knowledge too <br>The mind's indeavours reach; and mysteries <br>Are like the Sun dazling, yet plain to all eyes. <br>Keep the truth thou hast found; men do not stand <br>In so ill case, that God hath with his hand <br>Sign'd Kings blank-charters to kill whom they hate, <br>Nor are they Vicars, but hangmen to Fate. <br>Fool and wretch, wilt thou let thy soul be tyed <br>To mans laws, by which she shall not be tryed <br>At the last day? Or will it then boot thee <br>To say a Philip or a Gregory, <br>A Harry or a Martin taught me this? <br>Is not this excuse for meer contraries, <br>Equally strong, cannot both sides say so? <br>That thou mayest rightly obey power, her bounds know;<br>Those past, her nature, and name are chang'd; to be <br>Then humble to her is Idolatry. <br>As streams are, Power is; those blest flowers that dwell <br>At the rough streams calm head, thrive and do well, <br>But having left their roots, and themselves given <br>To the streams tyrannous rage, alas, are driven <br>Through Mills, Rocks, and Woods, and at last, almost <br>Consum'd in going, in the sea are lost: <br>So perish Souls, which more chuse mens unjust <br>Power, from God claim'd, then God himself to trust. <br>To will alone, is but to mean delay;<br>To work at present is the use of day:<br>For man's employ much thought and deed remain,<br>High Thoughts the Soul, hard deeds the body strain:<br>And Myst'ries ask believing, which to View<br>Like the fair Sun, are plain, but dazling too.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Be Truth, so found, with sacred heed possest,<br>Not Kings have pow'r to tear it from thy breast,<br>By no blank Charters harm they where they hate,<br>Nor are they Vicars, but the hands of Fate.<br>Ah! fool and wretch, who let'st thy soul be ty'd<br>To human Laws! Or must it so be try'd?<br>Or will it boot thee, at the latest day,<br>When Judgment sits, and Justice asks thy plea,<br>That Philip that, or Greg'ry taught thee this,<br>Or John or Martin? All may teach amiss:<br>For, every contrary in each Extream<br>This holds alike, and each may plead the same.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Wou'dst thou to Pow'r a proper duty shew?<br>'Tis thy first task the bounds of pow'r to know;<br>The bounds once past, it holds the name no more,<br>Its nature alters, which it own'd before,<br>Nor were submission humbleness exprest,<br>But all a low Idolatry at best.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Pow'r, from above subordinately spread,<br>Streams like a fountain from th' eternal head;<br>There, calm and pure the living waters flow,<br>But roar a Torrent or a Flood below;<br>Each flow'r, ordain'd the Margins to adorn,<br>Each native Beauty, from its roots is torn,<br>And left on Deserts, Rocks and Sands, or tost<br>All the long travel, and in Ocean lost:<br>So fares the soul, which more that Pow'r reveres<br>Man claims from God, than what in God inheres.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Thomas+Parnell">Thomas Parnell</a><div class=q>
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<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=530201" data-title="The Third Satire Of Dr. John Donne de Thomas Parnell" data-description="Compassion checks my spleen, yet Scorn denies
The tears a passage thro' my swelling eyes;
To laugh or weep at sins, might idly show,
Unheedful passion, or unfruitful woe.
Satyr! arise, and try thy sharper ways,
If ever Satyr cur'd an old disease.
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