Robert Southwell

“ The scourge that whips, the salve that cures offence;
Sorrow, my bed and home, while life hath sense.
Here solitary muses nurse their griefs,
In silent loneness burying worldly noise;
Attentive to rebukes, deaf to reliefs,
Pensive to foster cares, careless of joys;
Ruing life's loss under death's dreary roofs,
Solemnizing my funeral behoofs.
A self-contempt the shroud, my soul the corse.
The bier, an humble hope, the hearse-cloth, fear;
The mourners, thoughts, in black of deep remorse. ”

“ Joy, infant saints, whom in the tender flower
A happy storm did free from fear of sin!
Long is their life that die in blissful hour;
Joyful such ends as endless joys begin:
For long they live that live till they be nought:
Life saved by sin, is purchase dearly bought!
This lot was mine; your fate was not so fierce,
Whom spotless death in cradle rock'd asleep;
Sweet roses, mix'd with lilies, strew'd your hearse,
Death virgin-white in martyrs' red did steep;
Your downy heads both pearls and rubies crown'd,
My hoary locks did female fears confound. ”

“ Torn sails will serve thoughts rent with guilty fears,
Give care the stern, use sighs instead of wind:
Remorse thy pilot, thy misdeed thy card,
Torment thy haven, shipwreck thy best reward.
Shun not the shelf of most deserved shame,
Stick in the sands of agonizing dread;
Content thee to be storms' and billows' game,
Divorced from grace, thy soul to penance wed:
Fly not from foreign ills, fly from the heart,
Worse than the worst of ills is that thou art. ”

“ Where sin was hatch'd, let tears now wash the nest,
Where life was lost, recover life with cries;
Thy trespass foul, let not thy fears be few,
Baptize thy spotted soul in weeping dew.
Fly mournful plaints, the echoes of my ruth,
When screeches in my frightened conscience ring,
Sob out my sorrows, fruits of mine untruth,
Report the smart of sin's infernal sting;
Tell hearts that languish in the sorriest plight,
There is on earth a far more sorry wight. ”

“ The death is eased that worthy hand hath wrought;
Some honour lives in honourable spoil.
But I, on whom all infamies must light.
Was hiss'd to death with words of woman's spite.
Small gnats enforced th' Egyptian King to stoop,
Yet they in swarms, and arm'd with piercing stings,
Smart, noise, annoyance, made his courage droop;-
No small incumbrance such small vermin brings:
I quail'd at words that neither bit nor stung,
And those deliver'd from a woman's tongue.
Ah fear! abortive imp of drooping mind;
Self-overthrow, false friend, root of remorse ”

“ Can virtue, wisdom, strength, by woman spill'd
In David's, Solomon's, and Samson's falls,
With semblance of excuse my error gild,
Or lend a marble gloss to muddy walls?
O no! their fault had show of some pretence,
No veil can hide the shame of my offence.
The blaze of beauty's beams allured their looks;
Their looks, by seeing oft, conceived love;
Love, by effecting, swallow'd pleasure's hooks ”

“ Prostrate in pangs, raining a bleeding shower,
Me, like myself, a drowsy friend He found.
Thrice, in His care, sleep-closed by careless eye,
Presage how Him my tongue should thrice deny.
Parting from Christ my fainting force declined,
With lingering foot I follow'd him aloof;
Base fear out of my heart his love unshrined,
Huge in high words, but impotent in proof.
My vaunts did seem hatch'd under Samson's locks,
Yet woman's words did give me murdering knocks.
So fare lukewarm desires in crazy love,
Far off, in need, with feeble foot they train ”

“ Where run it must till death the issues stop,
And penal life hath purged the final drop.
Like solest swan, that swims in silent deep,
And never sings but obsequies of death,
Sigh out thy plaints, and sole in secret weep,
In suing pardon spend thy perjured breath;
Attire thy soul in sorrow's mourning weed,
And at thine eyes let guilty conscience bleed.
'Still in the 'lembic of thy doleful breast
Those bitter fruits that from thy sins do grow;
For fuel, self-accusing thoughts be best;
Use fear as fire, the coals let penance blow ”

“ If danger, death, if wrath, or wreck of weal,
Entitle eyes true heirs to earned blame,
That due remorse in such events conceal:
That want of tears might well enrol my name,
As chiefest saint in kalendar of shame.
Love, where I loved, was due and best deserved;
No love could aim at more love-worthy mark ”

“ Than in myself whom sin and shame defaced!
All-seeing eyes, more worth than all you see,
Of which one is the other's only price;
I worthless am, direct your beams on me,
With quickening virtue cure my killing vice.
By seeing things you make things worth the sight,
You seeing, salve, and being seen, delight!
Oh! pools of Hesebon, the baths of grace.
Where happy spirits dive in sweet desires;
Where saints delight to glass their glorious face,
Whose banks make echo to the angel quires ”

“ Days pass in plaints, the night without repose;
I wake to sleep; I sleep in waking woes.
Sleep, Death's ally, oblivion of tears,
Silence of passions, blame of angry sore,
Suspense of loves, security of fears,
Wrath's lenity, heart's ease, storm's calmest shore ”

“ From heaven and saints, to hell and devils estranged,
Those sights to frights, those loves to hates are changed.
Christ, as my God, was templed in my thought,
As man. He lent mine eyes their dearest light;
But sin His temple hath to ruin brought,
And now he lighteneth terror from His sight.
Now of my late unconsecrate desires,
Profaned wretch! I taste the earned hires.
Ah! sin, the nothing that doth all things file,
Outcast from heaven, earth's curse, the cause of hell;
Parent of death, author of our exile,
The wreck of souls, the wares that fiends do sell ”

“ Vain in my vaunts, I vow'd, if friends had fail'd,
Alone Christ's hardest fortunes to abide:
Giant in talk, like dwarf in trial quail'd,
Excelling none but in untruth and pride.
Such distance is between high words and deeds!
In proof, the greatest vaunter seldom speeds.
Ah! rashness, hasty rise to murdering leap,
Lavish in vowing, blind in seeing what;
Soon sowing shames that long remorse must reap,
Nursing with tears that over-sight begat ”

“ What danger then, death, wrath, or wreck can move
More pregnant cause of tears than this I prove?
If Adam sought a veil to scarf his sin,
Taught by his fall to fear a scourging hand;
If men shall wish that hills should wrap them in,
When crimes in final doom come to be scann'd ”