8 All bodies are with other bodies fill'd, But she receives both heaven and earth together: Nor are their forms by rash encounter spill'd, For there they stand, and neither toucheth either.
9 Nor can her wide embracements filled be; For they that most and greatest things embrace, Enlarge thereby their mind's capacity, As streams enlarged, enlarge the channel's space.
10 All things received, do such proportion take, As those things have, wherein they are received: So little glasses little faces make, And narrow webs on narrow frames are weaved.
11 Then what vast body must we make the mind, Wherein 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?
12 Doubtless, this could not be, but that she turns Bodies to spirits, by sublimation strange; As fire converts to fire the things it burns: As we our meats into our nature change.
13 From their gross matter she abstracts the forms, And draws a kind of quintessence from things, Which to her proper nature she transforms, To bear them light on her celestial wings.
14 This doth she, when, from things particular, She doth abstract the universal kinds, Which bodiless and immaterial are, And can be only lodged within our minds.
15 And thus from divers accidents and acts, Which do within her observation fall, She goddesses and powers divine abstracts; As nature, fortune, and the virtues all.
16 Again; how can she several bodies know, If in herself a body's form she bear? How can a mirror sundry faces show, If from all shapes and forms it be not clear?
17 Nor could we by our eyes all colours learn, Except our eyes were of all colours void; Nor sundry tastes can any tongue discern, Which is with gross and bitter humours cloy'd.
18 Nor can a man of passions judge aright, Except his mind be from all passions free: Nor can a judge his office well acquit, If he possess'd of either party be.
19 If, lastly, this quick power a body were, Were it as swift as in the wind or fire, Whose atoms do the one down sideways bear, And the other make in pyramids aspire;
20 Her nimble body yet in time must move, And not in instants through all places slide: But she is nigh and far, beneath, above, In point of time, which thought cannot divide;