All things without, which round about we see, We seek to know, and have therewith to do; But that, whereby we Reason, Live, and Be, Within ourselves, we strangers are thereto.
We seek to know the moving of each sphere, And the strange cause of th' ebbs and floods of Nile; But of that Clock, which in our breasts we bear, The subtle motions we forget the while!
We that acquaint ourselves with every zone, And pass both tropics, and behold both poles; When we come home, are to ourselves unknown And unacquainted still with our own souls!
We study Speech, but others we persuade; We Leechcraft learn, but others cure with it; We interpret Laws which other men have made, But read not those which in our hearts are writ.
Is it because the Mind is like the Eye, (Through which it gathers knowledge by degrees) Whose rays reflect not but spread outwardly, Not seeing itself, when other things it sees?
No, doubtless, for the Mind can backward cast Upon herself, her understanding light; But she is so corrupt, and so defac't, As her own image doth herself affright.
As in the fable of that Lady fair, Which, for her lust, was turned into a cow; When thirsty to a stream she did repair, And saw herself transformed (she wist not how;)
At first, she startles! then, she stands amazed! At last, with terror, she from thence doth fly, And loathes the wat'ry glass wherein she gazed, And shuns it still, though she for thirst do die.
Even so, Man's Soul, which did God's Image bear, And was, at first, fair, good, and spotless pure; Since with her sins, her beauties blotted were, Doth, of all sights, her own sight least endure.
For even, at first reflection, she espies Such strange CHIMERAS and such monsters there! Such toys! such antics! and such vanities! As she retires, and shrinks for shame and fear.
And as the man loves least at home to be, That hath a sluttish house, haunted with sprites; So she, impatient her own faults to see, Turns from herself, and in strange things delights.
For this, few _know themselves_! for merchants broke, View their estate with discontent and pain; And seas are troubled, when they do revoke Their flowing waves into themselves again.
And while the face of outward things we find, Pleasing and fair, agreeable and sweet; These things transport and carry out the mind, That with herself, herself can never meet.