Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. I. Early Poetry: Chaucer to Donne
Sir John Davies (15701626)Extracts from Nosce Teipsum: The Soul Compared to a River
A
Sucks from the sea, to fill her empty veins,
From out her womb at last doth take a birth,
And runs a nymph along the grassy plains:
From whose soft side she first did issue make;
She tastes all places, turns to every hand,
Her flowr’y banks unwilling to forsake:
As that her course doth make no final stay,
Till she herself unto the ocean marry,
Within whose wat’ry bosom first she lay:
The Spirit of God doth secretly infuse;
Because at first she doth the earth behold,
And only this material world she views:
And doth embrace the world and worldly things:
She flies close by the ground, and hovers here,
And mounts not up with her celestial wings.
That with her heavenly nature doth agree;
She cannot rest, she cannot fix her thought,
She cannot in this world contented be:
Or pleasure of the sense, contentment find?
Who ever ceas’d to wish, when he had health?
Or having wisdom was not vext in mind?
Which seem sweet flowers, with lustre fresh and gay;
She lights on that, and this, and tasteth all,
But pleas’d with none, doth rise, and soar away;
And, like Noah’s dove, can no sure footing take;
She doth return from whence she first was sent,
And flies to Him that first her wings did make.