The Second Anniversary. The Harbinger to the Progress: [By Joseph Hall]

Of the Progress of the Soul

Wherein, by occasion of the religious death of Mistress Elizabeth Drury, the incommodities of the soul in this life, and her exaltation in the next, are contemplated.

TWO souls move here, and mine, a third, must move

Paces of admiration and of love.

Thy soul, dear virgin, whose this tribute is,

Moved from this mortal sphere to lively bliss;

And yet moves still, and still aspires to see

The world’s last day, thy glory’s full degree,

Like as those stars which thou o’erlookest far,

Are in their place, and yet still movèd are.

No soul—whiles with the luggage of this clay

It clogged is—can follow thee half-way;

Or see thy flight, which doth our thoughts outgo

So fast, as now the lightning moves but slow.

But now thou art as high in heaven flown

As heavens from us, what soul besides thine own

Can tell thy joys, or say he can relate

Thy glorious journals in that blessed state?

I envy thee, rich soul, I envy thee,

Although I cannot yet thy glory see.

And thou, great spirit, which hers followed hast

So fast, as none can follow thine so fast;

So far, as none can follow thine so far

—And if this flesh did not the passage bar,

Hadst caught her—let me wonder at thy flight,

Which long agone hadst lost the vulgar sight,

And now makest proud the better eyes, that they

Can see thee lessened in thine airy way.

So while thou makest her soul by progress known,

Thou makest a noble progress of thine own,

From this world’s carcase having mounted high

To that pure life of immortality;

Since thine aspiring thoughts themselves so raise

That more may not beseem a creature’s praise,

Yet still thou vow’st her more, and every year

Makest a new progress, while thou wanderest here,

Still upward mount; and let thy Maker’s praise

Honour thy Laura, and adorn thy lays.

And since thy Muse her head in heaven shrouds,

Oh, let her never stoop below the clouds;

And if those glorious sainted souls may know

Or what we do, or what we sing below,

Those acts, those songs shall still content them best

Which praise those awful Powers that make them blest.

[JOSEPH HALL]

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