Or an arrow shot by Love,

Or a bird of his let fly,

Be’t a  sparrow or a dove,

With that wingèd haste come I,

Loosèd from the sphere of Jove, 10

To wish goodnight

To your delight.

What overchargèd piece of melancholy

Is this, breaks in between my wishes thus

With  bombing sighs?

Not yet? And all my vows now nine days old!

Blindness of fate! Puppies  had seen by this time,

But I see nothing that I should or would see!

What mean the  brethren of the Rosy Cross

So to desert their votary?

Hath vowed himself unto that airy order,

And now is gaping for the  fly they promised him.

I’ll mix a little with him for my sport.

My clothes, and every other solemn charge,30

 Observed ’em? Made the naked boards my bed,

A  faggot for my pillow,  hungered sore –

Yea, and outwalked any ghost alive35

In  solitary circle, worn my boots,

Knees, arms, and elbows out!

Than I will speak of, to  abate this flesh,

And have not gained the sight –

Wind in my stomach –

Whether there be that brotherhood or no.

Be Master   Merefool.

But by contraction  Merefool.

The wight I seek; and, sir, my name is Johphiel,

Intelligence to the sphere of Jupiter,50

An airy jocular spirit,  employed to you

From Father  Outis.

The good old hermit that was said to dwell

Here in the  forest without trees, that built55

The  castle in the air where all the brethren

 Rhodostaurotic live. It flies with wings

And runs on wheels, where  Julian de Campis

Holds out the brandished blade.

They think on me?

But hear me and be faithful.

  [Merefool rises.]

All the brethren

Have heard your vows, salute you, and expect you,

By me,  this next return. But the good  father

Has been content to die for you.

Because it was his birthday and began

The  year of jubilee, he would rest upon it,

Being his hundred five and  twentieth year;

But the truth is, having observed your genesis,

 He would not live, because he might leave all70

He had to you.

Two, three, or four.

And that you’ll  find: the farm of the  great customs,

Through all the ports of the air’s intelligences;

Then constable of the Castle Rosy-Cross,75

Which you must be, and keeper of the keys

Of the whole  cabal, with the  seals; you shall be

Principal secretary to the stars,

Know all their  signatures and  combinations,

The  divine rods and consecrated   roots,80

What not? Would you turn trees up like the wind

To show your strength? March over heads of armies,

Or points of pikes, to show your  lightness? Force

All doors of arts with the   petard of your wit?

Read at one view all books? Speak all the languages85

Of  several creatures? Master all the learnings

 Were, are, or shall be? Or, to show your wealth,

Open all treasures hid by nature, from

The rock of diamond to the mine of  sea-coal?

Sir, you shall do it.

Of which he has left you the inheritance

Here in a pot: this little  gallipot

Of  tincture, high rose tincture. There’s your  order;

  (He gives him a rose.)

You will ha’ your collar sent you ere’t be long.95

Keeps the arm back, as ’tis i’the  proverb.

For that I do commend  you: you must be poor

With all your wealth and learning.   When you ha’ made100

Your  glasses, gardens in the depth of winter,

Where you will walk invisible to mankind,

Talked with all birds and beasts in their own language;

When you have penetrated hills like air,

Dived to the bottom of the sea like lead,105

And ris’ again like cork, walked in the fire

 As ’twere a  salamander, passed through all

The winding  orbs, like an intelligence,

Up to the  Empyreum; when you have made

The world your gallery, can dispatch a business110

In some three minutes with the  Antipodes,

And in five more negotiate the globe over,

You must be poor still.

Without the  fortunate purse to bear your charges,115

Or  wishing hat? I will but touch your temples,

The corners of your eyes, and tinct the tip,

The very tip o’your nose with this  collyrium,

  [Showing a jar of salve]

And you shall see i’the air all the  ideas,120

Spirits and  atoms,  flies that buzz about

This way and that way, and are rather  admirable

Than any way intelligible.

Tinct me! I long,  save this great belly, I long.

But shall I only see?

 As  they were all your  valets or your foot-boys.

But first you must declare – Your Greatness must,

For that is now your  style – what you would see,

Or whom.

Would see King  Zoroastres.

Or anyone beside. Think whom you  please,

Your thousand, your ten thousand, to a million;

All’s one to me if you could name a myriad.

Because he’s said to be the father of conjurers,135

And a cunning man i’the stars.

A little for the present; for at this time

He is  confuting a French almanac,

But he will straight have done. Ha’ you but patience,

Or think but any other in meantime,140

Any hard name.

A fine  hard name.  Or him, or whom you will,

As I said to you afore. Or what do you think

Of  Howleglass instead of him?

I have a mind to.

Were such a name! But you shall have your longing.

What luck is this,  he should be busy too!

He is weighing water but to fill three hourglasses,

And mark the day in  penn’orths  like a cheese,150

And he has done. ’Tis strange you should name him

Of all the rest, there being  Iamblichus,

Or  Porphyry, or  Proclus, any name

That is not busy!

Are now  bespoken at a  groat a dozen,

Three gross at least; and for Pythagoras,

 He’s rashly run himself on an employment

Of keeping asses from a field of  beans,

And cannot be staved off.

Hold your first man, a good man, Archimedes,

And worthy to be seen; but he is now

Inventing a rare mousetrap  with owls’ wings

And a cat’s foot, to catch the mice alone;165

And Aesop, he is  filing a fox tongue

For a new fable he has made of court.

But you shall see ’em all, stay but your time

And ask in season;  things asked out of season

A man denies himself. At such a time170

As Christmas, when  disguising is  afoot,

To ask of the inventions and the men,

The wits and the   engineers that move those orbs!

Methinks you should inquire now after  Skelton,

Or Master  Scogan.

Of Henry the Fourth’s times, that made  disguises

For the king’s sons, and writ in  ballad royal

Daintily well.

With now and then some sense! And he was  paid  for’t,

Regarded and rewarded, which few poets

Are nowadays.

In rhyme is thought  the same. But you shall see him.

Hold up your nose.  [Anoints him.]

Or a  gymnosophist yet.

 Is worth them both. And with him  Domine Skelton,

The worshipful  poet laureate to King  Harry,

And  Tityre tu of those times. [Calling] Advance,  quick Scogan,

And quicker Skelton, show your  crafty heads190

Before this heir of arts, this lord of learning,

This master of all knowledge  in reversion!

If the words that are spoken as well now be meant.195

Give me thy hand.  Thou’rt very lean, methinks.

 Is’t living by thy wits?

My worshipful son, thou hadst ne’er been so fat.

My pair of crafty clerks, of that high  caract,

As hardly hath the age produced his like;

Who, not content with the wit of his own times,205

Is curious to know yours, and what hath been –

Ut scholis dicimus –

Et gentilissimus!

Is, should he ask a sight now  for his life,

I mean a person he would have restored

To memory of these times, for a playfellow,

Whether you would present him with an  Hermes

Or with an Howleglass?215

 To come to pass

On his father’s ass;

There never was

By day nor night220

A finer sight,

With feathers upright

In his  hornèd cap,

And crooked shape,

Much like an ape,225

With owl on fist,

And  glass at his wrist.

Of the kings and the queens that triumph in the cards.

To see ’em come skipping in, all at a  mess!

To make up the  mumming,

That comely Jill

That dwelt on a hill,235

But she is not  grill,

Her face all  bowsy,

Droopy and drowsy,

Scurvy and lousy,

 Comely crinkled,240

  Wondersly wrinkled,

Like a roast pig’s ear

Bristled with hair.

But then we can mix him with  modern Vapours,

The child of tobacco, his pipes and his  papers.

See  Ellen of Troy.

But  credit me,

That  Mary Ambree –

Who marched so free

To the siege of Gaunt,

And death could not daunt,255

As the ballad doth vaunt –

Were a  braver wight

And a better sight.

With her long leg,260

 As long as a crane,

And feet like a  plane;

With a pair of heels

As broad as two wheels,

To drive down the dew265

As she goes to the  stew,

And turns home merry

By  Lambeth ferry.

Or you may have come

In,  Thomas Thumb,270

In a pudding fat

With  Doctor Rat.

We’ll have ’em all,

To fill the hall.275

Or moral Scogan? I do like their show,

And would have thanked ’em, being the first grace

The company of the Rosy Cross hath done me.

The company of  players. Go, you are285

And will be still yourself, a  Merefool. In,

And take your pot of  honey here, and hog’s grease;

See who has gulled you, and  make one.  [Exit Merefool.]

[To James] Great king,

Your pardon, if desire to please have trespassed.

This fool should have been sent to   Anticyra,290

The isle of  hellebore, there to have purged,

 Not hoped a happy seat within your  waters.

Hear now the message of the Fates and Jove,

On whom those Fates depend, to you as Neptune,

The great commander of the seas and isles.295

That  point of revolution being come

When all the  Fortunate Islands should be joined,

 Macaria, one, and  thought a principal,

That hitherto hath floated, as uncertain

Where she  would fix her blessings, is tonight300

Instructed to adhere to your Britannia;

That where the happy spirits live, hereafter

Might be no question made by the most curious,

Since the Macarii come to do you homage

And join their cradle to your continent.305

And  of the ports that   keep’st the keys,

And to your Neptune tell,

Macaria, prince of all the isles,

Wherein there nothing grows but smiles,

Doth here put in to dwell.315

The winds are sweet and gently blow;

 But  Zephyrus, no breath they know,

The father of the flowers;

By him the virgin violets live,

And every plant doth odours give,320

 As new as are the hours.

That to it so much wonder draws,

And all the heavens consent

With Harmony to tune their notes,325

In answer to the public  votes

That for it up were sent.

And all the glories of his greater  style

Are read, reflected in this happiest isle.

To speak it blessèd!

Where joys are born,

Blows here but what leaves flowers or fruit behind.

And every tree doth  give his gums.

To man, nor any grief that he dares  own.

There is no hunger there, nor envy of state,

Nor least ambition in the magistrate;345

But all are even-hearted, open, free,

And what one is, another strives to be.

Now dance the graces’  hay, now Venus’ ring,

To which the old musicians play and sing.350

From flat to sharp.

 He still is one!

That  Linus and old Orpheus doth outdo

To wonder.

In such a choir; although the trees be thick,

And that the times be true.

Up with their notes they raise the  prince of men,360

Of joining the bright  lily and the rose.

Do move their heads unto that  undersong.

 Our primrose in, the glory of the spring!

And tell the daffodil,  against that day,

That we prepare new garlands fresh as May,

And interweave the  myrtle and the  bay.

And all  the Loves of time;

Bring all the pleasures of the stage,

And relishes of rhyme;375

Add all the softnesses of courts,

The looks, the laughters, and the   sports,

And mingle all their sweets and  salts,

That none may say the triumph halts.

Hail, reverend structure! Boast no more to us

Thy being able all the gods to feast;385

We saw enough, when  Albion was thy guest.

Where  Proteus’ herds and Neptune’s  orcs do  keep;390

Where all is ploughed, yet still the pasture’s  green;

New ways are found, and yet no paths are seen.

The joys for which you so provide.395

What do you here? Go home again.

By what we see, so curious  parts

Of  Pallas’ and Arachne’s arts,400

 That you could mean no less.

Or glory in the  shellfish spoils,

Or strive to show the grains of ore

That you have gathered  on the shore,405

Whereof to make a stock

To graft the  greener emerald on,

Or any  better-watered stone,

 Of which was formèd  Neptune’s niece,

The queen of love, unless you can,

Like sea-born Venus, love  a man?

  Ambrosian hands, and silver feet,

Do promise you will do’t.

With something new, a part of Neptune’s strength.

See yond his fleet, ready to go or come,

Or fetch the riches of the Ocean home,

So to secure him, both in  peace and wars,

Till not one ship alone but all be stars.425

Of such a night, and for the causes past,

Yet now, great lord of waters and of isles,

Give Proteus leave to turn unto his  wiles.430

Dispatch Portunus to thy ports,

To meet old  Nereus, with his fifty girls,

From agèd  Indus laden home with pearls

And orient gums to burn unto thy name.435

Whilst thou dost keep the earth in firm estate,

And ’mongst the winds dost suffer no debate,

But both at sea and land our powers increase,

With health and all the golden gifts of peace.440