Silex scintillans, or, Sacred poems and priuate eiaculations by Henry Vaughan ...

Affliction.

PEace, peace; It is not so. Thou doest miscall Thy Physick; Pils that change Thy sick Accessions into setled health, This is the great Elixir that turns gall To wine, and sweetness; Poverty to wealth, And brings man home, when he doth range. Did not he, who ordain'd the day, Ordain night too? And in the greater world display What in the lesser he would do? All flesh is Clay, thou know'st; and but that God Doth use his rod, And by a fruitfull Change of frosts, and showres Cherish, and bind thy pow'rs, Thou wouldst to weeds, and thistles quite disperse, And be more wild than is thy verse; Sickness is wholsome, and Crosses are but curbs To check the mule, unruly man, They are heavens husbandry, the famous fan Purging the floor which Chaff disturbs. Were all the year one constant Sun-shine, wee should have no flowres, All would be drought, and leanness; not a tree would make us bowres; Beauty consists in colours; and that's best Which is not fixt, but flies, and flowes The settled Red is dull, and whites that rest Something of sickness would disclose. Vicissitude plaies all the game, nothing that stirrs, Or hath a name, But waits upon this wheel, Kingdomes too have their Physick, and for steel, Exchange their peace, and furrs.

Thus doth God Key disorder'd man (which none else can,) Tuning his brest to rise, or fall; And by a sacred, needfull art Like strings, stretch ev'ry part Making the whole most Musicall.