Divine glimpses of a maiden muse being various meditations and epigrams on several subjects : with a probable cure of our present epidemical malady if the means be not too long neglected / by Chr. Clobery ...

Hell.

HOrrid'st of Creatures! who wast solely made To please Eternal Justice: thy black shade Abounds with Contradictions: freezing fires, With torrid chilness; Infinite desires, Void of the least attainments: Howling theams Compos'd all of Exordiums: fiery beams Flashing, yet light-less. This school's Alphabet Abjures Omega: they who there are met To roar out Palinodes, and Elegies, Are still beginning: Cain (if there he lies) Is no whit farther in his lesson come, Then he that last went hence to that sad home: Nay, Lucifer, grand-paedagogue of all, Hath not learn'd A. B. C. since his first fall: Though our, and his great Master taught him better, The Dullard is not yet past the first letter: His lesson's now as far from learning out, As 'twas when first he troopt the Angel-rout Into Rebellion: and the Lesson's dire; 'Tis wo and lamentations, in a fire Tormenting, not consuming: burning still: Still killing, yet doth never fully kill: Eternal labour, with eternal loss; Uncessant cares, and yet uncessant cross: A death-less death, a life-less life remains, Which multiplies the terrour of the pains; Measureless, endless, hapless, hopeless fate! Whoe'er comes here, findes it too soon, too late: Too soon to sense the pain: but to prevent That sense too late, since too late to repent. Ah, careless, cureless, heedless, headless man! Leap not into the fire, out of the pan: Whilst here Afflictions Cauldron thou dost shun, Thou darest Hell, and so art quite undone: Temporal crosses may be better born Then those eternal: do not counsel scorn

That's good, and given gratis: strike thy sails; Stoop thy top-gallant, Will: it nought avails, Poor Sculler, these to mount in a Bravado, When he's in viron'd with a strong Armado: If thou stand out, thou'rt sunk and lost for ever: Submit, submit: to change thy will endeavour: Look ere thou leap, thy foot is at pits brink: Move but a hairs-breadth forward, thou must sink, And sink eternally: see here the Chasm, Against whose wounds there is no Cataplasm: Who falls here, wounded is beyond all cure; And must beyond all time, his pains endure: This Dungeon, hath nor joy, nor rest, nor ease, Nor comforts, nor a hope of ought like these: But desperation of them, and assurance Of perpetuity of pain's endurance. View! view, (bewitched man) this place of wo; Jehovah's Magazine of Terrour: Lo, This Den from beatifick Vision is Excentrick: quite exterminate from bliss: Its Ghests all captive mourners, who delight Each other to torment, and to affright: Mutual Assassinates, and merciless: Unsatiate in fiercest cruelness: VVhose hideous howlings, raving, roaring cries, Gnashing of teeth, loud shreeks, would rend the skies: Shake all the earth to shivers: melt proud man Into a floud of tears: make beauty wan, Strength feeble, and his specious frame dissolve To nothing, once to hear them. Oh! revolve This frequently in heart, lest Hells dark flame (The thought whereof should wildest Mortals tame) Prove the first light that gives thee sight of sin, And sense of second death: when once thou'rt in, There's no Redemption: Poenitence too late, VVill but increase thy torment, not abate.

Here shalt thou see Nimrod's stern progeny Tyranniz'd o'er, as they lov'd tyranny; Gygantick Cyclops may tormented be By Pygmey feinds, t'augment their misery. The pompous Dives there shall not command One drop of water from a Lazar's hand, Nor it obtain, yet begging heartily, To cool his parched tongue, although it fry. Abaddon, and Apoll'on here do raign, Great Lords of mis-rule o'er the damned train, 'Mongst whom confusion is the perfect'st order, And greatest mercy worse then horrid'st murder: Where Lucifer and Beelzebub now ly, Inflicting pains, and pain'd eternally: These lapsed Angels, knowing their own fate Irrevocable, are incens'd with hate Against both God and man: but wanting power God to infest, they seek man to devour: Whom living, they by flatt'ry strive to win, But dead, torment most justly for his sin. Their first plot is, Gods image to deface Once stampt on us, now re-ingrav'd by grace, Since our base forfeitute of that great favour In Paradise, by breach of good behaviour: Whilst sweet redemption crusht that curst design, They now do re-inforce to undermine Us by our neerest friends, the world and flesh, Yea, self on self fiercely assaults afresh; And did not an Almighty pow'r defend us, These our three friends to those our soes would send us▪ Blessed Redeemer! with thy banner shield us▪ Oh let thy Spirit still assistance yeild us Against those subtile falshoods, fly devices VVhereby Hell's regent our poor souls intices; Confound his plots, and by thy grace relieve us, And from this dismal dungeon Lord reprieve us.