Ben. Johnson's poems, elegies, paradoxes, and sonnets

The Labyrinth.

LIfe is a crooked Labyrinth, and we Are daily lost in that Obliquity. 'Tis a perplexed circle, in whose round Nothing but sorrows and new sins abound. How is the faint impression of each good Drown'd in the vicious Channel of our blood? Whose Ebbes and tides by their vicissitude Both our great Maker and our selves delude.

O wherefore is the most discerning eye Unapt to make its own discovery? Why is the clearest and best judging mind In her own ills prevention dark and blind? Dull to advise, to act precipitate, We scarce think what to do but when too late. Or if we think, that fluid thought, like seed Rots there to propagate some fouler deed. Still we repent and sin, sin and repent; We thaw and freeze, we harden and relent. Those fires which cool'd to day the morrows heat Rekindles. Thus frail nature does repeat

What she unlearnt, and still by learning on Perfects her lesson of confusion.

Sick soul! what cure shall I for thee devise, Whose leprous state corrupts all remedies? What medicine or what cordial can be got For thee, who poyson'st thy best antidot? Repentance is thy bane, since thou by it Onely reviv'st the fault thou didst commit. Nor griev'st thou for the past, but art in pain For fear thou mayst not act it o're again. So that thy tears, like water spilt on lime, Serve not to quench, but to advance the crime.

My blessed Saviour! unto thee I flie For help against this homebred tyrannie. Thou canst true sorrows in my soul imprint, And draw contrition from a breast of flint. Thou canst reverse this labyrinth of sin My wild affects and actions wander in. O guide my faith! and by thy graces clew Teach me to hunt that kingdom at the view Where true joyes reign, which like their day shall last Those never clouded, nor that overcast.