The Consolation of Philosophy

If thou would'st see

God's laws with purest mind,

Thy sight on heaven must fixéd be,

Whose settled course the stars in peace doth bind.

The sun's bright fire

Stops not his sister's team,

Nor doth the northern bear desire

Within the ocean's wave to hide her beam.

Though she behold

The other stars there couching,

Yet she uncessantly is rolled

About high heaven, the ocean never touching.

The evening light

With certain course doth show

The coming of the shady night,

And Lucifer before the day doth go.

This mutual love

Courses eternal makes,

And from the starry spheres above

All cause of war and dangerous discord takes.

This sweet consent

In equal bands doth tie

The nature of each element,

So that the moist things yield unto the dry,

The piercing cold

With flames doth friendship keep,

The trembling fire the highest place doth hold,

And the gross earth sinks down into the deep.

The flowery year

Breathes odours in the spring

The scorching summer corn doth bear,

The autumn fruit from laden trees doth bring.

The falling rain

Doth winter's moisture give.

These rules thus nourish and maintain

All creatures which we see on earth to live.

And when they die,

These bring them to their end,

While their Creator sits on high,

Whose hand the reins of the whole world doth bend.

He as their King

Rules them with lordly might.

From Him they rise, flourish, and spring,

He as their law and judge decides their right.

Those things whose course

Most swiftly glides away

His might doth often backward force,

And suddenly their wandering motion stay.

Unless His strength

Their violence should bound,

And them which else would run at length,

Should bring within the compass of a round,

That firm decree

Which now doth all adorn

Would soon destroyed and broken be,

Things being far from their beginning borne.

This powerful love

Is common unto all,

Which for desire of good do move

Back to the springs from whence they first did fall.

No worldly thing

Can a continuance have

Unless love back again it bring

Unto the cause which first the essence gave.