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PDFAnd will not know upon what ground
In nature we our doctrine found,
Altho’ with pregnant evidence
We can demonstrate it to sense,
As I just now have done to you, 815
Foretelling what you came to know.
Were the stars only made to light
Robbers and burglarers by night?
To wait on drunkards, thieves, gold-finders,
And lovers solacing behind doors, 820
Or giving one another pledges
Of matrimony under hedges?
Or witches simpling, and on gibbets
Cutting from malefactors snippets?
Or from the pillory tips of ears 825
Of Rebel-Saints and perjurers?
Only to stand by, and look on,
But not know what is said or done?
Is there a constellation there,
That was not born and bred up here? 830
And therefore cannot be to learn
In any inferior concern.
Were they not, during all their lives,
Most of ’em pirates, whores and thieves;
And is it like they have not still 835
In their old practices some skill
Is there a planet that by birth
Does not derive its house from earth?
And therefore probably must know,
What is and hath been done below. 840
Who made the Balance, or whence came
The Bull, the Lion, and the Ram?
Did not we here the Argo rig,
Make BERENICE’s periwig?
Whose liv’ry does the Coachman wear? 845
Or who made Cassiopeia’s chair?
And therefore, as they came from hence,
With us may hold intelligence.
Plato deny’d the world can be
Govern’d without geometree, 850
(For money b’ing the common scale
Of things by measure, weight, and tale,
In all th’ affairs of Church and State,
’Tis both the balance and the weight;)
Then much less can it be without 855
Divine Astrology made out;
That puts the other down in worth,
As far as Heav’n’s above the earth.
These reasons (quoth the Knight) I grant
Are something more significant
860
Than any that the learned use
Upon this subject to produce;
And yet th’ are far from satisfactory,
T’ establish and keep up your factory.
Th’ Egyptians say, the Sun has twice
865
Shifted his setting and his rise
Twice has he risen in the west,
As many times set in the east;
But whether that be true or no,
The Dev’l any of you know.
870
And kept by circulation. up;
And, were’t not for their wheeling round,
They’d instantly fall to the ground:
As sage empedocles of old,
And from him modern authors hold.
875
Plato believ’d the Sun and Moon
