A Song On The Bath
By William Strode
What Angel stirrs this happy Well,
Some Muse from thence come shew’t me,
One of those naked Graces tell
That Angels are for beauty:
The Lame themselves that enter here
Come Angels out againe,
And Bodies turne to Soules all cleere,
All made for joy, noe payne.
Heate never was so sweetely mett
With moist as in this shower:
Old men are borne anew by swett
Of its restoring pow’r:
When crippl’d joynts we suppl’d see,
And second lives new come,
Who can deny this Font to be
The Bodies Christendome?
One Bath so fiery is you’l thinke
The Water is all Spirit,
Whose quick’ning streames are like the drink
Whereby we Life inheritt:
The second Poole of middle straine
Can wive Virginity,
Tempting the blood to such a vayne
One sexe is He and She.
The third where horses plunge may bring
A Pegasus to reare us,
And call for pens from Bladud’s wing
For legging those that beare us.
Why should Physitians thither fly
Where Waters med’cines be,
Physitians come to cure thereby,
And are more cur’d than we