The reason why?
I sought thee ill: for how could I Find thee _abroad_, when thou, mean space, Hadst made _within_ thy dwelling-place?
I sent my messengers about, To try if they could find thee out; But all was to no purpose still, Because indeed they sought thee ill: For how could they discover thee That saw not when thou entered'st me?
Mine eyes could tell me?
If he were, Not coloured, sure he came not there.
If not by sound, my ears could say He doubtless did not pass my way.
My nose could nothing of him tell, Because my God he did not smell.
None such I relished, said my taste, And therefore me he never passed.
My feeling told me that none such There entered, for he none did touch.
Resolved by them how should I be, Since none of all these are in thee, In thee, my God?
Thou hast no hue That man's frail optic sense can view; No sound the ear hears; odour none The smell attracts; all taste is gone At thy appearance; where doth fail A body, how can touch prevail?
What even the brute beasts comprehend-- To think thee such, I should offend.
Yet when I seek my God, I enquire For light than sun and moon much higher, More clear and splendrous, 'bove all light Which the eye receives not, 'tis so bright.
I seek a voice beyond degree Of all melodious harmony: The ear conceives it not; a smell Which doth all other scents excel: No flower so sweet, no myrrh, no nard, Or aloes, with it compared; Of which the brain not sensible is.
I seek a sweetness--such a bliss As hath all other sweets surpassed, And never palate yet could taste.
I seek that to contain and hold No touch can feel, no embrace enfold.
So far this light the rays extends, As that no place it comprehends.
So deep this sound, that though it speak It cannot by a sense so weak Be entertained.

A redolent grace The air blows not from place to place.
A pleasant taste, of that delight It doth confound all appetite.
A strict embrace, not felt, yet leaves That virtue, where it takes it cleaves.
This light, this sound, this savouring grace, This tasteful sweet, this strict embrace, No place contains, no eye can see, My God is, and there's none but he.
Very remarkable verses from a dramatist! They indicate substratum enough for any art if only the art be there.

Even those who cannot enter into the philosophy of them, which ranks him among the mystics of whom I have yet to speak, will understand a good deal of it symbolically: for how could he be expected to keep his poetry and his philosophy distinct when of themselves they were so ready to run into one; or in verse to define carefully betwixt degree and kind, when kinds themselves may rise by degrees?
To distinguish without separating; to be able to see that what in their effects upon us are quite different, may yet be a grand flight of ascending steps, "to stop--no record hath told where," belongs to the philosopher who is not born mutilated, but is a poet as well.
John Fletcher, likewise a dramatist, the author of the following poem, was two years younger than Ben Jonson.

It is, so far as I am aware, the sole non-dramatic voice he has left behind him.

Its opening is an indignant apostrophe to certain men of pretended science, who in his time were much consulted--the Astrologers.
UPON AN HONEST MAN'S FORTUNE.
You that can look through heaven, and tell the stars; Observe their kind conjunctions, and their wars; Find out new lights, and give them where you please-- To those men honours, pleasures, to those ease; You that are God's surveyors, and can show How far, and when, and why the wind doth blow; Know all the charges of the dreadful thunder, And when it will shoot over, or fall under; Tell me--by all your art I conjure ye-- Yes, and by truth--what shall become of me.
Find out my star, if each one, as you say, Have his peculiar angel, and his way; Observe my fate; next fall into your dreams; Sweep clean your houses, and new-line your schemes;[83] Then say your worst.