Three Books of Occult Philosophy/An Encomium

by Henry Cornelius Agrippa

An Encomium on the three Books of Cornelius Agrippa
Knight, By Eugenius Philalethes.

Great, glorious Pen-man! whom I should not name,
Lest I might Seem to measure Thee by Fame.
Natures Apostle, and her Choice High Priest,
Her Mysticall, and bright Evangelist.
How am I rapt when I contemplate Thee,
And winde my self above All that I see!
The Spirits of thy Lines infuse a Fire
Like the Worlds Soul, which makes me thus aspire:
I am unbody’d by thy Books, and Thee,
And in thy Papers finde my Extasie.
Or if I please but to descend a strain,
Thy Elements do skreen my Soul again.
I can undress my Self by thy bright Glass,
And then resume th’ Inclosure, as I was.
Now I am Earth, and now a Star, and then
A Spirit: now Star, and Earth agen;
Or if I will but ramaste all that be,
In the least moment I ingross all Three.
I span the Heaven and Earth, and things above,
And which is more, joyn Natures with their Jove.
He Crowns my Soul with Fire, and there doth shine
But like the Rain-bow in a Cloud of mine.
Yet there’s a Law by which I discompose
The Ashes, and the Fire it self disclose,
But in his Emrald still He doth appear;
They are but Grave-clothes which he scatters here.
Who sees this Fire without his Mask, His Eye
Must needs be swallow’d by the Light, and die.
  These are the Mysteries for which I wept
Glorious Agrippa, where thy Language slept,
Where thy dark Texture made me wander far,
Whiles through that pathless Night, I trac’d the star,
But I have found those Mysteries, for which
Thy Book was more then thrice-pil’d o’re with Pitch.
Now a new East beyond the stars I see
Where breaks the Day of thy Divinitie:
Heav’n states a Commerce here with Man, had He
But gratefull Hands to take, and Eyes to see.
  Hence you fond School-men, that high truths deride,
And with no Arguments but Noyse, and Pride;
You that damn all but what your selves invent,
And yet find nothing by Experiment;
Your Fate is written by an unseen Hand,
But his Three Books with the Three worlds shall stand.