SAINT PETERS Complaynt - by Robert Southwell 37-72/792

Sad subject of my sinne hath stoard my mind,
With everlasting matter of complaint:
My threnes and endless Alphabet do finde,
Beyond the panges which Jeremy doth paint. [40]
That eyes with errors may just measure keepe,
Most teares I wish that have most cause to weepe.

All weeping eyes resigne your teares to me:
A sea will scantly rince my ordur'de soul:
Huge horrours in high tides must drowned bee, [45]
Of every teare my crime exacteth tole.
These staines are deepe: few drops, take out no such:
Even salve with sore: and most, is not too much.

I fear'd with life, to die; by death to live:
I left my guide, now left, and leaving God. [50]
To breath in blisse, I fear'd my breath to give:
I fear'd for heavenly raigne an earthly rod.
These feares I fear'd, feares feeling no mishaps:
O fond, o faint, o false, o faulty laps.

How can I live, that thus my life deni'd? [55]
What can I hope, that lost my hope in feare?
What trust to one, that truth it selfe defi'de?
What good in him, that did his God forsweare?
O sinne of sinnes, of evils the very worst:
O matchlesse wretch: o caitiff most accurst! [60]

Vaine in my vaunts I vowd if friends had fail'd
Alone Christs hardest fortunes to abide:
Giant in talk, like dwarfe in triall quaild:
Excelling none, but in vntruth and pride.
Such distance is betweene high words and deeds: [65]
In proofe the greatest vaunter seldom speedes.

Ah rashness hastie rise to murdering leape,
Lavish in vowing, blind in seeing what:
Soone sowing shames, that long remorse must reape:
Nurcing with teares, that over-sight begat; [70]
Scout of repentance, harbinger of blame,
Treason to wisdome, mother of ill name.

Notes

[l37]: My mind has stored the sad subject of my sin.

[l38] complaint: grief, lamentation, grieving.1535   Bible (Coverdale) Rest of Esther xiii. E   Turne oure complaynte and sorow in to ioye.

[l39] threnes: threne - A song of lamentation; a dirge, threnody; formerly spec. (in plural) the Lamentations of Jeremiah (Septuagint θρῆνοι Ἰερεμίου, Vulgate Threni). and: an.

[l40] Jeremy: Jeremias lived at the close of the seventh and in the first part of the sixth century before Christ; a contemporary of Draco and Solon of Athens. Jeremiah's ministry as a prophet was active from the thirteenth year of Josiah, king of Judah (626 BC), until after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of Solomon's Temple in 587 BC. Jeremias is the prophet of mourning and of symbolical suffering.

[l41-2]: Here is one possible sense: 'I, who have most cause to weep, wish for the most tears - so that my eyes may keep a just and proportionate measure with my sins.

[l43] resigne: to relinquish, surrender, yield, give up (to a person, or into a person's hands).

[l44] scantly: Scarcely, hardly, barely. arch.1585   Abp. E. Sandys Serm. x. 153   Wee are hearers of the woord, and yet skantly that.

[l44] ordur'de: Defiled with ordure; soiled; polluted; filthy;

[l48] Even: to even - To match, to make equal, to equal.

[l54] laps: lapse

[l60] catiffe: A wretched miserable person, a poor wretch, one in a piteous case. Obsolete.

[ll61-2] Vaine in my vaunts: After the Last Supper, Peter was to insist: 

[34] Jesus said to him: Amen I say to thee, that in this night before the cock crow, thou wilt deny me thrice. [35] Peter saith to him: Yea, though I should die with thee, I will not deny thee.