Chapter XIII

The belly felt at last its share,
And all the subtil labyrinths there
Of winding bowels did new Monsters bear.
Here seven dayes it rul’d and sway’d,
And oftner kill’d because it death so long delay’d.
But if through strength and heat of age,
The body overcame its rage,
The Plague departed, as the Devil doeth,
When driven by prayers away he goeth.
If Prayers and Heaven do him controul,
And if he cannot have the soul,
Himself out of the roof or window throws,
And will not all his labour lose,
But takes away with him part of the house:
So here the vanquisht evil took from them
Who conquer’d it, some part, some limb;
Some lost the use of hands, or eyes,
Some armes, some legs, some thighs,
Some all their lives before forgot,
Their mindes were but one darker blot;
Those various pictures in the head,
And all the numerous shapes were fled;
And now the ransackt memory
Languish’d in naked poverty,
Had lost its mighty treasury;
They past the _Lethe_ Lake, although they did not die.