Soul 
      O who shall, from this dungeon, raise 
A soul enslaved so many ways? 
With bolts of bones, that fettered stands 
In feet; and manacled in hands.
Here blinded with an eye; and there 
Deaf with the drumming of an ear.
A soul hung up, as ’twere, in chains 
Of nerves, and arteries, and veins. 
Tortured, besides each other part, 
In a vain head, and double heart. 

                               Body 
      O who shall me deliver whole,
From bonds of this tyrannic soul? 
Which, stretched upright, impales me so, 
That mine own precipice I go; 
And warms and moves this needless frame:
(A fever could but do the same). 
And, wanting where its spite to try, 
Has made me live to let me die. 
A body that could never rest, 
Since this ill spirit it possessed. 

                               Soul 
      What magic could me thus confine 
Within another’s grief to pine? 
Where whatsoever it complain, 
I feel, that cannot feel, the pain; 
And all my care itself employs,
That to preserve which me destroys:
Constrained not only to endure 
Diseases, but, what’s worse, the cure: 
And ready oft the port to gain, 
Am shipwracked into health again. 

                               Body 
      But physic yet could never reach 
The maladies thou me dost teach; 
Whom first the cramp of Hope does tear:
And then the palsy shakes of Fear.
The pestilence of Love does heat:
Or Hatred’s hidden ulcer eat. 
Joy’s cheerful madness does perplex: 
Or Sorrow’s other madness vex. 
Which Knowledge forces me to know; 
And Memory will not forego. 
What but a soul could have the wit 
To build me up for sin so fit? 
So architects do square and hew 
Green trees that in the forest grew.