And hearts, whose pulse beats still for light,
Are given to birds; who, but thee, knows
A love-sick soul's exalted flight?
Can souls be tracked by any eye
But his, who gave them wings to fly?
7 Only this veil which thou hast broke,
And must be broken yet in me,
This veil, I say, is all the cloak
And cloud which shadows me from thee.
This veil thy full-eyed love denies,
And only gleams and fractions spies.
8 Oh, take it off! make no delay;
But brush me with thy light, that I
May shine unto a perfect day,
And warm me at thy glorious eye!
Oh, take it off! or till it flee,
Though with no lily, stay with me!
THE PALM-TREE.
1 Dear friend, sit down, and bear awhile this shade,
As I have yours long since. This plant you see
So pressed and bowed, before sin did degrade
Both you and it, had equal liberty
2 With other trees; but now, shut from the breath
And air of Eden, like a malcontent
It thrives nowhere. This makes these weights, like death
And sin, hang at him; for the more he's bent
3 The more he grows. Celestial natures still
Aspire for home. This Solomon of old,
By flowers, and carvings, and mysterious skill
Of wings, and cherubims, and palms, foretold.
4 This is the life which, hid above with Christ
In God, doth always (hidden) multiply,
And spring, and grow, a tree ne'er to be priced,
A tree whose fruit is immortality.
5 Here spirits that have run their race, and fought,
And won the fight, and have not feared the frowns
Nor loved the smiles of greatness, but have wrought
Their Master's will, meet to receive their crowns.
6 Here is the patience of the saints: this tree
Is watered by their tears, as flowers are fed
With dew by night; but One you cannot see
Sits here, and numbers all the tears they shed.
7 Here is their faith too, which if you will keep
When we two part, I will a journey make
To pluck a garland hence while you do sleep,
And weave it for your head against you wake.
THE GARLAND.
1 Thou, who dost flow and flourish here below,
To whom a falling star and nine days' glory,
Or some frail beauty, makes the bravest show,
Hark, and make use of this ensuing story.
When first my youthful, sinful age
Grew master of my ways,
Appointing error for my page,
And darkness for my days;
I flung away, and with full cry
Of wild affections, rid
In post for pleasures, bent to try
All gamesters that would bid.
I played with fire, did counsel spurn,
Made life my common stake;
But never thought that fire would burn,
Or that a soul could ache.
Glorious deceptions, gilded mists,
False joys, fantastic flights,
Pieces of sackcloth with silk lists,
These were my prime delights.
I sought choice bowers, haunted the spring,
Culled flowers and made me posies;
Gave my fond humours their full wing,
And crowned my head with roses.
But at the height of this career
I met with a dead man,
Who, noting well my vain abear,
Thus unto me began:
'Desist, fond fool, be not undone;
What thou hast cut to-day
Will fade at night, and with this sun
Quite vanish and decay.'
2 Flowers gathered in this world, die here; if thou
Wouldst have a wreath that fades not, let them grow,
And grow for thee. Who spares them here, shall find
A garland, where comes neither rain nor wind.
LOVE-SICK.
Jesus, my life! how shall I truly love thee!
Oh that thy Spirit would so strongly move me,
That thou wert pleased to shed thy grace so far
As to make man all pure love, flesh a star!
A star that would ne'er set, but ever rise,
So rise and run, as to outrun these skies,
These narrow skies (narrow to me) that bar,
So bar me in, that I am still at war,
At constant war with them. Oh, come, and rend
Or bow the heavens! Lord, bow them and descend,
And at thy presence make these mountains flow,
These mountains of cold ice in me! Thou art
Refining fire; oh, then, refine my heart,
My foul, foul heart! Thou art immortal heat;
Heat motion gives; then warm it, till it beat;
So beat for thee, till thou in mercy hear;
So hear, that thou must open; open to
A sinful wretch, a wretch that caused thy woe;
Thy woe, who caused his weal; so far his weal
That thou forgott'st thine own, for thou didst seal
Mine with thy blood, thy blood which makes thee mine,
Mine ever, ever; and me ever thine.
PSALM CIV.
1 Up, O my soul, and bless the Lord! O God,
My God, how great, how very great art thou!
Honour and majesty have their abode
With thee, and crown thy brow.
2 Thou cloth'st thyself with light as with a robe,
And the high, glorious heavens thy mighty hand
Doth spread like curtains round about this globe
Of air, and sea, and land.
3 The beams of thy bright chambers thou dost lay
In the deep waters, which no eye can find;
The clouds thy chariots are, and thy pathway
The wings of the swift wind.
4 In thy celestial, gladsome messages
Despatched to holy souls, sick with desire
And love of thee, each willing angel is
Thy minister in fire.
5 Thy arm unmoveable for ever laid
And founded the firm earth; then with the deep
As with a vail thou hidd'st it; thy floods played
Above the mountains steep.
6 At thy rebuke they fled, at the known voice
Of their Lord's thunder they retired apace:
Some up the mountains passed by secret ways,
Some downwards to their place.
7 For thou to them a bound hast set, a bound
Which, though but sand, keeps in and curbs whole seas:
There all their fury, foam, and hideous sound,
Must languish and decrease.
8 And as thy care bounds these, so thy rich love
Doth broach the earth; and lesser brooks lets forth,
Which run from hills to valleys, and improve
Their pleasure and their worth.
9 These to the beasts of every field give drink;
There the wild asses swallow the cool spring:
And birds amongst the branches on their brink
Their dwellings have, and sing.
10 Thou from thy upper springs above, from those
Chambers of rain, where heaven's large bottles lie,
Dost water the parched hills, whose breaches close,
Healed by the showers from high.
11 Grass for the cattle, and herbs for man's use
Thou mak'st to grow; these, blessed by thee, the earth
Brings forth, with wine, oil, bread; all which infuse
To man's heart strength and mirth.
12 Thou giv'st the trees their greenness, even to those
Cedars in Lebanon, in whose thick boughs
The birds their nests build; though the stork doth choose
The fir-trees for her house.
13 To the wild goats the high hills serve for folds,
The rocks give conies a retiring place:
Above them the cool moon her known course holds,
And the sun runs his race.
14 Thou makest darkness, and then comes the night,
In whose thick shades and silence each wild beast
Creeps forth, and, pinched for food, with scent and sight
Hunts in an eager quest.
15 The lion's whelps, impatient of delay,
Roar in the covert of the woods, and seek
Their meat from thee, who dost appoint the prey,
And feed'st them all the week.
16 This past, the sun shines on the earth; and they
Retire into their dens; man goes abroad
Unto his work, and at the close of day
Returns home with his load.
17 O Lord my God, how many and how rare
Are thy great works! In wisdom hast thou made
Them all; and this the earth, and every blade
Of grass we tread declare.
18 So doth the deep and wide sea, wherein are
Innumerable creeping things, both small
And great; there ships go, and the shipmen's fear,
The comely, spacious whale.
19 These all upon thee wait, that thou mayst feed
Them in due season: what thou giv'st they take;
Thy bounteous open hand helps them at need,
And plenteous meals they make.
20 When thou dost hide thy face, (thy face which keeps
All things in being,) they consume and mourn:
When thou withdraw'st their breath their vigour sleeps,
And they to dust return.
21 Thou send'st thy Spirit forth, and they revive,
The frozen earth's dead face thou dost renew.
Thus thou thy glory through the world dost drive,
And to thy works art true.
22 Thine eyes behold the earth, and the whole stage
Is moved and trembles, the hills melt and smoke
With thy least touch; lightnings and winds that rage
At thy rebuke are broke.
23 Therefore as long as thou wilt give me breath
I will in songs to thy great name employ
That gift of thine, and to my day of death
Thou shalt be all my joy.
24 I'll spice my thoughts with thee, and from thy word
Gather true comforts; but the wicked liver
Shall be consumed. O my soul, bless thy Lord!
Yea, bless thou him for ever!
THE TIMBER.
1 Sure thou didst flourish once! and many springs,
Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers
Passed o'er thy head; many light hearts and wings,
Which now are dead, lodged in thy living bowers.
2 And still a new succession sings and flies;
Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot
Towards the old and still-enduring skies,
While the low violet thrives at their root.
3 But thou, beneath the sad and heavy line
Of death, doth waste all senseless, cold, and dark;
Where not so much as dreams of light may shine,
Nor any thought of greenness, leaf, or bark.
4 And yet, as if some deep hate and dissent,
Bred in thy growth betwixt high winds and thee,
Were still alive, thou dost great storms resent,
Before they come, and know'st how near they be.
5 Else all at rest thou liest, and the fierce breath
Of tempests can no more disturb thy ease;
But this thy strange resentment after death
Means only those who broke in life thy peace.
6 So murdered man, when lovely life is done,
And his blood freezed, keeps in the centre still
Some secret sense, which makes the dead blood run
At his approach that did the body kill.
7 And is there any murderer worse than sin?
Or any storms more foul than a lewd life?
Or what resentient can work more within
Than true remorse, when with past sins at strife?
8 He that hath left life's vain joys and vain care,
And truly hates to be detained on earth,
Hath got an house where many mansions are,
And keeps his soul unto eternal mirth.
9 But though thus dead unto the world, and ceased
From sin, he walks a narrow, private way;
Yet grief and old wounds make him sore displeased,
And all his life a rainy, weeping day.
10 For though he should forsake the world, and live
As mere a stranger as men long since dead;
Yet joy itself will make a right soul grieve
To think he should be so long vainly led.
11 But as shades set off light, so tears and grief,
Though of themselves but a sad blubbered story,
By showing the sin great, show the relief
Far greater, and so speak my Saviour's glory.
12 If my way lies through deserts and wild woods,
Where all the land with scorching heat is cursed;
Better the pools should flow with rain and floods
To fill my bottle, than I die with thirst.
13 Blest showers they are, and streams sent from above;
Begetting virgins where they use to flow;
The trees of life no other waters love,
Than upper springs, and none else make them grow.
14 But these chaste fountains flow not till we die.
Some drops may fall before; but a clear spring
And ever running, till we leave to fling
Dirt in her way, will keep above the sky.
'He that is dead is freed from sin.'--ROM. vi. 7.
THE JEWS.
1 When the fair year
Of your Deliverer comes,
And that long frost which now benumbs
Your hearts shall thaw; when angels here
Shall yet to man appear,
And familiarly confer
Beneath the oak and juniper;
When the bright Dove,
Which now these many, many springs
Hath kept above,
Shall with spread wings
Descend, and living waters flow
To make dry dust, and dead trees grow;
2 Oh, then, that I
Might live, and see the olive bear
Her proper branches! which now lie
Scattered each where;
And, without root and sap, decay;
Cast by the husbandman away.
And sure it is not far!
For as your fast and foul decays,
Forerunning the bright morning star,
Did sadly note his healing rays
Would shine elsewhere, since you were blind,
And would be cross, when God was kind,--
3 So by all signs
Our fulness too is now come in;
And the same sun, which here declines
And sets, will few hours hence begin
To rise on you again, and look
Towards old Mamre and Eshcol's brook.
For surely he
Who loved the world so as to give
His only Son to make it free,
Whose Spirit too doth mourn and grieve
To see man lost, will for old love
From your dark hearts this veil remove.
4 Faith sojourned first on earth in you,
You were the dear and chosen stock:
The arm of God, glorious and true,
Was first revealed to be your rock.
5 You were the eldest child, and when
Your stony hearts despised love,
The youngest, even the Gentiles, then,
Were cheered your jealousy to move.
6 Thus, righteous Father! dost thou deal
With brutish men; thy gifts go round
By turns, and timely, and so heal
The lost son by the newly found.
PALM-SUNDAY.
1 Come, drop your branches, strew the way,
Plants of the day!
Whom sufferings make most green and gay.
The King of grief, the Man of sorrow,
Weeping still like the wet morrow,
Your shades and freshness comes to borrow.
2 Put on, put on your best array;
Let the joyed road make holyday,
And flowers, that into fields do stray,
Or secret groves, keep the highway.
3 Trees, flowers, and herbs; birds, beasts, and stones,
That since man fell expect with groans
To see the Lamb, come all at once,
Lift up your heads and leave your moans;
For here comes he
Whose death will be
Man's life, and your full liberty.
4 Hark! how the children shrill and high
'Hosanna' cry;
Their joys provoke the distant sky,
Where thrones and seraphim reply;
And their own angels shine and sing,
In a bright ring:
Such young, sweet mirth
Makes heaven and earth
Join in a joyful symphony.
5 The harmless, young, and happy ass,
(Seen long before[1] this came to pass,)
Is in these joys a high partaker,
Ordained and made to bear his Maker.
6 Dear Feast of Palms, of flowers and dew!
Whose fruitful dawn sheds hopes and lights;
Thy bright solemnities did shew
The third glad day through two sad nights.
7 I'll get me up before the sun,
I'll cut me boughs off many a tree,
And all alone full early run
To gather flowers to welcome thee.
8 Then, like the palm, though wronged I'll bear,
I will be still a child, still meek
As the poor ass which the proud jeer,
And only my dear Jesus seek.
9 If I lose all, and must endure
The proverbed griefs of holy Job,
I care not, so I may secure
But one green branch and a white robe.
[1] Zechariah ix. 9.
PROVIDENCE.
1 Sacred and secret hand!
By whose assisting, swift command
The angel showed that holy well
Which freed poor Hagar from her fears,
And turned to smiles the begging tears
Of young, distressed Ishmael.
2 How, in a mystic cloud,
Which doth thy strange, sure mercies shroud,
Dost thou convey man food and money,
Unseen by him till they arrive
Just at his mouth, that thankless hive,
Which kills thy bees, and eats thy honey!
3 If I thy servant be,
Whose service makes even captives free,
A fish shall all my tribute pay,
The swift-winged raven shall bring me meat,
And I, like flowers, shall still go neat,
As if I knew no month but May.
4 I will not fear what man
With all his plots and power can.
Bags that wax old may plundered be;
But none can sequester or let
A state that with the sun doth set,
And comes next morning fresh as he.
5 Poor birds this doctrine sing,
And herbs which on dry hills do spring,
Or in the howling wilderness
Do know thy dewy morning hours,
And watch all night for mists or showers,
Then drink and praise thy bounteousness.
6 May he for ever die
Who trusts not thee, but wretchedly
Hunts gold and wealth, and will not lend
Thy service nor his soul one day!
May his crown, like his hopes, be clay;
And what he saves may his foes spend!
7 If all my portion here,
The measure given by thee each year,
Were by my causeless enemies
Usurped; it never should me grieve,
Who know how well thou canst relieve,
Whose hands are open as thine eyes.
8 Great King of love and truth!
Who wouldst not hate my froward youth,
And wilt not leave me when grown old,
Gladly will I, like Pontic sheep,
Unto my wormwood diet keep,
Since thou hast made thy arm my fold.
ST MARY MAGDALENE.
Dear, beauteous saint! more white than day,
When in his naked, pure array;
Fresher than morning-flowers, which shew,
As thou in tears dost, best in dew.
How art thou changed, how lively, fair,
Pleasing, and innocent an air,
Not tutored by thy glass, but free,
Native, and pure, shines now in thee!
But since thy beauty doth still keep
Bloomy and fresh, why dost thou weep?
This dusky state of sighs and tears
Durst not look on those smiling years,
When Magdal-castle was thy seat,
Where all was sumptuous, rare, and neat.
Why lies this hair despised now
Which once thy care and art did show?
Who then did dress the much-loved toy
In spires, globes, angry curls and coy,
Which with skilled negligence seemed shed
About thy curious, wild, young head?
Why is this rich, this pistic nard
Spilt, and the box quite broke and marred?
What pretty sullenness did haste
Thy easy hands to do this waste?
Why art thou humbled thus, and low
As earth thy lovely head dost bow?
Dear soul! thou knew'st flowers here on earth
At their Lord's footstool have their birth;
Therefore thy withered self in haste
Beneath his blest feet thou didst cast,
That at the root of this green tree
Thy great decays restored might be.
Thy curious vanities, and rare
Odorous ointments kept with care,
And dearly bought, when thou didst see
They could not cure nor comfort thee;
Like a wise, early penitent,
Thou sadly didst to him present,
Whose interceding, meek, and calm
Blood, is the world's all-healing balm.
This, this divine restorative
Called forth thy tears, which ran in live
And hasty drops, as if they had
(Their Lord so near) sense to be glad.
Learn, ladies, here the faithful cure
Makes beauty lasting, fresh, and pure;
Learn Mary's art of tears, and then
Say you have got the day from men.
Cheap, mighty art! her art of love,
Who loved much, and much more could move;
Her art! whose memory must last
Till truth through all the world be passed;
Till his abused, despised flame
Return to heaven, from whence it came,
And send a fire down, that shall bring
Destruction on his ruddy wing.
Her art! whose pensive, weeping eyes,
Were once sin's loose and tempting spies;
But now are fixed stars, whose light
Helps such dark stragglers to their sight.
Self-boasting Pharisee! how blind
A judge wert thou, and how unkind!
It was impossible that thou,
Who wert all false, shouldst true grief know.
Is't just to judge her faithful tears
By that foul rheum thy false eye wears?
'This woman,' sayst thou, 'is a sinner!'
And sat there none such at thy dinner?
Go, leper, go! wash till thy flesh
Comes like a child's, spotless and fresh;
He is still leprous that still paints:
Who saint themselves, they are no saints.
THE RAINBOW.
Still young and fine! but what is still in view
We slight as old and soiled, though fresh and new.
How bright wert thou, when Shem's admiring eye
Thy burnished, flaming arch did first descry!
When Terah, Nahor, Haran, Abram, Lot,
The youthful world's gray fathers in one knot,
Did with intentive looks watch every hour
For thy new light, and trembled at each shower!
When thou dost shine, darkness looks white and fair,
Forms turn to music, clouds to smiles and air:
Rain gently spends his honey-drops, and pours
Balm on the cleft earth, milk on grass and flowers.
Bright pledge of peace and sunshine! the sure tie
Of thy Lord's hand, the object[1] of his eye!
When I behold thee, though my light be dim,
Distant, and low, I can in thine see him,
Who looks upon thee from his glorious throne,
And minds the covenant 'twixt all and one.
O foul, deceitful men! my God doth keep
His promise still, but we break ours and sleep.
After the fall the first sin was in blood,
And drunkenness quickly did succeed the flood;
But since Christ died, (as if we did devise
To lose him too, as well as paradise,)
These two grand sins we join and act together,
Though blood and drunkenness make but foul, foul weather.
Water, though both heaven's windows and the deep
Full forty days o'er the drowned world did weep,
Could not reform us, and blood in despite,
Yea, God's own blood, we tread upon and slight.
So those bad daughters, which God saved from fire,
While Sodom yet did smoke, lay with their sire.
Then, peaceful, signal bow, but in a cloud
Still lodged, where all thy unseen arrows shroud;
I will on thee as on a comet look,
A comet, the sad world's ill-boding book;
Thy light as luctual and stained with woes
I'll judge, where penal flames sit mixed and close.
For though some think thou shin'st but to restrain
Bold storms, and simply dost attend on rain;
Yet I know well, and so our sins require,
Thou dost but court cold rain, till rain turns fire.
[1] Genesis ix. 16.
THE SEED GROWING SECRETLY.
MARK IV. 26.
1 If this world's friends might see but once
What some poor man may often feel,
Glory and gold and crowns and thrones
They would soon quit, and learn to kneel.
2 My dew, my dew! my early love,
My soul's bright food, thy absence kills!
Hover not long, eternal Dove!
Life without thee is loose and spills.
3 Something I had, which long ago
Did learn to suck and sip and taste;
But now grown sickly, sad, and slow,
Doth fret and wrangle, pine and waste.
4 Oh, spread thy sacred wings, and shake
One living drop! one drop life keeps!
If pious griefs heaven's joys awake,
Oh, fill his bottle! thy child weeps!
5 Slowly and sadly doth he grow,
And soon as left shrinks back to ill;
Oh, feed that life, which makes him blow
And spread and open to thy will!
6 For thy eternal, living wells
None stained or withered shall come near:
A fresh, immortal green there dwells,
And spotless white is all the wear.
7 Dear, secret greenness! nursed below
Tempests and winds and winter nights!
Vex not that but One sees thee grow,
That One made all these lesser lights.
8 If those bright joys he singly sheds
On thee, were all met in one crown,
Both sun and stars would hide their heads;
And moons, though full, would get them down.
9 Let glory be their bait whose minds
Are all too high for a low cell:
Though hawks can prey through storms and winds,
The poor bee in her hive must dwell.
10 Glory, the crowd's cheap tinsel, still
To what most takes them is a drudge;
And they too oft take good for ill,
And thriving vice for virtue judge.
11 What needs a conscience calm and bright
Within itself an outward test?
Who breaks his glass to take more light,
Makes way for storms into his rest.
12 Then bless thy secret growth, nor catch
At noise, but thrive unseen and dumb;
Keep clean, bear fruit, earn life, and watch,
Till the white-winged reapers come!
CHILDHOOD.
I cannot reach it; and my striving eye
Dazzles at it, as at eternity.
Were now that chronicle alive,
Those white designs which children drive,
And the thoughts of each harmless hour,
With their content too in my power,
Quickly would I make my path even,
And by mere playing go to heaven.
Why should men love
A wolf more than a lamb or dove?
Or choose hell-fire and brimstone streams
Before bright stars and God's own beams?
Who kisseth thorns will hurt his face,
But flowers do both refresh and grace;
And sweetly living (fie on men!)
Are, when dead, medicinal then.
If seeing much should make staid eyes,
And long experience should make wise,
Since all that age doth teach is ill,
Why should I not love childhood still?
Why, if I see a rock or shelf,
Shall I from thence cast down myself,
Or by complying with the world,
From the same precipice be hurled?
Those observations are but foul,
Which make me wise to lose my soul.
And yet the practice worldlings call
Business and weighty action all,
Checking the poor child for his play,
But gravely cast themselves away.
Dear, harmless age! the short, swift span
Where weeping virtue parts with man;
Where love without lust dwells, and bends
What way we please without self-ends.
An age of mysteries! which he
Must live twice that would God's face see;
Which angels guard, and with it play,
Angels! which foul men drive away.
How do I study now, and scan
Thee more than ere I studied man,
And only see through a long night
Thy edges and thy bordering light!
Oh for thy centre and mid-day!
For sure that is the narrow way!
ABEL'S BLOOD.
Sad, purple well! whose bubbling eye
Did first against a murderer cry;
Whose streams, still vocal, still complain
Of bloody Cain;
And now at evening are as red
As in the morning when first shed.
If single thou,
Though single voices are but low,
Couldst such a shrill and long cry rear
As speaks still in thy Maker's ear,
What thunders shall those men arraign
Who cannot count those they have slain,
Who bathe not in a shallow flood,
But in a deep, wide sea of blood--
A sea whose loud waves cannot sleep,
But deep still calleth upon deep;
Whose urgent sound, like unto that
Of many waters, beateth at
The everlasting doors above,
Where souls behind the altar move,
And with one strong, incessant cry
Inquire 'How long?' of the Most High?
Almighty Judge!
At whose just laws no just men grudge;
Whose blessed, sweet commands do pour
Comforts and joys and hopes each hour
On those that keep them; oh, accept
Of his vowed heart, whom thou hast kept
From bloody men! and grant I may
That sworn memorial duly pay
To thy bright arm, which was my light
And leader through thick death and night!
Aye may that flood,
That proudly spilt and despised blood,
Speechless and calm as infants sleep!
Or if it watch, forgive and weep
For those that spilt it! May no cries
From the low earth to high heaven rise,
But what, like his whose blood peace brings,
Shall, when they rise, speak better things
Than Abel's doth! May Abel be
Still single heard, while these agree
With his mild blood in voice and will,
Who prayed for those that did him kill!
RIGHTEOUSNESS.
1 Fair, solitary path! whose blessed shades
The old, white prophets planted first and dressed;
Leaving for us, whose goodness quickly fades,
A shelter all the way, and bowers to rest;
2 Who is the man that walks in thee? who loves
Heaven's secret solitude, those fair abodes,
Where turtles build, and careless sparrows move,
Without to-morrow's evils and future loads?
3 Who hath the upright heart, the single eye,
The clean, pure hand, which never meddled pitch?
Who sees invisibles, and doth comply
With hidden treasures that make truly rich?
4 He that doth seek and love
The things above,
Whose spirit ever poor is, meek, and low;
Who simple still and wise,
Still homeward flies,
Quick to advance, and to retreat most slow.
5 Whose acts, words, and pretence
Have all one sense,
One aim and end; who walks not by his sight;
Whose eyes are both put out,
And goes about
Guided by faith, not by exterior light.
6 Who spills no blood, nor spreads
Thorns in the beds
Of the distressed, hasting their overthrow;
Making the time they had
Bitter and sad,
Like chronic pains, which surely kill, though slow.
7 Who knows earth nothing hath
Worth love or wrath,
But in his Hope and Rock is ever glad.
Who seeks and follows peace,
When with the ease
And health of conscience it is to be had.
8 Who bears his cross with joy,
And doth employ
His heart and tongue in prayers for his foes;
Who lends not to be paid,
And gives full aid
Without that bribe which usurers impose.
9 Who never looks on man
Fearful and wan,
But firmly trusts in God; the great man's measure,
Though high and haughty, must
Be ta'en in dust;
But the good man is God's peculiar treasure.
10 Who doth thus, and doth not
These good deeds blot
With bad, or with neglect; and heaps not wrath
By secret filth, nor feeds
Some snake, or weeds,
Cheating himself--That man walks in this path.
JACOB'S PILLOW AND PILLAR.
I see the temple in thy pillar reared,
And that dread glory which thy children feared,
In mild, clear visions, without a frown,
Unto thy solitary self is shown.
'Tis number makes a schism: throngs are rude,
And God himself died by the multitude.
This made him put on clouds, and fire, and smoke;
Hence he in thunder to thy offspring spoke.
The small, still voice at some low cottage knocks,
But a strong wind must break thy lofty rocks.
The first true worship of the world's great King
From private and selected hearts did spring;
But he most willing to save all mankind,
Enlarged that light, and to the bad was kind.
Hence catholic or universal came
A most fair notion, but a very name.
For this rich pearl, like some more common stone,
When once made public, is esteemed by none.
Man slights his Maker when familiar grown,
And sets up laws to pull his honour down.
This God foresaw: and when slain by the crowd,
Under that stately and mysterious cloud
Which his death scattered, he foretold the place
And form to serve him in should be true grace,
And the meek heart; not in a mount, nor at
Jerusalem, with blood of beasts and fat.
A heart is that dread place, that awful cell,
That secret ark, where the mild Dove doth dwell,
When the proud waters rage: when heathens rule
By God's permission, and man turns a mule,
This little Goshen, in the midst of night
And Satan's seat, in all her coasts hath light;
Yea, Bethel shall have tithes, saith Israel's stone,
And vows and visions, though her foes cry, None.
Thus is the solemn temple sunk again
Into a pillar, and concealed from men.
And glory be to his eternal name,
Who is contented that this holy flame
Shall lodge in such a narrow pit, till he
With his strong arm turns our captivity!
But blessed Jacob, though thy sad distress
Was just the same with ours, and nothing less;
For thou a brother, and bloodthirsty too,
Didst fly,[1] whose children wrought thy children's woe:
Yet thou in all thy solitude and grief,
On stones didst sleep, and found'st but cold relief;
Thou from the Day-star a long way didst stand,
And all that distance was law and command.
But we a healing Sun, by day and night,
Have our sure guardian and our leading light.
What thou didst hope for and believe we find
And feel, a Friend most ready, sure, and kind.
Thy pillow was but type and shade at best,
But we the substance have, and on him rest.
[1] Obadiah 10; Amos i, 11.
THE FEAST.
1 Oh, come away,
Make no delay,
Come while my heart is clean and steady!
While faith and grace
Adorn the place,
Making dust and ashes ready!
2 No bliss here lent
Is permanent,
Such triumphs poor flesh cannot merit;
Short sips and sights
Endear delights:
Who seeks for more he would inherit.
3 Come then, true bread,
Quickening the dead,
Whose eater shall not, cannot die!
Come, antedate
On me that state,
Which brings poor dust the victory.
4 Aye victory,
Which from thine eye
Breaks as the day doth from the east,
When the spilt dew
Like tears doth shew
The sad world wept to be released.
5 Spring up, O wine,
And springing shine
With some glad message from his heart,
Who did, when slain,
These means ordain
For me to have in him a part!
6 Such a sure part
In his blest heart,
The well where living waters spring,
That, with it fed,
Poor dust, though dead,
Shall rise again, and live, and sing.
7 O drink and bread,
Which strikes death dead,
The food of man's immortal being!
Under veils here
Thou art my cheer,
Present and sure without my seeing.
8 How dost thou fly
And search and pry
Through all my parts, and, like a quick
And knowing lamp,
Hunt out each damp,
Whose shadow makes me sad or sick!
9 O what high joys!
The turtle's voice
And songs I hear! O quickening showers
Of my Lord's blood,
You make rocks bud,
And crown dry hills with wells and flowers!
10 For this true ease,
This healing peace,
For this [brief] taste of living glory,
My soul and all,
Kneel down and fall,
And sing his sad victorious story!
11 O thorny crown,
More soft than down!
O painful cross, my bed of rest!
O spear, the key
Opening the way!
O thy worst state, my only best!
12 O all thy griefs
Are my reliefs,
As all my sins thy sorrows were!
And what can I,
To this reply?
What, O God! but a silent tear?
13 Some toil and sow
That wealth may flow,
And dress this earth for next year's meat:
But let me heed
Why thou didst bleed,
And what in the next world to eat.
'Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the
Lamb.'--Rev. xix. 9.
THE WATERFALL.
With what deep murmurs, through time's silent stealth,
Does thy transparent, cool, and watery wealth
Here flowing fall,
And chide and call,
As if his liquid, loose retinue staid
Lingering, and were of this steep place afraid;
The common pass,
Where, clear as glass,
All must descend,
Not to an end,
But quickened by this deep and rocky grave,
Rise to a longer course more bright and brave.
Dear stream! dear bank! where often I
Have sat, and pleased my pensive eye;
Why, since each drop of thy quick store
Runs thither whence it flowed before,
Should poor souls fear a shade or night,
Who came (sure) from a sea of light?
Or, since those drops are all sent back
So sure to thee that none doth lack,
Why should frail flesh doubt any more
That what God takes he'll not restore?
O useful element and clear!
My sacred wash and cleanser here;
My first consigner unto those
Fountains of life, where the Lamb goes!
What sublime truths and wholesome themes
Lodge in thy mystical, deep streams!
Such as dull man can never find,
Unless that Spirit lead his mind,
Which first upon thy face did move
And hatched all with his quickening love.
As this loud brook's incessant fall
In streaming rings re-stagnates all,
Which reach by course the bank, and then
Are no more seen: just so pass men.
O my invisible estate,
My glorious liberty, still late!
Thou art the channel my soul seeks,
Not this with cataracts and creeks.
DR JOSEPH BEAUMONT.
This writer, though little known, appears to us to stand as high almost
as any name in the present volume, and we are proud to reprint here some
considerable specimens of his magnificent poetry.
Joseph Beaumont was sprung from a collateral branch of the ancient
family of the Beaumonts, that family from which sprung Sir John Beaumont,
the author of 'Bosworth Field,' and Francis Beaumont, the celebrated
dramatist. He was born at Hadleigh, in Suffolk. Of his early life nothing
is known. He received his education at Cambridge, where, during the Civil
War, he was fellow and tutor of Peterhouse. Ejected by the Republicans
from his offices, he retired to Hadleigh, and spent his time in the com-
position of his _magnum opus_, 'Psyche.' This poem appeared in 1648; and
in 1702, three years after the author's death, his son published a second
edition, with numerous corrections, and the addition of four cantos by the
author. Beaumont also wrote several minor pieces in English and Latin, a
controversial tract in reply to Henry More's 'Mystery of Godliness,' and
several theological works which are still in MS., according to a provision
in his will to that effect. Peace and perpetuity to their slumbers!
After the Restoration, our author was not only reinstated in his former
situations, but received from his patron, Bishop Wren, several valuable
pieces of preferment besides. Afterwards, he exercised successively the
offices of Master of Jesus and of Peterhouse, and was King's Professor
of Divinity from 1670 to 1699. In the latter year he died.
While praising the genius of Beaumont, we are far from commending his
'Psyche,' either as an artistic whole, or as a readable book. It is,
sooth to say, a dull allegory, in twenty-four immense cantos, studded
with the rarest beauties. It is considerably longer than the 'Faery
Queen,' nearly four times the length of the 'Paradise Lost,' and five or
six times as long as the 'Excursion.' To read it through now-a-days were
to perform a purgatorial penance. But the imagination and fancy are
Spenserian, his colouring is often Titianesque in gorgeousness, and his
pictures of shadows, abstractions, and all fantastic forms, are so
forcible as to seem to start from the canvas. In painting the beautiful,
his verse becomes careless and flowing as a loosened zone; in painting
the frightful and the infernal, his language, like his feeling, seems to
curdle and stiffen in horror, as where, speaking of Satan, he says--
'His tawny teeth
Were ragged grown, by endless _gnashing at
The dismal riddle of his living death._'
The 'Psyche' may be compared to a palace of Fairyland, where successive
doors fly open to the visitor--one revealing a banqueting-room filled
with the materials of exuberant mirth; another, an enchanted garden,
with streams stealing from grottos, and nymphs gliding through groves;
a third conducting you to a dungeon full of dead men's bones and all
uncleanness; a fourth, to a pit which seems the mouth of hell, and
whence cries of torture come up, shaking the smoke that ascendeth up for
ever and ever; and a fifth, to the open roof, over which the stars are
seen bending, and the far-off heavens are opening in glory; and of these
doors there is no end. We saw, when lately in Copenhagen, the famous
tower of the Trinity Church, remarkable for the grand view commanded
from the summit, and for the broad spiral ascent winding within it
almost to the top, up which it is said Peter the Great, in 1716, used to
drive himself and his Empress in a coach-and-four. It was curious to
feel ourselves ascending on a path nearly level, and without the
slightest perspiration or fatigue; and here, we thought, is the
desiderated 'royal road' to difficulties fairly found. Large poems
should be constructed on the same principle; their quiet, broad interest
should beguile their readers alike to their length and their loftiness.
It is exactly the reverse with 'Psyche.' But if any reader is wearied of
some of the extracts we have given, such as his verses on 'Eve,' on
'Paradise,' on 'End,' on 'The Death of his Wife,' and on 'Imperial
Rome,' we shall be very much disposed to question his capacity for
appreciating true poetry.
HELL.
1 Hell's court is built deep in a gloomy vale,
High walled with strong damnation, moated round
With flaming brimstone: full against the hall
Roars a burnt bridge of brass: the yards abound
With all envenomed herbs and trees, more rank
And fruitless than on Asphaltite's bank.
2 The gate, where Fire and Smoke the porters be,
Stands always ope with gaping greedy jaws.
Hither flocked all the states of misery;
As younger snakes, when their old serpent draws
Them by a summoning hiss, haste down her throat
Of patent poison their awed selves to shoot.
3 The hall was roofed with everlasting pride,
Deep paved with despair, checkered with spite,
And hanged round with torments far and wide:
The front displayed a goodly-dreadful sight,
Great Satan's arms stamped on an iron shield,
A crowned dragon, gules, in sable field.
4 There on's immortal throne of death they see
Their mounted lord; whose left hand proudly held
His globe, (for all the world he claims to be
His proper realm,) whose bloody right did wield
His mace, on which ten thousand serpents knit,
With restless madness gnawed themselves and it.
5 His awful horns above his crown did rise,
And force his fiends to shrink in theirs: his face
Was triply-plated impudence: his eyes
Were hell reflected in a double glass,
Two comets staring in their bloody stream,
Two beacons boiling in their pitch and flame.
6 His mouth in breadth vied with his palace gate
And conquered it in soot: his tawny teeth
Were ragged grown, by endless gnashing at
The dismal riddle of his living death:
His grizzly beard a singed confession made
What fiery breath through his black lips did trade.
7 Which as he oped, the centre, on whose back
His chair of ever-fretting pain was set,
Frighted beside itself, began to quake:
Throughout all hell the barking hydras shut
Their awed mouths: the silent peers, in fear,
Hung down their tails, and on their lord did stare.
JOSEPH'S DREAM.
1 When this last night had sealed up mine eyes,
And opened heaven's, whose countenance now was clear,
And trimmed with every star; on his soft wing
A nimble vision me did thither bring.
2 Quite through the storehouse of the air I passed
Where choice of every weather treasured lies:
Here, rain is bottled up; there, hail is cast
In candied heaps: here, banks of snow do rise;
There, furnaces of lightning burn, and those
Long-bearded stars which light us to our woes.
3 Hence towered I to a dainty world: the air
Was sweet and calm, and in my memory
Waked my serener mother's looks: this fair
Canaan now fled from my discerning eye;
The earth was shrunk so small, methought I read,
By that due prospect, what it was indeed.
4 But then, arriving at an orb whose flames,
Like an unbounded ocean, flowed about,
Fool as I was, I quaked; till its kind beams
Gave me a harmless kiss. I little thought
Fire could have been so mild; but surely here
It rageth, 'cause we keep it from its sphere.
5 There, reverend sire, it flamed, but with as sweet
An ardency as in your noble heart
That heavenly zeal doth burn, whose fostering heat
Makes you Heaven's living holocaust: no part
Of my dream's tender wing felt any harm;
Our journey, not the fire, did keep us warm.
6 But here my guide, his wings' soft oars to spare,
On the moon's lower horn clasped hold, and whirled
Me up into a region as far,
In splendid worth, surmounting this low world
As in its place: for liquid crystal here
Was the tralucid matter of each sphere.
7 The moon was kind, and, as we scoured by,
Showed us the deed whereby the great Creator
Instated her in that large monarchy
She holdeth over all the ocean's water:
To which a schedule was annexed, which o'er
All other humid bodies gives her power.
8 Now complimental Mercury was come
To the quaint margin of his courtly sphere,
And bid us eloquent welcome to his home.
Scarce could we pass, so great a crowd was there
Of points and lines; and nimble Wit beside
Upon the back of thousand shapes did ride.
9 Next Venus' face, heaven's joy and sweetest pride,
(Which brought again my mother to my mind,)
Into her region lured my ravished guide.
This strewed with youth, and smiles, and love we find;
And those all chaste: 'tis this foul world below
Adulterates what from thence doth spotless flow.
10 Then rapt to Phoebus' orb, all paved with gold,
The rich reflection of his own aspect:
Most gladly there I would have stayed, and told
How many crowns and thorns his dwelling decked,
What life, what verdure, what heroic might,
What pearly spirits, what sons of active light.
11 But I was hurried into Mars his sphere,
Where Envy, (oh, how cursed was its grim face!)
And Jealousy, and Fear, and Wrath, and War
Quarrelled, although in heaven, about their place.
Yea, engines there to vomit fire I saw,
Whose flame and thunder earth at length must know.
12 Nay, in a corner, 'twas my hap to spy
Something which looked but frowardly on me:
And sure my watchful guide read in mine eye
My musing troubled sense; for straightway he,
Lest I should start and wake upon the fright,
Speeded from thence his seasonable flight.
13 Welcome was Jupiter's dominion, where
Illustrious Mildness round about did flow;
Religion had built her temple there,
And sacred honours on its walks did grow:
No mitre ever priest's grave head shall crown,
Which in those mystic gardens was not sown.
14 At length, we found old Saturn in his bed;
And much I wondered how, and he so dull,
Could climb thus high: his house was lumpish lead,
Of dark and solitary comers full;
Where Discontent and Sickness dwellers be,
Damned Melancholy and dead Lethargy.
15 Hasting from hence into a boundless field,
Innumerable stars we marshalled found
In fair array: this earth did never yield
Such choice of flowery pride, when she had crowned
The plains of Shechem, where the gaudy Spring
Smiles on the beauties of each verdant thing.
PARADISE.
1 Within, rose hills of spice and frankincense,
Which smiled upon the flowery vales below,
Where living crystal found a sweet pretence
With musical impatience to flow,
And delicately chide the gems beneath
Because no smoother they had paved its path.
2 The nymphs which sported on this current's side
Were milky Thoughts, tralucid, pure Desires,
Soft turtles' Kisses, Looks of virgin brides,
Sweet Coolness which nor needs nor feareth fires,
Snowy Embraces, cheerly-sober Eyes,
Gentleness, Mildness, Ingenuities.
3 The early gales knocked gently at the door
Of every flower, to bid the odours wake;
Which, catching in their softest arms, they bore
From bed to bed, and so returned them back
To their own lodgings, doubled by the blisses
They sipped from their delicious brethren's kisses.
4 Upon the wings of those enamouring breaths
Refreshment, vigour, nimbleness attended;
Which, wheresoe'er they flew, cheered up their paths,
And with fresh airs of life all things befriended:
For Heaven's sweet Spirit deigned his breath to join
And make the powers of these blasts divine.
5 The goodly trees' bent arms their nobler load
Of fruit which blest oppression overbore:
That orchard where the dragon warder stood,
For all its golden boughs, to this was poor,
To this, in which the greater serpent lay,
Though not to guard the trees, but to betray.
6 Of fortitude there rose a stately row;
Here, of munificence a thickset grove;
There, of wise industry a quickset grew;
Here, flourished a dainty copse of love;
There, sprang up pleasant twigs of ready wit;
Here, larger trees of gravity were set,
7 Here, temperance; and wide-spread justice there,
Under whose sheltering shadow piety,
Devotion, mildness, friendship planted were;
Next stood renown with head exalted high;
Then twined together plenty, fatness, peace.
O blessed place, where grew such things as these!
EVE.
1 Her spacious, polished forehead was the fair
And lovely plain where gentle majesty
Walked in delicious state: her temples clear
Pomegranate fragments, which rejoiced to lie
In dainty ambush, and peep through their cover
Of amber-locks whose volume curled over.
2 The fuller stream of her luxuriant hair
Poured down itself upon her ivory back:
In which soft flood ten thousand graces were
Sporting and dallying with every lock;
The rival winds for kisses fell to fight,
And raised a ruffling tempest of delight.
3 Two princely arches, of most equal measures,
Held up the canopy above her eyes,
And opened to the heavens far richer treasures,
Than with their stars or sun e'er learn'd to rise:
Those beams can ravish but the body's sight,
These dazzle stoutest souls with mystic light.
4 Two garrisons were these of conquering love;
Two founts of life, of spirit, of joy, of grace;
Two easts in one fair heaven, no more above,
But in the hemisphere of her own face;
Two thrones of gallantry; two shops of miracles;
Two shrines of deities; two silent oracles.
5 For silence here could eloquently plead;
Here might the unseen soul be clearly read:
Though gentle humours their mild mixture made,
They proved a double burning-glass which shed
Those living flames which, with enlivening darts,
Shoot deaths of love into spectators' hearts.
6 'Twixt these, an alabaster promontory
Sloped gently down to part each cheek from other;
Where white and red strove for the fairer glory,
Blending in sweet confusion together.
The rose and lily never joined were
In so divine a marriage as there.
7 Couchant upon these precious cushionets
Were thousand beauties, and as many smiles,
Chaste blandishments, and modest cooling heats,
Harmless temptations, and honest guiles.
For heaven, though up betimes the maid to deck,
Ne'er made Aurora's cheeks so fair and sleek.
8 Enamouring neatness, softness, pleasure, at
Her gracious mouth in full retinue stood;
For, next the eyes' bright glass, the soul at that
Takes most delight to look and walk abroad.
But at her lips two threads of scarlet lay,
Or two warm corals, to adorn the way,--
9 The precious way whereby her breath and tongue,
Her odours and her honey, travelled,
Which nicest critics would have judged among
Arabian or Hyblaean mountains bred.
Indeed, the richer Araby in her
Dear mouth and sweeter Hybla dwelling were.
10 More gracefully its golden chapiter
No column of white marble e'er sustained
Than her round polished neck supported her
Illustrious head, which there in triumph reigned.
Yet neither would this pillar hardness know,
Nor suffer cold to dwell amongst its snow.
11 Her blessed bosom moderately rose
With two soft mounts of lilies, whose fair top
A pair of pretty sister cherries chose,
And there their living crimson lifted up.
The milky countenance of the hills confessed
What kind of springs within had made their nest.
12 So leggiadrous were her snowy hands
That pleasure moved as any finger stirred:
Her virgin waxen arms were precious bands
And chains of love: her waist itself did gird
With its own graceful slenderness, and tie
Up delicacy's best epitome.
13 Fair politure walked all her body over,
And symmetry rejoiced in every part;
Soft and white sweetness was her native cover,
From every member beauty shot a dart:
From heaven to earth, from head to foot I mean,
No blemish could by envy's self be seen.
14 This was the first-born queen of gallantry;
All gems compounded into one rich stone,
All sweets knit into one conspiracy;
A constellation of all stars in one;
Who, when she was presented to their view,
Both paradise and nature dazzled grew.
15 Phoebus, who rode in glorious scorn's career
About the world, no sooner spied her face,
But fain he would have lingered, from his sphere
On this, though less, yet sweeter, heaven, to gaze
Till shame enforced him to lash on again,
And clearer wash him in the western main.
16 The smiling air was tickled with his high
Prerogative of uncontrolled bliss,
Embracing with entirest liberty
A body soft, and sweet, and chaste as his.
All odorous gales that had but strength to stir
Came flocking in to beg perfumes of her.
17 The marigold her garish love forgot,
And turned her homage to these fairer eyes;
All flowers looked up, and dutifully shot
Their wonder hither, whence they saw arise
Unparching courteous lustre, which instead
Of fire, soft joy's irradiations spread.
18 The sturdiest trees, affected by her dear
Delightful presence, could not choose but melt
At their hard pith; whilst all the birds whose clear
Pipes tossed mirth about the branches, felt
The influence of her looks; for having let
Their song fall down, their eyes on her they set.
TO THE MEMORY OF HIS WIFE.
1 Sweet soul, how goodly was the temple which
Heaven pleased to make thy earthly habitation!
Built all of graceful delicacy, rich
In symmetry, and of a dangerous fashion
For youthful eyes, had not the saint within
Governed the charms of her enamouring shrine.
2 How happily compendious didst thou make
My study when I was the lines to draw
Of genuine beauty! never put to take
Long journeys was my fancy; still I saw
At home my copy, and I knew 'twould be
But beauty's wrong further to seek than thee.
3 Full little knew the world (for I as yet
In studied silence hugged my secret bliss)
How facile was my Muse's task, when set
Virtue's and grace's features to express!
For whilst accomplished thou wert in my sight
I nothing had to do, but look and write.
4 How sadly parted are those words; since I
Must now be writing, but no more can look!
Yet in my heart thy precious memory,
So deep is graved, that from this faithful book,
Truly transcribed, thy character shall shine;
Nor shall thy death devour what was divine.
5 Hear then, O all soft-hearted turtles, hear
What you alone profoundly will resent:
A bird of your pure feather 'tis whom here
Her desolate mate remaineth to lament,
Whilst she is flown to meet her dearer love,
And sing among the winged choir above.
6 Twelve times the glorious sovereign of day
Had made his progress, and in every inn
Whose golden signs through all his radiant way
So high are hung, as often lodged been,
Since in the sacred knot this noble she
Deigned to be tied to (then how happy) me.
7 Tied, tied we were so intimately, that
We straight were sweetly lost in one another.
Thus when two notes in music's wedlock knit,
They in one concord blended are together:
For nothing now our life but music was;
Her soul the treble made, and mine the base.
8 How at the needless question would she smile,
When asked what she desired or counted fit?
Still bidding me examine mine own will,
And read the surest answer ready writ.
So centred was her heart in mine, that she
Would own no wish, if first not wished by me.
9 Delight was no such thing to her, if I
Relished it not: the palate of her pleasure
Carefully watched what mine could taste, and by
That standard her content resolved to measure.
By this rare art of sweetness did she prove
That though she joyed, yet all her joy was love.
10 So was her grief: for wronged herself she held
If I were sad alone; her share, alas!
And more than so, in all my sorrows' field
She duly reaped: and here alone she was
Unjust to me. Ah! dear injustice, which
Mak'st me complain that I was loved too much!
* * * * *
11 She ne'er took post to keep an equal pace
Still with the newest modes, which swiftly run:
She never was perplexed to hear her lace
Accused for six months' old, when first put on:
She laid no watchful leaguers, costly vain,
Intelligence with fashions to maintain.
12 On a pin's point she ne'er held consultation,
Nor at her glass's strict tribunal brought
Each plait to scrupulous examination:
Ashamed she was that Titan's coach about
Half heaven should sooner wheel, than she could pass
Through all the petty stages of her dress.
13 No gadding itch e'er spurred her to delight
In needless sallies; none but civil care
Of friendly correspondence could invite
Her out of doors; unless she 'pointed were
By visitations from Heaven's hand, where she
Might make her own in tender sympathy.
14 Abroad, she counted but her prison: home,
Home was the region of her liberty.
Abroad diverson thronged, and left no room
For zeal's set task, and virtue's business free:
Home was her less encumbered scene, though there
Angels and gods she knew spectators were.
* * * * *
15 This weaned her heart from things below,
And kindled it with strong desire to gain
Her hope's high aim. Life could no longer now
Flatter her love, or make her prayers refrain
From begging, yet with humble resignation,
To be dismissed from her mortal station.
16 Oh, how she welcomed her courteous pain,
And languished with most serene content!
No paroxysms could make her once complain,
Nor suffered she her patience to be spent
Before her life; contriving thus to yield
To her disease, and yet not lose the field.
17 This trying furnace wasted day by day
(What she herself had always counted dross)
Her mortal mansion, which so ruined lay,
That of the goodly fabric nothing was
Remaining now, but skin and bone; refined
Together were her body and her mind.
18 At length the fatal hour--sad hour to me!--
Released the longing soul: no ejulation
Tolled her knell; no dying agony
Frowned in her death; but in that lamb-like fashion
In which she lived ('O righteous heaven!' said I,
Who closed her dear eyes,) she had leave to die.
19 O ever-precious soul! yet shall that flight
Of thine not snatch thee from thy wonted nest:
Here shalt thou dwell, here shalt thou live in spite
Of any death--here in this faithful breast.
Unworthy 'tis, I know, by being mine;
Yet nothing less, since long it has been thine.
20 Accept thy dearer portraiture, which I
Have on my other Psyche fixed here;
Since her ideal beauties signify
The truth of thine: as for her spots, they are
Thy useful foil, and shall inservient be
But to enhance and more illustrate thee.
IMPERIAL ROME PERSONIFIED.
1 Thus came the monster to his dearest place
On earth, a palace wondrous large and high,
Which on seven mountains' heads enthroned was;
Thus, by its sevenfold tumour, copying
The number of the horns which crowned its king.
2 Of dead men's bones were all the exterior walls,
Raised to a fair but formidable height;
In answer to which strange materials,
A graff of dreadful depth and breadth
Upon the works, filled with a piteous flood
Of innocently-pure and holy blood.
3 Those awful birds, whose joy is ravenous war,
Strong-taloned eagles, perched upon the head
Of every turret, took their prospect far
And wide about the world; and questioned
Each wind that travelled by, to know if they
Could tell them news of any bloody prey.
4 The inner bulwarks, raised of shining brass,
With firmitude and pride were buttressed.
The gate of polished steel wide opened was
To entertain those throngs, who offered
Their slavish necks to take the yoke, and which
That city's tyrant did the world bewitch.
5 For she had wisely ordered it to be
Gilded with Liberty's enchanting name;
Whence cheated nations, who before were free,
Into her flattering chains for freedom came.
Thus her strange conquests overtook the sun
Who rose and set in her dominion.
6 But thick within the line erected were
Innumerable prisons, plated round
With massy iron and with jealous fear:
And in those forts of barbarism, profound
And miry dungeons, where contagious stink,
Cold, anguish, horror, had their dismal sink.
7 In these, pressed down with chains of fretting brass,
Ten thousand innocent lambs did bleating lie;
Whose groans, reported by the hollow place,
Summoned compassion from the passers by;
Whom they, alas! no less relentless found,
Than was the brass which them to sorrow bound.
8 For they designed for the shambles were
To feast the tyrant's greedy cruelty,
Who could be gratified with no fare
But such delight of savage luxury.
END.
1 Sweet End, thou sea of satisfaction, which
The weary streams unto thy bosom tak'st;
The springs unto the spring thou first doth reach,
And, by thine inexhausted kindness, mak'st
Them fall so deep in love with thee, that through
All rocks and mountains to thy arms they flow.
2 Thou art the centre, in whose close embrace,
From all the wild circumference, each line
Directly runs to find its resting-place:
Upon their swiftest wings, to perch on thine
Ennobling breast, which is their only butt,
The arrows of all high desires are shot.
3 All labours pant and languish after thee,
Stretching their longest arms to catch their bliss;
Which in the way, how sweet soe'er it be,
They never find; and therefore on they press
Further and further, till desired thou,
Their only crown, meet'st their ambition's brow.
4 With smiles the ploughman to the smiling spring
Returns not answer, but is jealous till
His patient hopes thy happy season bring
Unto their ripeness with his corn, and fill
His barns with plenteous sheaves, with joy his heart;
For thou, and none but thou, his harvest art.
5 The no less sweating and industrious lover
Lays not his panting heart to rest upon
Kind looks and gracious promises, which hover
On love's outside, and may as soon be gone
As easily they came; but strives to see
His hopes and nuptials ratified by thee.
6 The traveller suspecteth every way,
Though they thick traced and fairly beaten be;
Nor is secure but that his leader may
Step into some mistake as well as he;
Or that his strength may fail him; till he win
Possession of thee, his wished inn.
7 Nobly besmeared with Olympic dust,
The hardy runner prosecutes his race
With obstinate celerity, in trust
That thou wilt wipe and glorify his face:
His prize's soul art thou, whose precious sake
Makes him those mighty pains with pleasure take.
8 The mariner will trust no winds, although
Upon his sails they blow fair flattery;
No tides which, with all fawning smoothness, flow
Can charm his fears into security;
He credits none but thee, who art his bay,
To which, through calms and storms, he hunts his way.
9 And so have I, cheered up with hopes at last
To double thee, endured a tedious sea;
Through public foaming tempests have I passed;
Through flattering calms of private suavity;
Through interrupting company's thick press;
And through the lake of mine own laziness:
10 Through many sirens' charms, which me invited
To dance to ease's tunes, the tunes in fashion;
Through many cross, misgiving thoughts, which frighted
My jealous pen; and through the conjuration
Of ignorant and envious censures, which
Implacably against all poems itch:
11 But chiefly those which venture in a way
That yet no Muse's feet have chose to trace;
Which trust that Psyche and her Jesus may
Adorn a verse with as becoming grace
As Venus and her son; that truth may be
A nobler theme than lies and vanity.
12 Which broach no Aganippe's streams, but those
Where virgin souls without a blush may bathe;
Which dare the boisterous multitude oppose
With gentle numbers; which despise the wrath
Of galled sin; which think not fit to trace
Or Greek or Roman song with slavish pace.
13 And seeing now I am in ken of thee,
The harbour which inflamed my desire,
And with this steady patience ballas'd[1] me
In my uneven road; I am on fire,
Till into thy embrace myself I throw,
And on the shore hang up my finished vow.
[1] 'Ballas'd:' ballasted.
MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
FROM ROBERT HEATH.
WHAT IS LOVE?
1 Tis a child of fancy's getting,
Brought up between hope and fear,
Fed with smiles, grown by uniting
Strong, and so kept by desire:
'Tis a perpetual vestal fire
Never dying,
Whose smoke like incense doth aspire,
Upwards flying.
2 It is a soft magnetic stone,
Attracting hearts by sympathy,
Binding up close two souls in one,
Both discoursing secretly:
'Tis the true Gordian knot, that ties
Yet ne'er unbinds,
Fixing thus two lovers' eyes,
As well as minds.
3 Tis the spheres' heavenly harmony,
Where two skilful hands do strike;
And every sound expressively
Marries sweetly with the like:
'Tis the world's everlasting chain
That all things tied,
And bid them, like the fixed wain,
Unmoved to bide.
PROTEST OF LOVE.
When I thee all o'er do view
I all o'er must love thee too.
By that smooth forehead, where's expressed
The candour of thy peaceful breast,
By those fair twin-like stars that shine,
And by those apples of thine eyne:
By the lambkins and the kids
Playing 'bout thy fair eyelids:
By each peachy-blossomed cheek,
And thy satin skin, more sleek
And white than Flora's whitest lilies,
Or the maiden daffodillies:
By that ivory porch, thy nose:
By those double-blanched rows
Of teeth, as in pure coral set:
By each azure rivulet,
Running in thy temples, and
Those flowery meadows 'twixt them stand:
By each pearl-tipt ear by nature, as
On each a jewel pendent was:
By those lips all dewed with bliss,
Made happy in each other's kiss.
TO CLARASTELLA.
Oh, those smooth, soft, and ruby lips,
* * * * *
Whose rosy and vermilion hue
Betrays the blushing thoughts in you:
Whose fragrant, aromatic breath
Would revive dying saints from death,
Whose siren-like, harmonious air
Speaks music and enchants the ear;
Who would not hang, and fixed there
Wish he might know no other sphere?
Oh for a charm to make the sun
Drunk, and forget his motion!
Oh that some palsy or lame gout
Would cramp old Time's diseased foot!
Or that I might or mould or clip
His speedy wings, whilst on her lip
I quench my thirsty appetite
With the life-honey dwells on it!
* * * * *
Then on his holy altar, I
Would sacrifice eternally,
Offering one long-continued mine
Of golden pleasures to thy shrine.
BY VARIOUS AUTHORS.
MY MIND TO ME A KINGDOM IS.
(FROM BYRD'S 'PSALMS, SONNETS,' ETC. 1588.)
1 My mind to me a kingdom is,
Such perfect joy therein I find,
That it excels all other bliss
That God or nature hath assigned:
Though much I want that most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.
2 No princely port, nor wealthy store,
Nor force to win a victory;
No wily wit to salve a sore,
No shape to win a loving eye;
To none of these I yield as thrall,
For why, my mind despise them all.
3 I see that plenty surfeits oft,
And hasty climbers soonest fall;
I see that such as are aloft,
Mishap doth threaten most of all;
These get with toil, and keep with fear:
Such cares my mind can never bear.
4 I press to bear no haughty sway;
I wish no more than may suffice;
I do no more than well I may.
Look what I want, my mind supplies;
Lo, thus I triumph like a king,
My mind's content with anything.
5 I laugh not at another's loss,
Nor grudge not at another's gain;
No worldly waves my mind can toss;
I brook that is another's bane;
I fear no foe, nor fawn on friend;
I loathe not life, nor dread mine end.
6 My wealth is health and perfect ease,
And conscience clear my chief defence;
I never seek by bribes to please,
Nor by desert to give offence;
Thus do I live, thus will I die;
Would all do so as well as I!
THE OLD AND YOUNG COURTIER.
1 An old song made by an aged old pate,
Of an old worshipful gentleman, who had a great estate,
That kept a brave old house at a bountiful rate,
And an old porter to relieve the poor at his gate:
Like an old courtier of the queen's,
And the queen's old courtier.
2 With an old lady, whose anger one word assuages;
They every quarter paid their old servants their wages,
And never knew what belonged to coachmen, footmen, nor pages,
But kept twenty old fellows with blue coats and badges:
Like an old courtier, &c.
3 With an old study filled full of learned old books,
With an old reverend chaplain, you might know him by his looks,
With an old buttery hatch worn quite off the hooks,
And an old kitchen, that maintained half-a-dozen old cooks:
Like an old courtier, &c.
4 With an old hall, hung about with pikes, guns, and bows,
With old swords and bucklers, that had borne many shrewd blows,
And an old frieze coat, to cover his worship's trunk-hose,
And a cup of old sherry, to comfort his copper nose:
Like an old courtier, &c.
5 With a good old fashion, when Christmas was come,
To call in all his old neighbours with bagpipe and drum,
With good cheer enough to furnish every old room,
And old liquor able to make a cat speak, and man dumb:
Like an old courtier, &c.
6 With an old falconer, huntsmen, and a kennel of hounds,
That never hawked, nor hunted, but in his own grounds;
Who, like a wise man, kept himself within his own bounds,
And when he died, gave every child a thousand good pounds:
Like an old courtier, &c.
7 But to his eldest son his house and lands he assigned,
Charging him in his will to keep the old bountiful mind,
To be good to his old tenants, and to his neighbours be kind:
But in the ensuing ditty you shall hear how he was inclined:
Like a young courtier of the king's,
And the king's young courtier.
8 Like a flourishing young gallant, newly come to his land,
Who keeps a brace of painted madams at his command,
And takes up a thousand pounds upon his father's land,
And gets drunk in a tavern till he can neither go nor stand:
Like a young courtier, &c.
9 With a newfangled lady, that is dainty, nice, and spare,
Who never knew what belonged to good housekeeping or care,
Who buys gaudy-coloured fans to play with wanton air,
And seven or eight different dressings of other women's hair:
Like a young courtier, &c.
10 With a new-fashioned hall, built where the old one stood,
Hung round with new pictures that do the poor no good,
With a fine marble chimney, wherein burns neither coal nor wood,
And a new smooth shovel-board, whereon no victual ne'er stood:
Like a young courtier, &c.
11 With a new study, stuffed full of pamphlets and plays,
And a new chaplain, that swears faster than he prays,
With a new buttery hatch, that opens once in four or five days,
And a new French cook, to devise fine kickshaws and toys:
Like a young courtier, &c.
12 With a new fashion, when Christmas is drawing on,
On a new journey to London straight we all must begone,
And leave none to keep house, but our new porter John,
Who relieves the poor with a thump on the back with a stone:
Like a young courtier, &c.
13 With a new gentleman usher, whose carriage is complete,
With a new coachman, footmen, and pages to carry up the meat,
With a waiting gentlewoman, whose dressing is very neat,
Who, when her lady has dined, lets the servants not eat:
Like a young courtier, &c.
14 With new titles of honour, bought with his father's old gold,
For which sundry of his ancestors' old manors are sold;
And this is the course most of our new gallants hold,
Which makes that good housekeeping is now grown so cold
Among the young courtiers of the king,
Or the king's young courtiers.
THERE IS A GARDEN IN HER FACE.
(FROM 'AN HOUR'S RECREATION IN MUSIC,' BY RICH. ALISON. 1606.)
1 There is a garden in her face,
Where roses and white lilies grow;
A heavenly paradise is that place,
Wherein all pleasant fruits do grow;
There cherries grow that none may buy,
Till cherry-ripe themselves do cry.
2 Those cherries fairly do enclose
Of orient pearl a double row,
Which when her lovely laughter shows,
They look like rose-buds filled with snow:
Yet them no peer nor prince may buy,
Till cherry-ripe themselves do cry.
3 Her eyes like angels watch them still;
Her brows like bended bows do stand,
Threatening with piercing frowns to kill
All that approach with eye or hand
These sacred cherries to come nigh,
Till cherry-ripe themselves do cry.
HALLO, MY FANCY.
1 In melancholic fancy,
Out of myself,
In the vulcan dancy,
All the world surveying,
Nowhere staying,
Just like a fairy elf;
Out o'er the tops of highest mountains skipping,
Out o'er the hills, the trees, and valleys tripping,
Out o'er the ocean seas, without an oar or shipping.
Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go?
2 Amidst the misty vapours,
Fain would I know
What doth cause the tapers;
Why the clouds benight us
And affright us,
While we travel here below.
Fain would I know what makes the roaring thunder,
And what these lightnings be that rend the clouds asunder,
And what these comets are on which we gaze and wonder.
Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go?
3 Fain would I know the reason
Why the little ant,
All the summer season,
Layeth up provision
On condition
To know no winter's want;
And how housewives, that are so good and painful,
Do unto their husbands prove so good and gainful;
And why the lazy drones to them do prove disdainful.
Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go 1
4 Ships, ships, I will descry you
Amidst the main;
I will come and try you
What you are protecting,
And projecting,
What's your end and aim.
One goes abroad for merchandise and trading,
Another stays to keep his country from invading,
A third is coming home with rich wealth of lading.
Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go?
5 When I look before me,
There I do behold
There's none that sees or knows me;
All the world's a-gadding,
Running madding;
None doth his station hold.
He that is below envieth him that riseth,
And he that is above, him that's below despiseth,
So every man his plot and counter-plot deviseth.
Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go?
6 Look, look, what bustling
Here I do espy;
Each another jostling,
Every one turmoiling,
The other spoiling,
As I did pass them by.
One sitteth musing in a dumpish passion,
Another hangs his head, because he's out of fashion,
A third is fully bent on sport and recreation.
Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go?
7 Amidst the foamy ocean,
Fain would I know
What doth cause the motion,
And returning
In its journeying,
And doth so seldom swerve!
And how these little fishes that swim beneath salt water,
Do never blind their eye; methinks it is a matter
An inch above the reach of old Erra Pater!
Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go?
8 Fain would I be resolved
How things are done;
And where the bull was calved
Of bloody Phalaris,
And where the tailor is
That works to the man i' the moon!
Fain would I know how Cupid aims so rightly;
And how these little fairies do dance and leap so lightly;
And where fair Cynthia makes her ambles nightly.
Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go!
9 In conceit like Phaeton,
I'll mount Phoebus' chair;
Having ne'er a hat on,
All my hair a-burning
In my journeying,
Hurrying through the air.
Fain would I hear his fiery horses neighing,
And see how they on foamy bits are playing;
All the stars and planets I will be surveying!
Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go?
10 Oh, from what ground of nature
Doth the pelican,
That self-devouring creature,
Prove so froward
And untoward,
Her vitals for to strain?
And why the subtle fox, while in death's wounds is lying,
Doth not lament his pangs by howling and by crying;
And why the milk-white swan doth sing when she's a-dying.
Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou got
11 Fain would I conclude this,
At least make essay,
What similitude is;
Why fowls of a feather
Flock and fly together,
And lambs know beasts of prey:
How Nature's alchemists, these small laborious creatures,
Acknowledge still a prince in ordering their matters,
And suffer none to live, who slothing lose their features.
Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go?
12 I'm rapt with admiration,
When I do ruminate,
Men of an occupation,
How each one calls him brother,
Yet each envieth other,
And yet still intimate!
Yea, I admire to see some natures further sundered,
Than antipodes to us. Is it not to be wondered,
In myriads ye'll find, of one mind scarce a hundred!
Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go?
13 What multitude of notions
Doth perturb my pate,
Considering the motions,
How the heavens are preserved,
And this world served,
In moisture, light, and heat!
If one spirit sits the outmost circle turning,
Or one turns another continuing in journeying,
If rapid circles' motion be that which they call burning!
Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go?
14 Fain also would I prove this,
By considering
What that which you call love is:
Whether it be a folly
Or a melancholy,
Or some heroic thing!
Fain I'd have it proved, by one whom love hath wounded,
And fully upon one his desire hath founded,
Whom nothing else could please though the world were rounded.
Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go?
15 To know this world's centre,
Height, depth, breadth, and length,
Fain would I adventure
To search the hid attractions
Of magnetic actions,
And adamantic strength.
Fain would I know, if in some lofty mountain,
Where the moon sojourns, if there be trees or fountain;
If there be beasts of prey, or yet be fields to hunt in.
Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go?
16 Fain would I have it tried
By experiment,
By none can be denied;
If in this bulk of nature,
There be voids less or greater,
Or all remains complete?
Fain would I know if beasts have any reason;
If falcons killing eagles do commit a treason;
If fear of winter's want makes swallows fly the season.
Hallo, my fancy, whither wilt thou go;
17 Hallo, my fancy, hallo,
Stay, stay at home with me,
I can thee no longer follow,
For thou hast betrayed me,
And bewrayed me;
It is too much for thee.
Stay, stay at home with me; leave off thy lofty soaring;
Stay thou at home with me, and on thy books be poring;
For he that goes abroad, lays little up in storing:
Thou'rt welcome home, my fancy, welcome home to me.
'Alas, poor scholar!
Whither wilt thou go?'
or
'Strange alterations which at this time be,
There's many did think they never should see.'
THE FAIRY QUEEN.
1 Come, follow, follow me,
You, fairy elves that be;
Which circle on the green,
Come, follow Mab, your queen.
Hand in hand let's dance around,
For this place is fairy ground.
2 When mortals are at rest,
And snoring in their nest;
Unheard and unespied,
Through keyholes we do glide;
Over tables, stools, and shelves,
We trip it with our fairy elves.
3 And if the house be foul
With platter, dish, or bowl,
Up-stairs we nimbly creep,
And find the sluts asleep;
There we pinch their arms and thighs;
None escapes, nor none espies.
4 But if the house be swept,
And from uncleanness kept,
We praise the household maid,
And duly she is paid;
For we use, before we go,
To drop a tester in her shoe.
5 Upon a mushroom's head
Our tablecloth we spread;
A grain of rye or wheat
Is manchet which we eat;
Pearly drops of dew we drink,
In acorn cups filled to the brink.
6 The brains of nightingales,
With unctuous fat of snails,
Between two cockles stewed,
Is meat that's easily chewed;
Tails of worms, and marrow of mice,
Do make a dish that's wondrous nice.
7 The grasshopper, gnat, and fly,
Serve us for our minstrelsy;
Grace said, we dance a while,
And so the time beguile;
And if the moon doth hide her head,
The glow-worm lights us home to bed.
8 On tops of dewy grass
So nimbly do we pass,
The young and tender stalk
Ne'er bends when we do walk;
Yet in the morning may be seen
Where we the night before have been.
END OF VOL. II.