CANTO III.

The sun in the morning disclosed his light,

With complexion as ruddy as mine over night;

And o'er th' eastern mountains peeping up's head,

The casement being open, espied me in bed;

With his rays he so tickled my lids that I waked,

And was half ashamed, for I found myself naked;

But up I soon start, and was dressed in a trice,

And called for a draught of ale, sugar, and spice;

Which having turned off, I then call to pay,

And packing my nawls, whipt to horse, and away.

A guide I had got, who demanded great vails,

For conducting me over the mountains of Wales:

Twenty good shillings, which sure very large is;

Yet that would not serve, but I must bear his charges;

And yet for all that, rode astride on a beast,

The worst that e'er went on three legs, I protest:

It certainly was the most ugly of jades,

His hips and his rump made a right ace of spades;

His sides were two ladders, well spur-galled withal;

His neck was a helve, and his head was a mall;

For his colour, my pains and your trouble I'll spare,

For the creature was wholly denuded of hair;

And, except for two things, as bare as my nail,

A tuft of a mane, and a sprig of a tail;

And by these the true colour one can no more know,

Than by mouse-skins above stairs, the merkin below.

Now such as the beast was, even such was the rider,

With a head like a nutmeg, and legs like a spider;

A voice like a cricket, a look like a rat,

The brains of a goose, and the heart of a cat:

Even such was my guide and his beast; let them pass,

The one for a horse, and the other an ass.

But now with our horses, what sound and what rotten,

Down to the shore, you must know, we were gotten;

And there we were told, it concerned us to ride,

Unless we did mean to encounter the tide;

And then my guide lab'ring with heels and with hands,

With two up and one down, hopped over the sands,

Till his horse, finding the labour for three legs too sore,

Foaled out a new leg, and then he had four:

And now by plain dint of hard spurring and whipping,

Dry-shod we came where folks sometimes take shipping;

And where the salt sea, as the devil were in 't,

Came roaring t' have hindered our journey to Flint;

But we, by good luck, before him got thither,

He else would have carried us, no man knows whither.

And now her in Wales is, Saint Taph be her speed,

Gott splutter her taste, some Welsh ale her had need;

For her ride in great haste, and * *

For fear of her being catched up by the fishes:

But the lord of Flint castle's no lord worth a louse,

For he keeps ne'er a drop of good drink in his house;

But in a small house near unto 't there was store

Of such ale as, thank God, I ne'er tasted before;

And surely the Welsh are not wise of their fuddle,

For this had the taste and complexion of puddle.

From thence then we marched, full as dry as we came,

My guide before prancing, his steed no more lame,

O'er hills and o'er valleys uncouth and uneven,

Until 'twixt the hours of twelve and eleven,

More hungry and thirsty than tongue can well tell,

We happily came to Saint Winifred's well:

I thought it the pool of Bethesda had been,

By the cripples lay there; but I went to my inn

To speak for some meat, for so stomach did motion,

Before I did further proceed in devotion:

I went into th' kitchen, where victuals I saw,

Both beef, veal, and mutton, but all on 't was raw;

And some on't alive, but soon went to slaughter,

For four chickens were slain by my dame and her daughter;

Of which to Saint Win. ere my vows I had paid,

They said I should find a rare fricasée made:

I thanked them, and straight to the well did repair,

Where some I found cursing, and others at prayer;

Some dressing, some stripping, some out and some in,

Some naked, where botches and boils might be seen;

Of which some were fevers of Venus I'm sure,

And therefore unfit for the virgin to cure:

But the fountain, in truth, is well worth the sight,

The beautiful virgin's own tears not more bright;

Nay, none but she ever shed such a tear,

Her conscience, her name, nor herself, were more clear.

In the bottom there lie certain stones that look white,

But streaked with pure red, as the morning with light,

Which they say is her blood, and so it may be,

But for that, let who shed it look to it for me.

Over the fountain a chapel there stands,

Which I wonder has 'scaped master Oliver's hands;

The floor's not ill paved, and the margin o' th' spring

Is inclosed with a certain octagonal ring;

From each angle of which a pillar does rise,

Of strength and of thickness enough to suffice

To support and uphold from falling to ground

A cupola wherewith the virgin is crowned.

Now 'twixt the two angles that fork to the north,

And where the cold nymph does her basin pour forth,

Under ground is a place where they bathe, as 'tis said,

And 'tis true, for I heard folks' teeth hack in their head;

For you are to know, that the rogues and the * *

Are not let to pollute the spring-head with their sores.

But one thing I chiefly admired in the place,

That a saint and a virgin endued with such grace,

Should yet be so wonderful kind a well-willer

To that whoring and filching trade of a miller,

As within a few paces to furnish the wheels

Of I cannot tell how many water-mills:

I've studied that point much, you cannot guess why,

But the virgin was, doubtless, more righteous than I.

And now for my welcome, four, five, or six lasses,

With as many crystalline liberal glasses,

Did all importune me to drink of the water

Of Saint Winifreda, good Thewith's fair daughter.

A while I was doubtful, and stood in a muse,

Not knowing, amidst all that choice, where to choose.

Till a pair of black eyes, darting full in my sight,

From the rest o' th' fair maidens did carry me quite;

I took the glass from her, and whip, off it went,

I half doubt I fancied a health to the saint:

But he was a great villain committed the slaughter,

For Saint Winifred made most delicate water.

I slipped a hard shilling into her soft hand,

Which had like to have made me the place have profaned;

And giving two more to the poor that were there,

Did, sharp as a hawk, to my quarters repair.

My dinner was ready, and to it I fell,

I never ate better meat, that I can tell;

When having half dined, there comes in my host,

A catholic good, and a rare drunken toast;

This man, by his drinking, inflamed the scot,

And told me strange stories, which I have forgot;

But this I remember, 'twas much on's own life,

And one thing, that he had converted his wife.

But now my guide told me, it time was to go,

For that to our beds we must both ride and row;

Wherefore calling to pay, and having accounted,

I soon was down-stairs, and as suddenly mounted:

On then we travelled, our guide still before,

Sometimes on three legs, and sometimes on four,

Coasting the sea, and over hills crawling,

Sometimes on all four, for fear we should fall in;

For underneath Neptune lay skulking to watch us,

And, had we but slipped once, was ready to catch us.

Thus in places of danger taking more heed,

And in safer travelling mending our speed:

Redland Castle and Abergoney we past,

And o'er against Connoway came at the last:

Just over against a castle there stood,

O' th' right hand the town, and o' th' left hand a wood;

'Twixt the wood and the castle they see at high water

The storm, the place makes it a dangerous matter;

And besides, upon such a steep rock it is founded,

As would break a man's neck, should he'scape being drowned:

Perhaps though in time one may make them to yield,

But 'tis prettiest Cob-castle e'er I beheld.

The sun now was going t' unharness his steeds,

When the ferry-boat brasking her sides 'gainst the weeds,

Came in as good time as good time could be,

To give us a cast o'er an arm of the sea;

And bestowing our horses before and abaft,

O'er god Neptune's wide cod-piece gave us a waft;

Where scurvily landing at foot of the fort,

Within very few paces we entered the port,

Where another King's Head invited me down,

For indeed I have ever been true to the crown.

DR HENRY MORE.

This eminent man was the son of a gentleman of good family and estate

in Grantham, Lincolnshire. He was born in 1614. His father sent him to

study at Eton, and thence, in 1631, he repaired to Cambridge, where he

was destined to spend the most of his life. Philosophy attracted him

early, in preference to science or literature, and he became a follower

of Plato, so decided and enthusiastic as to gain for himself the title

of 'The Platonist' _par excellence_. In 1639, he graduated M.A.; and the

next year, he published the first part of 'Psychozoia; or, The Song of

the Soul,' containing a Christiano-Platonical account of Man and Life.

In preparing the materials of this poem, he had studied all the

principal Platonists and mystical writers, and is said to have read

himself almost to a shadow. And not only was his body emaciated, but

his mind was so overstrung, that he imagined himself to see spiritual

beings, to hear supernatural voices, and to converse, like Socrates,

with a particular genius. He thought, too, that his body 'exhaled the

perfume of violets!' Notwithstanding these little peculiarities, his

genius and his learning, the simplicity of his character, and the

innocence of his life, rendered him a general favourite; he was made

a fellow of his college, and became a tutor to various persons of

distinguished rank. One of these was Sir John Finch, whose sister, Lady

Conway, an enthusiast herself, brought More acquainted with the famous

John Baptist Van Helment, a man after whom, in the beginning of the

seventeenth century, the whole of Europe wondered. He was a follower and

imitator of Paracelsus, like him affected universal knowledge, aspired

to revolutionise the science of medicine, and died with the reputation

of one who, with great powers and acquirements, instead of becoming a

great man, ended as a brilliant pretender, and was rather an 'architect

of ruin' to the systems of others, than the founder of a solid fabric of

his own. More admired, of course, not the quackery, but the adventurous

boldness of Helment's genius, and his devotion to chemistry; which is

certainly the most spiritual of all the sciences, and must, especially

in its transcendental forms, have had a great charm for a Platonic

thinker. Our author was entirely devoted to study, and resisted every

inducement to leave what he called his 'Paradise' at Cambridge. His

friends once tried to decoy him into a bishopric, and got him the length

of Whitehall to kiss the king's hand on the occasion; but when he

understood their purpose, he refused to go a single step further. His

life was a long, learned, happy, and holy dream. He was of the most

benevolent disposition; and once observed to a friend, 'that he was

thought by some to have a soft head, but he thanked God he had a soft

heart.' In the heat of the Rebellion, the Republicans spared More,

although he had refused to take the Covenant. Campbell says of him,

'He corresponded with Descartes, was the friend of Cudworth, and, as a

divine and a moralist, was not only popular in his own time, but has

been mentioned with admiration both by Addison and Blair.' One is rather

amused at the latter clause. That a man of More's massive learning,

noble eloquence, and divine genius should need the testimony of a mere

elegant wordmonger like Blair, seems ludicrous enough; and Addison

himself, except in wit and humour, was not worthy to have untied the

shoelatchets of the old Platonist. We were first introduced to this

writer by good Dr John Brown, late of Broughton Place, Edinburgh, and

shall never forget hearing him, in his library, read some splendid

passages from More's work, in those deep, mellow, antique tones which

flavoured whatever he read, like the crust on old wine. His chief works

are, 'A Discourse on the Immortality of the Soul,' 'The Mystery of

Godliness,' 'The Mystery of Iniquity,' 'Divine Dialogues,' 'An Antidote

against Atheism,' 'Ethical and Metaphysical Manuals,' &c. In writing

such books, and pursuing the recondite studies of which they were the

fruit, More spent his life happily. In 1661, he became a Fellow of

the Royal Society. For twenty years after the Restoration, his works

are said to have sold better than any of their day--a curious and

unaccountable fact, considering the levity and licentiousness of the

period. In September 1687, the fine old spiritualist, aged seventy-

three, went away to that land of 'ideas' to which his heart had been

translated long before.

More's prose writings give us, on the whole, a higher idea of his powers

than his poem. This is not exactly, as a recent critic calls it, 'dull

and tedious,' but it is in some parts prosaic, and in others obscure.

The gleams of fancy in it are genuine, but few and far between. But his

prose works constitute, like those of Cudworth, Charnock, Jeremy Taylor,

and John Scott, a vast old quarry, abounding both in blocks and in gems

--blocks of granite solidity, and gems of starry lustre. The peculiarity

of More is in that poetico-philosophic mist which, like the autumnal

gossamer, hangs in light and beautiful festoons over his thoughts, and

which suggests pleasing memories of Plato and the Alexandrian school.

Like all the followers of the Grecian sage, he dwells in a region of

'ideas,' which are to him the only realities, and are not cold, but

warm; he sees all things in Divine solution; the visible is lost in the

invisible, and nature retires before her God. Surely they are splendid

reveries those of the Platonic school; but it is sad to reflect that

they have not cast the slightest gleam of light on the dark, frightful,

faith-shattering mysteries which perplex all inquirers. The old shadows

of sin, death, damnation, evil, and hell, are found to darken the 'ideas'

of Plato's world quite as deeply as they do the actualities of this weary,

work-day earth, into which men have, for some inscrutable purpose, been

sent to be, on the whole, miserable,--so often to toil without compen-

sation, to suffer without benefit, and to hope without fulfilment.

OPENING OF SECOND PART OF 'PSYCHOZOIA.'

1 Whatever man he be that dares to deem

True poets' skill to spring of earthly race,

I must him tell, that he doth mis-esteem

Their strange estate, and eke himself disgrace

By his rude ignorance. For there's no place

For forced labour, or slow industry,

Of flagging wits, in that high fiery chase;

So soon as of the Muse they quickened be,

At once they rise, and lively sing like lark in sky.

2 Like to a meteor, whose material

Is low unwieldy earth, base unctuous slime,

Whose inward hidden parts ethereal

Lie close upwrapt in that dull sluggish fime,

Lie fast asleep, till at some fatal time

Great Phoebus' lamp has fired its inward sprite,

And then even of itself on high doth climb:

That erst was dark becomes all eye, all sight,

Bright star, that to the wise of future things gives light.

3 Even so the weaker mind, that languid lies,

Knit up in rags of dirt, dark, cold, and blind,

So soon that purer flame of love unties

Her clogging chains, and doth her sprite unbind,

She soars aloft; for she herself doth find

Well plumed; so raised upon her spreaden wing,

She softly plays, and warbles in the wind,

And carols out her inward life and spring

Of overflowing joy, and of pure love doth sing.

EXORDIUM OF THIRD PART.

1 Hence, hence, unhallowed ears, arid hearts more hard

Than winter clods fast froze with northern wind,

But most of all, foul tongue! I thee discard,

That blamest all that thy dark straitened mind

Cannot conceive: but that no blame thou find;

Whate'er my pregnant muse brings forth to light,

She'll not acknowledge to be of her kind,

Till eagle-like she turn them to the sight

Of the eternal Word, all decked with glory bright.

2 Strange sights do straggle in my restless thoughts,

And lively forms with orient colours clad

Walk in my boundless mind, as men ybrought

Into some spacious room, who when they've had

A turn or two, go out, although unbade.

All these I see and know, but entertain

None to my friend but who's most sober sad;

Although, the time my roof doth them contain

Their presence doth possess me till they out again.

3 And thus possessed, in silver trump I sound

Their guise, their shape, their gesture, and array;

But as in silver trumpet nought is found

When once the piercing sound is passed away,

(Though while the mighty blast therein did stay,

Its tearing noise so terribly did shrill,

That it the heavens did shake, and earth dismay,)

As empty I of what my flowing quill

In needless haste elsewhere, or here, may hap to spill.

4 For 'tis of force, and not of a set will,

Nor dare my wary mind afford assent

To what is placed above all mortal skill;

But yet, our various thoughts to represent,

Each gentle wight will deem of good intent.

Wherefore, with leave the infinity I'll sing

Of time, of space; or without leave; I'm brent

With eager rage, my heart for joy doth spring,

And all my spirits move with pleasant trembeling.

5 An inward triumph doth my soul upheave

And spread abroad through endless 'spersed air.

My nimble mind this clammy clod doth leave,

And lightly stepping on from star to star

Swifter than lightning, passeth wide and far,

Measuring the unbounded heavens and wasteful sky;

Nor aught she finds her passage to debar,

For still the azure orb as she draws nigh

Gives back, new stars appear, the world's walls 'fore her fly.

DESTRUCTION AND RENOVATION OF ALL THINGS.

1 As the seas,

Boiling with swelling waves, aloft did rise,

And met with mighty showers and pouring rain

From heaven's spouts; so the broad flashing skies,

With brimstone thick and clouds of fiery bane,

Shall meet with raging Etna's and Vesuvius' flame.

2 The burning bowels of this wasting ball

Shall gallup up great flakes of rolling fire,

And belch out pitchy flames, till over all

Having long raged, Vulcan himself shall tire,

And (the earth an ash-heap made) shall then expire:

Here Nature, laid asleep in her own urn,

With gentle rest right easily will respire,

Till to her pristine task she do return

As fresh as Phoenix young under the Arabian morn.

3 Oh, happy they that then the first are born,

While yet the world is in her vernal pride;

For old corruption quite away is worn,

As metal pure so is her mould well tried.

Sweet dews, cool-breathing airs, and spaces wide

Of precious spicery, wafted with soft wind:

Fair comely bodies goodly beautified.

4 For all the while her purged ashes rest,

These relics dry suck in the heavenly dew,

And roscid manna rains upon her breast,

And fills with sacred milk, sweet, fresh, and new,

Where all take life and doth the world renew;

And then renewed with pleasure be yfed.

A green, soft mantle doth her bosom strew

With fragrant herbs and flowers embellished,

Where without fault or shame all living creatures bed.

A DISTEMPERED FANCY.

1 Then the wild fancy from her horrid womb

Will senden forth foul shapes. O dreadful sight!

Overgrown toads, fierce serpents, thence will come,

Red-scaled dragons, with deep burning light

In their hollow eye-pits: with these she must fight:

Then think herself ill wounded, sorely stung.

Old fulsome hags, with scabs and scurf bedight,

Foul tarry spittle tumbling with their tongue

On their raw leather lips, these near will to her clung,

2 And lovingly salute against her will,

Closely embrace, and make her mad with woe:

She'd lever thousand times they did her kill,

Than force her such vile baseness undergo.

Anon some giant his huge self will show,

Gaping with mouth as vast as any cave,

With stony, staring eyes, and footing slow:

She surely deems him her live, walking grave,

From that dern hollow pit knows not herself to save.

3 After a while, tossed on the ocean main,

A boundless sea she finds of misery;

The fiery snorts of the leviathan,

That makes the boiling waves before him fly,

She hears, she sees his blazing morn-bright eye:

If here she 'scape, deep gulfs and threatening rocks

Her frighted self do straightway terrify;

Steel-coloured clouds with rattling thunder knocks,

With these she is amazed, and thousand such-like mocks.

SOUL COMPARED TO A LANTERN.

1 Like to a light fast locked in lantern dark,

Whereby by night our wary steps we guide

In slabby streets, and dirty channels mark,

Some weaker rays through the black top do glide,

And flusher streams perhaps from horny side.

But when we've passed the peril of the way,

Arrived at home, and laid that case aside,

The naked light how clearly doth it ray,

And spread its joyful beams as bright as summer's day.

2 Even so, the soul, in this contracted state,

Confined to these strait instruments of sense,

More dull and narrowly doth operate.

At this hole hears, the sight must ray from thence,

Here tastes, there smells; but when she's gone from hence,

Like naked lamp, she is one shining sphere,

And round about has perfect cognoscence

Whate'er in her horizon doth appear:

She is one orb of sense, all eye, all airy ear.

WILLIAM CHAMBERLAYNE.

Chamberlayne was, during life, a poor man, and, till long after his

death, an unappreciated poet. He was a physician at Shaftesbury,

Dorsetshire; born in 1619, and died in 1689. He appears to have been

present among the Royalists at the battle of Newbury. He complains

bitterly of his narrow circumstances, and yet he lived to a long age.

He published, in 1658, a tragic comedy, entitled 'Love's Victory,' and

in 1659, 'Pharonnida,' a heroic poem.

The latter is the main support of his literary reputation. It was

discovered to be good by Thomas Campbell, who might say,

'I was the first that ever burst

Into that silent sea.'

Silent, however, it continues since, and can never be expected to be

thronged by visitors. The story is interesting, and many of the separate

thoughts, expressions, and passages are beautiful, as, for instance--

'The scholar stews his catholic brains for food;'

and this--

'Harsh poverty,

That moth which frets the sacred robe of wit;'

but the style is often elliptical and involved; the story meanders too

much, and is too long and intricate; and, on the whole, a few mutilated

fragments are all that are likely to remain of an original and highly

elaborate poem.

ARGALIA TAKEN PRISONER BY THE TURKS.

* * The Turks had ought

Made desperate onslaughts on the isle, but brought

Nought back but wounds and infamy; but now,

Wearied with toil, they are resolved to bow

Their stubborn resolutions with the strength

Of not-to-be-resisted want: the length

Of the chronical disease extended had

To some few months, since to oppress the sad

But constant islanders, the army lay,

Circling their confines. Whilst this tedious stay

From battle rusts the soldier's valour in

His tainted cabin, there had often been,

With all variety of fortune, fought

Brave single combats, whose success had brought

Honour's unwithered laurels on the brow

Of either party; but the balance, now

Forced by the hand of a brave Turk, inclined

Wholly to them. Thrice had his valour shined

In victory's refulgent rays, thrice heard

The shouts of conquest; thrice on his lance appeared

The heads of noble Rhodians, which had struck

A general sorrow 'mongst the knights. All look

Who next the lists should enter; each desires

The task were his, but honour now requires

A spirit more than vulgar, or she dies

The next attempt, their valour's sacrifice;

To prop whose ruins, chosen by the free

Consent of all, Argalia comes to be

Their happy champion. Truce proclaimed, until

The combat ends, the expecting people fill

The spacious battlements; the Turks forsake

Their tents, of whom the city ladies take

A dreadful view, till a more noble sight

Diverts their looks; each part behold their knight

With various wishes, whilst in blood and sweat

They toil for victory. The conflict's heat

Raged in their veins, which honour more inflamed

Than burning calentures could do; both blamed

The feeble influence of their stars, that gave

No speedier conquest; each neglects to save

Himself, to seek advantage to offend

His eager foe * * * *

* * * But now so long

The Turks' proud champion had endured the strong

Assaults of the stout Christian, till his strength

Cooled, on the ground, with his blood--he fell at length,

Beneath his conquering sword. The barbarous crew

O' the villains that did at a distance view

Their champion's fall, all bands of truce forgot,

Running to succour him, begin a hot

And desperate combat with those knights that stand

To aid Argalia, by whose conquering hand

Whole squadrons of them fall, but here he spent

His mighty spirit in vain, their cannons rent

His scattered troops.

* * * * *

Argalia lies in chains, ordained to die

A sacrifice unto the cruelty

Of the fierce bashaw, whose loved favourite in

The combat late he slew; yet had not been

In that so much unhappy, had not he

That honoured then his sword with victory,

Half-brother to Janusa been, a bright

But cruel lady, whose refined delight

Her slave (though husband), Ammurat, durst not

Ruffle with discontent; wherefore, to cool that hot

Contention of her blood, which he foresaw

That heavy news would from her anger draw,

To quench with the brave Christian's death, he sent

Him living to her, that her anger, spent

In flaming torments, might not settle in

The dregs of discontent. Staying to win

Some Rhodian castles, all the prisoners were

Sent with a guard into Sardinia, there

To meet their wretched thraldom. From the rest

Argalia severed, soon hopes to be bless'd

With speedy death, though waited on by all

The hell-instructed torments that could fall

Within invention's reach; but he's not yet

Arrived to his period, his unmoved stars sit

Thus in their orbs secured. It was the use

Of the Turkish pride, which triumphs in the abuse

Of suffering Christians, once, before they take

The ornaments of nature off, to make

Their prisoners public to the view, that all

Might mock their miseries: this sight did call

Janusa to her palace-window, where,

Whilst she beholds them, love resolved to bear

Her ruin on her treacherous eye-beams, till

Her heart infected grew; their orbs did fill,

As the most pleasing object, with the sight

Of him whose sword opened a way for the flight

Of her loved brother's soul.

HENRY VAUGHAN.

Vaughan was torn in Wales, on the banks of the Uske, in Brecknockshire,

in 1614. His father was a gentleman, but, we presume, poor, as his son

was bred to a profession. Young Vaughan became first a lawyer, and then

a physician; and we suppose, had it not been for his advanced life, he

would have become latterly a clergyman, since he grew, when old,

exceedingly devout. In life, he was not fortunate, and we find him, like

Chamberlayne, complaining bitterly of the poverty of the poetical tribe.

In 1651, he published a volume of verse, in which nascent excellence

struggles with dim obscurities, like a young moon with heavy clouds. But

his 'Silex Scintillans,' or 'Sacred Poems,' produced in later life,

attests at once the depth of his devotion, and the truth and originality

of his genius. He died in 1695.

Campbell, always prone to be rather severe on pious poets, and whose

taste, too, was finical at times, says of Vaughan--'He is one of the

harshest even of the inferior order of the school of conceit; but he has

some few scattered thoughts that meet the eye amidst his harsh pages,

like wild flowers on a barren heath.' Surely this is rather 'harsh'

judgment. At the same time, it is not a little laughable to find that

Campbell has himself appropriated one of these 'wild flowers.' In his

beautiful 'Rainbow,' he cries--

'How came the world's gray fathers forth

To mark thy sacred sign!'

Vaughan had said--

'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!'

Indeed, all Campbell's 'Rainbow' is just a reflection of Vaughan's, and

reminds you of those faint, pale shadows of the heavenly bow you

sometimes see in the darkened and disarranged skies of spring. To steal

from, and then strike down the victim, is more suitable to robbers than

to poets.

Perhaps the best criticism on Vaughan may be found in the title of his

own poems, 'Silex Scintillans.' He had a good deal of the dulness and

hardness of the flint about his mind, but the influence of poverty and

suffering,--for true it is that

'Wretched men

Are cradled into poetry by wrong;

They learn in suffering what they teach in song,'--

and latterly the power of a genuine, though somewhat narrow piety,

struck out glorious scintillations from the bare but rich rock. He ranks

with Crashaw, Quarles, and Herbert, as one of the best of our early

religious poets; like them in their faults, and superior to all of them

in refinement and beauty, if not in strength of genius.

ON A CHARNEL-HOUSE.

Where are you, shoreless thoughts, vast-tentered[1] hope,

Ambitious dreams, aims of an endless scope,

Whose stretched excess runs on a string too high,

And on the rack of self-extension die?

Chameleons of state, air-mongering[2] band,

Whose breath, like gunpowder, blows up a land,

Come, see your dissolution, and weigh

What a loathed nothing you shall be one day.

As the elements by circulation pass

From one to the other, and that which first was

Is so again, so 'tis with you. The grave

And nature but complete: what the one gave,

The other takes. Think, then, that in this bed

There sleep the relics of as proud a head,

As stern and subtle as your own; that hath

Performed or forced as much; whose tempest-wrath

Hath levelled kings with slaves; and wisely, then,

Calm these high furies, and descend to men.

Thus Cyrus tamed the Macedon; a tomb

Checked him who thought the world too strait a room.

Have I obeyed the powers of a face,

A beauty, able to undo the race

Of easy man? I look but here, and straight

I am informed; the lovely counterfeit

Was but a smoother clay. That famished slave,

Beggared by wealth, who starves that he may save,

Brings hither but his sheet. Nay, the ostrich-man,

That feeds on steel and bullet, he that can

Outswear his lordship, and reply as tough

To a kind word, as if his tongue were buff,

Is chapfallen here: worms, without wit or fear,

Defy him now; death has disarmed the bear.

Thus could I run o'er all the piteous score

Of erring men, and having done, meet more.

Their shuffled wills, abortive, vain intents,

Fantastic humours, perilous ascents,

False, empty honours, traitorous delights,

And whatsoe'er a blind conceit invites,--

But these, and more, which the weak vermins swell,

Are couched in this accumulative cell,

Which I could scatter; but the grudging sun

Calls home his beams, and warns me to be gone:

Day leaves me in a double night, and I

Must bid farewell to my sad library,

Yet with these notes. Henceforth with thought of thee

I'll season all succeeding jollity,

Yet damn not mirth, nor think too much is fit:

Excess hath no religion, nor wit;

But should wild blood swell to a lawless strain,

One check from thee shall channel it again.

[1] Vast-tentered: extended.

[2] Air-mongering: dealing in air or unsubstantial visions.

ON GOMBAULD'S ENDYMION.

I've read thy soul's fair night-piece, and have seen

The amours and courtship of the silent queen;

Her stolen descents to earth, and what did move her

To juggle first with heaven, then with a lover;

With Latmos' louder rescue, and, alas!

To find her out, a hue and cry in brass;

Thy journal of deep mysteries, and sad

Nocturnal pilgrimage; with thy dreams, clad

In fancies darker than thy cave; thy glass

Of sleepy draughts; and as thy soul did pass

In her calm voyage, what discourse she heard

Of spirits; what dark groves and ill-shaped guard

Ismena led thee through; with thy proud flight

O'er Periardes, and deep-musing night

Near fair Eurotas' banks; what solemn green

The neighbour shades wear; and what forms are seen

In their large bowers; with that sad path and seat

Which none but light-heeled nymphs and fairies beat,

Their solitary life, and how exempt

From common frailty, the severe contempt

They have of man, their privilege to live

A tree or fountain, and in that reprieve

What ages they consume: with the sad vale

Of Diophania; and the mournful tale

Of the bleeding, vocal myrtle:--these and more,

Thy richer thoughts, we are upon the score

To thy rare fancy for. Nor dost thou fall

From thy first majesty, or ought at all

Betray consumption. Thy full vigorous bays

Wear the same green, and scorn the lean decays

Of style or matter; just as I have known

Some crystal spring, that from the neighbour down

Derived her birth, in gentle murmurs steal

To the next vale, and proudly there reveal

Her streams in louder accents, adding still

More noise and waters to her channel, till

At last, swollen with increase, she glides along

The lawns and meadows, in a wanton throng

Of frothy billows, and in one great name

Swallows the tributary brooks' drowned fame.

Nor are they mere inventions, for we

In the same piece find scattered philosophy,

And hidden, dispersed truths, that folded lie

In the dark shades of deep allegory,

So neatly weaved, like arras, they descry

Fables with truth, fancy with history.

So that thou hast, in this thy curious mould,

Cast that commended mixture wished of old,

Which shall these contemplations render far

Less mutable, and lasting as their star;

And while there is a people, or a sun,

Endymion's story with the moon shall run.

APOSTROPHE TO FLETCHER THE DRAMATIST.

I did believe, great Beaumont being dead,

Thy widowed muse slept on his flowery bed.

But I am richly cozened, and can see

Wit transmigrates--his spirit stayed with thee;

Which, doubly advantaged by thy single pen,

In life and death now treads the stage again.

And thus are we freed from that dearth of wit

Which starved the land, since into schisms split,

Wherein th' hast done so much, we must needs guess

Wit's last edition is now i' the press.

For thou hast drained invention, and he

That writes hereafter, doth but pillage thee.

But thou hast plots; and will not the Kirk strain

At the designs of such a tragic brain?

Will they themselves think safe, when they shall see

Thy most abominable policy?

Will not the Ears assemble, and think't fit

Their synod fast and pray against thy wit?

But they'll not tire in such an idle quest--

Thou dost but kill and circumvent in jest;

And when thy angered muse swells to a blow,

Tis but for Field's or Swansteed's overthrow.

Yet shall these conquests of thy bays outlive

Their Scottish zeal, and compacts made to grieve

The peace of spirits; and when such deeds fail

Of their foul ends, a fair name is thy bail.

But, happy! thou ne'er saw'st these storms our air

Teemed with, even in thy time, though seeming fair.

Thy gentle soul, meant for the shade and ease

Withdrew betimes into the land of peace.

So, nested in some hospitable shore,

The hermit-angler, when the mid seas roar,

Packs up his lines, and ere the tempest raves,

Retires, and leaves his station to the waves.

Thus thou diedst almost with our peace; and we,

This breathing time, thy last fair issue see,

Which I think such, if needless ink not soil

So choice a muse, others are but thy foil;

This or that age may write, but never see

A wit that dares run parallel with thee.

True Ben must live; but bate him, and thou hast

Undone all future wits, and matched the past.

PICTURE OF THE TOWN.

Abominable face of things!--here's noise

Of banged mortars, blue aprons, and boys,

Pigs, dogs, and drums; with the hoarse, hellish notes

Of politicly-deaf usurers' throats;

With new fine worships, and the old cast team

Of justices, vexed with the cough and phlegm.

'Midst these, the cross looks sad; and in the shire-

Hall furs of an old Saxon fox appear,

With brotherly rufts and beards, and a strange sight

Of high, monumental hats, ta'en at the fight

Of Eighty-eight; while every burgess foots

The mortal pavement in eternal boots.

Hadst thou been bachelor, I had soon divined

Thy close retirements, and monastic mind;

Perhaps some nymph had been to visit; or

The beauteous churl was to be waited for,

And, like the Greek, ere you the sport would miss,

You stayed and stroked the distaff for a kiss.

* * * * *

Why, two months hence, if thou continue thus,

Thy memory will scarce remain with us.

The drawers have forgot thee, and exclaim

They have not seen thee here since Charles' reign;

Or, if they mention thee, like some old man

That at each word inserts--Sir, as I can

Remember--so the cipherers puzzle me

With a dark, cloudy character of thee;

That, certes, I fear thou wilt be lost, and we

Must ask the fathers ere't be long for thee.

Come! leave this sullen state, and let not wine

And precious wit lie dead for want of thine.

Shall the dull market landlord, with his rout

Of sneaking tenants, dirtily swill out

This harmless liquor shall they knock and beat

For sack, only to talk of rye and wheat?

Oh, let not such preposterous tippling be;

In our metropolis, may I ne'er see

Such tavern sacrilege, nor lend a line

To weep the rapes and tragedy of wine!

Here lives that chemic quick-fire, which betrays

Fresh spirits to the blood, and warms our lays;

I have reserved, 'gainst thy approach, a cup,

That, were thy muse stark dead, should raise her up,

And teach her yet more charming words and skill,

Than ever Coelia, Chloris, Astrophil,

Or any of the threadbare names inspired

Poor rhyming lovers, with a mistress fired.

Come, then, and while the snow-icicle hangs

At the stiff thatch, and winter's frosty fangs

Benumb the year, blithe as of old, let us,

'Midst noise and war, of peace and mirth discuss.

This portion thou wert born for: why should we

Vex at the times' ridiculous misery?

An age that thus hath fooled itself, and will,

Spite of thy teeth and mine, persist so still.

Let's sit, then, at this fire, and while we steal

A revel in the town, let others seal,

Purchase, or cheat, and who can, let them pay,

Till those black deeds bring on a darksome day.

Innocent spenders we! A better use

Shall wear out our short lease, and leave th' obtuse

Rout to their husks: they and their bags, at best,

Have cares in earnest--we care for a jest.

THE GOLDEN AGE.

Happy that first white age! when we

Lived by the earth's mere charity;

No soft luxurious diet then

Had effeminated men--

No other meat nor wine had any

Than the coarse mast, or simple honey;

And, by the parents' care laid up,

Cheap berries did the children sup.

No pompous wear was in those days,

Of gummy silks, or scarlet baize.

Their beds were on some flowery brink,

And clear spring water was their drink.

The shady pine, in the sun's heat,

Was their cool and known retreat;

For then 'twas not cut down, but stood

The youth and glory of the wood.

The daring sailor with his slaves

Then had not cut the swelling waves,

Nor, for desire of foreign store,

Seen any but his native shore.

No stirring drum had scared that age,

Nor the shrill trumpet's active rage;

No wounds, by bitter hatred made,

With warm blood soiled the shining blade;

For how could hostile madness arm

An age of love to public harm,

When common justice none withstood,

Nor sought rewards for spilling blood?

Oh that at length our age would raise

Into the temper of those days!

But--worse than Aetna's fires!--debate

And avarice inflame our state.

Alas! who was it that first found

Gold hid of purpose under ground--

That sought out pearls, and dived to find

Such precious perils for mankind?

REGENERATION.

1 A ward, and still in bonds, one day

I stole abroad;

It was high spring, and all the way

Primrosed, and hung with shade;

Yet was it frost within,

And surly wind

Blasted my infant buds, and sin,

Like clouds, eclipsed my mind.

2 Stormed thus, I straight perceived my spring

Mere stage and show,

My walk a monstrous, mountained thing,

Rough-cast with rocks and snow;

And as a pilgrim's eye,

Far from relief,

Measures the melancholy sky,

Then drops, and rains for grief,

3 So sighed I upwards still; at last,

'Twixt steps and falls,

I reached the pinnacle, where placed

I found a pair of scales;

I took them up, and laid

In the one late pains,

The other smoke and pleasures weighed,

But proved the heavier grains.

4 With that some cried, Away; straight I

Obeyed, and led

Full east, a fair, fresh field could spy--

Some called it Jacob's Bed--

A virgin soil, which no

Rude feet e'er trod,

Where, since he stept there, only go

Prophets and friends of God.

5 Here I reposed, but scarce well set,

A grove descried

Of stately height, whose branches met

And mixed on every side;

I entered, and, once in,

(Amazed to see 't;)

Found all was changed, and a new spring

Did all my senses greet.

6 The unthrift sun shot vital gold

A thousand pieces,

And heaven its azure did unfold,

Chequered with snowy fleeces.

The air was all in spice,

And every bush

A garland wore; thus fed my eyes,

But all the ear lay hush.

7 Only a little fountain lent

Some use for ears,

And on the dumb shades language spent,

The music of her tears;

I drew her near, and found

The cistern full

Of divers stones, some bright and round,

Others ill-shaped and dull.

8 The first, (pray mark,) as quick as light

Danced through the flood;

But the last, more heavy than the night,

Nailed to the centre stood;

I wondered much, but tired

At last with thought,

My restless eye, that still desired,

As strange an object brought.

9 It was a bank of flowers, where I descried

(Though 'twas mid-day)

Some fast asleep, others broad-eyed

And taking in the ray;

Here musing long I heard

A rushing wind,

Which still increased, but whence it stirred,

Nowhere I could not find.

10 I turned me round, and to each shade

Despatched an eye,

To see if any leaf had made

Least motion or reply;

But while I, listening, sought

My mind to ease

By knowing where 'twas, or where not,

It whispered, 'Where I please.'

'Lord,' then said I, 'on me one breath,

And let me die before my death!'

'Arise, O north, and come, thou south wind; and blow upon my garden,

that the spices thereof may flow out.'--CANT. iv. 16.

RESURRECTION AND IMMORTALITY.

'By that new and living way, which he hath prepared for us, through the

veil, which is his flesh.'--HEB. x. 20.

BODY.

1 Oft have I seen, when that renewing breath

That binds and loosens death

Inspired a quickening power through the dead

Creatures abed,

Some drowrsy silk-worm creep

From that long sleep,

And in weak, infant hummings chime and knell

About her silent cell,

Until at last, full with the vital ray,

She winged away,

And, proud with life and sense,

Heaven's rich expense,

Esteemed (vain things!) of two whole elements

As mean, and span-extents.

Shall I then think such providence will be

Less friend to me,

Or that he can endure to be unjust

Who keeps his covenant even with our dust?

SOUL

2 Poor querulous handful! was't for this

I taught thee all that is?

Unbowelled nature, showed thee her recruits,

And change of suits,

And how of death we make

A mere mistake;

For no thing can-to nothing fall, but still

Incorporates by skill,

And then returns, and from the womb of things

Such treasure brings,

As pheenix-like renew'th

Both life and youth;

For a preserving spirit doth still pass

Untainted through this mass,

Which doth resolve, produce, and ripen all

That to it fall;

Nor are those births, which we

Thus suffering see,

Destroyed at all; but when time's restless wave

Their substance doth deprave,

And the more noble essence finds his house

Sickly and loose,

He, ever young, doth wing

Unto that spring

And source of spirits, where he takes his lot,

Till time no more shall rot

His passive cottage; which, (though laid aside,)

Like some spruce bride,

Shall one day rise, and, clothed with shining light,

All pure and bright,

Remarry to the soul, for'tis most plain

Thou only fall'st to be refined again.

3 Then I that here saw darkly in a glass

But mists and shadows pass,

And, by their own weak shine, did search the springs

And course of things,

Shall with enlightened rays

Pierce all their ways;

And as thou saw'st, I in a thought could go

To heaven or earth below,

To read some star, or mineral, and in state

There often sate;

So shalt thou then with me,

Both winged and free,

Rove in that mighty and eternal light,

Where no rude shade or night

Shall dare approach us; we shall there no more

Watch stars, or pore

Through melancholy clouds, and say,

'Would it were day!'

One everlasting Sabbath there shall run

Without succession, and without a sun.

'But go thou thy way until the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand

in thy lot at the end of the days.'--DAN. xii. 13.

THE SEARCH.

'Tis now clear day: I see a rose

Bud in the bright east, and disclose

The pilgrim-sun. All night have I

Spent in a roving ecstasy

To find my Saviour. I have been

As far as Bethlehem, and have seen

His inn and cradle; being there

I met the wise men, asked them where

He might be found, or what star can

Now point him out, grown up a man?

To Egypt hence I fled, ran o'er

All her parched bosom to Nile's shore,

Her yearly nurse; came back, inquired

Amongst the doctors, and desired

To see the temple, but was shown

A little dust, and for the town

A heap of ashes, where, some said,

A small bright sparkle was abed,

Which would one day (beneath the pole)

Awake, and then refine the whole.

Tired here, I came to Sychar, thence

To Jacob's well, bequeathed since

Unto his sons, where often they,

In those calm, golden evenings, lay

Watering their flocks, and having spent

Those white days, drove home to the tent

Their well-fleeced train; and here (O fate!)

I sit where once my Saviour sate.

The angry spring in bubbles swelled,

Which broke in sighs still, as they filled,

And whispered, Jesus had been there,

But Jacob's children would not hear.

Loth hence to part, at last I rise,

But with the fountain in mine eyes,

And here a fresh search is decreed:

He must be found where he did bleed.

I walk the garden, and there see

Ideas of his agony,

And moving anguishments, that set

His blest face in a bloody sweat;

I climbed the hill, perused the cross,

Hung with my gain, and his great loss:

Never did tree bear fruit like this,

Balsam of souls, the body's bliss.

But, O his grave! where I saw lent

(For he had none) a monument,

An undefiled, a new-hewed one,

But there was not the Corner-stone.

Sure then, said I, my quest is vain,

He'll not be found where he was slain;

So mild a Lamb can never be

'Midst so much blood and cruelty.

I'll to the wilderness, and can

Find beasts more merciful than man;

He lived there safe, 'twas his retreat

From the fierce Jew, and Herod's heat,

And forty days withstood the fell

And high temptations of hell;

With seraphim there talked he,

His Father's flaming ministry,

He heavened their walks, and with his eyes

Made those wild shades a paradise.

Thus was the desert sanctified

To be the refuge of his bride.

I'll thither then; see, it is day!

The sun's broke through to guide my way.

But as I urged thus, and writ down

What pleasures should my journey crown,

What silent paths, what shades and cells,

Fair virgin-flowers and hallowed wells,

I should rove in, and rest my head

Where my dear Lord did often tread,

Sugaring all dangers with success,

Methought I heard one singing thus:

1 Leave, leave thy gadding thoughts;

Who pores

And spies

Still out of doors,

Descries

Within them nought.

2 The skin and shell of things,

Though fair,

Are not

Thy wish nor prayer,

But got

By mere despair

Of wings.

3 To rack old elements,

Or dust,

And say,

Sure here he must

Needs stay,

Is not the way,

Nor just.

Search well another world; who studies this,

Travels in clouds, seeks manna where none is.

'That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him,

and find him, though he be not far off from every one of us: for in

him we live, and move, and have our being.'--ACTS xvii. 27, 28.

ISAAC'S MARRIAGE.

'And Isaac went out to pray in the field at the eventide, and he

lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, the camels were coming.'

--GEN. xxiv. 63.

Praying! and to be married! It was rare,

But now 'tis monstrous; and that pious care

Though of ourselves, is so much out of date,

That to renew't were to degenerate.

But thou a chosen sacrifice wert given,

And offered up so early unto Heaven,

Thy flames could not be out; religion was

Hayed into thee like beams into a glass;

Where, as thou grew'st, it multiplied, and shined

The sacred constellation of thy mind.

But being for a bride, prayer was such

A decried course, sure it prevailed not much.

Hadst ne'er an oath nor compliment? thou wert

An odd, dull suitor; hadst thou but the art

Of these our days, thou couldst have coined thee twenty

New several oaths, and compliments, too, plenty.

O sad and wild excess! and happy those

White days, that durst no impious mirth expose:

When conscience by lewd use had not lost sense,

Nor bold-faced custom banished innocence!

Thou hadst no pompous train, nor antic crowd

Of young, gay swearers, with their needless, loud

Retinue; all was here smooth as thy bride,

And calm like her, or that mild evening-tide.

Yet hadst thou nobler guests: angels did wind

And rove about thee, guardians of thy mind;

These fetched thee home thy bride, and all the way

Advised thy servant what to do and say;

These taught him at the well, and thither brought

The chaste and lovely object of thy thought.

But here was ne'er a compliment, not one

Spruce, supple cringe, or studied look put on.

All was plain, modest truth: nor did she come

In rolls and curls, mincing and stately dumb;

But in a virgin's native blush and fears,

Fresh as those roses which the day-spring wears.

O sweet, divine simplicity! O grace

Beyond a curled lock or painted face!

A pitcher too she had, nor thought it much

To carry that, which some would scorn to touch;

With, which in mild, chaste language she did woo

To draw him drink, and for his camels too.

And now thou knew'st her coming, it was time

To get thee wings on, and devoutly climb

Unto thy God; for marriage of all states

Makes most unhappy, or most fortunates.

This brought thee forth, where now thou didst undress

Thy soul, and with new pinions refresh

Her wearied wings, which, so restored, did fly

Above the stars, a track unknown and high;

And in her piercing flight perfumed the air,

Scattering the myrrh and incense of thy prayer.

So from Lahai-roi[1]'s well some spicy cloud,

Wooed by the sun, swells up to be his shroud,

And from her moist womb weeps a fragrant shower,

Which, scattered in a thousand pearls, each flower

And herb partakes; where having stood awhile,

And something cooled the parched and thirsty isle,

The thankful earth unlocks herself, and blends

A thousand odours, which, all mixed, she sends

Up in one cloud, and so returns the skies

That dew they lent, a breathing sacrifice.

Thus soared thy soul, who, though young, didst inherit

Together with his blood thy father's spirit,

Whose active zeal and tried faith were to thee

Familiar ever since thy infancy.

Others were timed and trained up to't, but thou

Didst thy swift years in piety outgrow.

Age made them reverend and a snowy head,

But thou wert so, ere time his snow could shed.

Then who would truly limn thee out must paint

First a young patriarch, then a married saint.

[1] 'Lahai-roi:' a well in the south country where Jacob dwelt, between

Kadesh and Bered; _Heb.,_ The well of him that liveth and seeth me.

MAN'S FALL AND RECOVERY.

Farewell, you everlasting hills! I'm cast

Here under clouds, where storms and tempests blast

This sullied flower,

Robbed of your calm; nor can I ever make,

Transplanted thus, one leaf of his t'awake;

But every hour

He sleeps and droops; and in this drowsy state

Leaves me a slave to passions and my fate.

Besides I've lost

A train of lights, which in those sunshine days

Were my sure guides; and only with me stays,

Unto my cost,

One sullen beam, whose charge is to dispense

More punishment than knowledge to my sense.

Two thousand years

I sojourned thus. At last Jeshurun's king

Those famous tables did from Sinai bring.

These swelled my fears,

Guilts, trespasses, and all this inward awe;

For sin took strength and vigour from the law.

Yet have I found

A plenteous way, (thanks to that Holy One!)

To cancel all that e'er was writ in stone.

His saving wound

Wept blood that broke this adamant, and gave

To sinners confidence, life to the grave.

This makes me span

My fathers' journeys, and in one fair step

O'er all their pilgrimage and labours leap.

For God, made man,

Reduced the extent of works of faith; so made

Of their Red Sea a spring: I wash, they wade.

'As by the offence of one the fault came on all men to condemnation;

so by the righteousness of one, the benefit abounded towards all men

to the justification of life.'--ROM. v. 18.

THE SHOWER.

1 'Twas so; I saw thy birth. That drowsy lake

From her faint bosom breathed thee, the disease

Of her sick waters, and infectious ease.

But now at even,

Too gross for heaven,

Thou fall'st in tears, and weep'st for thy mistake.

2 Ah! it is so with me; oft have I pressed

Heaven with a lazy breath; but fruitless this

Pierced not; love only can with quick access

Unlock the way,

When all else stray,

The smoke and exhalations of the breast.

3 Yet if, as thou dost melt, and, with thy train

Of drops, make soft the earth, my eyes could weep

O'er my hard heart, that's bound up and asleep,

Perhaps at last,

Some such showers past,

My God would give a sunshine after rain.

BURIAL.

1 O thou! the first-fruits of the dead,

And their dark bed,

When I am cast into that deep

And senseless sleep,

The wages of my sin,

O then,

Thou great Preserver of all men,

Watch o'er that loose

And empty house,

Which I sometime lived in!

2 It is in truth a ruined piece,

Not worth thy eyes;

And scarce a room, but wind and rain

Beat through and stain

The seats and cells within;

Yet thou,

Led by thy love, wouldst stoop thus low,

And in this cot,

All filth and spot,

Didst with thy servant inn.

3 And nothing can, I hourly see,

Drive thee from me.

Thou art the same, faithful and just,

In life or dust.

Though then, thus crumbed, I stray

In blasts,

Or exhalations, and wastes,

Beyond all eyes,

Yet thy love spies

That change, and knows thy clay.

4 The world's thy box: how then, there tossed,

Can I be lost?

But the delay is all; Time now

Is old and slow;

His wings are dull and sickly.

Yet he

Thy servant is, and waits on thee.

Cut then the sum,

Lord, haste, Lord, come,

O come, Lord Jesus, quickly!

'And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of

the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.'--ROM. viii. 23.

CHEERFULNESS.

1 Lord, with what courage and delight

I do each thing,

When thy least breath sustains my wing!

I shine and move

Like those above,

And, with much gladness

Quitting sadness,

Make me fair days of every night.

2 Affliction thus mere pleasure is;

And hap what will,

If thou be in't,'tis welcome still.

But since thy rays

In sunny days

Thou dost thus lend,

And freely spend,

Ah! what shall I return for this?

3 Oh that I were all soul! that thou

Wouldst make each part

Of this poor sinful frame pure heart!

Then would I drown

My single one;

And to thy praise

A concert raise

Of hallelujahs here below.

THE PASSION.

1 O my chief good!

My dear, dear God!

When thy blest blood

Did issue forth, forced by the rod,

What pain didst thou

Feel in each blow!

How didst thou weep,

And thyself steep

In thy own precious, saving tears!

What cruel smart

Did tear thy heart!

How didst thou groan it

In the spirit,

O thou whom my soul loves and fears!

2 Most blessed Vine!

Whose juice so good

I feel as wine,

But thy fair branches felt as blood,

How wert thou pressed

To be my feast!

In what deep anguish

Didst thou languish!

What springs of sweat and blood did drown thee!

How in one path

Did the full wrath

Of thy great Father

Crowd and gather,

Doubling thy griefs, when none would own thee!

3 How did the weight

Of all our sins,

And death unite

To wrench and rack thy blessed limbs!

How pale and bloody

Looked thy body!

How bruised and broke,

With every stroke!

How meek and patient was thy spirit!

How didst thou cry,

And groan on high,

'Father, forgive,

And let them live!

I die to make my foes inherit!'

4 O blessed Lamb!

That took'st my sin,

That took'st my shame,

How shall thy dust thy praises sing?

I would I were

One hearty tear!

One constant spring!

Then would I bring

Thee two small mites, and be at strife

Which should most vie,

My heart or eye,

Teaching my years

In smiles and tears

To weep, to sing, thy death, my life.

RULES AND LESSONS.

1 When first thy eyes unvail, give thy soul leave

To do the like; our bodies but forerun

The spirit's duty. True hearts spread and heave

Unto their God, as flowers do to the sun.

Give him thy first thoughts then; so shalt thou keep

Him company all day, and in him sleep.

2 Yet never sleep the sun up. Prayer should

Dawn with the day. There are set, awful hours

'Twixt Heaven and us. The manna was not good

After sun-rising; far-day sullies flowers.

Rise to prevent the sun; sleep doth sins glut,

And heaven's gate opens when this world's is shut.

3 Walk with thy fellow-creatures; note the hush

And whispers amongst them. There's not a spring

Or leaf but hath his morning-hymn. Each bush

And oak doth know I AM. Canst thou not sing?

Oh, leave thy cares and follies! go this way,

And thou art sure to prosper all the day.

4 Serve God before the world; let him not go

Until thou hast a blessing; then resign

The whole unto him, and remember who

Prevailed by wrestling ere the sun did shine;

Pour oil upon the stones; weep for thy sin;

Then journey on, and have an eye to heaven.

5 Mornings are mysteries; the first world's youth,

Man's resurrection and the future's bud

Shroud in their births; the crown of life, light, truth

Is styled their star, the stone, and hidden food.

Three blessings wait upon them, two of which

Should move. They make us holy, happy, rich.

6 When the world's up, and every swarm abroad,

Keep thou thy temper; mix not with each clay;

Despatch necessities; life hath a load

Which must be carried on, and safely may.

Yet keep those cares without thee, let the heart

Be God's alone, and choose the better part.

7 Through all thy actions, counsels, and discourse,

Let mildness and religion guide thee out;

If truth be thine, what needs a brutish force?

But what's not good and just ne'er go about.

Wrong not thy conscience for a rotten stick;

That gain is dreadful which makes spirits sick.

8 To God, thy country, and thy friend be true;

If priest and people change, keep thou thy ground.

Who sells religion is a Judas Jew;

And, oaths once broke, the soul cannot be sound.

The perjurer's a devil let loose: what can

Tie up his hands that dares mock God and man?

9 Seek not the same steps with the crowd; stick thou

To thy sure trot; a constant, humble mind

Is both his own joy, and his Maker's too;

Let folly dust it on, or lag behind.

A sweet self-privacy in a right soul

Outruns the earth, and lines the utmost pole.

10 To all that seek thee bear an open heart;

Make not thy breast a labyrinth or trap;

If trials come, this will make good thy part,

For honesty is safe, come what can hap;

It is the good man's feast, the prince of flowers,

Which thrives in storms, and smells best after showers.

11 Seal not thy eyes up from the poor, but give

Proportion to their merits, and thy purse;

Thou may'st in rags a mighty prince relieve,

Who, when thy sins call for't, can fence a curse.

Thou shalt not lose one mite. Though waters stray,

The bread we cast returns in fraughts one day.

12 Spend not an hour so as to weep another,

For tears are not thine own; if thou giv'st words,

Dash not with them thy friend, nor Heaven; oh, smother

A viperous thought; some syllables are swords.

Unbitted tongues are in their penance double;

They shame their owners, and their hearers trouble.

13 Injure not modest blood, while spirits rise

In judgment against lewdness; that's base wit

That voids but filth and stench. Hast thou no prize

But sickness or infection? stifle it.

Who makes his jest of sins, must be at least,

If not a very devil, worse than beast.

14 Yet fly no friend, if he be such indeed;

But meet to quench his longings, and thy thirst;

Allow your joys, religion: that done, speed,

And bring the same man back thou wert at first.

Who so returns not, cannot pray aright,

But shuts his door, and leaves God out all night.

15 To heighten thy devotions, and keep low

All mutinous thoughts, what business e'er thou hast,

Observe God in his works; here fountains flow,

Birds sing, beasts feed, fish leap, and the earth stands fast;

Above are restless motions, running lights,

Vast circling azure, giddy clouds, days, nights.

16 When seasons change, then lay before thine eyes

His wondrous method; mark the various scenes

In heaven; hail, thunder, rainbows, snow, and ice,

Calms, tempests, light, and darkness, by his means;

Thou canst not miss his praise; each tree, herb, flower

Are shadows of his wisdom and his power.

17 To meals when thou dost come, give him the praise

Whose arm supplied thee; take what may suffice,

And then be thankful; oh, admire his ways

Who fills the world's unemptied granaries!

A thankless feeder is a thief, his feast

A very robbery, and himself no guest.

18 High-noon thus past, thy time decays; provide

Thee other thoughts; away with friends and mirth;

The sun now stoops, and hastes his beams to hide

Under the dark and melancholy earth.

All but preludes thy end. Thou art the man

Whose rise, height, and descent is but a span.

19 Yet, set as he doth, and 'tis well. Have all

Thy beams home with thee: trim thy lamp, buy oil,

And then set forth; who is thus dressed, the fall

Furthers his glory, and gives death the foil.

Man is a summer's day; whose youth and fire

Cool to a glorious evening, and expire.

20 When night comes, list[1] thy deeds; make plain the way

'Twixt heaven and thee; block it not with delays;

But perfect all before thou sleep'st; then say

'There's one sun more strung on my bead of days.'

What's good score up for joy; the bad, well scanned,

Wash off with tears, and get thy Master's hand.

21 Thy accounts thus made, spend in the grave one hour

Before thy time; be not a stranger there,

Where thou may'st sleep whole ages; life's poor flower

Lasts not a night sometimes. Bad spirits fear

This conversation; but the good man lies

Entombed many days before he dies.

22 Being laid, and dressed for sleep, close not thy eyes

Up with thy curtains; give thy soul the wing

In some good thoughts; so, when the day shall rise,

And thou unrak'st thy fire, those sparks will bring

New flames; besides where these lodge, vain heats mourn

And die; that bush where God is shall not burn.

23 When thy nap's over, stir thy fire, and rake

In that dead age; one beam i' the dark outvies

Two in the day; then from the damps and ache

Of night shut up thy leaves; be chaste; God pries

Through thickest nights; though then the sun be far,

Do thou the works of day, and rise a star.

24 Briefly, do as thou wouldst be done unto,

Love God, and love thy neighbour; watch and pray.

These are the words and works of life; this do,

And live; who doth not thus, hath lost heaven's way.

Oh, lose it not! look up, wilt change those lights

For chains of darkness and eternal nights?

[1] 'List:' weigh.

REPENTANCE.

Lord, since thou didst in this vile clay

That sacred ray,

Thy Spirit, plant, quickening the whole

With that one grain's infused wealth,

My forward flesh crept on, and subtly stole

Both growth and power; checking the health

And heat of thine. That little gate

And narrow way, by which to thee

The passage is, he termed a grate

And entrance to captivity;

Thy laws but nets, where some small birds,

And those but seldom too, were caught;

Thy promises but empty words,

Which none but children heard or taught.

This I believed: and though a friend

Came oft from far, and whispered, No;

Yet, that not sorting to my end,

I wholly listened to my foe.

Wherefore, pierced through with grief, my sad,

Seduced soul sighs up to thee;

To thee, who with true light art clad,

And seest all things just as they be.

Look from thy throne upon this roll

Of heavy sins, my high transgressions,

Which I confess with all my soul;

My God, accept of my confession!

It was last day,

Touched with the guilt of my own way,

I sat alone, and taking up,

The bitter cup,

Through all thy fair and various store,

Sought out what might outvie my score.

The blades of grass thy creatures feeding;

The trees, their leaves; the flowers, their seeding;

The dust, of which I am a part;

The stones, much softer than my heart;

The drops of rain, the sighs of wind,

The stars, to which I am stark blind;

The dew thy herbs drink up by night,

The beams they warm them at i' the light;

All that have signature or life

I summoned to decide this strife;

And lest I should lack for arrears,

A spring ran by, I told her tears;

But when these came unto the scale,

My sins alone outweighed them all.

O my dear God! my life, my love!

Most blessed Lamb! and mildest Dove!

Forgive your penitent offender,

And no more his sins remember;

Scatter these shades of death, and give

Light to my soul, that it may live;

Cut me not off for my transgressions,

Wilful rebellions, and suppressions;

But give them in those streams a part

Whose spring is in my Saviour's heart.

Lord, I confess the heinous score,

And pray I may do so no more;

Though then all sinners I exceed,

Oh, think on this, thy Son did bleed!

Oh, call to mind his wounds, his woes,

His agony, and bloody throes;

Then look on all that thou hast made,

And mark how they do fail and fade;

The heavens themselves, though fair and bright,

Are dark and unclean in thy sight;

How then, with thee, can man be holy,

Who dost thine angels charge with folly?

Oh, what am I, that I should breed

Figs on a thorn, flowers on a weed?

I am the gourd of sin and sorrow,

Growing o'er night, and gone to-morrow.

In all this round of life and death

Nothing's more vile than is my breath;

Profaneness on my tongue doth rest,

Defects and darkness in my breast;

Pollutions all my body wed,

And even my soul to thee is dead;

Only in him, on whom I feast,

Both soul and body are well dressed;

His pure perfection quits all score,

And fills the boxes of his poor;

He is the centre of long life and light;

I am but finite, he is infinite.

Oh, let thy justice then in him confine,

And through his merits make thy mercy mine!

THE DAWNING.

Ah! what time wilt thou come? when shall that cry,

'The Bridegroom's coming!' fill the skyl?

Shall it in the evening run

When our words and works are done?

Or will thy all-surprising light

Break at midnight,

When either sleep or some dark pleasure

Possesseth mad man without measure?

Or shall these early, fragrant hours

Unlock thy bowers,

And with their blush of light descry

Thy locks crowned with eternity?

Indeed, it is the only time

That with thy glory doth best chime;

All now are stirring, every field

Full hymns doth yield;

The whole creation shakes off night,

And for thy shadow looks the light;

Stars now vanish without number,

Sleepy planets set and slumber,

The pursy clouds disband and scatter,

All expect some sudden matter;

Not one beam triumphs, but from far

That morning-star.

Oh, at what time soever thou,

Unknown to us, the heavens wilt bow,

And, with thy angels in the van,

Descend to judge poor careless man,

Grant I may not like puddle lie

In a corrupt security,

Where, if a traveller water crave,

He finds it dead, and in a grave.

But as this restless, vocal spring

All day and night doth run and sing,

And though here born, yet is acquainted

Elsewhere, and flowing keeps untainted;

So let me all my busy age

In thy free services engage;

And though, while here, of force I must

Have commerce sometimes with poor dust,

And in my flesh, though vile and low,

As this doth in her channel flow,

Yet let my course, my aim, my love,

And chief acquaintance be above;

So when that day and hour shall come

In which thyself will be the Sun,

Thou'lt find me dressed and on my way,

Watching the break of thy great day.

THE TEMPEST.

1 How is man parcelled out! how every hour

Shows him himself, or something he should see!

This late, long heat may his instruction be;

And tempests have more in them than a shower.

When nature on her bosom saw

Her infants die,

And all her flowers withered to straw,

Her breasts grown dry;

She made the earth, their nurse and tomb,

Sigh to the sky,

Till to those sighs, fetched from her womb,

Rain did reply;

So in the midst of all her fears

And faint requests,

Her earnest sighs procured her tears

And filled her breasts.

2 Oh that man could do so! that he would hear

The world read to him! all the vast expense

In the creation shed and slaved to sense,

Makes up but lectures for his eye and ear.

3 Sure mighty Love, foreseeing the descent

Of this poor creature, by a gracious art

Hid in these low things snares to gain his heart,

And laid surprises in each element.

4 All things here show him heaven; waters that fall

Chide and fly up; mists of corruptest foam

Quit their first beds and mount; trees, herbs, flowers, all

Strive upwards still, and point him the way home.

5 How do they cast off grossness? only earth

And man, like Issachar, in loads delight,

Water's refined to motion, air to light,

Fire to all three,[1] but man hath no such mirth.

6 Plants in the root with earth do most comply,

Their leaves with water and humidity,

The flowers to air draw near and subtilty,

And seeds a kindred fire have with the sky.

7 All have their keys and set ascents; but man

Though he knows these, and hath more of his own,

Sleeps at the ladder's foot; alas! what can

These new discoveries do, except they drown?

8 Thus, grovelling in the shade and darkness, he

Sinks to a dead oblivion; and though all

He sees, like pyramids, shoot from this ball,

And lessening still, grow up invisibly,

9 Yet hugs he still his dirt; the stuff he wears,

And painted trimming, takes down both his eyes;

Heaven hath less beauty than the dust he spies,

And money better music than the spheres.

10 Life's but a blast; he knows it; what? shall straw

And bulrush-fetters temper his short hour?

Must he nor sip nor sing? grows ne'er a flower

To crown his temples? shall dreams be his law?

11 O foolish man! how hast thou lost thy sight?

How is it that the sun to thee alone

Is grown thick darkness, and thy bread a stone?

Hath flesh no softness now? mid-day no light?

12 Lord! thou didst put a soul here. If I must

Be broke again, for flints will give no fire

Without a steel, oh, let thy power clear

Thy gift once more, and grind this flint to dust!

[1] 'All three:' light, motion, heat

THE WORLD.

1 I saw eternity the other night,

Like a great ring of pure and endless light,

All calm, as it was bright;

And round beneath it, time, in hours, days, years,

Driven by the spheres,

Like a vast shadow moved, in which the world

And all her train were hurled.

The doting lover in his quaintest strain

Did there complain;

Near him, his lute, his fancy, and his flights,

Wit's sour delights;

With gloves, and knots, the silly snares of pleasure,

Yet his dear treasure,

All scattered lay, while he his eyes did pour

Upon a flower.

2 The darksome statesman, hung with weights and woe,

Like a thick midnight fog, moved there so slow,

He did nor stay, nor go;

Condemning thoughts, like sad eclipses, scowl

Upon his soul,

And clouds of crying witnesses without

Pursued him with one shout.

Yet digged the mole, and, lest his ways be found,

Worked under ground,

Where he did clutch his prey. But one did see

That policy.

Churches and altars fed him; perjuries

Were gnats and flies;

It rained about him blood and tears; but he

Drank them as free.

3 The fearful miser on a heap of rust

Sat pining all his life there, did scarce trust

His own hands with the dust,

Yet would not place one piece above, but lives

In fear of thieves.

Thousands there were as frantic as himself,

And hugged each one his pelf;

The downright epicure placed heaven in sense,

And scorned pretence;

While others, slipped into a wide excess,

Said little less;

The weaker sort slight, trivial wares enslave,

Who think them brave,

And poor, despised truth sat counting by

Their victory.

4 Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing,

And sing and weep, soared up into the ring;

But most would use no wing.

'O fools,' said I,'thus to prefer dark night

Before true light!

To live in grots and caves, and hate the day

Because it shows the way,

The way, which from this dead and dark abode

Leads up to God,

A way where you might tread the sun, and be

More bright than he!'

But, as I did their madness so discuss,

One whispered thus,

'This ring the bridegroom did for none provide,

But for his bride.'

'All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye,

and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And

the world passeth away, and the lusts thereof; but he that doeth the

will of God abideth for ever.'--1 JOHN ii. 16, 17.

THE CONSTELLATION.

1 Fair, ordered lights, whose motion without noise

Resembles those true joys,

Whose spring is on that hill where you do grow,

And we here taste sometimes below.

2 With what exact obedience do you move,

Now beneath, and now above!

And in your vast progressions overlook

The darkest night and closest nook!

3 Some nights I see you in the gladsome east,

Some others near the west,

And when I cannot see, yet do you shine,

And beat about your endless line.

4 Silence and light and watchfulness with you

Attend and wind the clue;

No sleep nor sloth assails you, but poor man

Still either sleeps, or slips his span.

5 He gropes beneath here, and with restless care,

First makes, then hugs a snare;

Adores dead dust, sets heart on corn and grass,

But seldom doth make heaven his glass.

6 Music and mirth, if there be music here,

Take up and tune his ear;

These things are kin to him, and must be had;

Who kneels, or sighs a life, is mad.

7 Perhaps some nights he'll watch with you, and peep

When it were best to sleep;

Dares know effects, and judge them long before,

When the herb he treads knows much, much more.

8 But seeks he your obedience, order, light,

Your calm and well-trained flight?

Where, though the glory differ in each star,

Yet is there peace still and no war.

9 Since placed by him, who calls you by your names,

And fixed there all your flames,

Without command you never acted ought,

And then you in your courses fought.

10 But here, commissioned by a black self-will,

The sons the father kill,

The children chase the mother, and would heal

The wounds they give by crying zeal.

11 Then cast her blood and tears upon thy book,

Where they for fashion look;

And, like that lamb, which had the dragon's voice,

Seem mild, but are known by their noise.

12 Thus by our lusts disordered into wars,

Our guides prove wandering stars,

Which for these mists and black days were reserved,

What time we from our first love swerved.

13 Yet oh, for his sake who sits now by thee

All crowned with victory,

So guide us through this darkness, that we may

Be more and more in love with day!

14 Settle and fix our hearts, that we may move

In order, peace, and love;

And, taught obedience by thy whole creation,

Become an humble, holy nation!

15 Give to thy spouse her perfect and pure dress,

Beauty and holiness;

And so repair these rents, that men may see

And say, 'Where God is, all agree.'

MISERY.

Lord, bind me up, and let me lie

A prisoner to my liberty,

If such a state at all can be

As an impris'ment serving thee;

The wind, though gathered in thy fist,

Yet doth it blow still where it list,

And yet shouldst thou let go thy hold,

Those gusts might quarrel and grow bold.

As waters here, headlong and loose,

The lower grounds still chase and choose,

Where spreading ail the way they seek

And search out every hole and creek;

So my spilt thoughts, winding from thee,

Take the down-road to vanity,

Where they all stray, and strive which shall

Find out the first and steepest fall.

I cheer their flow, giving supply

To what's already grown too high,

And having thus performed that part,

Feed on those vomits of my heart.

I break the fence my own hands made

Then lay that trespass in the shade;

Some fig-leaves still I do devise,

As if thou hadst not ears nor eyes.

Excess of friends, of words, and wine

Take up my day, while thou dost shine

All unregarded, and thy book

Hath not so much as one poor look.

If thou steal in amidst the mirth

And kindly tell me, I am earth,

I shut thee out, and let that slip;

Such music spoils good fellowship.

Thus wretched I and most unkind,

Exclude my dear God from my mind,

Exclude him thence, who of that cell

Would make a court, should he there dwell.

He goes, he yields; and troubled sore

His Holy Spirit grieves therefore;

The mighty God, the eternal King

Doth grieve for dust, and dust doth sing.

But I go on, haste to divest

Myself of reason, till oppressed

And buried in my surfeits, I

Prove my own shame and misery.

Next day I call and cry for thee

Who shouldst not then come near to me;

But now it is thy servant's pleasure,

Thou must and dost give him his measure.

Thou dost, thou com'st, and in a shower

Of healing sweets thyself dost pour

Into my wounds; and now thy grace

(I know it well) fills all the place;

I sit with thee by this new light,

And for that hour thou'rt my delight;

No man can more the world despise,

Or thy great mercies better prize.

I school my eyes, and strictly dwell

Within the circle of my cell;

That calm and silence are my joys,

Which to thy peace are but mere noise.

At length I feel my head to ache,

My fingers itch, and burn to take

Some new employment, I begin

To swell and foam and fret within:

'The age, the present times are not

To snudge in and embrace a cot;

Action and blood now get the game,

Disdain treads on the peaceful name;

Who sits at home too bears a load

Greater than those that gad abroad.'

Thus do I make thy gifts given me

The only quarrellers with thee;

I'd loose those knots thy hands did tie,

Then would go travel, fight, or die.

Thousands of wild and waste infusions

Like waves beat on my resolutions;

As flames about their fuel run,

And work and wind till all be done,

So my fierce soul bustles about,

And never rests till all be out.

Thus wilded by a peevish heart,

Which in thy music bears no part,

I storm at thee, calling my peace

A lethargy, and mere disease;

Nay those bright beams shot from thy eyes

To calm me in these mutinies,

I style mere tempers, which take place

At some set times, but are thy grace.

Such is man's life, and such is mine,

The worst of men, and yet still thine,

Still thine, thou know'st, and if not so,

Then give me over to my foe.

Yet since as easy 'tis for thee

To make man good as bid him be,

And with one glance, could he that gain,

To look him out of all his pain,

Oh, send me from thy holy hill

So much of strength as may fulfil

All thy delights, whate'er they be,

And sacred institutes in me!

Open my rocky heart, and fill

It with obedience to thy will;

Then seal it up, that as none see,

So none may enter there but thee.

Oh, hear, my God! hear him, whose blood

Speaks more and better for my good!

Oh, let my cry come to thy throne!

My cry not poured with tears alone,

(For tears alone are often foul,)

But with the blood of all my soul;

With spirit-sighs, and earnest groans,

Faithful and most repenting moans,

With these I cry, and crying pine,

Till thou both mend, and make me thine.

MOUNT OF OLIVES.

When first I saw true beauty, and thy joys,

Active as light, and calm without all noise,

Shined on my soul, I felt through all my powers

Such a rich air of sweets, as evening showers,

Fanned by a gentle gale, convey, and breathe

On some parched bank, crowned with a flowery wreath;

Odours, and myrrh, and balm in one rich flood

O'erran my heart, and spirited my blood;

My thoughts did swim in comforts, and mine eye

Confessed, 'The world did only paint and lie.'

And where before I did no safe course steer,

But wandered under tempests all the year;

Went bleak and bare in body as in mind,

And was blown through by every storm and wind,

I am so warmed now by this glance on me,

That 'midst all storms I feel a ray of thee.

So have I known some beauteous passage rise

In sudden flowers and arbours to my eyes,

And in the depth and dead of winter bring

To my cold thoughts a lively sense of spring.

Thus fed by thee, who dost all beings nourish,

My withered leaves again look green and flourish;

I shine and shelter underneath thy wing,

Where, sick with love, I strive thy name to sing;

Thy glorious name! which grant I may so do,

That these may be thy praise, and my joy too!

ASCENSION-DAY.

Lord Jesus! with what sweetness and delights,

Sure, holy hopes, high joys, and quickening flights,

Dost thou feed thine! O thou! the hand that lifts

To him who gives all good and perfect gifts,

Thy glorious, bright ascension, though removed

So many ages from me, is so proved

And by thy Spirit sealed to me, that I

Feel me a sharer in thy victory!

I soar and rise

Up to the skies,

Leaving the world their day;

And in my flight

For the true light

Go seeking all the way;

I greet thy sepulchre, salute thy grave,

That blest enclosure, where the angels gave

The first glad tidings of thy early light,

And resurrection from the earth and night,

I see that morning in thy convert's[1] tears,

Fresh as the dew, which but this dawning wears.

I smell her spices; and her ointment yields

As rich a scent as the now primrosed fields.

The day-star smiles, and light with the deceased

Now shines in all the chambers of the east.

What stirs, what posting intercourse and mirth

Of saints and angels glorify the earth?

What sighs, what whispers, busy stops and stays,

Private and holy talk, fill all the ways?

They pass as at the last great day, and run

In their white robes to seek the risen Sun;

I see them, hear them, mark their haste, and move

Amongst them, with them, winged with faith and love.

Thy forty days' more secret commerce here

After thy death and funeral, so clear

And indisputable, shows to my sight

As the sun doth, which to those days gave light.

I walk the fields of Bethany, which shine

All now as fresh as Eden, and as fine.

Such was the bright world on the first seventh day,

Before man brought forth sin, and sin decay;

When like a virgin clad in flowers and green

The pure earth sat, and the fair woods had seen

No frost, but flourished in that youthful vest

With which their great Creator had them dressed:

When heaven above them shined like molten glass,

While all the planets did unclouded pass;

And springs, like dissolved pearls, their streams did pour,

Ne'er marred with floods, nor angered with a shower.

With these fair thoughts I move in this fair place,

And the last steps of my mild Master trace.

I see him leading out his chosen train

All sad with tears, which like warm summer rain

In silent drops steal from their holy eyes,

Fixed lately on the cross, now on the skies.

And now, eternal Jesus! thou dost heave

Thy blessed hands to bless those thou dost leave.

The cloud doth now receive thee, and their sight

Having lost thee, behold two men in white!

Two and no more: 'What two attest is true,'

Was thine own answer to the stubborn Jew.

Come then, thou faithful Witness! come, dear Lord,

Upon the clouds again to judge this world!

[1] 'Thy convert:' St Mary Magdalene.

COCK-CROWING.

1 Father of lights! what sunny seed,

What glance of day hast thou confined

Into this bird? To all the breed

This busy ray thou hast assigned;

Their magnetism works all night,

And dreams of paradise and light.

2 Their eyes watch for the morning hue,

Their little grain-expelling night

So shines and sings, as if it knew

The path unto the house of light.

It seems their candle, howe'er done,

Was tinned and lighted at the sun.

3 If such a tincture, such a touch,

So firm a longing can empower,

Shall thy own image think it much

To watch for thy appearing hour?

If a mere blast so fill the sail,

Shall not the breath of God prevail?

4 O thou immortal light and heat!

Whose hand so shines through all this frame,

That by the beauty of the seat,

We plainly see who made the same,

Seeing thy seed abides in me,

Dwell thou in it, and I in thee!

5 To sleep without thee is to die;

Yea,'tis a death partakes of hell:

For where thou dost not close the eye

It never opens, I can tell.

In such a dark, Egyptian border,

The shades of death dwell, and disorder.

6 If joys, and hopes, and earnest throes,

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.