At thy approach the conscious trees And every flower a fresher brightness wears; Where buxom Ceres waits him with a smile: Or chants some love-lorn ditty's air, With which he means to charm, and win his favourite fair. O sovereign of the spicy gale, Of odours pure, and salutary dews, Thy valleys, wash'd with crystal rills, And verdant lawns, where many a wild-flower grows; There, while zephyr softly blows, Let me indulge the heaven-devoted thought, And render praises as I ought To Him whose power and love divine Call'd thee from total void, and bade thy beauty shine. William Woty. MATINS. I cannot ope mine eyes, But thou art ready there to catch My morning-soul and sacrifice! Then we must needs for that day make a match. My God, what is a heart? Of all these things, or all of them in one? My God, what is a heart, That thou should'st it so eye and woo, As if that thou hadst nothing else to do? Indeed, man's whole estate Amounts (and richly) to serve thee: He did not heav'n and earth create, Yet studies them, not Him by whom they be. Teach me thy love to know; That this new light, which now I see, May both the work and workman show: Then by a sunbeam I will climb to thee. Herbert. EVEN-SONG. Blest be the God of love, Who gave me eyes, and light, and power this day, Both to be busy and to play, But much more blest be God above, Who gave me sight alone, Which to himself he did deny! For when he sees my ways, I die! But I have got his Son, and he hath none. What have I brought thee home I ran, but all I brought was some. My diet, care, and cost, Do end in bubbles, balls of wind; Of wind to thee whom I have cross'd, But balls of wild-fire to my troubled mind. Yet still thou goest on, And now with darkness closest weary eyes, Thus in thy ebony box Thou dost enclose us, till the day And give new wheels to our disorder'd clocks. I muse, which shows more love The day or night: that is the gale, this th' harbour; My God thou art all love, Not one poor minute 'scapes thy breast, And in this love, more than in bed, I rest. Herbert. AN AUTUMN MORNING. Go! let the diving Negro seek For gems hid in some forlorn creek; We all pearls scorn, Save what the dewy morn Congeals upon each little spire of grass, Which careless shepherds beat down as they pass; And gold ne'er here appears, Save what the yellow Ceres bears? Sir W. Raleigh. FAIR DAYS; OR, DAWN'S DECEITFUL. Fair was the dawn; and but e'en now the skies Herrick. SUNDAY. O day most calm, most bright, The other days and thou Make up one man; whose face thou art, Man had straight forward gone We could not choose but look on still; The which he doth not fill. Sundays the pillars are, On which heaven's palace archéd lies! They are the fruitful beds and borders The Sundays of man's life, On Sunday heaven's gate stands ope; |