Yet lay him in his stall, and from the orient Stars and wife men will travel, to prevent
DEIGN at my hands this crown of prayer and Th' effect of Herod's jealous general doom.
Weav'd in my lone devout melancholy,
Thou which of good hafte, yea, art treasury,
All changing unchang'd, Ancient of days;
But do not, with a vile crown of frail bays,
Reward my Mufe's white fincerity,
Bet what thy thorny crown gain'd that give me,
A crown of glory, which doch flower always:
The ends crown our works, but thou crown'ft our
ends,
For at our ends begins our endless reft;
The first laft end now zealously poffet,
With a ftrong fober thirst my foul attends.
'Tis time that heart and voice be lifted high,
Salvation to all that will is nigh.
"SALVATION to all that will is nigh;"
That All, which always is all every where,
Which cannot fin, and yet all fins must bear,
Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,
Lo, faithful Virgin! yields himself to lie
In prifon in thy womb; and though he there
Can take no fin, nor thou give, yet he'll wear,
Taken from thence, flesh, which death's force
may try.
E'er by the spheres time was created thou
Waft in his mind, who is thy fon and brother,
Whom thou conceiv'ft conceived; yet thou'rt now
Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother;
Thou 'haft light in dark, and shutt'ft in little room
Immenfity, cloifter'd in thy dear womb.
"IMMENSITY, cloifter'd in thy dear womb,"
Now leaves his well-belov'd imprisonment;
There he hath made himself to his intent
Weak enough, now into our world to come :
But, oh! for thee, for him, hath th' inn no reom?
Seeft thou, my Soul! with thy faith's eye, how he
Which fills all place, yet none holds him, doth lie?
Was not his pity towards thee wond'rous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee?
Kifs him, and with him into Egypt go,
With his kind mother, who partakes thy woe.
"WITH his kind mother, who partakes thy woe,"
Jofeph turn back; fee where your child doth fit
Blowing, yea, blowing out those sparks of wit
Which himself on the Doctors did beftow:
The Word but lately could not speak, and lo,
It fuddenly speaks wonders. Whence comes it
That all which was, and all which should be writ,
A fhallow-feeming child should deeply know?
His Godhead was not foul to his manhood,
Nor had time mellow'd him to this ripeness:
But as for one which hath a long task 't is good
With the fun to begin his bufinefs,
He in his age's morning thus began,
By miracles exceeding power of man.
"By miracles exceeding power of man"
He faith in fome, envy in fome begat;
For what weak fpirits admire ambitious hate;
In both affections many to him ran:
But, oh the worst are moft, they will and can,
Alas! and do unto th' immaculate,
Whofe creature Fate is, now prescribe a fatc,
Measuring felf-life's infinite to fpan,
Nay, to an inch. Lo, where, condemned, he
Bears his own crofs with pain; yet by and by,
When it bears him, he must bear more and die.
Now thou art lifted up, draw me to thee,
And, at thy death giving fuch liberal dole;
Moift with one drop of thy blood my dry foul.
"MOIST with one drop of thy blood my dryfoul,"
Shall (though the now be in extreme degree
[foul;
Too ftony hard, and yet too fleshly) be
Freed by that drop from being ftarv'd, hard, or
And life, by this death abled, fhall controul
Death, whom thy death flew; nor fhall to me
Fear of first or last death bring misery,
If in thy life's-book my name thou inrol:
Flesh in that long fleep is not putrified,
But made that there of which, and for which 't was,
Nor can by other means be glorified.
Would I have profit by the facrifice,
And dare the chofen altar to defpife?
fit
It bore all other fins, but is
That it fhould bear the fin of fcorning it?
Who from the picture would avert his eye,
How would he fly his pains who there did die?
From me no pulpit nor mifgrounded law,
Nor fcandal taken fhall this Crofs withdraw;
It fhall not, for it cannot; for the lofs
Of this Crofs were to me another cross;
Better were worse, for no affliction,
No crofs is fo extreme as to have none.
Who can blot out the Crofs, which th' inftru
May then fin's fleep, and death foon from me pass, Of God dew'd on me in the facrament?
That, wak'd from both, I again rifen may Salute the laft and everlasting day.
Ceafe then, O Queens! that earthly crowns do wear,
To glory in the pomp of earthly things;
If men fuch high refpects unto you bear,
Which daughters, wives, and mothers, are of kings,
What honour can unto that queen be done
Who had your God for father, fpouse, and fon?
SINCE Chrift embrac'd the Cross itself, dare I,
His image, th' image of his Crofs deny ?
Who can deny me power and liberty
To ftretch mine arms, and mine own Crofs to be?
Swim, and at every stroke thou art thy Cross:
The maft and yard make one where feas do tofs.
Look down, thou fpy'ft our croffes in fmall
things;
Look up, thou see'ft birds rais'd on croffed
All the globe's frame and spheres is nothing elfe
But the meridian's croffing parallels,
Material Croffes then good phyfic be,
But yet fpiritual have chief dignity.
Thefe for extracted chemic medicine ferve,
And cure much better, and as well preferve;
Then are you your own phyfic or need none,
When fill'd or purg'd by tribulation;
For when that crofs ungrudg'd unto you sticks,
Then are you to yourself a crucifix.
As perchance carvers do not faces make,
But that away which hid them there do take :
Let Croffes fo take what hid Christ in thee,
And be his image, or not his, but he.
But as oft' alchymift do coiners prove,
So may a felf-defpifing get felf-love:
And then, as worst furfeits of best meats be,
So is pride iffued from humility;
For 't is no child but monster: therefore cross
Your joy in Croffes, elfe 't is double lofs;
And crofs thy fenfes, elfe both they and thou
Muft perish foon, and to deftruction bow:
For if th' eye fee good objects, and will take
No crofs from bad, we cannot 'fcape a fnake.
So with harth, hard, fow'r, ftinking crofs the reft,
Make them indifferent all; nothing beft.
But most the eye needs crofling, that roam
And move to th' others objects must come home.
And crofs thy heart; for tha. in man alone
Pants downwards, and hath palpitation..
Crofs thofe detorfions when it downward tends,
And when it to forbidden heights pretends.
And as the brain, though bony, walls doth vent
By futures, which a crofs's form prefent,
So when thy brain works, e'er thou utter it,
Croís and correct concupifcence of wit.
Be covetous of Croffes, let none fall;
Crofs no man elfe, but cross thyfelf in all.
Then doth the Croís of Chrift work faithfully
Within our hearts when we love harmlessly
The Crofs's pictures much, and with more care
That Crofs's children which our croffes are.
SLEEP, fleep, old Sun! thou canst not have repast
As yet the wound thou took'st on Friday last;
Sleep, then, and reft; the world may hear thy flay,
A better Sun rofe before thee to-day;
Who, not content t' enlighten all that dwell
On the earth's face, as thou enlight'ned hell,
And made the dark fires languish in that vale,
As at thy prefence here our fires grow pale;
Whofe body having walk'd on earth, and now
Haft'ning to heav'n, would that he might allow
Himself unto all stations, and fill all,
For these three days become a mineral.
He was all gold when he lay down, but rofe
All tincture, and doth not alone difpofe
Leaden and iron wills to good, but is
Of pow'r to make ev'n finful flesh like his.
Had one of thofe, whofe credulous piety
Thought that a foul one might difcern and fee
Go from a body, at this fepulchre been,
And ffuing from the sheet this body feen,
He would have justly thought this body a foul,
If not of any man, yet of the whole.
I PRESUME you rather try what you can do in me than what I can do in verfe: you know my uttermoft when it was beft, and even then I did beft when I had least truth for my fubjects. In this prefent cafe there is fo much truth as it defeats all poetry: call, therefore, this paper by what name you will, and if it be not worthy of him, nor of you, nor of me, fmother it, and be that the facrifice. If you had commanded me to have waited on his body to Scotland, and preached there, I would have embraced the obligation with more alacrity; but I thank you that you would command me that which I was loth to do, for even that hath given a tincture of merit to the obedience of
Your poor friend and fervant in Chrift Jefus,
TO THE SAINTS, AND TO MARQUIS HAMILTON.
Sad and rejoic'd she's feen at once, and scen
At almost fifty, and at fearce fifteen :
At once a fon is promis'd her, and gone;
Gabriel gives Chrift to her, he her to John:
WHETHER that foul, which now comes up to you, Not fully a mother, she's in orbity,
Fill any former rank, or make a new;
Whether it take a name nam'd there before,
Or be a name itself, and order more
Than was in heav'n till now; (for may not he
Be fo, if every feveral angel be
A kind alone) whatever order grow
Greater by him in heav'n, we do not fo.
One of your orders grows by his access,
But by his lofs grow all our orders less.
The name of Father, Master, Friend, the name
Of Subject and of Prince, in one is lame;
Fair mirth is dampt, and conversation black,
The Household widow'd, and the Garter flack;
The Chapel wants an ear, Council a tongue;
Story a theme, and Mufic lacks a fong.
Bleft order! that hath him, the lofs of him
Gangren'd all orders here; all lost a limb!
Never made body such hafte to confefs
What a foul was; all former comeliness
Fled in a minute, when the foul was gone,
And having loft that beauty would have none:
So fell our monafteries, in an instant grown
Not to lefs houses, but to heaps of stone;
So fent his body, that fair form it wore,
Unto the sphere of forms, and doth (before
His foul fhall fill up his fepulchral stone)
Anticipate a refurrection:
For as it is his fame, now his foul's here,
So in the form thereof his body's there.
And if, fair Soul! not with firft innocents
Thy ftation be, but with the penitents,
(And who fhall dare to ask then, when I am
Dy'd fcarlet in the blood of that pure Lamb,
Whether that colour which is fcarlet then
Were black or white before in eyes of men ?)
When thou rememb'reft what fins thou didst find
Amongst those many friends now left behind,
And feeft fuch finners, as they are, with thee
Got thither by repentance, let it be
Thy wish to with all there, to wish them clean;
With him a David, her a Magdalane.
ANNUNCIATION AND PASSION.
TAMELY, frail flesh! abflain to-day; to-day
My foul eats twice, Chrift hither and away;
She fees him man, fo like God made in this,
That of them both a circle emblem is,
Whose first and last concur: this doubtful day
Of feast or faft Chrift came and went away.
She fees him nothing twice at once, who's all:
She fees a cedar plant itself, and fall;
Her Maker put to making, and the head
Of life, at once, not yet alive, and dead:
She fees at once the Virgin-mother stay
Reclus'd at home, public at Golgotha.
At once receiver and the legacy.
All this, and all between, this day hath shown,
Th' abridgment of Christ's story, which makes one
(As in plain maps the furtheft weft is east)
Of th' angel's Ave and Confummatum eft.
How well the church, God's Court of Faculties,
Deals in fometimes and seldom joining these !
As by the self-fix'd pole we never do
Direct our course, but the next star thereto,
Which fhews where th' other is, and which we say
(Because it strays not far) doth never stray :
So God by his church, nearest to him, we know,
And ftand firm, if we by her motion go;
His Spirit, as his fiery pillar, doth
Lead, and his church as cloud; to one end both.
This church, by letting thofe feasts join, hath
fhown
Death and conception in mankind are one;
Or 't was in him the fame humility,
That he would be a man and leave to be,
Or as creation he hath made, as God,
With the laft judgment but one period;
His imitating spouse would join in one
Manhood's extremes; he fhall come, he is gone:
Or as though one blood drop, which thence did fall
Accepted, would have ferv'd, he yet shed all :
So though the leaft of his pains, deeds or words,
Would bufy a life, fhe all this day affords.
This treasure then in grofs, my Sou!! up-lay,
And in my life retail it every day.
LET man's foul be a fphere, and then in this
Th' intelligence that moves, devotion is;
And as the other fpheres, by being grown
Subject to foreign motion, lose their own,
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a year their natural form obey:
Pleasure or business so our fouls admit
For their first mover, and are whirl'd by it.
Hence is't that I am carried t'wards the weft
This day, when my foul's form bends to the caft;
There I fhould fee a fun by rifing fet,
And by that fetting endlefs day beget.
But that Chrift on his crofs did rife and fall,
Sin had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I almost be glad I do not fee
That fpectacle of too much weight for me.
Who fees God's face, that is felf-life, muft die;
What a death were it then to fee God die?
It made his own lieutenant, Nature, fhrink;
It made his footitool crack, and the fun wink.
Could I behold thofe hands which fpan the poles,
And tune all spheres at once, pierc'd with those
holes?
Could I behold that endless height which is
Zenith to us and our antipodes,
Humbled below us? or that blood, which is
The feat of all our fouls, if not of his,
Made dirt of duft? or that flesh, which was worn
By God for his apparel, ragg'd and torn?
If on these things I durft not look, durst I
On his distreffed mother caft mine eye,
Who was God's partner here, and furnish'd thus
Half of that facrifice which ransom'd us?
Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye,
They're prefent yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them, and thou look'st towards me,
O Saviour! as thou hang'ft upon the tree.
I turn my back to thee, but to receive
Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave.
O think me worth thine anger; punish me,
Burn off my ruft, and my deformity;
Reftore thine image fo much by thy grace,
That thou may'st know me, and I'll turn my face.
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FATHER of heav'n, and him by whom
It, and us for it, and all elfe for us,
Thou mad'ft and govern'st ever, come,
And re-create me, now grown ruinous;
My heart is by dejection clay,
And by felf-murder red.
From this red earth, O Father! purge away
All vicious tinctures, that, new fashioned,
I may rife up from death before I'm dead.
AND fince this life our nonage is,
And we in wardship to thine Angels be,
Native in heav'n's fair palaces,
Where we shall be but denizon'd by thee;
As th' earth, conceiving by the fun,
Yields fair diversity,
Yet never knows what course that light doth run;
So let me study that mine actions be
Worthy their fight, though blind in how they fee.
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