Set me fine Spanish tables in the hall,
See they be fitted all;

Let there be room to eat,

And order taken that there want no meat.

See

every sconce and candlestick made bright, That without tapers they may give a light. Look to the presence: are the carpets spread, The dazie o'er the head,

The cushions in the chairs,

And all the candles lighted on the stairs?
Perfume the chambers, and in any case
Let each man give attendance in his place.'
Thus if the king were coming would we do,
And 't were good reason too;

For 'tis a duteous thing

To show all honour to an earthly king,
And after all our travail and our cost,
So he be pleased, to think no labour lost.
But at the coming of the King of Heaven
All's set at six and seven:

We wallow in our sin,

Christ cannot find a chamber in the inn.
We entertain him always like a stranger
And as at first still lodge Him in the manger.

Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1640)

A Hymn to my God In a night of my late sickness

H, thou great Power! in whom I move,
For whom I live, to whom I die,

Behold me through thy beams of love,
Whilst on this couch of tears I lie;
And cleanse my sordid soul within,
By thy Christ's blood, the bath of sin.

No hallowed oils, no grains I need,
No rags of saints, no purging fire:
One rosy drop from David's seed
Was worlds of seas to quench thine ire:
O precious ransom! which once paid,
That Consummatum est was said:

And said by Him that said no more,
But seal'd it with his sacred breath:
Thou, then, that has dispong'd my score,
And dying wast the death of Death,
Be to me now, on Thee I call,

My life, my strength, my joy, my all!

D

John Donne (1573-1631)

Death

EATH, be not proud, though some have called
Thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me:
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell:
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke:- why swell'st thou then?
Our short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!

To cry for vengeance

Sin doth never cease.
In your deep floods

Drown all my faults and fears;
Nor let his eye

See sin, but through my tears.

John Amner

A stranger here, as all my fathers were

A

STRANGER here, as all

my

fathers were

That went before, I wander to and fro; From earth to heaven is my pilgrimage, A tedious way for flesh and blood to go: O Thou that art the way, pity the blind And teach me how I may Thy dwelling find.

William Drummond

From the mezzotint by John Finlayson after the painting by Cornelis Jansen