And to procure these outward woes,
Have thus entrapped me unaware;
Thou should'st by much more careful be,
Since greater foes lay wait for thee.
Then when mew'd up in grates of steel,
Minding those joys mine eyes do miss,
Thou find'st no torment thou dost feel,
So grievous as privation is;
Muse how the damn'd, in flames that glow,
Pine in the loss of bliss they know.
Thou seest there's given so great might
To some that are but clay as I;
Their very anger can affright,
Which, if in any thou espy,
Thus think; if mortals' frowns strike fear,
How dreadful will God's wrath appear?
late hopes that now are crost, Consider those that firmer be:
And make the freedom I have lost,
may remember thee:
Had Christ not thy redeemer bin,
What horrid thrall thou had'st been in.
These iron chains, these bolts of steel,
Which other poor offenders grind,
As if we daily were to take
Our everlasting leave.
The frowardness that springs
From our corrupted kind,
Or from those troublous outward things
Which may distract the mind;
Permit Thou not, O Lord!
Our constant love to shake,
Or to disturb our true accord,
Or make our hearts to ache.
But let these frailties prove
Affection's exercise,
And that discretion teach our love
Which wins the noblest prize:
So time, which wears away,
And ruins all things else,
Shall fix our love on Thee for aye,
In whom perfection dwells.
Henry King, Bishop of Chichester (1591-1669)
On the Death of a Beloved Wife
CCEPT, thou Shrine of my dead Saint,
Instead of Dirges this complaint:
And for sweet flowres to crown thy hearse,
Receive a strew of weeping verse
From thy griev'd friend, whom thou might'st see Quite melted into tears for thee.
Dear loss! since thy untimely fate,
My task hath been to meditate
On thee, on thee: thou art the book,
The library, whereon I look,
Though almost blind. For thee (lov'd clay)
I languish out, not live, the day,
Using no other exercise
But what I practice with mine eyes:
By which wet glasses, I find out
How lazily time creeps about
To one that mourns: this, onely this,
My exercise and bus'ness is:
So I compute the weary houres
With sighs dissolved into showres.
Nor wonder, if my time go thus
Backward and most preposterous;
Thou hast benighted me; thy set
This Eve of blackness did beget,
Who was't my day, (though overcast,
Before thou had'st thy Noon-tide past)
And I remember must in tears,
Thou scarce had'st seen so many years
As Day tells houres. By thy cleer Sun,
My love and fortune first did run;
But thou wilt never more appear
Folded within my Hemisphear,
Since both thy light and motion
Like a fled Star is fall'n and gon,
And twixt me and my soules dear wish
The earth now interposed is,
Which such a strange eclipse doth make,
As ne're was read in Almanake.
Were it a month, a year, or ten,
I would thy exile live till then;
And all that space my mirth adjourn,
So thou wouldst promise to return;
And putting off thy ashy shrowd,
At length disperse this sorrows cloud.
But woe is me! the longest date
Too narrow is to calculate
These empty hopes: never shall I
Be so much blest as to descry
A glimpse of thee, till that day come,
Which shall the earth to cinders doome,
And a fierce Feaver must calcine
The body of this world, like thine,
My Little World! That fit of fire
Once off, our bodies shall aspire
To our soules bliss: then we shall rise,
And view our selves with cleerer eyes
In that calm Region, where no night
Can hide us from each others sight.
Mean time, thou hast her, earth; much good
May my harm do thee. Since it stood
With Heavens will, I might not call
Her longer mine, I give thee all
|