The Hound of Heaven

et her, if she would owe me,

h blue bosom-yeil of sky, and show me he breasts o' her tenderness;

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Lo! naught contents thee, who content'st not Me."

I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke!

ness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,

And smitten me to my knee;

am defenseless utterly.

I slept, methinks, and woke,

owly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.
rash lustihood of my young powers,
I stood the pillaring hours

lled my life upon me; grimed with smears
amid the dust o' the mounded years—
ngled youth lies dead beneath the heap.
ys have crackled and gone up in smoke,
buffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream,
Yea, faileth now each dream

eamer, and the lute the lutanist;

he linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist
g the earth a trinket at my wrist,
elding; cords of all too weak account
rth with heavy griefs so overplussed,
Ah! is Thy love indeed

1, albeit an amaranthine weed,

ng no flowers except its own to mount? Ah! must

>

Designer infinite!

ust Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with

shness spent its wavering shower i' the dust:

>w my heart is as a broken fount,

Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever
From the dank thoughts that shiver

Upon the sighful branches of my mind.
Such is; what is to be?

The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?
I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds:
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity;
Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then
Round the half-glimpsèd turrets slowly wash again.
But not ere him who summoneth

I first have seen, enwound

With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned;
His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.
Whether man's heart or life it be that yields
Thee harvest, must Thy harvest fields
Be dunged with rotten death?

Now of that long pursuit

Comes on at hand the bruit;

That Voice is round me like a bursting sea.
"And is thy earth so marred,

Shattered in shard on shard?

Lo, all things fly thee, for thou flyest Me!
Strange, piteous, futile thing,

Wherefore should any set thee love apart?

Seeing none but I makes much of naught" (He said), "And human love needs human meriting:

How hast thou merited

Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?
Alack, thou knowest not

How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee
Save Me, save only Me?

All which I took from thee, I did but take,
Not for thy harms,

But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child's mistake

Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp My hand, and come!"

"CARE-CHARMER SLEEP'

SLEEP

From "The Woman-Hater"

COME, Sleep, and with thy sweet deceiving
Lock me in delight awhile;

Let some pleasing dreams beguile
All my fancies; that from thence

I may feel an influence

All my powers of care bereaving!

Though but a shadow, but a sliding,
Let me know some little joy!
We that suffer long annoy
Are contented with a thought
Through an idle fancy wrought:

O let my joys have some abiding!

John Fletcher [1579-1625]

"SLEEP, SILENCE' CHILD”

SLEEP, Silence' child, sweet father of soft rest,
Prince, whose approach peace to all mortals brings,
Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings,
Sole comforter of minds with grief oppressed;
Lo, by thy charming rod all breathing things
Lie slumbering, with forgetfulness possessed,
And yet o'er me to spread thy drowsy wings
Thou sparest, alas! who cannot be thy guest.
Since I am thine, O come, but with that face
To inward light which thou art wont to show;
With feigned solace ease a true-felt woe;
Or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace,

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what thou wilt bequeath: of my death.

lliam Brummond (1585–1649)

William Drummo

Tar world

15 to 2990

ift dgnor

81 EER DSLEEP

yods Povore

t leisurely pass by,

ound of rain, and bees

of rivers, winds and seas,

e sheets of water, and pure sky;
by turns, and yet do lie

the small birds' melodies
ttered from my orchard trees;
koo's melancholy cry.

ght, and two nights more, I lay,
in thee, Sleep! by any stealth:
e wear to-night away!

what is all the morning's wealth?
barrier between day and day,

of fresh thoughts and joyous health!
William Wordsworth [1770-1850]

E lived and I have loved;
ye waked and I have slept;
ve sung and I have danced;
ve smiled and I have wept;
ave won and wasted treasure;
ave had my fill of pleasure;
nd all these things were weariness,
nd some of them were dreariness.
nd all these things-but two things
Were emptiness and pain;

And Love it was the best of them;
And Sleep-worth all the rest of them.

Unknown