For as thou dost impart thy grace,
The greater shall our glorie be.

The measure of our joyes is in this place,
The stuffe with thee.

Let me not languish, then, and spend
A life as barren to thy praise

As is the dust, to which that life doth tend,
But with delaies.

All things are busie; only I
Neither bring hony with the bees,

Nor flowres to make that, nor the husbandrie
To water these.

I am no link of thy great chain, But all my companie is a weed. Lord, place me in thy consort; give one strain To my poore reed.

GEORGE HERBERT.

THE NEW JERUSALEM.

O MOTHER dear, Jerusalem,

When shall I come to thee?
When shall my sorrows have an end, -
Thy joys when shall I see?

O happy harbor of God's saints!
O sweet and pleasant soil!
In thee no sorrow can be found,
Nor grief, nor care, nor toil.

No dimly cloud o'ershadows thee,
Nor gloom, nor darksome night;
But every soul shines as the sun,
For God himself gives light.

Thy walls are made of precious stone,
Thy bulwarks diamond-square,
Thy gates are all of orient pearl, -
O God! if I were there!

O my sweet home, Jerusalem!
Thy joys when shall I see?-
The King sitting upon thy throne,
And thy felicity?

DARKNESS IS THINNING.
DARKNESS is thinning; shadows are retreating;
Morning and light are coming in their beauty.
Suppliant seek we, with an earnest outcry,
God the Almighty!

So that our Master, having mercy on us,
May repel languor, may bestow salvation,
Granting us, Father, of thy loving kindness
Glory hereafter !

This of his mercy, ever-blesséd Godhead,
Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, give us,
Whom through the wide world celebrate forever
Blessing and glory!

ST. GREGORY THE GREAT (Latin). Translation
of J. M. NEALE.

I LOVE, AND HAVE SOME CAUSE

I LOVE, and have some cause to love, the earth, She is my Maker's creature, therefore good; She is my mother, for she gave me birth;

She is my tender nurse, she gives me food: But what's a creature, Lord, compared with thee?

Or what's my mother or my nurse to me?

I love the air, her dainty sweets refresh
My drooping soul, and to new sweets invite me;
Her shrill-mouthed choir sustain me with their
flesh,

And with their polyphonian notes delight me :
But what's the air, or all the sweets that she
Can bless my soul withal, compared to thee?

If not possessed, if not enjoyed in thee,
What's earth, or sea, or air, or heaven to me?

The highest honors that the world can boast
Are subjects far too low for my desire;
The brightest beams of glory are, at most,

But dying sparkles of thy living fire;
The loudest flames that earth can kindle be
But nightly glow-worms if compared to thee.

Without thy presence, wealth is bags of cares;
Wisdom but folly; joy, disquiet, sadness;
Friendship is treason, and delights are snares;
Pleasures but pain, and mirth but pleasing

TWO WENT UP TO THE TEMPLE TO

PRAY.

Two went to pray? O, rather say,
One went to brag, the other to pray;

One stands up close and treads on high,
Where the other dares not lend his eye;

One nearer to God's altar trod,
The other to the altar's God.

RICHARD CRASHAW.

THE VALEDICTION.

THE silly lambs to-day
Pleasantly skip and play,
Whom butchers mean to slay,
Perhaps to-morrow;

In a more brutish sort
Do careless sinners sport,
Or in dead sleep still snort,
As near to sorrow;
Till life, not well begun,

Be sadly ended,

And the web they have spun

Can ne'er be mended.

What is the time that 's gone,
And what is that to come?
Is it not now as none?

The present stays not.

Over the silver mountains

Where spring the nectar fountains.
There will I kiss the bowl of bliss,
And drink mine everlasting fill
Upon every milken hill.

My soul will be a-dry before,
But after, it will thirst no more.
Then by that happy, blissful day,
More peaceful pilgrims I shall see,
That have cast off their rags of clay,
And walk apparelled fresh like me.

I'll take them first to quench their thirst,
And taste of nectar's suckets

At those clear wells where sweetness dwells
Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets.
And when our bottles and all we
Are filled with immortality,
Then the blest paths we 'll travel,
Strewed with rubies thick as gravel, -
Ceilings of diamonds, sapphire floors,
High walls of coral, and pearly bowers.
From thence to Heaven's bribeless hall,
Where no corrupted voices brawl;
No conscience molten into gold,
No forged accuser, bought or sold,
No cause deferred, no vain-spent journey,
For there Christ is the King's Attorney;
Who pleads for all without degrees,
And he hath angels, but no fees;
And when the grand twelve-million jury
Of our sins, with direful fury,
'Gainst our souls black verdicts give,
Christ pleads his death, and then we live.
Be thou my speaker, taintless pleader,
Unblotted lawyer, true proceeder!
Thou giv'st salvation even for alms,
Not with a bribéd lawyer's palms.
And this is mine eternal plea

To Him that made heaven, earth, and sea,
That since my flesh must die so soon,
And want a head to dine next noon,
Just at the stroke when my veins start and
spread,

Set on my soul an everlasting head:
Then am I, like a palmer, fit

To tread those blest paths which before I writ.
Of death and judgment, heaven and hell,
Who oft doth think, must needs die well.

And I would frame a kind of faithful prayer, For all estates within the state of grace, That careful love might never know despair, Nor servile fear might faithful love deface; And this would I both day and night devise To make my humble spirit's exercise.

And I would read the rules of sacred life;
Persuade the troubled soul to patience;
The husband care, and comfort to the wife,
To child and servant due obedience;
Faith to the friend, and to the neighbor peace,
That love might live, and quarrels all might cease.