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POEMS OF RELIGION.

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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?

Thy gardens and thy goodly walks
Continually are green,

Where grow such sweet and pleasant flowers
As nowhere else are seen.

Quite through the streets with pleasing sound The flood of life doth flow;

And on the banks, on every side,

The trees of life do grow.

These trees each month yield ripened fruit ;
Forevermore they spring,

And all the nations of the earth
To thee their honors bring.

Jerusalem, God's dwelling-place
Full sore I long to see;
O that my sorrows had an end,
That I might dwell in thee !

I long to see Jerusalem,

The comfort of us all;

For thou art fair and beautiful, None ill can thee befall.

No candle needs, no moon to shine, No glittering star to light;

For Christ the King of Righteousness Forever shineth bright.

O, passing happy were my state, Might I be worthy found

To wait upon my God and King, His praises there to sound!

Jerusalem Jerusalem !

Thy joys fain would I see ; Come quickly, Lord, and end my grief, And take me home to thee !

DAVID DICKSON.

DROP, DROP, SLOW TEARS.

DROP, drop, slow tears,

And bathe those beauteous feet Which brought from heaven

The news and prince of peace! Cease not, wet eyes,

His mercies to entreat;

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.

PHINEAS FLETCHER.

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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,

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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? I love the sea, - she is my fellow-creature,

My careful purveyor; she provides me store; She walls me round; she makes my diet greater; She wafts my treasure from a foreign shore : But, Lord of oceans, when compared with thee, What is the ocean or her wealth to me?

To heaven's high city I direct my journey,

Whose spangled suburbs entertain mine eye, Mine eye, by contemplation's great attorney,

Transcends the crystal pavement of the sky : But what is heaven, great God, compared to thee?

Without thy presence, heaven 's no heaven to

me.

Without thy presence, earth gives no refection; Without thy presence, sea affords no treasure; Without thy presence, air 's a rank infection; Without thy presence, heaven's itself no pleasure:

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

Prayer for the health of all that are diseased,
Confession unto all that are convicted,
And patience unto all that are displeased,
And comfort unto all that are afflicted,
And mercy unto all that have offended,
And grace to all, that all may be amended.

NICHOLAS BRETON.

Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.
Join voices, all ye living souls; ye birds,
That singing up to Heaven-gate ascend,
Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise.
Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk
The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep,
Witness if I be silent, morn or even,

To hill or valley, fountain or fresh shade,
Made vocal by my song, and taught his praise.
Hail, universal Lord! be bounteous still

ADAM'S MORNING HYMN IN PARADISE. To give us only good; and if the night
Have gathered aught of evil, or concealed,

THESE are thy glorious works, Parent of good, Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark.
Almighty, thine this universal frame,

Thus wondrous fair; thyself how wondrous then!
Unspeakable, who sitt'st above these heavens

To us invisible, or dimly seen

In these thy lowest works; yet these declare

PRAISE.

Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine. To write a verse or two is all the praise

Speak, ye who best can tell, ye sons of light,
Angels; for ye behold him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, day without night,
Circle his throne rejoicing; ye in Heaven,
On earth join, all ye creatures, to extol

Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.
Fairest of stars, last in the train of night,
If better thou belong not to the dawn,
Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling

morn

With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere,
While day arises, that sweet hour of prime.
Thou sun, of this great world both eye and soul,
Acknowledge him thy greater; sound his praise
In thy eternal course, both when thou climb'st,
And when high noon hast gained, and when thou
fall'st.

Moon, that now meets the orient sun, now fliest,
With the fixed stars, fixed in their orb that flies,
And ye five other wandering fires that move
In mystic dance not without song, resound
His praise, who out of darkness called up light.
Air, and ye elements, the eldest birth

Of Nature's womb, that in quaternion run
Perpetual circle, multiform, and mix

And nourish all things, let your ceaseless change
Vary to our great Maker still new praise.
Ye mists and exhalations, that now rise
From hill or steaming lake, dusky or gray,
Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honor to the world's great Author rise,
Whether to deck with clouds the uncolored sky,
Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers,
Rising or falling, still advance his praise.
His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters blow,
Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye
pines,

With every plant, in sign of worship wave.
Fountains, and ye that warble, as ye flow,

That I can raise ;

MILTON.

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