POEMS OF RELIGION. For as thou dost impart thy grace, The measure of our joyes is in this place, Let me not languish, then, and spend As is the dust, to which that life doth tend, All things are busie; only I Nor flowres to make that, nor the husbandrie 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, O happy harbor of God's saints! No dimly cloud o'ershadows thee, Thy walls are made of precious stone, 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 Where grow such sweet and pleasant flowers 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 ; And all the nations of the earth Jerusalem, God's dwelling-place 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. I LOVE, and have some cause to love, the earth, — She is my mother, for she gave me birth; Or what's my mother or my nurse to me? - 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, The highest honors that the world can boast But dying sparkles of thy living fire; Without thy presence, wealth is bags of cares; TWO WENT UP TO THE TEMPLE TO PRAY. Two went to pray? O, rather say, One stands up close and treads on high, One nearer to God's altar trod, RICHARD CRASHAW. THE VALEDICTION. THE silly lambs to-day In a more brutish sort Be sadly ended, And the web they have spun Can ne'er be mended. What is the time that 's gone, The present stays not. Over the silver mountains Where spring the nectar fountains. My soul will be a-dry before, I'll take them first to quench their thirst, At those clear wells where sweetness dwells To Him that made heaven, earth, and sea, Set on my soul an everlasting head: To tread those blest paths which before I writ. 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; Prayer for the health of all that are diseased, NICHOLAS BRETON. Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise. To hill or valley, fountain or fresh shade, ADAM'S MORNING HYMN IN PARADISE. To give us only good; and if the night THESE are thy glorious works, Parent of good, Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark. Thus wondrous fair; thyself how wondrous then! 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, Him first, him last, him midst, and without end. morn With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere, Moon, that now meets the orient sun, now fliest, Of Nature's womb, that in quaternion run And nourish all things, let your ceaseless change With every plant, in sign of worship wave. That I can raise ; MILTON. |