O spred thy sacred wings, and shake One living drop! one drop life keeps ! If pious griefs heaven's joys awake, O fill his bottle! thy childe weeps!
Slowly and sadly doth he grow,
And soon as left shrinks back to ill; O feed that life which makes him blow And spred and open to thy will!
For thy eternal, living wells
None stain'd or wither'd shall come near: A fresh, immortal green there dwells, And spotless white is all the wear.
Dear, secret greenness! nurst below! Tempests and windes and winter-nights Vex not, that but One sees thee grow, That One made all these lesser lights.
If those bright joys He singly sheds On thee, were all met in one crown,
Both sun and stars would hide their heads; And moons, though full, would get them down.
Let glory be their bait whose mindes
Are all too high for a low cell:
Though hawks can prey through storms and winds, The poor bee in her hive must dwell.
Glory, the croud's cheap tinsel, still
To what most takes them is a drudge; And they too oft take good for ill,
And thriving vice for vertue judge.
What needs a conscience calm and bright Within itself an outward test?
Who breaks his glass to take more light, Makes way for storms into his rest.
Then bless thy secret growth, nor catch At noise, but thrive unseen and dumb; Keep clean, bear fruit, earn life, and watch, Till the white-winged reapers come!
As time one day by me did pass, Through a large dusky glasse He held, I chanc'd to look, And spyed his curious book
Of past days, where sad Heav'n did shed A mourning light upon the dead.
Many disordered lives I saw,
And foul records which thaw
My kinde eyes still; but in A fair, white page of thin
And ev❜n, smooth lines, like the sun's rays, Thy name was writ, and all thy days.
O bright and happy kalendar!
Where youth shines like a star All pearl'd with tears, and may Teach age the holy way;
Where through thick pangs, high agonies, Faith into life breaks, and death dies.
As some meek night-piece, which day quails, To candle-light unveils;
So by one beauty line
From thy bright lamp did shine In the same page thy humble grave,
Set with green herbs, glad hopes and brave.
Here slept my thought's dear mark! which dust Seem'd to devour like rust;
But dust, I did observe,
By hiding doth preserve;
As we for long and sure recruits, Candy with sugar our choice fruits.
O calm and sacred bed, where lies In death's dark mysteries
A beauty far more bright
Than the noon's cloudless light;
For whose dry dust green branches bud, And robes are bleach'd in the Lamb's blood.
Sleep, happy ashes! blessed sleep! While haplesse I still weep; Weep that I have outliv'd My life, and unreliev'd
Must, soul-lesse shadow ! so live on, Though life be dead, and my joys gone.
FAIR and yong light! my guide to holy Grief, and soul-curing melancholy; Whom living here I did still shun As sullen night-ravens do the sun, And led by my own foolish fire
Wandred through darkness, dens, and mire. How am I now in love with all
That I term'd then meer bonds and thrall ! And to thy name, which still I keep, Like the surviving turtle weep! O bitter, curs'd delights of men! Our soul's diseases first, and then Our body's: poysons that intreat With fatal sweetness, till we eat; How artfully do you destroy,
That kill with smiles and seeming joy!
If all the subtilties of vice
Stood bare before unpractic'd eyes,
And every act she doth commence Had writ down its sad consequence, Yet would not men grant, their ill fate Lodged in those false looks, till too late. O holy, happy, healthy heaven, Where all is pure, where all is even, Plain, harmless, faithful, fair, and bright, But what earth breaths against thy light! How blest had men been, had their sire Liv'd still in league with thy chaste fire; Nor made life through her long descents A slave to lustful elements !
I did once read in an old book Soil'd with many a weeping look, That the seeds of foul sorrows be The finest things that are to see. So that fam'd fruit, which made all dye, Seem'd fair unto the woman's eye. If these supplanters in the shade Of paradise could make man fade, How in this world should they deter, This world, their fellow-murtherer! And why then grieve we to be sent Home by our first fair punishment, Without addition to our woes And lingring wounds from weaker foes; Since that doth quickly freedom win, For he that's dead is freed from sin? O that I were winged and free
And quite undrest just now with thee,
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