THE FEAST.

O COME away,

Make no delay,

Come while my heart is clean and steddy!

While faith and grace

Adorn the place,

Making dust and ashes ready!

No bliss here lent

Is permanent,

Such triumphs poor flesh cannot merit;
Short sips and sights

Endear delights:

Who seeks for more he would inherit

Come then, true bread,

Quickning the dead,

Whose eater shall not, cannot dye!
Come, antedate

On me that state,

Which brings poor dust the victory.

Aye victory,

Which from thine eye

Breaks as the day doth from the east,
When the spilt dew

Like tears doth shew

The sad world wept to be releast.

Spring up, O wine,

And springing shine

With some glad message from His heart, Who did, when slain,

These means ordain

For me to have in him a part!

Such a sure part

'In his blest heart,

The well where living waters spring,
That with it fed

Poor dust, though dead,

Shall rise again, and live, and sing.

O drink and bread,

Which strikes death dead,
The food of man's immortal being!
Under veyls here

Thou art my chear,
Present and sure without my seeing.

How dost thou flye

And search and pry

Through all my parts, and like a quick

And knowing lamp

Hunt out each damp,

Whose shadow makes me sad or sick!

O what high joys!

The turtle's voice

And

songs I hear! O quickning showers

Of my Lord's blood,

You make rocks bud,

And crown dry hils with wells and flowers!

For this true ease

This healing peace,

For this brief taste of living glory,
My soul and all

Kneel down and fall,

And sing his sad victorious story!

O thorny crown

More soft than down!
O painful cross, my bed of rest!
O spear, the key

Opening the way!

O thy worst state my onely best!

O all thy griefs

Are my reliefs,

As all my sins, thy sorrows were !
And what can I

To this reply?

What, O God! but a silent tear?

Some toil and sow

That wealth may flow,

And dress this earth for next year's meat:

But let me heed

Why thou didsted,

And what in the next world to eat.

Rev. xix. 9.

Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb!

THE OBSEQUIES.

SINCE dying for me, thou didst crave no more
Than common pay,

Some few true tears, and those shed for
My own ill way;

With a cheap, plain remembrance still
Of thy sad death,

Because forgetfulness would kill

Even life's own breath:

I were most foolish and unkinde
In my own sense,

Should I not ever bear in minde,

If not thy mighty love, my own defense.
Therefore those loose delights and lusts, which here
Men call good chear,

I will, close girt and tyed,

For mourning sackcloth wear all mortified.

Not but that mourners too can have

Rich weeds and shrouds ;

For some wore white ev'n in thy grave,
And joy, like light, shines oft in clouds:
But thou, who didst man's whole life earn,
Dost so invite and woo me still,

That to be merry I want skill,
And time to learn.

Besides, those kerchiefs sometimes shed
To make me brave,

I cannot finde, but where thy head
Was once laid for me in thy grave.

Thy grave! to which my thoughts shall move
Like bees in storms unto their hive;
That from the murd'ring world's false love
Thy death may keep my soul alive.

THE WATER-FALL.

WITH What deep murmurs, through time's silent stealth,

Doth thy transparent, cool, and watry wealth

Here flowing fall,

And chide and call,

As if his liquid, loose retinue staid

Lingring, and were of this steep place afraid;
The common pass,

Where, clear as glass,