Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

THE CALL.

I.

COME, my heart! come, my head,
In sighes and teares!

'Tis

now, since

you have laine thus dead,

Some twenty-years.

Awake, awake,

Some pitty take

Upon yourselves!

Who never wake to grone nor weepe,
Shall be sentenc'd for their sleepe.

II.

Doe but see your sad estate,

How many sands

Have left us, while we careles sate

With folded hands;

What stock of nights,
Of dayes, and yeares,
In silent flights,

Stole by our eares ;

How ill have we ourselves bestow'd,

Whose suns are all set in a cloud!

III.

Yet, come, and let's peruse them all;

And as we passe,

What sins on every minute fall

Score on the glasse;

G

Then weigh and rate
Their heavy state,
Untill

The glasse with teares you fill; That done, we shall be safe and good, Those beasts were cleane that chew'd the cud.

THOU THAT KNOW'ST.

THOU that know'st for whom I mourne,
And why these teares appeare,
That keep'st account till the returne
Of all his dust left here;

As easily thou mightst prevent,

As now produce, these teares,

And adde unto that day he went
A faire supply of yeares.

But 'twas my sinne that forc'd thy hand
To cull this primrose out,
That by thy early choice forewarn'd

My soule might looke about.

O what a vanity is man!

How like the eye's quick winke His cottage failes, whose narrow span Begins even at the brink!

Nine months thy hands are fashioning us,

And many yeares alas!

Ere we can lisp, or ought discusse

Concerning thee, must passe;

Yet have I knowne thy slightest things,
A feather or a shell,

A stick or rod, which some chance brings,
The best of us excell.

Yea, I have knowne these shreds outlast
A faire-compacted frame,
And for one twenty we have past
Almost outlive our name.

Thus hast thou plac'd in man's outside
Death to the common eye,

That heaven within him might abide,
And close eternitie.

Hence youth and folly, man's first shame,
Are put unto the slaughter,
And serious thoughts begin to tame

The wise man's madness, laughter.

Dull, wretched wormes! that would not keepe
Within our first faire bed,
But out of paradise must creepe
For ev'ry foote to tread!
Yet had our pilgrimage bin free,

And smooth without a thorne,

Pleasures had foil'd eternitie,

And tares had choakt the corne.
Thus by the crosse salvation runnes;
Affliction is a mother,

Whose painfull throes yield many sons,
Each fairer than the other.

A silent teare can peirce thy throne,
When lowd joyes want a wing;

And sweeter aires streame from a groue,

Than any arted string.

Thus, Lord, I see my gaine is great,
My losse but little to it;
Yet something more I must intreate,
And only thou canst doe it.

O let me, like him, know my end,
And be as glad to find it!
And whatsoe'r thou shalt commend,
Still let thy servant mind it!
Then make my soule white as his owne,
My faith as pure and steddy;

And deck me, Lord, with the same crowne
That has crownd him already.

VANITY OF SPIRIT.

QUITE spent with thoughts, I left my cell, and lay
Where a shrill spring tun'd to the early day.

I beg'd here long, and gron'd to know
Who gave the clouds so brave a bow,
Who bent the spheres, and circled in
Corruption with this glorious ring;
What is his name, and how I might

Descry some part of his great light.

I summon'd nature; peirc'd through all her store; Broke up some seales, which none had touch'd before;

Her wombe, her bosome, and her head, Where all her secrets lay a bed, I rifled quite, and having past Through all the creatures, came at last To search myselfe, where I did find Traces and sounds of a strange kind. Here of this mighty spring I found some drills, With ecchoes beaten from th' eternall hills. Weake beames and fires flash'd to my sight, Like a young east, or mooneshine night, Which shew'd me in a nook cast by A peece of much antiquity,

With hyerogliphicks quite dismembred,
And broken letters scarce remembred.
I tooke them up, and, much joy'd, went about
T'unite those peeces, hoping to find out

The mystery; but this near done,
That little light I had was gone.
It griev'd me much. At last, said I,
"Since in these veyls my ecclips'd eye
May not approach thee, (for at night
Who can have commerce with the light?)
I'le disapparell, and to buy

But one half glaunce most gladly dye."

« AnteriorContinuar »