THE CALL. I. COME, my heart! come, my head, '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, II. Doe but see your sad estate, How many sands Have left us, while we careles sate With folded hands; What stock of nights, 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 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, As easily thou mightst prevent, As now produce, these teares, And adde unto that day he went But 'twas my sinne that forc'd thy hand 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 stick or rod, which some chance brings, Yea, I have knowne these shreds outlast Thus hast thou plac'd in man's outside That heaven within him might abide, Hence youth and folly, man's first shame, The wise man's madness, laughter. Dull, wretched wormes! that would not keepe And smooth without a thorne, Pleasures had foil'd eternitie, And tares had choakt the corne. Whose painfull throes yield many sons, A silent teare can peirce thy throne, And sweeter aires streame from a groue, Than any arted string. Thus, Lord, I see my gaine is great, O let me, like him, know my end, And deck me, Lord, with the same crowne VANITY OF SPIRIT. QUITE spent with thoughts, I left my cell, and lay I beg'd here long, and gron'd to know 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, The mystery; but this near done, But one half glaunce most gladly dye." |