Yet hate I but the fault,
And not the faulty one;

Nor can I rid from me the mate,
That forceth me to moan—

To moan a sinner's case, Than which was never worse, In prince or poor, in young or old, In bless'd, or full of curse.

Yet God's must I remain;
By death, by wrong, by shame
I cannot blot out of my heart
What grace wrote in his name.

I cannot set at nought Whom I have held so dear; I cannot make him seem afar, That is indeed so near.

Not that I look henceforth For love that erst I found; Sith that I break my plighted troth, To build on fickle ground.

But since that I have sinned, And scourge none is too ill; I yield me captive to my curse, My hard fate to fulfil.

The solitary wood

My city shall become;

The darkest dens shall be my lodge,

In which I rest or come.

A sandy plot my board,

The worms my feast shall be, Wherewith my carcass shall be fed Until they feed on me.

My tears shall be my wine,
My bed a craggy rock,

My harmony the serpents' hiss,
The screeching owl my clock;

My exercise remorse,

And doleful sinner's lays;

My book remembrance of my crimes,

And faults of former days.

And though I seem to use
The feigning poets' style,
To figure forth my careful plight,
My fall and my exile;

Yet is my grief not feigned,
Wherein I starve and pine;

Who feels the most, shall think it least,
If his compare with mine.

MAN TO THE WOUNDS IN CHRIST'S SIDE.

O PLEASANT port, O place of rest,
O royal rift, O worthy wound,
Come, harbour me, a weary guest,

That in the world no ease have found.

I lie lamenting at thy gate,

Yet dare I not adventure in;
I bear with me a troublous mate,

And cumbered am with heap of sin.
Discharge me of this heavy load,
That easier passage I may find,
Within this bower to make abode,
And in this glorious tomb be shrin'd.
Here must I live, here must I die,
Here would I utter all my grief;
Here would I all those pains descry,
Which here did meet for my relief.
Here would I view that bloody sore,
Which dint of spiteful spear did breed;
The bloody wounds laid there in store,
Would force a stony heart to bleed.
Here is the spring of trickling tears,
The mirror of all mourning wights,
With doleful tunes for dumpish ears,
And solemn shows for sorrow'd sights.
O happy soul, that flies so high,

As to attain this sacred cave!
Lord, send me wings, that I may fly,
And in this harbour quiet have.

A VALE OF TEARS.

A VALE there is, enwrapped with dreadful shades, Which thick of mourning pines shrouds from

the sun;

Where hanging cliffs yield short and dumpish glades,

And snowy floods with broken streams do

run:

Where eye-room is from rock to cloudy sky;
From thence to dales which stormy ruins shroud;
Then to the crushed water's frothy fry,

Which tumbleth from the tops, where snow is thaw'd;

Where cares of other sound can have no choice,
But various blust'ring of the stubborn wind,
In trees, in caves, in straits, with divers noise,
Which now doth hiss, now howl, now roar by
kind;

Where waters wrestle with encountering stones, That break their streams, and turn them into foam.

The hollow clouds, full fraught with thundering 1 groans,

With hideous thumps discharge their pregnant

womb.

And in the horror of this fearful quire,

Consists the music of this doleful place: All pleasant birds their tunes from thence retire, Where none but heavy notes have any grace. Resort there is of none but pilgrim-wights,

That pass with trembling foot, and panting heart, With terror cast in cold and shudd'ring frights, And all the place to terror framed by art: Yet nature's work it is, of art untouched, So strait indeed, so vast unto the eye, With such disordered order strangely couched, And so with pleasing horror, low and high, That who it views must needs remain aghast, Much at the work, more at the Maker's might, And muse how nature such a plot could cast, Where nothing seemed wrong, yet nothing right: A place for mated minds, an only bower,

Where every thing doth soothe a dumpish mood. Earth lies forlorn, the cloudy sky doth lower,

The wind here weeps, her sighs, her cries aloud;
The struggling flood between the marble
Then roaring beats upon the craggy sides;

groans,

A little off, amidst the pebble-stones, With bubling streams, a purling noise, it glides. The pines, thick set, high grown, and ever green, Still clothe the place with shade and mourning veil;

Here gaping cliffs, there moss-grown plain is

seen;

Here hope doth spring, and there again doth quail. Huge massy stones, that hang by tickle stay, Still threaten foul, and seem to hang in fear;

Some withered trees, ashamed of their decay, Beset with green, and forc'd gray coats to wear. Here crystal springs, crept out of secret vein, Strait find some envious hole that hides their grain. Here seared tufts lament the wants of grace; There thunder-wrack gives terror to the place. All pangs and heavy passions here may find A thousand motives suiting to their griefs,

To feed the sorrows of their troubled mind, And chase away dame Pleasure's vain reliefs. To plaining thoughts this vale a rest may be, To which from worldly toys they may retire, Where sorrow springs from water, stone, and tree,

Where every thing with mourners doth conspire. Sit here, my soul, mourn streams of tears afloat, Here all thy sinful foils alone recount;

Of solemn tunes make thou the dolefull'st note, That to thy ditty's dolor may amount.

When Echo doth repeat thy painful cries, Think that the very stones thy sins bewray, And now accuse thee with their sad replies, As heaven and earth shall in the latter day.