So much desired, is given, to take away My power to serve Thee; to unbend All my abilities, my designs confound, And lay my threatenings bleeding on the ground. One ague dwelleth in my bones, What I would do for Thee, if once my groans I am in all a weak, disabled thing, Save in the sight thereof, where strength doth sting. Besides, things sort not to my will, E'en when my will doth study Thy renown: Thou turnest the edge of all things on me still, Taking me up to throw me down : So that, e'en when my hopes seem to be sped, To have my aim, and yet to be Farther from it than when I bent my bow ; Is in the midst of delicates to need, And e'en in Paradise to be a weed. Ah, my dear Father, ease my smart! These contrarieties crush me; these cross actions Do wind a rope about, and cut my heart: And yet, (since these Thy contradictions Are properly a cross felt by Thy Son, With but four words, my words,) Thy will be done. THE FLOWER. How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean Are Thy returns! e'en as the flowers in spring, To which, besides their own demean, The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring. Grief melts away Like snow in May, As if there were no such cold thing. Who would have thought my shrivel❜d heart Could have recover'd greenness? It was gone Quite under ground; as flowers depart To see their mother-root, when they have blown; Where they together, All the hard weather, Dead to the world, keep house unknown. These are Thy wonders, Lord of power, This or that is: Thy word is all, if we could spell. O that I once past changing were, Fast in Thy Paradise, where no flower can wither! Many a spring I shoot up fair, Offering at heaven, growing and groaning thither; Nor doth my flower Want a spring-shower, My sins and I joining together. But while I grow in a straight line, Still upwards bent, as if heaven were mine own, Thy anger comes, and I decline: What frost to that? what pole is not the zone Where all things burn, When Thou dost turn, And the least frown of Thine is shown? And now in age I bud again, That I am he On whom Thy tempests fell at night. These are Thy wonders, Lord of love, Swelling through store, Forfeit their Paradise by their pride. DOTAGE. FALSE, glozing pleasures, casks of happiness, Shadows well mounted, dreams in a career, True, earnest sorrows, rooted miseries, Plain demonstrations, evident and clear, But O the folly of distracted men, Who griefs in earnest, joys in jest pursue; THE SON. LET foreign nations of their language boast, I like our language, as our men and coast; To parents' issue and the sun's bright star! So, in one word, our Lord's humility We turn upon Him in a sense most true; A TRUE HYMN. My Joy, my Life, my Crown! My heart was meaning all the day, Somewhat it fain would say; And still it runneth, muttering up and down, With only this, My Joy, my Life, my Crown! Yet slight not these few words; If truly said, they may take part |