Come ye hither, all whom pain

Doth arraign,

Bringing all your sins to sight:
Taste and fear not; God is here
In this cheer,

And on sin doth cast the fright.

And exalts you to the sky:

Here is love, which, having breath

E'en in death,

After death can never die.

Lord, I have invited all,

And I shall

Still invite, still call to Thee;

For it seems but just and right

In my sight,

Where is all, there all should be.

THE BANQUET.

WELCOME, Sweet and sacred cheer;
Welcome dear;

With me, in me, live and dwell:
For thy neatness passeth sight;
Thy delight

Passeth tongue to taste or tell.

O what sweetness from the bowl
Fills my soul,

Such as is, and makes divine!

Is some star (fled from the sphere)
Melted there,

As we sugar melt in wine?

Or hath sweetness in the bread

Made a head

To subdue the smell of sin,

Flowers, and gums, and powders giving All their living,

Lest the enemy should win?

Doubtless neither star nor flower

Hath the power

Such a sweetness to impart :

Only God, who gives perfumes,

Flesh assumes,

And with it perfumes my heart.

But as pomanders and wood

Still are good,

Yet, being bruised, are better scented; God, to show how far His love

Could improve,

Here, as broken, is presented.

When I had forgot my birth,
And on earth

In delights of earth was drown'd,
God took blood, and needs would be
Spilt with me,

And so found me on the ground.

Having raised me to look up,

In a cup

Sweetly He doth meet my taste.
But, I still being low and short,
Far from court,

Wine becomes a wing at last.

For with it alone I fly

To the sky;

Where I wipe mine eyes, and see
What I seek, for what I sue:

Him I view

Who hath done so much for me.

Let the wonder of this pity

Be my ditty,

And take up my lines and life:
Hearken unto pain of death,
Hands and breath,

Strive in this, and love the strife.

THE POSY.

LET wits contest,

And with their words and posies windows fill: Less than the least

Of all Thy mercies, is my posy still.

This on my ring,

This by my picture, in my book I write :
Whether I sing,

Or say, or dictate, this is my delight.

Invention, rest;

Comparisons, go play; wit, use thy will:
Less than the least
Of all God's mercies, is my posy still.

A PARODY.

SOUL's joy, when Thou art gone,

And I alone;

Which cannot be,

Because Thou dost abide with me,

And I depend on Thee:

Yet, when Thou dost suppress
The cheerfulness

Of Thy abode,

And in my powers not stir abroad,
But leave me to my load;

O what a damp and shade
Doth me invade !

No stormy night

Can so afflict, or so affright,
As Thy eclipsed light.

Ah, Lord! do not withdraw,

Lest want of awe

Make sin appear;

And when Thou dost but shine less clear, Say that Thou art not here.

And then what life I have,

(While sin doth rave,

And falsely boast,

That I may seek, but Thou art lost,)
Thou, and alone Thou, know'st.

O what a deadly cold

Doth me infold!

I half believe

That sin says true: but while I grieve,

Thou com'st and dost relieve.