Thou shutt❜st the door, and keep'st within; Scarce a good joy creeps through the chink: And if the braves of conquering sin

Did not excite Thee, we should wholly sink.

Lord, though we change, Thou art the same; The same sweet God of love and light : Restore this day, for Thy great Name, Unto his ancient and miraculous right.

GRACE.

My stock lies dead, and no increase
Doth my dull husbandry improve:
O let Thy graces without cease

Drop from above!

If still the sun should hide his face,
Thy house would but a dungeon prove,
Thy works night's captives: O let grace
Drop from above!

The dew doth every morning fall;
And shall the dew outstrip Thy Dove?
The dew, for which grass cannot call,
Drop from above.

Death is still working like a mole,
And digs my grave at each remove:

Let grace work too, and on my soul
Drop from above.

Sin is still hammering my heart
Unto a hardness void of love :

Let suppling grace, to cross his art,
Drop from above.

O come! for Thou dost know the way
Or if to me Thou wilt not move,
Remove me where I need not say ·

To write a verse or two, is all the praise
That I can raise :

Mend my estate in any ways,
Thou shalt have more.

I go to Church; help me to wings, and I
Will thither fly;

Or, if I mount unto the sky,
I will do more.

Man is all weakness; there is no such thing
As prince or king:

His arm is short; yet with a sling
He may do more.

E

A herb distill'd, and drunk, may dwell next door,
On the same floor,

To a brave soul: exalt the poor,
They can do more.

O raise me then! Poor bees, that work all day,
Sting my delay,

Who have a work, as well as they,
And much, much more.

AFFLICTION.

KILL me not every day,

Thou Lord of life! since Thy one death for me Is more than all my deaths can be, Though I in broken pay

Die over each hour of Methusalem's stay.

If all men's tears were let

Into one common sewer, sea, and brine;

What were they all, compared to Thine?
Wherein if they were set,

They would discolor Thy most bloody sweat.

By way of imprest, all my future moan.

MATINS.

I CANNOT ope mine eyes,

But Thou art ready there to catch
My morning-soul and sacrifice:

Then we must needs for that day make a match.

My God, what is a heart?
Silver, or gold, or precious stone,
Or star, or rainbow, or a part
Of all these things, or all of them in one?

My God, what is a heart,

That Thou shouldst it so eye, and woo,
Pouring upon it all Thy art,

As if that Thou hadst nothing else to do?

Indeed, man's whole estate

Amounts (and richly) to serve Thee:
He did not heaven and earth create,
Yet studies them, not Him by whom they be.

Teach me Thy love to know;

That this new light, which now I see, May both the work and workman show: Then by a sunbeam I will climb to Thee.

SIN.

O THAT I Could a sin once see!
We paint the devil foul, yet he
Hath some good in him, all agree.

Sin is flat opposite to the Almighty, seeing
It wants the good of virtue, and of being.

But God more care of us hath had :
If apparitions make us sad,

By sight of sin we should grow mad.
Yet as in sleep we see foul death, and live,
So devils are our sins in prospective.

EVEN-SONG.

BLEST be the God of love,

Who gave me eyes, and light, and power this day, Both to be busy and to play.

But much more blest be God above,

Who gave me sight alone,
Which to Himself He did deny :

For when He sees my ways, I die:

But I have got His Son, and He hath none.