O brook not this, lest if what even now Affront those joys wherewith Thou didst endow, My poor soul, e'en sick of love; It may a Babel prove, CONSTANCY. WHO is the honest man? He that doth still and strongly good pursue, Whose honesty is not So loose or easy, that a ruffling wind While the world now rides by, now lags behind. Who, when great trials come, Nor seeks, nor shuns them; but doth calmly stay, What place or person calls for, he doth pay. Whom none can work or woo, To use in anything a trick or sleight; His words and works and fashion too Who never melts or thaws At close temptations: when the day is done, Who, when he is to treat With sick folks, women, those whom passions sway, Allows for that, and keeps his constant way; Whom others' faults do not defeat; But though men fail him, yet his part doth play. Whom nothing can procure, When the wide world runs bias, from his will AFFLICTION. My heart did heave, and there came forth, O God! By that I knew that Thou wast in the grief, To guide and govern it to my relief, Making a sceptre of the rod: Hadst Thou not had Thy part, Sure the unruly sigh had broke my heart. But since Thy breath gave me both life and shape, The sigh then only is A gale to bring me sooner to my bliss. Thy life on earth was grief, and Thou art still A point of honor, now to grieve in me, They who lament one cross, Thou dying daily, praise Thee to Thy loss. THE STAR. BRIGHT spark, shot from a brighter place, Where beams surround my Saviour's face, Canst thou be anywhere So well as there? Yet, if thou wilt from thence depart, Take a bad lodging in my heart; For thou canst make a debtor, F First with thy fire-work burn to dust And make it shine. So, disengaged from sin and sickness, Then, with our trinity of light, Motion, and heat, let's take our flight Unto the place where thou Before didst bow. Get me a standing there, and place Among the beams which crown the face Of Him who died to part Sin and my heart: That so among the rest I may Glitter, and curl, and wind as they : That winding is their fashion Of adoration. Sure thou wilt joy by gaining me To fly home like a laden bee Unto that hive of beams And garland-streams. SUNDAY. O DAY most calm, most bright! The fruit of this, the next world's bud, The indorsement of supreme delight, Writ by a Friend, and with His blood; The couch of time; care's balm and bay; The week were dark, but for thy light: Thy torch doth show the way. The other days and thou Make up one man; whose face thou art, Man had straight forward gone To endless death; but thou dost pull And turn us round to look on One, Whom, if we were not very dull, We could not choose but look on still; Since there is no place so alone The which He doth not fill. Sundays the pillars are, On which heaven's palace arched lies: |