Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss : This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.
My stock lies dead, and no increase Doth my dull husbandry improve : O let thy graces without cease
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 ev'ry 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,
'Drop from above.'
SWEETEST of sweets, I thank you; when displeasure
Did through my body wound my mind, You took me thence, and in your house of pleasure A dainty lodging me assign'd.
Now I in you without a body move, Rising and falling with your wings: We both together sweetly live and love, Yet say sometimes, God help poor kings!'
Comfort, I'll die; for if you post from me, Sure I shall do so, and much more:
But if I travel in your company,
You know the way to Heaven's door.
LORD, how can man preach thy eternal Word? He is a brittle crazy glass:
Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford, This glorious and transcendent place, To be a window, through thy grace.
But when thou dost anneal in glass thy story, Making thy life to shine within The holy preachers; then the light and glory More rev'rend grows, and more doth win,- Which else shows wat'rish, bleak, and thin.
Doctrine and life, colours and light, in one When they combine and mingle, bring A strong regard and awe: but speech alone Doth vanish like a flaring thing, And in the ear, not conscience, ring.
WHO is the honest man ?- He that doth still, and strongly, good pursue, To God, his neighbour, and himself most true: Whom neither force nor fawning can Unpin, or wrench from giving all their due :
Whose honesty is not
So loose or easy, that a ruffling wind Can blow away, or glitt'ring look it blind: Who rides his sure and even trot,
While the world now rides by, now lags behind :
Who, when great trials come,
Nor seeks, nor shuns them; but doth calmly stay, Till he the thing and the example weigh:
All being brought into a sum, What place or person calls for, he doth pay :
Whom none can work, or woo,
To use in any thing a trick or slight; For above all things he abhors deceit ;
His words and works, and fashion too, All of a piece, and all are clear and straight:
Who never melts or thaws
At close temptations: when the day is done, His goodness sets not, but in dark can run : The sun to others writeth laws,
And is their virtue-Virtue is his sun:
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 To writhe his limbs, and share, not mend the ill.— This is the mark-man, safe and sure, Who still is right, and prays to be so still.
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, Thou know'st my tallies; and when there's assign'd So much breath to a sigh, what's then behind? Or if some years with it escape,
The sigh then only is
A gale to bring me sooner to my bliss.
Thy life on earth was grief, and thou art still Constant unto it, making it to be
A point of honour, now to grieve in me, And in thy members suffer ill.
They who lament one cross, Thou dying daily, praise thee to thy loss.
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, Knocking at heav'n with thy brow: The workydays are the back-part; The burden of the week lies there, Making the whole to stoop and bow, Till thy release appear.
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.
« ForrigeFortsett » |