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. CLIII. THE BANQUET. WELCOME Sweet and sacred cheer, With me, in me, live and dwell: 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 Such a sweetness to impart : 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. 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 under pain of death, Hands and breath, Strive in this, and love the strife. CLIV. 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 ; Or say, or dictate, this is my delight. Invention rest; Less than the least CLV. A PARODY. SOUL's joy, when thou art gone, 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, O what a damp and shade No stormy night Can so afflict or so affright 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; O what a deadly cold Doth me infold! I half believe, That Sin says true: but while I grieve, Thou comest and dost relieve. CLVI. THE ELIXIR. TEACH me, my God and King, In all things thee to see, Not rudely, as a beast, A man that looks on glass, All may of thee partake: Nothing can be so mean, Which with his tincture (for thy sake) A servant with this clause Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, This is the famous stone That turneth all to gold: For that which God doth touch and own Cannot for less be told. |