CXXXIII. THE CROSS.

WHAT is this strange and uncouth thing
To make me sigh, and seek, and faint, and die,
Until I had some place, where I might sing,
And serve thee; and not only I,

But all my wealth, and family might combine
To set thy honour up, as our design.

And then when after much delay,
Much wrestling, many a combat, this dear end,
So much desired, is given, to take away
My power to serve thee: to unbend

All my abilities, my designs confound,
And lay my threatenings bleeding on the ground.

One ague dwelleth in my bones,

Another in my soul (the memory

What I would do for thee, if once my groans
Could be allow'd for harmony)

I am in all a weak disabled thing,

Save in the sight thereof, where strength doth sting.

Besides, things sort not to my will,
E'en when my will doth study thy renown:
Thou turnest the edge of all things on me still,
Taking me up to throw me down:
So that, e'en when my hopes seem to be sped,
I am to grief alive, to them as dead.

To have my aim, and yet to be Farther from it than when I bent my bow;

To make my hopes my torture, and the fee
Of all my woes another woe,

Is in the midst of delicates to need,
And e'en in Paradise to be a weed.

Ah, my dear Father, ease my smart! These contrarieties crush me: these cross actions Do wind a rope about, and cut my heart: And yet since these thy contradictions

Are properly a cross felt by thy Son,

With but four words, my words, Thy will be done.

CXXXIV. THE FLOWER.

How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean

Are thy returns! e'en as the flowers in spring;
To which, besides their own demean,
The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring.
Grief melts away
Like snow in May,

As if there were no such cold thing.

Who would have thought my shrivel'd heart Could have recover'd greenness? It was gone Quite under ground; as flowers depart To see their mother-root, when they have blown; Where they together

All the hard weather,

Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

These are thy wonders, Lord of power,
Killing and quickening, bringing down to hell
And up to heaven in an hour;
Making a chiming of a passing-bell.
We say amiss,

This or that is:

Thy word is all, if we could spell.

O that I once past changing were, Fast in thy Paradise, where no flower can wither! Many a spring I shoot up fair,

Offering at heaven, growing and groaning thither: Nor doth my flower

Want a spring-shower,

My sins and I joining together.

But while I grow in a straight line,
Still upwards bent, as if heaven were mine own,
Thy anger comes, and I decline :

What frost to that? what pole is not the zone
Where all things burn,

When thou dost turn,

And the least frown of thine is shown?

And now in age I bud again,
After so many deaths I live and write;
I once more smell the dew and rain,
And relish versing: O my only light,
It cannot be

That I am he,

On whom thy tempests fell all night.

These are thy wonders, Lord of love,

To make us see we are but flowers that glide :

Which when we once can find and prove, Thou hast a garden for us, where to bide. Who would be more,

Swelling through store,

Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.

CXXXV. DOTAGE.

FALSE glozing pleasures, casks of happiness,
Foolish night-fires, women's and children's wishes,
Chases in Arras, gilded emptiness,

Shadows well mounted, dreams in a career,
Embroider'd lies, nothing between two dishes;
These are the pleasures here.

True earnest sorrows, rooted miseries,
Anguish in grain, vexations ripe and blown,
Sure-footed griefs, solid calamities,

Plain demonstrations, evident and clear,
Fetching their proofs e'en from the very bone;
These are the sorrows here.

But oh the folly of distracted men,

Who griefs in earnest, joys in jest pursue;
Preferring, like brute beasts, a loathsome den
Before a court, e'en that above so clear,
Where are no sorrows, but delights more true
Than miseries are here!

CXXXVI. THE SON.

LET foreign nations of their language boast,
What fine variety each tongue affords:

I like our language, as our men and coast:
Who cannot dress it well, want wit, not words.
How neatly do we give one only name

To parent's issue and the sun's bright star!
A son is light and fruit; a fruitful flame
Chasing the father's dimness, carried far
From the first man in the East, to fresh and new
Western discoveries of posterity.

So in one word our Lord's humility

We turn upon him in a sense most true :
For what Christ once in humbleness began,
We him in glory call, The Son of Man.

CXXXVII. A TRUE HYMN.

My joy, my life, my crown!
My heart was meaning all the day,
Somewhat it fain would say:

And still it runneth muttering up and down
With only this, My joy, my life, my crown!

Yet slight not these few words;
If truly said, they may take part
Among the best in art.

The fineness which a hymn or psalm affords,
Is, when the soul unto the lines accords.