me thinks I see him living yet;
So well your words his noble vertues praise,
That all both judge you to
relate them true,
And to possess them, Honour’d Margaret.
WHEN I consider how my light is spent,
E’re half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And
that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg’d with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith
my Maker, and present
My true account, least he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light deny’d,
I
fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man’s work or
his own gifts, who best
Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his
bidding speed
And post o’re Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and waite.
LAWRENCE of vertuous Father vertuous Son,
Now that the Fields are dank, and ways are
mire,
Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
Help wast a sullen day; what may be won
From the
hard Season gaining: time will run
On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire
The frozen earth; and cloth in fresh
attire
The Lillie and Rose, that neither sow’d nor spun.
What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
Of
Attick tast, with Wine, whence we may rise
To hear the Lute well toucht, or artfull voice
Warble immortal
Notes and Tuskan Ayre?
He who of those delights can judge, and spare
To interpose them oft, is not
unwise.
CYRIACK, whose Grandsire on the Royal Bench
Of Brittish Themis, with no mean applause
Pronounc’t
and in his volumes taught our Lawes,
Which others at their Barr so often wrench:
To day deep thoughts
resolve with me to drench
In mirth, that after no repenting drawes;
Let Euclid rest and Archimedes pause,
And
what the Swede intend, and what the French.
To measure life, learn thou betimes, and know
Toward solid
good what leads the nearest way;
For other things mild Heav’n a time ordains,
And disapproves that care,
though wise in show,
That with superfluous burden loads the day,
And when God sends a cheerful hour,
refrains.
METHOUGHT I saw my late espousàd Saint
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,
Whom
Joves great Son to her glad Husband gave,
Rescu’d from death by force though pale and faint,
Mine as
whom washt from spot of child-bed taint,
Purification in the old Law did save,
And such, as yet once more
I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind:
Her
face was vail’d, yet to my fancied sight,
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin’d
So clear, as in
no face with more delight.
But O as to embrace me she enclin’d
I wak’d, she fled, and day brought back
my night.
HAIL holy light, ofspring of Heav’n first-born,
Or of th’ Eternal Coeternal beam
May I express
thee unblam’d? since God is light,
And never but in unapproachàd light
Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then
in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear’st thou rather pure Ethereal stream,
Whose
Fountain who shall tell? before the Sun,
Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with
a Mantle didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee
I re-visit now with bolder wing,
Escap’t the Stygian Pool, though long detain’d
In that obscure sojourn,
while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne
With other notes then to th’ Orphean
Lyre
I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night,
Taught by the heav’nly Muse to venture down
The dark descent,
and up to reascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital Lamp; but thou
Revisit’st
not these eyes, that rowle in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath
quencht thir Orbs,
Or dim suffusion veild. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Cleer
|
