Who would have thought my shriv-
elled heart
Could have recovered greenness? It was
gone
Quite under ground; as flowers depart
To see their mother-root, when they have Let the world's riches, which disperséd lie,
Contract into a span."
can:
blown ;
Where they together,
All the hard weather,
So strength first made a way;
Dead to the world, keep house un- Then beauty flowed; then wisdom, honor, known.
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.
REST.
WHEN God at first made man, Having a glass of blessings standing by, "Let us, "said he, "pour on him all we
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..
pleasure:
Perceiving that alone, of all his treasure,
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Rest in the bottom lay.
"For if I should," said he, "Bestow this jewel also on my creature, He would adore my gifts instead of me, And rest in nature, not the God of nature; So both should losers be.
"Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness:
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast."
THE BIRD.
HITHER thou com'st. The busy wind all night
Blew through thy lodging, where thy
own warm wing
Thy pillow was. Many a sullen storm,
For which coarse man seems much the
fitter born,
Rained on thy bed
And harmless head;
And now, as fresh and cheerful as the
light,
Thy little heart in early hymns doth sing
Unto that Providence whose unseen arm
Curbed them, and clothed thee well and
warm.
All things that be praise Him; and had Their lesson taught them when first made.
So hills and valleys into singing break; And though poor stones have neither speech nor tongue,
GEORGE WITHER.
33
While active winds and streams both run | These are your walks, and you have and speak,
showed them me
To kindle my cold love.
Yet stones are deep in admiration.
Thus praise and prayer here beneath the
My sins and follies, Lord! by thee
From others hidden are,
That such good words are spoke of me,
As now and then I hear;
For sure if others knew me such,
Such as myself I know,
I should have been dispraised as much
As I am praised now.
The praise, therefore, which I have heard,
Delights not so my mind,
As those things make my heart afeard,
Which in myself I find:
And I had rather to be blamed,
So I were blameless made,
Than for much virtue to be famed,
When I no virtues had.
Though slanders to an innocent
Sometimes do bitter grow,
Their bitterness procures content,
If clear himself he know.
And when a virtuous man hath erred,
If praised himself he hear,
It makes him grieve, and more afeard,
Than if he slandered were.
Lord therefore make my heart upright,
Whate'er my deeds do seem;
And righteous rather in thy sight,
Than in the world's esteem.
And if aught good appear to be
In any act of mine,
Let thankfulness be found in me,
And all the praise be thine.
COMPANIONSHIP OF THE MUSE.
SHE doth tell me where to borrow
Comfort in the midst of sorrow;
Makes the desolatest place
To her presence be a grace,
And the blackest discontents
Be her fairest ornaments.
In my former days of bliss,
Her divine skill taught me this,
That from everything I saw
I could some invention draw,
And raise pleasure to her height,
Through the meanest object's sight,
By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least bough's rustling.
By a daisy, whose leaves spread,
Shut when Titan goes to bed;
Or a shady bush or tree,
She could more infuse in me,
Than all nature's beauties can
In some other wiser man.
By her help I also now
Make this churlish place allow
Some things that may sweeten glad
ness,
In the very gall of sadness.
The dull loneness, the black shade,
That these hanging vauits have made;
The strange music of the waves,
Beating on these hollow caves;
This black den which rocks emboss,
Overgrown with eldest moss;
The rude portals that give light
More to terror than delight;
This my chamber of neglect,
Walled about with disrespect,
From all these, and this dull air,
A fit object for despair,
She hath taught me by her might
To draw comfort and delight.
Therefore, thou best earthly bliss,
I will cherish thee for this.
Poesy, thon sweet'st content
That e'er heaven to mortals lent:
Though they as a trifle leave thee,
Whose dull thoughts cannot conceive
thee;
Though thou be to them a scorn,
That to naught but earth are born, -
Let my life no longer be
Than I am in love with thee!
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