And how she veils her flowers when he is gone, Wherewith we court these earthly things below, But, oh my God, though grovelling I appear, COME, oh! come, with sacred lays, Hither bring in true consent, Heart and voice, and instrument. Let the orpharion' sweet, With the harp and viol meet: Το your voices tune the lute: That hath either voice or sound. Let such things as do not live, In still music praises give; 'An ancient stringed instrument, somewhat resembling the guitar. Lowly pipe, ye worms that creep That our holy hymn may be From the earth's vast hollow womb, Music's deepest base shall come. Sea and floods from shore to shore So shall He from heaven's high tower There our voices we will rear, Till we fill it everywhere: And enforce the fiends that dwell In the air, to sink to hell. Then, oh! come, with sacred lays, THUS fares the man whom virtue, beacon-like, And rage against his piles of innocence; And cause his fame the further to be blown. But virtues covered with a modest veil, To place where envy shall thy worth assail, Of wrath and fury. Let them snarl and bite, And all the venomed engines of despite. Of thy celestial fire shall shine so clear, And make thy splendors to their shame appear. A PRAYER FOR SEASONABLE WEATHER. LORD, should the sun, the clouds, the wind, To us so froward and unkind As we are false to Thee; All fruits would quite away be burned, Or lie in water drowned, Or blasted be, or overturned, Or chilled on the ground. This poem was illustrated by an Emblem representing a flame upon à mountain, driven to and fro by tempestuous winds, yet continually gathering strength and brightness. But from our duty though we swerve, No sooner we to cry begin, But pity we obtain. The weather now Thou changed hast, And when our hopes were almost past, The heaven the earth's complaint hath heard, And Thou such weather hast prepared, As we desired of Thee. WHEN all the year our fields are fresh and green, The heavens and earth, they heedless pass away. The fulness and continuance of a blessing Doth make us to be senseless of the good; Not half so pleasing and if tempests were not, For things, save by their opposites, appear not. Both health and wealth are tasteless unto some, And so is ease and every other pleasure, Till poor or sick, or grieved, they become, And then they relish these in ampler measure. God, therefore, full of kind, as He is wise, So tempereth all the favors He will do us, That we his bounties may the better prize, And make his chastisements less bitter to us. One while a scorching indignation burns The flowers and blossoms of our hopes away, And changeth new-mown grass to parched hay; Commixed with cheerful rays, He sendeth down, Which with rich harvests hills and valleys crown; For, as to relish joys, He sorrow sends, So comfort on temptation still attends. THE GLORY OF CHRIST UNDER THE FIGURE OF SOLOMON. CANTICLES III. WHAT'S he that from the desert there Doth like those smoky pillars come, His bed, which lo! is Solomon's, Threescore stout men about it stand; They are of Israel's valiant ones, And all of them with swords in hand. All those are men expert in fight, And each man on his thigh doth wear A sword, that terrors of the night May be forbid from coming there. King Solomon a goodly place With trees of Lebanon did rear, Each pillar of it silver was, And gold the bases of them were. With purple covered he the same, And all the pavement, throughout, Oh! daughters of Jerusalem, For you with charity is wrought. |