I felt a sugred strange delight,

Passing all cordials made by any art,
Bedew, embalme, and overrunne my heart,
And take it in.

Since that time many a bitter storm
My soul hath felt, ev'n able to destroy,
Had the malicious and ill-meaning harm
His swing and sway :

But still thy sweet originall joy,

Sprung from thine eye, did work within my soul, And surging griefs, when they grew bold, controll, And got the day.

If thy first glance so powerfull be,

A mirth but open'd, and seal'd up again ;
What wonders shall we feel, when we shall see
Thy full-ey'd love!

When thou shalt look us out of pain,

And one aspect of thine spend in delight
More then a thousand sunnes disburse in light,
In heav'n above.

144. THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALME.

THE God of love my shepherd is,

And he that doth me feed:
While he is mine, and I am his,

What can I want or need?

He leads me to the tender grasse,
Where I both feed and rest;

Then to the streams that gently passe :
In both I have the best.

Or if I stray, he doth convert,

And bring my minde in frame:
And all this not for my desert,
But for his holy name.

Yea, in death's shadie black abode
Well may I walk, not fear :
For thou art with me, and thy rod
To guide, thy staffe to bear.

Nay, thou dost make me sit and dine,
Ev'n in my enemies' sight;
My head with oyl, my cup with wine
Runnes over day and night.

Surely thy sweet and wondrous love
Shall measure all my dayes;

And as it never shall remove,
So neither shall my praise.

145. MARIE MAGDALENE.

WHEN blessed Marie wip'd her Saviour's feet,
(Whose precepts she had trampled on before)
And wore them for a jewell on her head,
Shewing his steps should be the street,
Wherein she thenceforth evermore
With pensive humblenesse would live and tread :

She being stain'd herself, why did she strive
To make him clean, who could not be defil'd ?
Why kept she not her tears for her own faults,
And not his feet? Though we could dive
In tears like seas, our sinnes are pil'd

Deeper then they, in words, and works, and thoughts.

Deare soul, she knew who did vouchsafe and deigne
To bear her filth; and that her sinnes did dash
Ev'n God himself: wherefore she was not loth,
As she had brought wherewith to stain,
So to bring in wherewith to wash:
And yet in washing one, she washed both.

146. AARON.

HOLINESSE on the head,

Light and perfections on the breast, Harmonious bells below, raising the dead To lead them unto life and rest : Thus are true Aarons drest.

Profanenesse in my head,

Defects and darknesse in my breast

A noise of passions ringing me for dead
Unto a place where is no rest :
Poore priest thus am I drest.

Onely another head

I have, another heart and breast, Another musick, making live not dead, Without whom I could have no rest : In him I am well drest.

Christ is my onely head,

My alone onely heart and breast,

My only musick, striking me ev'n dead;
That to the old man I may rest,

And be in him new drest.

So holy in my head,

Perfect and light in my deare breast,

My doctrine tun'd by Christ, (who is not dead,
But lives in me while I do rest).

Come, people; Aaron's drest.

147. THE ODOUR.

2 Cor. II.

How sweetly doth My Master sound! My Master!
As amber-greese leaves a rich scent
Unto the taster:

So do these words a sweet content,
In orientall fragrancie, My Master.

With these all day I do perfume my minde,
My mind ev'n thrust into them both;
That I might finde

What cordials make this curious broth,

This broth of smells, that feeds and fats my minde.

My Master, shall I speak? O that to thee
My Servant were a little so,

As flesh may be;

That these two words might creep and grow

To some degree of spicinesse to thee!

Then should the Pomander, which was before
A speaking sweet, mend by reflection,
And tell me more :

For pardon of my imperfection.

Would warm and work it sweeter than before.

For when My Muster, which alone is sweet,
And ev'n in my unworthinesse pleasing,
Shall call and meet,

My servant, as thee not displeasing,
That call is but the breathing of the sweet.

This breathing would with gains by sweetning me (As sweet things traffick when they meet) Return to thee.

And so this new commerce and sweet Should all my life employ, and busie me.

148. THE FOIL.

IF we could see below

The sphere of vertue, and each shining grace,
As plainly as that above doth show;
This were the better skie, the brighter place.

God hath made starres the foil

To set off vertues; griefs to set off sinning:
Yet in this wretched world we toil,
As if grief were not foul, nor vertue winning.

149. THE FORERUNNERS.

The harbingers are come. See, see their mark;
White is their colour, and behold my head.
But must they have my brain? must they dispark
Those sparkling notions, which therein was bred?
Must dulnesse turn me to a clod?

Yet have they left me, Thou art still my God.