PRAYER AN ODE WHICH WAS PREFIXED TO A LITTLE PRAYER-BOOK GIVEN TO A YOUNG GENTLEWOMAN Lo, here a little volume, but great book! (Fear it not, sweet, It is no hypocrite), Much larger in itself than in its look. A nest of new-born sweets, Whose native fires, disdaining To lie thus folded, and complaining Of these ignoble sheets, Affect more comely bands, Fair one, from thy kind hands, To find the rest Of a rich binding in your breast! It is, in one choice handful, heaven; and all Which here contracts itself, and comes to lie Against the ghostly foe to take your part, And fortify the hold of your chaste heart. It is the armory of light; Let constant use but keep it bright, To holy hands and humble hearts Than sin hath snares, or hell hath darts. Only be sure The hands be pure That hold these weapons; and the eyes Those of turtles, chaste and true, Wakeful and wise, Here is a friend shall fight for you; Hold but this book before your heart,- But, O! the heart That studies this high art Must be a sure house-keeper, Dear soul, be strong; Mercy will come ere long, And bring her bosom fraught with blessings,Flowers of never-fading graces, To make immortal dressings For worthy souls, whose wise embraces Store up themselves for Him Who is alone The Spouse of virgins, and the Virgin's Son. But if the noble Bridegroom, when He come, Shall find the wandering heart from home, Leaving her chaste abode To gad abroad, Amongst the gay mates of the god of flies To dance in the sunshine of some smiling, Spheres of sweet and sugared lies, Of false, perhaps, as fair, Flattering, but forswearing, eyes; Will get the start Meanwhile, and, stepping in before, (These tumultuous shops of noise), Whose pure and subtle lightning flies Home to the heart, and sets the house on fire, Yet doth not stay To ask the window's leave to pass that way; Of soul, dear and divine annihilations; Of joys, and rarefied delights; And many a mystic thing, Which the divine embraces Of the dear Spouse of spirits, with them will bring, For which it is no shame That dull mortality must not know a name. Of all this store Of blessings, and ten thousand more, If, when He come, He find the heart from home, Doubtless He will unload Himself some otherwhere, And pour abroad His precious sweets On the fair soul whom first He meets. Selected dove, Whoe'er she be, Whose early love With winged vows Makes haste to meet her morning Spouse, Happy, indeed, who never misses To improve that precious hour, Seize her sweet prey, All fresh and fragrant as He rises, A delicious dew of spices. At once ten thousand paradises! To rifle and deflower The rich and roseal spring of those rare sweets How many heavens at once it is Richard Crashaw [1613?-1649] PROVIDENCE Lo, the lilies of the field, How their leaves instruction yield! Say, with richer crimson glows The kingly mantle than the rose? Say, have kings more wholesome fare Than we citizens of air? Barns nor hoarded grain have we, Yet we carol merrily. Mortal, fly from doubt and sorrow, One there lives, whose guardian eye Pass we blithely then the time, Free from doubt and faithless sorrow: God provideth for the morrow. Reginald Heber [1783-1826] CONSIDER CONSIDER The lilies of the field, whose bloom is brief— We are as they; Like them we fade away, As doth a leaf. Consider The sparrows of the air, of small account: Whether they fall or mount- Consider The lilies, that do neither spin nor toil, What profits all this care, And all this coil? Consider The birds, that have no barn nor harvest-weeks; God gives them food Much more our Father seeks To do us good. Christina Georgina Rossetti [1830-1894] MY LEGACY THEY told me I was heir: I turned in haste, And ran to seek my treasure, And wondered, as I ran, how it was placed,— Of gold, or if the titles of fair lands And houses would be laid within my hands. I journeyed many roads; I knocked at gates; I spoke to each wayfarer I met, and said, "A heritage awaits Me. Art not thou the bearer |