And can the tide of sorrow rise more high?
Her melting face stood thick with tears to view,
Like those of heaven, His setting glory's dye,
As flowers left by the sun are charged with evening dew.
But see, Grief spreads her empire still more wide,
Another spring of tears begins to flow,
A barbarous hand wounds His now-senseless side,
And death that ends the Son's, renews the Mother's woe.
She sees now by the rude inhuman stroke
The mystic river flow, and in her breast
Wonders by what strange figure th' angel spoke When amongst all the daughters he pronounc'd her "blest."
Thus far did Nature, pity, grief and love
And all the passions their strong efforts try,
But still, tho' dark below, 'twas clear above,
She had (as once her Son) her strength'ning angel by.
Gabriel, the chiefest of th' Almighty's train
That first with happy tidings blest her ear,
Th' archangel Gabriel was sent again,
To stem the tide of grief, and qualify her fear.
A large prospective wrought by hands divine
He set before her first-enlighten'd eye;
'Twas hewn out of the heaven crystalline,
One of whose ends did lessen, th' other magnify.
With that His sufferings he exposed to sight,
With this His glories he did represent;
The weight of this made th' other seem but light,
She saw the mighty odds, adored, and was content.
Afflictions sometimes climb as well as fall. The Passion of our Blessed Saviour. They'll find thee now, great King, by thine own light.1 (Of Christ.)
An Hymn upon the Transfiguration.
to live is to enjoy ;
What mars our bliss does life destroy;
The days which pass without content
Are not lived properly, but spent.
I'd rather be secure than great.
Of being so high the pleasure is but small,
But long the ruin, if I chance to fall.
And stabs himself with grief, lest Fate should miss
He's mad that runs where none can win the prize;
Why shouldst thou lose thy mistress, and thy labour
too?
To Himself.
Our best good here is Nature's bounds to know,
And those attempts to spare which else would be in
vain.
Here then contain thyself, nor higher good
In this inchanted place pursue..
This World is best enjoy'd when 'tis best understood.
How should that empty thing deserve my care, Which virtue does not need, and vice can never bear. The Refusal.
1 Cf. Crashaw (In the holy Nativity): "We saw Thee by Thine Own sweet light."
Sure 'tis but vain the Tree of Life to boast,
When Paradise, wherein it grew, is lost.
The Complaint.
We truth by a refracted ray
View, like the sun at ebb of day:
Whom the gross treacherous atmosphere
Makes where it is not, to appear.
The Discouragement.
In nature's book, where no errata's found,
All things are good.
A Divine Hymn on the Creation.
To make the world was great, but t' epitomize it more.
True worth, like valour, oft lies hid in dust.
The Indifferency.
So frail's our mortal state, we can sustain
A mighty bliss no more than pain.
The Infirmity.
this sphere below;
Where he that can pretend to have
Most freedom's still his body's slave.
The Refinement.
HAPPY those early days! when I
Shin'd in my Angel-infancy.
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy ought
But a white, celestial thought;
When yet I had not walked above
A mile or two from my First Love,
And looking back (at that short space)
Could see a glimpse of His bright face;
When on some gilded cloud or flower
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity;
Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispense
A several sin to every sense,
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.
O how I long to travel back,
And tread again that ancient track!
That I might once more reach that plain,
Where first I left my glorious train;
From whence th' enlighten'd spirit sees
That shady City of palm trees.
But ah! my soul with too much stay
Is drunk, and staggers in the way!
Some men a forward motion love,
But I by backward steps would move ;
And, when this dust falls to the urn,
In that state I came, return.
I CANNOT reach it; and my striving eye Dazzles at it, as at eternity.
Were now that chronicle alive,
Those white designs which children drive,
And the thoughts of each harmless hour,
With their content, too, in my power,
Quickly would I make my path even,
And by mere playing go to Heaven.
Why should men love
A wolf, more than a lamb or dove?
Or choose hell-fire and brimstone streams
Before bright stars and God's own beams?
Who kisseth thorns will hurt his face,
But flowers do both refresh and grace;
And sweetly living (fie on men !)
Are, when dead, medicinal then.
If seeing much should make staid eyes,
And long experience should make wise,
Since all that age doth teach is ill,
Why should not I love childhood still?
Why, if I see a rock or shelf,
Shall I from thence cast down myself,
Or by complying with the world,
From the same precipice be hurl'd?
Those observations are but foul
Which make me wise to lose my soul.
And yet the practic1 worldlings call
Business and weighty action all,
Checking the poor child for his play;
But gravely cast themselves away.
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