3.

Yet if poets mind thee well,

They shall find thou art their hill,
And fountaine too.

Their Lord with thee had most to doe;

He wept once, walkt whole nights on thee:
And from thence-His suff'rings ended-
Unto glorie

Was attended.

4.

Being there, this spacious ball
Is but His narrow footstoole all;
And what we thinke

Unsearchable, now with one winke
He doth comprise; But in this aire
When He did stay to beare our ill
And sinne, this hill
Was then His chaire.

THE INCARNATION AND PASSION.1
ORD! when Thou did'st Thyselfe undresse,
Laying by Thy robes of glory,

To make us more, Thou wouldst be lesse,

And becam'st a wofull story.

1 See Memorial-Introduction for parallels from Fletcher. G,

To put on clouds instead of light,

And cloath the morning-starre with dust,
Was a translation of such height

As, but in Thee, was ne'r exprest.

Brave wormes and earth! that thus could have

A God enclos'd within your cell,

Your Maker pent up in a grave,

Life lockt in death, heav'n in a shell!

Ah, my deare Lord! what could'st Thou spye.
In this impure, rebellious clay,

That made Thee thus resolve to dye
For those that kill Thee every day?

O what strange wonders could Thee move
To slight Thy precious bloud, and breath!
Sure it was love, my Lord; for love
Is only stronger far than death!

THE CALL.

OME, my heart! come, my head,

In sighes, and teares!

'Tis now, since you

have laine thus dead,

Some twenty years;
Awake, awake,

Some pitty take

Upon your selves!

Who never wake to grone, nor weepe,
Shall be sentenc'd for their sleepe.

2.

Doe but see your sad estate,
How many sands

Have left us,' while we careles sate
With folded hands;

What stock of nights,
Of dayes, and yeares
In silent flights

Stole by our eares;

How ill have we our selves bestow'd,
Whose suns are all set in a cloud!

3.

Yet come, and let's peruse them all,
And as we passe,

What sins on every minute fall

Score on the glasse;

Then weigh, and rate

Their heavy state,
Untill

The glasse with teares you fill ;

That done, we shall be safe and good:
Those beasts were cleane, that chew'd the cud.

1 - measured by the sand-glass. G.

¶1 [EARLY TAKEN.]

HOU that know'st for whom I mourne,
And why these teares appeare,
That keep'st account till He returne
Of all His dust left here;

As easily Thou mightst prevent,
As now produce, these teares,
And adde unto that day he went
A faire supply of yeares.

But 'twas my sinne that forc'd Thy hand
To cull this prim-rose out,

That by Thy early choice forewarn'd

My soule might looke about.

O what a vanity is man!

How like the eye's quick winke

His cottage failes; whose narrow span
Begins even at the brink!

Nine months thy hands are fashioning us,
And many yeares-alas !—

E're we can lisp, or ought discusse

Concerning Thee, must passe;

Yet have I knowne Thy slightest things,
A feather, or a shell,

1 This is one of various Laments on the death of

a very dear friend. See our Memorial-Introduction.

G.

A stick, or rod, which some chance brings
The best of us excell;1

Yea, I have knowne these shreds out last
A faire-compacted frame,
And for one twenty we have past,
Almost outlive our name.

Thus hast Thou plac't in man's outside
Death to the common eye,

That heaven within him might abide,
And close eternitie;

Hence youth and folly-man's first shame-
Are put unto the slaughter,

And serious thoughts begin to tame

The wise-man's madnes, laughter."

Dull, wretched wormes! that would not keepe
Within our first faire bed,

But out of Paradise must creepe
For ev'ry foote to tread !3

Yet had our Pilgrimage bin free,
And smooth without a thorne,

1 That is = outlast. Is it DONNE who in one of his Sermons works out finely the contrast between long-transmitted 'fragile' glass vessels and man's transitoriness? I can't now recal the place: but it exists somewhere. G.