Because we draw a long nobility
From hieroglyphic proofs of heraldry,
And impudently talk of a posterity;
And like Egyptian chroniclers,
Who write of twenty thousand years,
We grow at last by custom to believe
That really we live ;
Whilst all these shadows, that for things we take,
Are but the empty dreams which in death's sleep we
To die, dame Nature did man frame :
Death is a thing most perfect sure;
We ought not Nature's works to blame;
She made no thing still to endure.
The law she made when we were born,
That hence we should return again;
To render right we must not scorn;
Death is due debt; it is no pain.
Death hath in all the earth a right;
His power is great, it stretcheth far;
No lord, no prince, can 'scape his might;
No creature can his duty bar.
The wise, the just, the strong, the high,
The chaste, the meek, the free of heart,
The rich, the poor,—who can deny?
Have yielded all unto his dart.
Seeing no man then can Death 'scape,
Nor hire him hence for any gain,
We ought not fear his carrion shape;
He only brings ill men to pain.
If thou have led thy life aright,
Death is the end of misery;
If thou in God hast thy delight,
Thou diest to live eternally.
Each wight, therefore, while he lives here,
Let him think on his dying day;
In midst of wealth, in midst of cheer,
Let him account he must away.
This thought makes man to God a friend;
This thought doth banish pride and sin;
This thought doth bring man in the end,
Where he of death the field shall win.
FAIR Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence, thy sister dear?
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men :
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow.
Society is all but rude
In this delicious solitude.
For here the mind from pleasure less
Withdraws into its happiness;
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas;
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought, in a green shade.
Here, at the fountain's sliding foot,
Or at some fruit tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide;
There, like a bird, it sits and sings,
Then whets and claps its silver wings,
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.
SEE how the orient dew,
Shed from the bosom of the morn
Into the blowing roses,
Yet careless of its mansion new,
For the clear region where 'twas born,
Round it itself incloses;
And in its little globe's extent
Frames as it can its native element.
How it the purple flower does slight,
Scarce touching where it lies!
But gazing back upon the skies,
Shines with a mournful light:
Like its own tear,
Because so long divided from the sphere.
Restless it rolls, and insecure,
Trembling, lest it grow impure;
Till the warm sun pities its pain,
And to the skies exhales it back again.
So the soul, that drop, that ray,
Of the clear fountain of eternal day,
Could it within the human flower be seen, Remembering still its former height,
Shuns the sweet leaves and blossoms green;
And recollecting its own light,
Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express
The greater Heaven in an heaven less.
In how coy a figure wound,
Every way it turns away!
To the world excluding round,
Yet receiving in the day;
Dark beneath, but bright above;
Here disdaining, there in love.
How loose and easy hence to go;
How girt and ready to ascend :
Moving but on a point below,
In all about does upwards bend. Such did the manna's sacred dew distil, White and entire, although congealed and chill--Congealed on earth; but does, desolving, run Into the glories of the Almighty Sun.
WHERE the remote Bermudas ride,
In the ocean's bosom unespied,
From a small boat that rowed along,
The listening winds received this song.
What should we do but sing His praise
That led us through the watery maze
Unto an isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own.
He gave us this eternal spring
Which here enamels everything;
And sends the fowls to us in care,
In daily visits through the air.
He hangs in shade the orange bright,
Like golden lamps in a green night;
And in these rocks for us did frame
A temple where to sound His name.
Oh, let our voice His praise exalt
Till it arrive at Heaven's vault,
Which then, perhaps, rebounding may
Echo beyond the Mexique bay.
Thus sung they in an English boat,
A holy and a cheerful note;
And all the way to guide their chime,
With falling oars they kept the time.
Subjection of the Soul to God.
GREAT God, whose sceptre rules the earth,
Distil Thy fear into my heart,
That, being rapt with holy mirth,
I may proclaim how good Thou art;
Open my lips that I may sing
Full praises to my God, my King.
Great God, Thy garden is defaced,
The weeds thrive there, Thy flowers decay;
O, call to mind Thy promise past,
Restore Thou them, cut these away:
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