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3 The more he grows. Celestial natures still
Aspire for home. This Solomon of old,
By flowers, and carvings, and mysterious skill
Of wings, and cherubims, and palms, foretold.

4 This is the life which, hid above with Christ
In God, doth always (hidden) multiply,
And spring, and grow, a tree ne'er to be priced,
A tree whose fruit is immortality.

5 Here spirits that have run their race, and fought, And won the fight, and have not feared the frowns Nor loved the smiles of greatness, but have wrought Their Master's will, meet to receive their crowns.

6 Here is the patience of the saints: this tree
Is watered by their tears, as flowers are fed
With dew by night; but One you cannot see
Sits here, and numbers all the tears they shed.

you

7 Here is their faith too, which if
will keep
When we two part, I will a journey make
To pluck a garland hence while you do sleep,
And weave it for your head against you wake.

THE GARLAND.

1 Thou, who dost flow and flourish here below,
To whom a falling star and nine days' glory,
Or some frail beauty, makes the bravest show,
Hark, and make use of this ensuing story.

When first my youthful, sinful age
Grew master of my ways,

Appointing error for my page,

And darkness for my days;

I flung away, and with full cry
Of wild affections, rid

In post for pleasures, bent to try

All gamesters that would bid.

I played with fire, did counsel spurn,
Made life my common stake;

But never thought that fire would burn,
Or that a soul could ache.

Glorious deceptions, gilded mists,
False joys, fantastic flights,

Pieces of sackcloth with silk lists,

These were my prime delights.

I sought choice bowers, haunted the spring,
Culled flowers and made me posies;
my fond humours their full wing,
And crowned my head with roses.

Gave

But at the height of this career
I met with a dead man,

Who, noting well my vain abear,
Thus unto me began:

'Desist, fond fool, be not undone;
What thou hast cut to-day

Will fade at night, and with this sun
Quite vanish and decay.'

2 Flowers gathered in this world, die here; if thou
Wouldst have a wreath that fades not, let them grow,
And grow for thee. Who spares them here, shall find
A garland, where comes neither rain nor wind.

LOVE-SICK.

Jesus, my life! how shall I truly love thee?
Oh that thy Spirit would so strongly move me,
That thou wert pleased to shed thy grace so far

As to make man all pure love, flesh a star!
A star that would ne'er set, but ever rise,
So rise and run, as to outrun these skies,
These narrow skies (narrow to me) that bar,
So bar me in, that I am still at war,
At constant war with them.

Oh, come, and rend

Or bow the heavens! Lord, bow them and descend,
And at thy presence make these mountains flow,
These mountains of cold ice in me! Thou art
Refining fire; oh, then, refine my heart,
My foul, foul heart! Thou art immortal heat;
Heat motion gives; then warm it, till it beat;
So beat for thee, till thou in mercy hear;
So hear, that thou must open; open to
A sinful wretch, a wretch that caused thy woe;
Thy woe, who caused his weal; so far his weal
That thou forgott'st thine own, for thou didst seal
Mine with thy blood, thy blood which makes thee mine,
Mine ever, ever; and me ever thine.

PSALM CIV.

1 Up, O my soul, and bless the Lord! O God, My God, how great, how very great art thou! Honour and majesty have their abode

With thee, and crown thy brow.

2 Thou cloth'st thyself with light as with a robe,

And the high, glorious heavens thy mighty hand Doth spread like curtains round about this globe Of air, and sea, and land.

3 The beams of thy bright chambers thou dost lay
In the deep waters, which no eye can find ;
The clouds thy chariots are, and thy pathway
The wings of the swift wind.

4 In thy celestial, gladsome messages

Despatched to holy souls, sick with desire
And love of thee, each willing angel is
Thy minister in fire.

5 Thy arm unmoveable for ever laid

And founded the firm earth; then with the deep As with a vail thou hidd'st it; thy floods played Above the mountains steep.

6 At thy rebuke they fled, at the known voice
Of their Lord's thunder they retired apace:
Some up the mountains passed by secret ways,
Some downwards to their place.

7 For thou to them a bound hast set, a bound

Which, though but sand, keeps in and curbs whole

seas:

There all their fury, foam, and hideous sound,
Must languish and decrease.

8 And as thy care bounds these, so thy rich love

Doth broach the earth; and lesser brooks lets forth, Which run from hills to valleys, and improve

Their pleasure and their worth.

9 These to the beasts of every field give drink;

There the wild asses swallow the cool spring:
And birds amongst the branches on their brink
Their dwellings have, and sing.

10 Thou from thy upper springs above, from those

Chambers of rain, where heaven's large bottles lie, Dost water the parched hills, whose breaches close, Healed by the showers from high.

11 Grass for the cattle, and herbs for man's use Thou mak'st to grow; these, blessed by thee, the

earth

Brings forth, with wine, oil, bread; all which infuse
To man's heart strength and mirth.

12 Thou giv'st the trees their greenness, even to those Cedars in Lebanon, in whose thick boughs

The birds their nests build; though the stork doth
The fir-trees for her house.

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13 To the wild goats the high hills serve for folds,
The rocks give conies a retiring place:
Above them the cool moon her known course holds,
And the sun runs his race.

14 Thou makest darkness, and then comes the night,
In whose thick shades and silence each wild beast
Creeps forth, and, pinched for food, with scent and sight
Hunts in an eager quest.

15 The lion's whelps, impatient of delay,

Roar in the covert of the woods, and seek
Their meat from thee, who dost appoint the prey,
And feed'st them all the week.

16 This past, the sun shines on the earth; and they
Retire into their dens; man goes abroad
Unto his work, and at the close of day
Returns home with his load.

17 O Lord my God, how many and how rare

Are thy great works! In wisdom hast thou made Them all; and this the earth, and every blade

Of

grass we tread declare.

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