There doth my soul in holy vision sit
In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit
Mine eye hath found that sad sepulchral rock That was the casket of Heaven's richest store, And here though grief my feeble hands up lock, Yet on the softened quarry would I score My plaining verse as lively as before;
For sure so well instructed are my tears, That they would fitly fall in ordered characters.
Or should I thence, hurried on viewless wing, Take up a weeping on the mountains wild, The gentle neighbourhood of grove and spring Would soon unbosom all their echoes mild, And I (for grief is easily beguiled)
Might think the infection of my sorrows loud Had got a race of mourners on some pregnant cloud. [This subject the author finding to be above the years he had, when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished.]
FLY, envious Time, till thou run out thy race; Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace; And glut thyself with what thy womb devours, Which is no more than what is false and vain, And merely mortal dross;
So little is our loss,
So little is thy gain.
For when as each thing bad thou hast entombed.
And last of all thy greedy self consumed,
Then long eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual kiss;
And joy shall overtake us as a food,
When every thing that is sincerely good
1 To this copy of verses the poet had appended the direction, "Te he set on a clock-case."
With truth, and peace, and love, shall ever shine About the supreme throne
Of him, to whose happy-making sight1 alone When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb, Then all this earthy grossness quit,
Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit,
Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time
UPON THE CIRCUMCISION.
YE flaming powers, and winged warriors bright, That erst with music, and triumphant song, First heard by happy watchful shepherds' ear, So sweetly sung your joy the clouds along Through the soft silence of the listening night, Now mourn; and if sad share with us to bear Your fiery essence can distil no tear, Burn in your sighs, and borrow
Seas wept from our deep sorrow:
He who with all Heaven's heraldry whilere Entered the world, now bleeds to give us ease; Alas! how soon our sin
Sore doth begin
His infancy to seize !
O more exceeding love, or law more just? Just law, indeed, but more exceeding love! For we by rightful doom remediless
Were lost in death, till he that dwelt above, High throned in secret bliss, for us frail dust Emptied his glory, even to nakedness;
And that great covenant which we still transgress Entirely satisfied,
And the full wrath beside
Of vengeful justice bore for our excess,
2 From the Greek of Phillip. ii. 7: kavròv ékévwoɛ, "he made himself of no reputation."
And seals obedience first with wounding smart This day; but oh, ere long,
Huge pangs and strong
Will pierce more near his heart.
BLEST pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy, Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse, Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ, Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce, And to our high-raised fantasy present That undisturbéd song of pure concent,1 Aye sung before the sapphire-coloured throne To him that sits thereon,
With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee, Where the bright seraphim in burning row Their loud uplifted angel-trumpets blow, And the cherubic host in thousand quires Touch their immortal harps of golden wires, With those just spirits that wear victorious palms, Hymns devout and holy psalms
Singing everlastingly;
That we on earth with undiscording voice May rightly answer that melodious noise; As once we did, till disproportioned sin
Jarred against nature's chime, and with harsh din Broke the fair music that all creatures made To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed In perfect diapason,2 whilst they stood
In first obedience, and their state of good.
Oh, may we soon again renew that song,
And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long To his celestial consort us unite,
To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light.
1 This is preferable to the other reading, "content." 2 Compare Plin. Nat. Hist. ii. 20.
AN EPITAPH ON THE MARCHIONESS OF WINCHESTER
THIS rich marble doth inter
The honoured wife of Winchester,
A viscount's daughter, an earl's heir, Besides what her virtues fair
Added to her noble birth,
More than she could own from earth. Summers three times eight, save one, She had told; alas! too soon, After so short time of breath,
To house with darkness, and with death. Yet had the number of her days Been as complete as was her praise, Nature and fate had had no strife In giving limit to her life.
Her high birth, and her graces sweet, Quickly found a lover meet; The virgin quire for her request The god that sits at marriage feast; He at their invoking came,
But with a scarce well-lighted flame, And in his garland as he stood Ye might discern a cypress bud.2 Once had the early matrons run To greet her of a lovely son,
And now with second hope she goes, And calls Lucina to her throes; But whether by mischance or blame Atropos for Lucina3 came, And with remorseless cruelty Spoiled at once both fruit and tree: The hapless babe before his birth Had burial, yet not laid in earth, And the languished mother's womb Was not long a living tomb.
1 Jane, daughter of Thomas Lord Viscount Savage, of Rocksavage, Chester. She died in childbed of a second son, in the twenty-third year of her age.
2 Symbolical of a funeral.
3i. e. the Fates instead of the goddess who presides over child-birth
So have I seen some tender slip, Saved with care from winter's nip, The pride of her carnation train, Plucked up by some unheedy swain Who only thought to crop the flower New shot up from vernal shower; But the fair blossom hangs the head Side-ways, as on a dying bed, And those pearls of dew she wears, Prove to be presaging tears, Which the sad morn had let fall On her hastening funeral. Gentle lady, may thy grave Peace and quiet ever have; After this, thy travel sore, Sweet rest seize thee evermore, That to give the world increase, Shortened hast thy own life's lease. Here, besides the sorrowing That thy noble house doth bring, Here be tears of perfect moan Wept for thee in Helicon,
And some flowers, and some bays, For thy hearse, to strew the ways, Sent thee from the banks of Came,
Devoted to thy virtuous name;
Whilst thou, bright saint, high sitt'st in glory,
Next her much like to thee in story,
That fair Syrian shepherdess,1
Who, after years of barrenness,
The highly favoured Joseph bore
To him that served for her before, And at her next birth, much like thee, Through pangs fled to felicity, Far within the bosom bright Of blazing Majesty and Light: There with thee, new welcome saint, Like fortunes may her soul acquaint, With thee there clad in radiant sheen, o marchioness, but now a queen.
1 Rachel. See Gen. xxxv. 18.
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