COMPLAINING.

Do not beguile my heart,

Because thou art

My power and wisdom. Put me not to shame, Because I am

Thy clay that weeps, thy dust that calls.

Thou art the Lord of glory;
The deed and story

Are both thy due: but I a silly fly,
That live or die,

According as the weather falls.

Art thou all justice, Lord?
Shows not thy word

More attributes? Am I all throat or eye,
To weep or cry?

Have I no parts but those of grief?

Let not thy wrathful power
Afflict my hour,

My inch of life or let thy gracious power
Contract my hour,

That I may climb and find relief.

THE DISCHARGE.

BUSY inquiring heart, what wouldst thou know?
Why dost thou pry,

And turn, and leer, and with a licorous eye

Look high and low;

And in thy lookings stretch and grow ?

Hast thou not made thy counts, and summ'd up all?
Did not thy heart

Give up the whole, and with the whole depart?
Let what will fall :

That which is past who can recall?

Thy life is God's, thy time to come is gone,
And is his right.

He is thy night at noon he is at night
Thy noon alone.

The crop is his, for he hath sown.

And well it was for thee, when this befell,
That God did make

Thy business his, and in thy life partake :
For thou canst tell,

If it be his once, all is well.

Only the present is thy part and fee.

And happy thou,

If, though thou didst not beat thy future brow,

Thou couldst well see

What present things required of thee.

They ask enough; why shouldst thou further go?
Raise not the mud

Of future depths, but drink the clear and good.
Dig not for woe

In times to come; for it will grow.

Man and the present fit: if he provide,

He breaks the square.

This hour is mine: if for the next I care,

I

grow too wide,

And do encroach upon death's side:

For death each hour environs and surrounds.
He that would know

And care for future chances, cannot go,

Unto those grounds,

But through a Churchyard which them bounds.

Things present shrink and die: but they that spend Their thoughts and sense

On future grief, do not remove it thence,

But it extend,

And draw the bottom out an end.

God chains the dog till night: wilt loose the chain,
And wake thy sorrow?

Wilt thou forestall it, and now grieve to-morrow,
And then again

Grieve over freshly all thy pain?

Either grief will not come or if it must,

Do not forecast:

And while it cometh, it is almost past.

Away distrust:

My God hath promised; he is just.

PRAISE.

KING of glory, King of peace,
I will love thee:

And that love may never cease,
I will move thee.

Thou hast granted my request,
Thou hast heard me :

Thou didst note my working breast,
Thou hast spared me.

Wherefore with my utmost art
I will sing thee,

And the cream of all my heart
I will bring thee.

Though my sins against me cried,
Thou didst clear me ;

And alone, when they replied,

Thou didst hear me.

Seven whole days, not one in seven,
I will praise thee.

In my heart, though not in heaven,
I can raise thee.

Thou grew'st soft and moist with tears, Thou relentedst.

And when Justice call'd for fears,

Thou dissentedst.

Small it is, in this poor sort
To enrol thee:

Even eternity is too short

To extol thee.

AN OFFERING.

COME, bring thy gift. If blessings were as slow
As men's returns, what would become of fools?
What hast thou there? a heart? but is it pure ?
Search well and see; for hearts have many holes.
Yet one pure heart is nothing to bestow :
In Christ two natures met to be thy cure.

O that within us hearts had propagation,
Since many gifts do challenge many hearts!
Yet one, if good, may title to a number;
And single things grow fruitful by deserts.
In public judgments one may be a nation,

And fence a plague, while others sleep and slumber.

But all I fear is, lest thy heart displease,
As neither good, nor one so oft divisions
Thy lusts have made, and not thy lusts alone;
Thy passions also have their set partitions.
These parcel out thy heart recover these,
And thou may'st offer many gifts in one.

There is a balsam, or indeed a blood,

Dropping from heaven, which doth both cleanse and close

All sorts of wounds; of such strange force it is.

Seek out this All-heal, and seek no repose,