But now I die; now all is finished. My woe, man's weal: and now I bow my head: Never was grief like mine. THE THANKSGIVING. O KING of grief! (a title strange, yet true, O King of wounds! how shall I grieve for thee, Shall I weep blood? why, thou hast wept such store, Shall I be scourged, flouted, boxed, sold? My God, my God, why dost thou part from me? Shall I then sing, skipping, thy doleful story, Shall thy strokes be my stroking? thorns, my flower? But how then shall I imitate thee, and Copy thy fair, though bloody hand? Surely I will revenge me on thy love, And try who shall victorious prove. I will not marry; or, if she be mine, She and her children shall be thine. My bosom-friend, if he blaspheme thy name, I will tear thence his love and fame. One half of me being gone, the rest I give When with the other I have done. That three years hence, if I survive, I'll build a spital, or mend common ways, But mend my own without delays. Then I will use the works of thy creation, As if I used them but for fashion. The world and I will quarrel; and the year Shall not perceive, that I am here. My music shall find thee, and every string Shall have his attribute to sing; That altogether may accord in thee, And prove one God, one harmony. If thou shalt give me wit, it shall appear, If thou hast given it me, 'tis here. Nay, I will read thy book, and never move Till I have found therein thy love ; Thy art of love, which I'll turn back on thee, Then for thy passion-I will do for that- THE REPRISAL. I HAVE Consider'd it, and find There is no dealing with thy mighty passion : For though I die for thee, I am behind; My sins deserve the condemnation. O make me innocent, that I Ah! was it not enough that thou By thy eternal glory didst outgo me? Yet by confession will I come Into the conquest. Though I can do nought The man, who once against thee fought. THE AGONY. PHILOSOPHERS have measured mountains, Fathom'd the depths of seas, of states, and kings, Walk'd with a staff to heaven, and traced fountains: But there are two vast, spacious things, The which to measure it doth more behove: Who would know Sin, let him repair Unto Mount Olivet; there shall he see Sin is that Press and Vice, which forceth pain Who knows not Love, let him assay, And taste that juice, which on the cross a pike Love is that liquor sweet and most divine, THE SINNER. LORD, how I am all ague, when I seek I find there quarries of piled vanities, But shreds of holiness, that dare not venture To show their face, since cross to thy decrees: There the circumference earth is, heaven the centre. In so much dregs the quintessence is small: The spirit and good extract of my heart Comes to about the many hundredth part. Yet, Lord, restore thine image, hear my call: And though my hard heart scarce to thee can groan, GOOD FRIDAY. O MY chief good, How shall I measure out thy blood? Shall I thy woes Number according to thy foes? Or, since one star show'd thy first breath, Shall all thy death? Or shall each leaf, Which falls in Autumn, score a grief? Then let each hour Of my whole life one grief devour; Or rather let My several sins their sorrows get; That, as each beast his cure doth know, SINCE blood is fittest, Lord, to write Thy sorrows in, and bloody fight; My heart hath store; write there, where in One box doth lie both ink and sin: с |