Affront those joys, wherewith thou didst endow, And long since wed My poor soul, e'en sick of love; It may a Babel prove, Commodious to conquer heaven and thee Planted in me. CONSTANCY. WHO is the honest man? He that doth still and strongly good pursue, Whose honesty is not So loose or easy, that a ruffling wind Who, when great trials come, Nor seeks, nor shuns them; but doth calmly stay, All being brought into a sum, Whom none can work or woo, To use in any thing a trick or sleight; His words and works and fashion too All of a piece, and all are clear and straight. Who never melts or thaws At close temptations: when the day is done, And is their virtue; Virtue is his Sun. Who, when he is to treat With sick folks, women, those whom passions sway, Allows for that, and keeps his constant way: Whom others' faults do not defeat; But though men fail him, yet his part doth play. Whom nothing can procure, When the wide world runs bias, from his will AFFLICTION. My heart did heave, and there came forth, O God! By that I knew that thou wast in the grief, To guide and govern it to my relief, Making a sceptre of the rod : Hadst thou not had thy part, Sure the unruly sigh had broke my heart. But since thy breath gave me both life and shape, The sigh then only is A gale to bring me sooner to my bliss. Thy life on earth was grief, and thou art still Constant unto it, making it to be A point of honour, now to grieve in me, And in thy members suffer ill. They who lament one cross, Thou dying daily, praise thee to thy loss. THE STAR. BRIGHT spark, shot from a brighter place, Where beams surround my Saviour's face, Canst thou be any where So well as there ? Yet, if thou wilt from thence depart, First with thy fire-work burn to dust So disengaged from sin and sickness, Then with our trinity of light, Motion, and heat, let's take our flight Unto the place where thou Before didst bow. Get me a standing there, and place Among the beams, which crown the face Sin and my heart: That so among the rest I may Glitter, and curl, and wind as they : That winding is their fashion Of adoration. Sure thou wilt joy, by gaining me SUNDAY. O DAY most calm, most bright, The fruit of this, the next world's bud, Th' indorsement of supreme delight, Writ by a friend, and with his blood; The couch of time; care's balm and bay; The week were dark, but for thy light: Thy Torch doth show the way. The other days and thou Make up one man; whose face thou art, Man had straight forward gone To endless death; but thou dost pull We could not choose but look on still; The which he doth not fill. Sundays the pillars are, On which heaven's palace arched lies: Which parts their ranks and orders. The Sundays of man's life, Threaded together on time's string, More plentiful than hope. This day my Saviour rose, And did enclose this light for his : Who want herbs for their wound. The Rest of our Creation Our great Redeemer did remove |