What though my body run to dust? Faith cleaves unto it, counting every grain, With an exact and most particular trust, Reserving all for flesh again.

XXI. PRAYER.

PRAYER, the Church's banquet, Angel's age, God's breath in man returning to his birth, The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage, The Christian plummet sounding heaven and earth;

Engine against the Almighty, sinner's tower,

Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear, The six days' world-transposing in an hour, A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;

Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss, Exalted Manna, gladness of the best,

Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,

The milky way, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood,

The land of spices, something understood.

XXII. HOLY COMMUNION.

NoT in rich furniture, or fine array,
Nor in a wedge of gold,

Thou, who from me wast sold,

To me dost now thyself convey;

For so thou shouldst without me still have been, Leaving within me sin:

But by the way of nourishment and strength,
Thou creep'st into my breast;

Making thy way my rest,

And thy small quantities my length;
Which spread their forces into every part,
Meeting sin's force and art.

Yet can these not get over to my soul,
Leaping the wall that parts

Our souls and fleshly hearts;

But as the out-works, they may control My rebel-flesh, and, carrying thy name, Affright both sin and shame.

Only thy grace, which with these elements comes, Knoweth the ready way,

And hath the privy key,

Opening the soul's most subtil rooms: While those to spirits refined, at door attend Despatches from their friend.

GIVE me my captive soul, or take
My body also thither.

Another lift like this will make
Them both to be together.

Before that sin turn'd flesh to stone,
And all our lump to leaven;

A fervent sigh might well have blown

Our innocent earth to heaven.

For sure when Adam did not know

To sin, or sin to smother;

He might to heaven from Paradise go,
As from one room to another.

Thou hast restored us to this ease
By this thy heavenly blood,

Which I can go to, when I please,
And leave the earth to their food.

XXIII. ANTIPHON.

Cho. LET all the world in every corner sing, My God and King.

Vers. The heavens are not too high,

His praise may thither fly:

The earth is not too low,

His praises there may grow.

Cho. Let all the world in every corner sing, My God and King.

Vers. The church with psalms must shout,
No door can keep them out:

But above all, the heart

Must bear the longest part.

Cho. Let all the world in every corner sing, My God and King.

L

XXIV. LOVE.

1.

IMMORTAL Love, author of this great frame, Sprung from that beauty which can never fade; How hath man parcel'd out thy glorious name, And thrown it on that dust which thou hast made,

While mortal love doth all the title gain!

Which siding with invention, they together Bear all the sway, possessing heart and brain, (Thy workmanship) and give thee share in neither.

Wit fancies beauty, beauty raiseth wit:

The world is theirs; they two play out the game, Thou standing by: and though thy glorious name Wrought our deliverance from the infernal pit,

Who sings thy praise? only a scarf or glove Doth warm our hands, and make them write of love.

2.

IMMORTAL Heat, O let thy greater flame

Attract the lesser to it: let those fires

Which shall consume the world, first make it tame, And kindle in our hearts such true desires,

As may consume our lusts, and make thee way. Then shall our hearts pant thee; then shall our All her inventions on thine Altar lay, [brain And there in hymns send back thy fire again :

Our eyes shall see thee, which before saw dust;
Dust blown by wit, till that they both were blind:
Thou shalt recover all thy goods in kind,
Who wert disseized by usurping lust:

All knees shall bow to thee; all wits shall rise, And praise him who did make and mend our eyes.

XXV. THE TEMPER.

How should I praise thee, Lord! how should my rhymes

Gladly engrave thy love in steel,

If what my soul doth feel sometimes,
My soul might ever feel!

Although there were some forty heavens, or more,

Sometimes I peer above them all;
Sometimes I hardly reach a score,
Sometimes to hell I fall.

O rack me not to such a vast extent;
Those distances belong to thee:
The world's too little for thy tent,
A grave too big for me.

Wilt thou meet arms with man, that thou dost stretch
A crumb of dust from heaven to hell?

Will great God measure with a wretch?
Shall he thy stature spell?