And then, when after much delay,
Much wrestling, many a combat, this dear end,
So much defir'd, is giv'n, to take away

My power to ferve thee; to unbend
All my abilities, my defigns confound,
And lay my threat'nings bleeding on the ground.

One ague dwelleth in my bones,
Another in my foul (the memory
What I would do for thee, if once my groans
Could be allow'd for harmony)

I am in all a weak difabled thing.

Save in the fight thereof, where ftrength doth fting..

Befides, things fort not to my will,
Ev'n when my will doth ftudy thy renown:
Thou turn'ft th' edge of all things on me ftill,
Taking me up to throw me down:

So that, ev'n when my hopes feem to be sped
I am to grief alive, to them as dead.

་

2

To have my aim, and yet to be
Farther from it than when I bent my bow:
To make my hopes my torture, and the fee
Of all my woes another, woe,

Is in the midst of delicates to need,
And ev❜n in paradife to be a weed.

Ah! my dear Father, eafe my fmart! Thefe contrarieties crush me; thefe cross actions Do wind a rope about, and cut my heart:

And yet

fince thefe thy contradictions

Are properly a crofs felt by thy Son,

With but four words, my words, Thy will be done.

The Flower.

How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean

Are thy returns! Ev'n as the flow is in fpring:
To which, besides their own demean,
The late-past frofts tributes of pleasure bring.
Grief melts away

Like fnow in May,

As if there were no such cold thing,

Who would have thought my fhrivel'd heart Could have recover'd greenness? It was gone Quite under ground, as flow'rs depart.

To fee their mother-root, when they have blown; Where they together

All the hard weather,

Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

These are thy wonders, Lord of power,
Killing and quick'ning, bringing down to hell
And up to heav'n in an hour;
Making a chiming of a paffing-bell..
We fay amifs,

This or that is :

Thy word is all, if we could fpell:

O that I once paft changing were;
Faft in thy Paradife, where no flow'r can wither!
Many a fpring I fhot up fair,

Off'ring at heav'n, growing and groaning thither:
Nor doth my flower

Want a fpring-fhower,

My fins and I joining together.

But while I grow in a straight line;

Still upwards bent, as if heav'n were mine own, Thy anger comes, and I decline:

What froft to that? What pole is not the zone Where all things burn,

When thou dost turn,

And the leaft frown of thine is fhown?
And now in age I bud again,

After fo many deaths I live and write,

I once more smell the dew and rain,
And relish verfing. O my only light,
It cannot be

That I am he

On whom thy tempefts fell all night. These are thy wonders, Lord of love, To make us fee we are but flow'rs that glide: Which when we once can find and prove, Thou haft a garden for us where to bide. Who would be more,

Swelling through ftore,

Forfeit their paradise by their pride.

Dotage.

ALSE glofing pleasures, cafks of happiness,

Chases in arras, gilded emptinels,

Shadows well mounted, dreams in a career,
Embroider'd lies, nothing between two dishes;
These are the pleasures here.

True earnest forrows, rooted miseries,
Anguish in grain, vexations ripe and blown,
Sure-footed griefs, folid calamities,

Plain demonftrations, evident and clear,

Touching their proofs ev'n from the very bone;
Thefe are the forrows heré.

But O the folly of distracted men,
Who griefs in earnest, joys in jest pursue:
Preferring, like brute beasts, a loathfome den
Before a court, ev'n that above fo clear,
Where are no forrows, but delights more true
Than miferies are here!

L

The Son.

ET foreign nations of their language boast,
What fine variety each tongue affords:

I like our language, as our men and coast:
Who cannot drefs it well, want wit, not words.
How neatly do we give the only name
To parents" iffue and the fun's bright ftar!
A fon is light and fruit; a fruitful flame
Chafing the father's dimnefs, carry'd far
From the first man in th' 'Eaft, to fresh and new
Western discoveries of pofterity.

So in one word, our Lord's humility
We turn upon him in a fenfe most true:

For what Chrift once in humbleness began,
We him in Glory call, The Son of man.

A true Hymn.

My joy, my life, my grown!

My heart was meaning all the day,
Somewhat it fain would fay:

And still it runneth mattiring up and down
With only this, Myjoy, my life, my crown!

Yet flight not thefe few words;
If truly faid, they may take part
Among the best in art,

The fineness which a hymn or pfalm affords,
Is, when the foul unto the lines accords.

He who craves all the mind,

And all the foul, and ftrength, and time,
If the words only rhyme,

Juftly complains, that fomewhat is behind
To make his verfe, or write a hymn in kind.

Whereas if the heart be mov'd,
Altho' the verse be somewhat feant,
God doth fupply the want:

As when th' heart fays fighing to be approv1d)
O, could I love! and ftops; God writeth, Lov'd.

Y

The Answer..

My comforts drop. and melt away like fnow:
I shake my head, and all the thoughts and ends
Which my fierce. youth did bandy, fall and flow
Like leaves about me, or like fummer-friends,
Flies of eftates, and sunshine. But to all
Who think me eager, hot and undertaking,
But in my profecutions flack and small;
As a young exhalation, newly waking,
Scorns his firft bed of dirt, and means the sky;
But cooling by the way, grows pursy and slow,
And fettling to a cloud, doth live and die
In that dark, ftate of tears: To all, that fo
Show me, and fet me, I have one reply,
Which they that know the reft know more than I.

I