He that hath made a sorry wedding
Between his soul and gold, and hath preferr'd
False gain before the true,

Hath done what he condemns in reading:
For he hath sold for money his dear Lord,
And is a Judas-Jew.

Thus we prevent the last great day,
And judge ourselves. That light which sin and passion
Did before dim and choke,

When once those snuffs are ta'en away,
Shines bright and clear, even unto condemnation,
Without excuse or cloak.

BITTER-SWEET.

Ан, my dear angry Lord,
Since thou dost love, yet strike;
Cast down, yet help afford:
Sure I will do the like.

I will complain, yet praise ;
I will bewail, approve :
And all my sour-sweet days
I will lament, and love.

THE GLANCE.

WHEN first thy sweet and gracious eye Vouchsafed even in the midst of youth and night To look upon me, who before did lie

Weltering in sin;

I felt a sugar'd strange delight, Passing all Cordials made by any Art, Bcdew, embalm, and overrun my heart, And take it in.

Since that time many a bitter storm My soul hath felt, even able to destroy, Had the malicious and ill-meaning harm His swing and sway:

But still thy sweet original joy,

Sprung from thine eye, did work within my soul, And surging griefs, when they grew bold, control, And got the day.

If thy first glance so powerful be, A mirth but open'd, and seal'd up again ; What wonders shall we feel, when we shall see Thy full-eyed love!

When thou shalt look us out of pain,

And one aspect of thine spend in delight
More than a thousand suns disburse in light,
In Heaven above.

THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM.

THE God of love my shepherd is,
And he that doth me feed:
While he is mine, and I am his,
What can I want or need?

He leads me to the tender grass,
Where I both feed and rest;

Then to the streams that gently pass:
In both I have the best.

Or if I stray, he doth convert,
And bring my mind in frame:
And all this not for my desert,
But for his holy name.

Yea, in death's shady, black abode
Well may I walk, not fear:
For thou art with me, and thy rod
To guide, thy staff to bear.

Nay, thou dost make me sit and dine,
Even in my enemies' sight;

My head with oil, my cup with wine
Runs over day and night.

Surely thy sweet and wondrous love
Shall measure all my days;

And as it never shall remove,
So neither shall my praise.

MARY MAGDALEN.

WHEN blessed Mary wiped her Saviour's feet (Whose precepts she had trampled on before), And wore them for a Jewel on her head,

Showing his steps should be the street,
Wherein she thenceforth evermore

With pensive humbleness would live and tread:

She being stain'd herself, why did she strive To make him clean, who could not be defiled?

Why kept she not her tears for her own faults,
And not his feet? Though we could dive
In tears like Seas, our sins are piled

Deeper than they, in words, and works, and thoughts.

Dear soul, she knew who did vouchsafe and deign
To bear her filth: and that her sins did dash
Even God himself: wherefore she was not loath,
As she had brought wherewith to stain,
So to bring in wherewith to wash :
And yet in washing one, she washed both.

AARON.

HOLINESS on the head,

Light and perfections on the breast,
Harmonious bells below, raising the dead.
To lead them unto life and rest.
Thus are true Aarons drest.

Profaneness in my head,

Defects and darkness in my breast,
A noise of passions ringing me for dead
Unto a place where is no rest:
Poor Priest thus am I drest.

Only another head

I have, another heart and breast,
Another music, making live, not dead,
Without whom I could have no rest:
In him I am well drest.

Christ is my only head,

My alone only heart and breast,
My only music, striking me even dead;
That to the old man I may rest,
And be in him new drest.

So holy in my head,

Perfect and light in my dear breast, My doctrine tuned by Christ (who is not dead, But lives in me while I do rest), Come, people; Aaron's drest.

THE ODOUR.

2 COR. ii.

How sweetly doth My Master sound! My Master! As ambergis leaves a rich scent

Unto the taster:

So do these words a sweet content, An Oriental fragrancy, My Master.

With these all day I do perfume my mind,
My mind even thrust into them both;
That I might find

What Cordials make this curious broth,

This broth of smells, that feeds and fats my mind.

My Master, shall I speak? O that to thee
My Servant were a little so,

As flesh may be ;

That these two words might creep and grow To some degree of spiciness to thee!