Of that eternal majesty that weigh'd
The world's foundations; if to these the mind
Exalts her daring eye; then mightier far
Will be the change, and nobler.
Of servile custom cramp her generous power;
Would sordid policies, the barbarous growth
Of ignorance and rapine, bow her down
To tame pursuits, to indolence and fear?
Lo! she appeals to nature, to the winds
And rolling waves, the sun's unwearied course,
The elements and seasons: all declare
For what the Eternal Maker has ordain'd
The powers of man: we feel within ourselves
His energy divine: he tells the heart,
He meant, he made us to behold and love
What he beholds and loves, the general orb
Of life and being; to be great like him,
Beneficent and active. Thus the men
Whom nature's works can charm, with God himself
Hold converse; grow familiar, day by day,
With his conceptions, act upon his plan,
And form to his the relish of their souls.
What hapless hap had I for to be born
In these unhappy times, and dying days,
Of this now doting world, when good decays,
Love's quite extinct, and virtue's held a scorn!
When such are only priz'd by wretched ways,
Who with a golden fleece them can adorn;
When avarice and lust are counted praise,
And bravest minds live, orphan-like, forlorn!
Why was not I born in that golden age,
When gold was not yet known, and those black arts
By which base worldlings vilely play their parts,
With horrid acts staining earth's stately stage?
To have been then, O Heaven! 't had been my bliss;
But bless me now, and take me soon from this.
Drummond.
Like to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are;
Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew;
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood:
Ev'n such is man, whose borrow'd light
Is straight call'd in, and paid to-night.
The wind blows out, the bubble dies;
The spring entomb'd in autumn lies;
The dew dries up, the star is shot;
The flight is past, and man forgot.
The lopped tree in time may grow again—
Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower;
The sorriest wight may find release of pain,
The driest soil suck in some moistening shower: Time goes by turn, and chances change by course, From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.
The sea of fortune doth not ever flow-
She draws her favours to the lowest ebb;
Her tides have equal times to come and go,
Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web:
No joy so great but runneth to an end;
No hap so hard but may in fine amend.
Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring,
Not endless night, nor yet eternal day:
The saddest birds a season find to sing,
The roughest storm a calm may soon allay.
Thus, with succeeding turns, God tempereth all,
That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall.
A chance may win that by mischance was lost;
That net that holds no great, takes little fish:
In some things all, in all things none are cross'd:
Few all they need, but none have all they wish.
Unmingled joys here to no man befall;
Who least, hath some: who most, hath never all.
Southwell.
True Religion, sprung from God above,
So, like her fountain, full of charity,
Embracing all things with a tender love,
Full of good-will and meek expectancy,
Full of true justice and sure verity,
In heart and voice; free, large, even infinite,
Not wedged in straight peculiarity,
But grasping all in her vast active spright,
Bright lamp of God! that men would joy in thy pure
Hark how the birds do sing,
And woods do ring.
All creatures have their joy, and man hath his.
Yet, if we rightly measure,
Man's joy and pleasure
Rather hereafter, than in present, is.
To this life things of sense
Make their pretence:
In th' other angels have a rightly birth:
Man ties them both alone,
And makes them one
With th' one hand touching heav'n, with th' other earth.
In soul he mounts and flies,
In flesh he dies.
He wears a stuff, whose thread is coarse and round, But trimm'd with curious lace,
After the trimming, not the stuff and ground.
Not that he may not here
Taste of the cheer:
But as birds drink, and straight lift up their head, So must he sip and think
He may attain to, after he is dead.
But as his joys are double,
So is his trouble.
He hath two winters, other things but one:
Both frosts and thoughts do nip
And he of all things fears two deaths alone.
Yet ev❜n the greatest griefs
May be reliefs,
Could he but take them right, and in their ways.
Happy is he whose heart
Hath found the art
To turn his double pains to double praise.
|