What, man! and grace of God, you shall be
And live, no doubt, yet many a fair day longer. Think not on death,"—with many such-like words,
Such as their understanding best affords.
But where is now become these people's wit?
What do their knowledges esteem more fit
Than death to think on-chiefly when men be
About to put off their mortality?
Methinks they rather should persuade them then,
Fearless to be resolved to die like men;
For, want of such a resolution stings
At point of death, and dreadful horror brings
Ev'n to the soul; 'cause, wanting preparation,
She lies despairing of her own salvation.
Yea, and moreover, this full well know I,
He that's at any time afraid to die,
Is in weak case; and, whatsoe'er he saith,
Hath but a wavering and a feeble faith.
WHEN with a serious musing I behold
The grateful and obsequious marigold,
How duly, every morning, she displays
Her open breast, when Titan spreads his rays;
How she observes him in his daily walk,
Still bending tow'rds him her small slender stalk;
How, when he down declines, she droops and
Bedew'd, as 'twere with tears, till he returns;
And how she vails her flowers when he is gone,
As if she scorned to be looked on
By an inferior eye; or did contemn
To wait upon a meaner light than him:
-When this I meditate, methinks the flowers
Have spirits far more generous than ours,
And give us fair examples, to despise
The servile fawnings and idolatries,
Wherewith we court these earthly things below,
Which merit not the service we bestow.
But, O my God! though grovelling I appear
Upon the ground, and have a rooting here,
Which hales me downward, yet in my desire
To that which is above me I aspire;
And all my best affections I profess
To Him that is the Sun of Righteousness.
Oh! keep the morning of his incarnation,
The burning noontide of his bitter passion,
The night of his descending, and the height
Of his ascension,-ever in my sight;
That, imitating Him in what I may,
I never follow an inferior way.
WHEN to the fields we walk, to look upon
Some skilful marksman, so much heed we not
How many arrows from his bow are gone,
As we observe how nigh the mark he shot;
And justly we deride that man who spends
His time and shafts, but never aim doth take
To hit the white, or foolishly pretends
The number of the shots doth archers make.
So God, who marketh our endeavours here,
Doth not by tale account of them receive;
But heedeth rather how well-meant they were,
And at his will how rightly aim'd we have.
It is not mumbling over, thrice a day,
A set of Ave Maries or of creeds,
Or many hours formally to pray,
When from a dull devotion it proceeds;
Nor is it up and down the land to seek,
To find those well-breath'd lecturers, that can
Preach thrice a sabbath, and six times a week,
Yet be as fresh as when they first began:
Nor is it such-like things, performed by number,
Which God respects; nor doth his wisdom crave
Those many vanities, wherewith some cumber
Their bodies, as if those their souls could save.
For not much-doing, but well-doing, that
Which God commands, the doer justifies.
Το pray without devotion is to prate;
And hearing is but half our exercise :-
We ought not, therefore, to regard, alone,
How often, but how well, the work be done.
THE GLORY OF CHRIST, UNDER THE FIGURE
OF SOLOMON. CANT. iii.
WHAT'S he that from the desert, there,
Doth like those smoky pillars come,
Which from the incense, and the myrrh,
And all the merchant-spices fume?
His bed-which, lo! is Solomon's—
Three-score stout men about it stand;
They are of Israel's valiant ones,
And all of them with swords in hand.
All those are men expert in fight,
And each man on his thigh doth wear
A sword, that terrors of the night
May be forbid from coming there.
King Solomon a goodly place,
With trees of Lebanon did rear;
Each pillar of it silver was,
And gold the bases of them were.
With purple covered he the same,
And all the pavement-thoroughout—
Oh, daughters of Jerusalem!
For you, with charity is wrought.
Come, Sion's daughters! come away!
And, crowned with his diadem,
King Solomon behold you may.
That crown his mother set on him,
When he a married man was made,
And in his heart contentment had.
HENRY KING, BISHOP OF CHICHESTER.
THIS learned divine was the author of a metrical translation of the Psalms, a small volume of miscellaneous poems in English, and also of several Greek and Latin poems, and some religious It is a sufficient attestation to his character that he was advanced to a bishopric by King Charles, expressly with a view that by his mildness, unfeigned piety, and blameless life, he might help to win back the affections of the people, alienated by its enemies from the episcopal order. There is a peculiar charm in his poetry, which is owing less to the ease and sweetness of style, by which it is frequently distinguished, than to its faithfully reflecting the qualities of the author's mind and heart.
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