If I Hope, I
Pine; if I Fear, I
Faint and Die

If I hope, I pine; if I fear, I faint and die;

So, between hope and fear, I desperate lie, Looking for joy to heaven, whence it should come:

But hope is blind; joy, deaf; and I am dumb.

Yet I speak and cry; but, alas, with words of woe:

And joy conceives not them that murmur

So.

He that the ears of joy will ever pierce, Must sing glad notes, or speak in happier

verse.

Life Upright

The man of life upright,

Whose guiltless heart is free
From all dishonest deeds,
Or thought of vanity;

The man whose silent days
In harmless joys are spent,
Whom hopes cannot delude
Nor sorrow discontent;

That man needs neither towers

Nor armour for defence,
Nor secret vaults to fly

From thunder's violence:

He only can behold

With unaffrighted eyes
The horrors of the deep
And terrors of the skies.

Thus, scorning all the cares
That fate or fortune brings,
He makes the heaven his book,
His wisdom heavenly things;

THE MAN OF LIFE UPRIGHT

Good thoughts his only friends,

His wealth a well-spent age,

The earth his sober inn

And quiet pilgrimage.

(B 325)

433

2 F

thou Heavy Sprite

Awake, awake, thou heavy sprite,
That sleep'st the deadly sleep of sin!
Rise now and walk the ways of light!
'Tis not too late yet to begin.
Seek heaven early, seek it late:
True Faith still finds an open gate.

Get up, get up, thou leaden man!
Thy track to endless joy or pain
Yields but the model of a span;

Yet burns out thy life's lamp in vain! One minute bounds thy bane or bliss! Then watch and labour, while time is.

Come, Cheerful Day, Part of my Life to Me

Come, cheerful day, part of my life to me: For while thou view'st me with thy fad

ing light,

Part of my life doth still depart with thee, And I still onward haste to my last night. Time's fatal wings do ever forward fly: So every day we live a day we die.

But, O ye nights, ordained for barren rest,
How are my days deprived of life in you,
When heavy sleep my soul hath dispossest,
By feigned death life sweetly to renew!
Part of my life in that, you life deny:
So every day we live a day we die.