  AN ODE WHICH WAS PRÆFIXED TO A LITTLE PRAYER-BOOK GIVEN TO A YOUNG GENTLE-WOMAN. Lo here a little volume, but great book!1 (Feare it not, sweet, It is no hipocrit) Much larger in itselfe then in its looke. A nest of new-born sweets;5 Whose natiue fires disdaining To ly thus folded, and complaining Of these ignoble sheets, Affect more comly bands (Fair one) from thy kind hands;10 And confidently look To find the rest Of a rich binding in your brest. It is, in one choise handfull, Heauvn; and all To proue that true, Schooles vse to tell, Ten thousand angels in one point can dwell. It is Loue's great artillery Which here contracts it self, and comes to ly19 Close-couch't in your white bosom; and from thence As from a snowy fortresse of defence, Against the ghostly foes to take your part, And fortify the hold of your chast heart. It is an armory of light; Let constant vse but keep it bright,25 You'l find it yields To holy hands and humble hearts More swords and sheilds Then sin hath snares, or Hell hath darts. Only be sure30 The hands be pure That hold these weapons; and the eyes, Those of turtles, chast and true; Wakefull and wise: Here is a freind shall fight for you;35 Hold but this book before your heart, Let prayer alone to play his part; But O the heart That studyes this high art Must be a sure house-keeper:40 And yet no sleeper. Dear soul, be strong! Mercy will come e're long Flowers of neuer-fading graces45 To make immortall dressings For worthy soules, whose wise embraces Store vp themselues for Him, Who is alone The Spovse of virgins and the virgin's Son. But if the noble Bridegroom, when He come,50 Shall find the loytering heart from home; Leauing her chast aboad To gadde abroad Among the gay mates of the god of flyes; To take her pleasure, and to play55 And keep the deuill's holyday; To dance in th' sunshine of some smiling But beguiling Spheare of sweet and sugred lyes; Some slippery pair60 Of false, perhaps, as fair, Flattering but forswearing, eyes; Doubtlesse some other heart Will gett the start Meanwhile, and stepping in before65 Will take possession of that sacred store Of hidden sweets and holy ioyes; Words which are not heard with eares (Those tumultuous shops of noise) Effectuall whispers, whose still voice70 The soul it selfe more feeles then heares; Sights which are not seen with eyes; Spirituall and soul-peircing glances Whose pure and subtil lightning flyes75 Home to the heart, and setts the house on fire, And melts it down in sweet desire Yet doth not stay To ask the windows' leaue, to passe that way; Delicious deaths; soft exalations80 Of soul; dear and diuine annihilations; A thousand vnknown rites Of ioyes and rarefy'd delights; A hundred thousand goods, glories, and graces: And many a mystick thing85 Which the diuine embraces Of the deare Spouse of spirits, with them will bring, For which it is no shame That dull mortality must not know a name. Of all this hidden store90 Of blessings, and ten thousand more (If when He come He find the heart from home) Doubtlesse He will vnload Himself some other where,95 And poure abroad His pretious sweets On the fair soul whom first He meets. O fair, O fortunate! O riche! O dear! Deare silver-breasted dove Who ere she be, Whose early loue With wingÈd vowes Makes hast to meet her morning Spouse,105 And close with His immortall kisses. Happy indeed, who neuer misses To improue that pretious hour, And euery day Seize her sweet prey,110 All fresh and fragrant as He rises, Dropping with a baulmy showr, A delicious dew of spices; O let the blissfull heart hold it fast Her heaunly arm-full; she shall tast115 At once ten thousand paradises; She shall haue power To rifle and deflour The rich and roseall spring of those rare sweets Which with a swelling bosome there she meets:120 Boundles and infinite ___________ ___________ Bottomles treasures Of pure inebriating pleasures. Happy proof! she shal discouer What ioy, what blisse,125 How many heau'ns at once it is To haue her God become her Lover. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. The text of 1648 corresponds pretty closely, except in the usual changes of orthography, with our text (1652): and 1670, in like manner, follows that of 1646. 1646 edition furnishes some noticeable variations: Line 1, 'large' for 'great.' Fear it not, sweet, It is no hypocrite, Much larger in itself, than in its book.' This is a mistake. The only edition that omits the lines (5-13) besides the first (1646) and substitutes these three is that of 1670. Lines 5-13 not in 1646 edition: first appeared in 1648 edition. |
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