Since, Lord, to Thee
A narrow way and little gate
Is all the passage, on my infancy
Thou didst lay hold, and antedate
My faith in me.

O, let me still
Write Thee ‘great God,’ and me ‘a child’;
Let me be soft and supple to Thy will,
Small to myself, to others mild,
Behither ill.

Although by stealth
My flesh get on; yet let her sister,
My soul, bid nothing but preserve her wealth:
The growth of flesh is but a blister;
Childhood is health.

VIRTUE

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.

Sweet Spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

UNKINDNESS

Lord, make me coy and tender to offend:
In friendship, first I think if that agree
Which I intend
Unto my friend’s intent and end;
I would not use a friend as I use Thee.

If any touch my friend or his good name,
It is my honour and my love-to free
His blasted fame
From the least spot or thought of blame;
I could not use a friend as I use Thee.

My friend may spit upon my curious floor;
Would he have gold? I lend it instantly;
But let the poor,
And Thee within them, starve at door;
I cannot use a friend as I use Thee.

When that my friend pretendeth to a place,
I quit my interest, and leave it free;
But when Thy grace
Sues for my heart, I Thee displace;
Nor would I use a friend as I use Thee.

Yet can a friend what Thou hast done fulfil?
O, write in brass, ‘My God upon a tree
His blood did spill,
Only to purchase my good-will’;
Yet use I not my foes as I use Thee.

LOVE

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked anything.

‘A guest,’ I answered, ‘worthy to be here’:
Love said, ‘You shall be he.’
‘I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear!
I cannot look on thee.’
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
‘Who made the eyes but I?’

‘Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.’
‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘who bore the blame?
‘My dear, then I will serve.’
‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’
So I did sit and eat.

THE PULLEY

When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by,
‘Let us,’ said He, ‘pour on him all we can;
Let the world’s riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.’

So strength first made a way,
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour pleasure;
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that, alone of all His treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay.

‘For if I should,’ said He,
‘Bestow this jewel also on My creature,
He would adore My gifts instead of Me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be.

‘Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness;
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast.’

THE COLLAR

I struck the board, and cried, ‘No more;
I will abroad.
What, shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free; free as the road,
Loose as the wind, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit?
Have I no harvest but a thorn
To let me blood, and not restore
What I have lost with cordial fruit?
Sure there was wine
Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn
Before my tears did drown it;
Is the year only lost to me?
Have I no bays to crown it,
No flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted,
All wasted?
Not so, my heart; but there is fruit,
And thou hast hands.
Recover all thy sigh-blown age
On double pleasures; leave thy cold dispute
Of what is fit and not; forsake thy cage,
Thy rope of sands,
Which petty thoughts have made; and made to thee
Good cable, to enforce and draw,
And be thy law,
While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.
Away! take heed;
I will abroad.
Call in thy death’s-head there, tie-up thy fears;
He that forbears
To suit and serve his need
Deserves his load.’
But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild
At every word,
Methought I heard one calling, ‘Child’;
And I replied, ‘My Lord.’

LIFE

I made a posy while the day ran by:
Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie
My life within this band;
But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they
By noon most cunningly did steal away,
And withered in my hand.

My hand was next to them, and then my heart;
I took, without more thinking, in good part
Time’s gentle admonition;
Who did so sweetly Death’s sad taste convey,
Making my mind to smell my fatal day,
Yet sugaring the suspicion.

Farewell, dear flowers; sweetly your time ye spent,
Fit while ye lived for smell or ornament,
And after death for cures.
I follow straight, without complaints or grief,
Since if my scent be good, I care not if
It be as short as yours.

Lord, let the angels praise Thy name:
Man is a foolish thing, a foolish thing;
Folly and sin play all his game;
His house still burns, and yet he still doth sing—
Man is but grass,
He knows it—‘Fill the glass.’

How canst Thou brook his foolishness?
Why, he’ll not lose a cup of drink for Thee:
Bid him but temper his excess,
Not he: he knows where he can better be—
As he will swear—
Than to serve Thee in fear.

What strange pollutions doth he wed,
And make his own! as if none knew but he.
No man shall beat into his head
That Thou within his curtains drawn canst see:
‘They are of cloth
Where never yet came moth.’

The best of men, turn but Thy hand
For one poor minute, stumble at a pin;
They would not have their actions scanned,
Nor any sorrow tell them that they sin,
Though it be small,
And measure not the fall.

They quarrel Thee, and would give over
The bargain made to serve Thee; but Thy love
Holds them unto it, and doth cover
Their follies with the wings of Thy mild Dove,
Not suffering those
Who would, to be Thy foes.

My God, man cannot praise Thy name:
Thou art all brightness, perfect purity;
The sun holds down his head for shame,
Dead with eclipses, when we speak of Thee:
How shall infection
Presume on Thy perfection?

As dirty hands foul all they touch,
And those things most which are most pure and fine,
So our clay-hearts, even when we crouch
To sing Thy praises, make them less divine:
Yet either this
Or none Thy portion is.

Man cannot serve Thee: let him go
And serve the swine—there, that is his delight:
He doth not like this virtue, no;
Give him his dirt to wallow in all night:
‘These preachers make
His head to shoot and ache.’

O foolish man! where are thine eyes?
How hast thou lost them in a crowd of cares!
Thou pull’st the rug, and wilt not rise,
No, not to purchase the whole pack of stars:
‘There let them shine;
Thou must go sleep or dine.’

The bird that sees a dainty bower
Made in the tree, where she was wont to sit,
Wonders and sings, but not His power
Who made the arbour; this exceeds her wit.
But man doth know
The Spring whence all things flow:

And yet, as though he knew it not,
His knowledge winks, and lets his humours reign;
They make his life a constant blot,
And all the blood of God to run in vain.
Ah, wretch! what verse
Can thy strange ways rehearse?

Indeed, at first man was a treasure,
A box of jewels, shop of rarities,
A ring whose posy was ‘my pleasure’;
He was a garden in a Paradise;
Glory and grace
Did crown his heart and face.

But sin hath fooled him; now he is
A lump of flesh, without a foot or wing
To raise him to a glimpse of bliss;
A sick-tossed vessel, dashing on each thing,
Nay, his own shelf:
My God, I mean myself.