On St. Peter cutting off Malchus's Ear.

ELL, Peter, dost thou wield thy active sword;
Well for thyself, mean, not for thy Lord.

To strike at ears is to take heed there be
No witness, Peter, of thy perjury.

JOHN III.

But Men loved Darkness rather than Light.
HE world's Light shines: shines as it will,
The world will love its darkness still;
I doubt though, when the world's in hell,
It will not love its darkness half so well.

ACTS XXI.

I am ready not only to be bound but to die.

SOME death, come bands, nor do you shrink,

my ears,

At those hard words man's cowardice calls fears.

Save those of fear, no other bands fear I;

Nor other death than this; the fear to die.

On St. Peter casting away his Nets at our Saviour's Call.

HOU hast the art on't, Peter, and canst tell

To cast thy nets on all occasions well.

When Christ calls, and thy nets would have thee stay,

To cast them well's to cast them quite away.

Our Lord in His Circumcision to His Father.
O Thee these first-fruits of my growing death,
For what else is my life? lo! I bequeath.

Taste this, and as Thou lik'st this lesser flood, Expect a sea, my heart shall make it good.

Thy wrath that wades here now ere long shall swim,
The flood-gate shall be set wide ope for him.
Then let him drink, and drink, and do his worst,
To drown the wantonness of his wild thirst.
Now's but the nonage of my pains, my fears
Are yet both in their hopes, not come to years.
The day of my dark woes is yet but morn,
My tears but tender, and my death new-born.
Yet may these unfledged griefs give fate some guess,
These cradle-torments have their towardness;
These purple buds of blooming death may be
Erst the full stature of a fatal tree;

And, till my riper woes to age are come,
This knife may be the spear's præludium.

On the Wounds of our crucified Lord.
THESE wakeful words of Thine!
Are they mouths? or are they eyes?
Be they mouths, or be they eyne,
Each bleeding part some one supplies.

Lo, a mouth! whose full-bloom'd lips
At too dear a rate are roses.
Lo, a blood-shot eye! that weeps
And many a cruel tear discloses.

O thou that on this foot hast laid
Many a kiss and many a tear,
Now thou shalt have all repaid,
Whatsoe'er thy charges were.

This foot hath got a mouth and lips,
To pay the sweet sum of thy kisses;
To pay thy tears, an eye that weeps,
Instead of tears, such gems as this is.

The difference only this appears,
Nor can the change offend,
The debt is paid in ruby tears,
Which thou in pearls didst lend.

On our crucified Lord, naked and bloody.
H' have left Thee naked, Lord; O that they had!
This garment, too, I would they had denied.

Thee with Thyself they have too richly clad,
Opening the purple wardrobe of Thy side.

O never could their garment be too good
For Thee to wear, but this of Thine own blood!

Easter-day.

ISE, Heir of fresh Eternity,

From thy virgin-tomb:

Rise, mighty Man of wonders, and Thy world

with Thee;

Thy tomb, the universal East,

Nature's new womb,

Thy tomb, fair Immortality's perfumèd nest.

Of all the glories make noon gay

This is the morn;

This rock buds forth the fountain of the streams of day;

In joy's white annals lives this hour,

When life was born,

No cloud-scowl on his radiant lids, no tempest-lower.

Life, by this light's nativity,

All creatures have;

Death only by this day's just doom is forced to die.
Nor is death forced; for may he lie

Throned in thy grave,

Death will on this condition be content to die.

On the bleeding Wounds of our crucified Lord.

J

ESU, no more, it is full tide;

From Thy head and from Thy feet,
From Thy hands and from Thy side,

All Thy purple rivers meet.

What need Thy fair head bear a part
In showers? as if Thine eyes had none;
What need they help to drown Thine heart,
That strives in torrents of its own?

Thy restless feet now cannot go,
For us and our eternal good,

As they were ever wont! What though
They swim, alas! in their own flood?

Thy hands to give, Thou canst not lift;
Yet will Thy hand still giving be;
It gives, but O, itself's the gift:

It gives though bound, though bound 'tis free.

But O, Thy side; Thy deep digg'd side

That hath a double Nilus going,

Nor ever was the Pharian tide

Half so fruitful, half so flowing.

Water'd by the showers they bring,

The thorns that Thy blest brows encloses, A cruel and a costly spring,

Conceive proud hopes of proving roses.

No hair so small but pays his river
To this Red Sea of Thy blood,
Their little channels can deliver
Something to the general flood.

But, while I speak, whither are run
All the rivers named before?

I counted wrong; there is but one:
But O, that one is one all o'er.

Rain-swoll'n rivers may rise proud,
Bent all to drown and overflow;
But when indeed all's overflow'd,
They themselves are drowned too.

*

*This verse is not in the version of the Paris edition of 1652.