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IV.

Wilt thou love God as He thee? then digest,
My soul, this wholesome meditation,

How God the Spirit, by angels waited on
In heaven, doth make His temple in thy breast.
The Father having begot a Son most blest,
And still begetting, (for he ne'er begun),
Hath deigned to choose thee by adoption,
Co-heir to his glory, and Sabbath's endless rest :
And as a robbed man, which by search doth find
His stol'n stuff sold, must lose, or buy't again;
The Son of Glory came down and was slain,
Us, whom he had made, and Satan stole, to unbind.
'Twas much that man was made like God before,
But that God should be made like man, much more.

DONNE.

Hymn to God, my God.

SINCE I am coming to that holy room,
Where with the choir of saints for evermore
I shall be made thy music, as I come
I tune the instrument here at the door,
And what I must do then think here before.

Whilst my physicians, by their love, are grown
Cosmographers and I their map, who lie
Flat on this bed, that by them may be shewn
That this is my south-west discovery,
Per fretum febris, by these straits to die.

I joy that in these straits I see my west;
For though those currents yield return to none,
What shall my west hurt me? as west and east
In all flat maps (and I am one) are one,
So death doth touch the resurrection.

DONNE.

Destiny.

GREAT Destiny! the commissary of God!
Thou hast marked out a path and period
For everything; who, where we offspring took,
Our ways and ends seest at one instant: Thou
Knot of all causes; Thou whose changeless brow
Ne'er smiles nor frowns, oh! vouchsafe Thou to look,
And shew my story in Thy eternal book,
That (if my prayer be fit), I may understand
So much myself as to know with what hand,
How scant a liberal, this my life's race is spanned.

DONNE.

Sonnet.

Ar the round earth's imagined corners blow
Your trumpets, angels! and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go,
All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow;
All whom war, death, age, ague's tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance hath slain; and you whose
Shall behold God and never taste death's woe.
But let them sleep, Lord! and me mourn a space;
For if above all these my sins abound,
'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace
When we are there. Here on this holy ground
Teach me how to repent, for that's as good

eyes

As if Thou hadst sealed my pardon with Thy blood.

DONNE.

Period Third.

BEN JOHNSON

ΤΟ

JAMES SHIRLEY.

Period Third.

Life's Measure.

It is not growing like a tree

In bulk doth make man better be!

Or standing long an oak three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere ;
A lily of a day

Is fairer far in May,

Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.

BEN JONSON.

To the Holy Trinity.

I.

O HOLY, blessed, glorious Trinity
Of Persons, still one God in unity,

The faithful man's believéd mystery,

Help, help to lift

Myself up to Thee, harrow'd, torn, and bruised By sin and Satan; and my flesh misused,

As

my heart lies in pieces, all confused,

O take

G

my gift.

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