Prayer:

AN ODE WHICH WAS PREFIXED TO A LITTLE PRAYERBOOK GIVEN TO A YOUNG GENTLEWOMAN.

Lo here a little volume, but great book!

(Fear it not, sweet,

It is no hypocrite),

Much larger in itself than in its look.

A nest of new-born sweets;
Whose native fires disdaining

To lie thus folded, and complaining

Of these ignoble sheets,

Affect more comely bands

(Fair one) from thy kind hands;
And confidently look

To find the rest

Of a rich binding in your breast.

It is, in one choice handful, Heaven; and all
Heaven's royal host; encamp'd thus small
To prove that true, Schools use to tell,

Ten thousand angels in one point can dwell.

It is Love's great artillery

Which here contracts itself, and comes to lie
Close-couch'd in your white bosom ; and from thence,
As from a snowy fortress of defence,

Against the ghostly foes to take your part,

And fortify the hold of your chaste heart.

It is an armoury of light;

Let constant use but keep it bright,
You'll find it yields,

To holy hands and humble hearts,
More swords and shields

Than sin hath snares, or Hell hath darts.
Only be sure

The hands be pure

That hold these weapons; and the eyes
Those of turtles, chaste and true;

Wakeful and wise:

Here is a friend shall fight for you,
Hold but this book before your heart,
Let prayer alone to play his part;
But O the heart,

That studies this high art,

Must be a sure house-keeper:

And yet no sleeper.

Dear soul, be strong!

Mercy will come ere long,

And bring his bosom fraught with blessings, Flowers of never-fading graces,

To make immortal dressings

For worthy souls, whose wise embraces
Store up themselves for Him, Who is alone
The Spouse of virgins, and the virgin's Son.
But if the noble Bridegroom, when He come,

Shall find the loitering heart from home;
Leaving her chaste abode

To gad abroad

Among the gay mates of the god of flies;
To take her pleasure, and to play

And keep the devil's holyday;

To dance in th' sunshine of some smiling
But beguiling

Sphere of sweet and sugar'd lies;

Some slippery pair,

Of false, perhaps as fair,

Flattering but forswearing, eyes;
Doubtless some other heart

Will get the start

Meanwhile, and stepping in before,
Will take possession of the sacred store
Of hidden sweets and holy joys;

Words which are not heard with ears
(Those tumultuous shops of noise)
Effectual whispers, whose still voice
The soul itself more feels than hears;
Amorous languishments, luminous trances;
Sights which are not seen with eyes;
Spiritual and soul-piercing glances,

Whose pure and subtle lightning flies.

Home to the heart, and sets the house on fire

And melts it down in sweet desire :

Yet does not stay

To ask the windows' leave to pass that way; Delicious deaths, soft exhalations

Of soul; dear and divine annihilations;

A thousand unknown rites

Of joys, and rarified delights;

An hundred thousand goods, glories, and graces;

And many a mystic thing,

Which the divine embraces

Of the dear Spouse of spirits, with them will bring; For which it is no shame

That dull mortality must not know a name.

Of all this store

Of blessings, and ten thousand more

(If when He come

He find the heart from home)

Doubtless He will unload

Himself some otherwhere,

And pour abroad

His precious sweets

On the fair soul whom first He meets.

O fair! O fortunate! O rich! O dear !
O happy and thrice-happy she,
Dear selected dove

Whoe'er she be,

Whose early love

With winged vows,

Makes haste to meet her morning Spouse,
And close with His immortal kisses.

Happy indeed who never misses

To improve that precious hour,

And every day

Seize her sweet prey,

All fresh and fragrant as He rises,
Dropping with a balmy shower
A delicious dew of spices;

O let the blissful heart hold fast

Her heavenly armful; she shall taste
At once ten thousand paradises;

She shall have power

To rifle and deflower

The rich and roseal spring of those rare sweets,
Which with a swelling bosom there she meets :
Boundless and infinite, bottomless treasures
Of pure inebriating pleasures.
Happy proof! she shall discover

What joy, what bliss,

How many heavens at once it is To have her God become her Lover.

:0:

TO THE SAME PARTY:

COUNSEL CONCERNING HER Choice.

Dear, Heaven designéd soul!

Amongst the rest

Of suitors that besiege your maiden breast

Why may not I

My fortune try