O in that breast

Of thine (the noblest nest

Both of Love's fires and floods) might I recline
This hard, cold heart of mine!

The chill lump would relent, and prove
Soft subject for the siege of Love.

VI.

O teach those wounds to bleed

In me; me, so to read

This book of loves, thus writ In lines of death, my life may copy it. With loyal cares.

O let me, here, claim shares !

Yield something in thy sad prerogative
(Great queen of griefs !), and give

Me, too, my tears; who, though all stone,
Think much that thou shouldst mourn alone.

VII.

Yea, let my life and me

Fix here with thee,

And at the humble foot

Of this fair tree, take our eternal root.

That so we may

At least be in Love's way;

And in these chaste wars, while the wing'd wounds

flee

So fast 'twixt Him and thee,

My breast may catch the kiss of some kind dart,
Though as at second hand, from either heart.

VIII.

O you, your own best darts,
Dear, doleful hearts!

Hail and strike home, and make me see
That wounded bosoms their own weapons be.

Come wounds! come darts!

Nail'd hands! and pierced hearts!

Come your whole selves, Sorrow's great Son and mother!

Nor grudge a younger brother

Of griefs his portion, who (had all their due)

One single wound should not have left for you.

IX.

Shall I set there

So deep a share,

(Dear wounds !), and only now

In sorrows draw no dividend with you?

O be more wise,

If not more soft, mine eyes!
Flow, tardy founts! and into decent showers
Dissolve my days and hours.

And if thou yet (faint soul !) defer

To bleed with Him, fail not to weep with her.

X.

Rich queen, lend some relief;

At least an alms of grief,

To a heart who by sad right of sin

Could prove the whole sum (too sure) due to him. By all those stings

Of Love, sweet-bitter things,

Which these torn hands transcribed on thy true heart;

O teach mine, too, the art

To study Him so, till we mix

Wounds, and become one crucifix.

XI.

Oh, let me suck the wine

So long of this chaste Vine,

Till drunk of the dear wounds, I be

A lost thing to the world, as it to me.
O faithful friend

Of me and of my end!

Fold up my life in love; and lay't beneath

My dear Lord's vital death.

Lo, heart, thy hope's whole plea! her precious breath Pour'd out in prayers for thee; thy Lord's in death

Upon the Bleeding Crucifix :

A SONG.

I.

Jesu, no more! It is full tide;

From Thy hands and from Thy feet,
From Thy head, and from Thy side,
All the purple rivers meet.

II.

What need Thy fair head bear a part

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

III.

Water'd by the showers they bring,

The thorns that Thy blest brow encloses

(A cruel and a costly spring)

Conceive proud hopes of proving roses.*

IV.

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.

* This Stanza is not given in the 1652 Edition: it occurs in ed. of 1646.-Ed.

V.

Thy hand to give Thou canst not lift;

Yet wilt Thy hand still giving be. It gives, but O itself's the gift:

It gives though bound; though bound 'tis free.

VI.

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.

VII.

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.

VIII.

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.

IX.

Rain-swol❜n rivers may rise proud,
Bent all to drown and overflow;
But when indeed all's overflow'd,

They themselves are drowned too.