So shall He from Heav'n's high toiver
On the earth his blessing shower;
All this huge wide orb we see,
Shall one choir, one temple be;
There our voices we will rear,
Till we fill it everywhere :
And enforce the fiends that dwell
In the air, to sink to hell.
Then, oh! come, with sacred lays,
Let us sound th' Almighty's praise.

GILES FLETCHER,

BORN, 1588; DIED, 1623.

MERCY.
As when the cheerful sun enlamping* wide,

Glads all the world with his uprising ray,
And woos the widow'd earth afresh to pride,

And paints her bosom with the flow'ry May,

His silent sistert steals him quite away,
Wrapp'd in a sable cloud from mortal eyes:
The hasty stars at noon begin to rise,
And headlong to his early roost the sparrow flies.

But soon as he again disshadow'd is,

Restoring the blind world his blemish'd sight, As though another day were newly his,

The cozened birds busily take their flight

And wonder at the shortness of the night: So Mercy once again herself displays Out from her sister's cloud, and open lays Those sunshine looks, whose beams would dim a thou

sand days.

MEDITATION AND PRAYER.

19

ROBERT HERRICK.

BORN, 1591 ; DIED, 3660.

TO GOD, IN HIS SICKNESS.
What though my harp and viol be
Both hung upon the willow-tree?
What though my bed be now my grave,
And for my house I darkness have ?
What though my healthful days are fled,
And I lie number'd with the dead?
Yet I have hope, by thy great power,
To spring—though now a wither'd flower.

HUMILITY.
HUMBLE we must be, if to heav'n we go;
High is the roof there, but the gate is low:
Whene'er thou speak’st, look with a lowly eye-
Grace is increased by humility.

MEDITATION AND PRAYER.
I'll hope no more,

For things that will not come,
And if they do, they prove but cumbersome :

Wealth brings much woe;
And, since it fortunes so,
'Tis better to be

poor
Than so to abound,

As to be drown'd
Or overwhelm'd with store.

Pale care, avaunt!

I'll learn to be content
With that small stock, thy bounty gave or lent.

What may conduce
To my most healthful use,
Almighty God! me grant;

But that, or this,

That hurtful is,
Deny thy suppliant.

HENRY KING.

BORN, 1591 ; Died, 1669.

THE LIFE OF MAN. LIKE to the falling of a star, Or as the flights of eagles are ; Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue, Or silver drops of morning dew; Or like a wind that chafes the flood, Or bubbles which on water stood: Ev'n such is man, whose borrow'd light Is straight call'd in, and paid to-night. The wind blows out, the bubble dies; The spring entomb'd in autumn lies; The dew dries up, the star is shot; The flight is past—and man forgot.

THE DIRGE. What is the existence of man's life, But open war, or slumber'd strife; Where sickness to his sense presents The combat of the elements; And never feels a perfect peace Till death's cold hand signs his release?

It is a storm—where the hot blood
Outvies in rage the boiling flood;
And each loose passion of the mind
Is like a furious gust of wind,
Which beats his bark with many a wave,
Till he casts anchor in the grave.

It is a flow'r—which buds, and grows,
And withers as the leaves disclose;
Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep,
Like fits of waking before sleep;
Then shrinks into that fatal mould
Where its first being was enroll’d.

DELIGHT IN GOD ONLY.

21

It is a dream-whose seeming truth
Is moralized in age and youth;
Where all the comforts he can share,
As wand'ring as his fancies are;
Till in a mist of dark decay,
The dreamer vanish quite away.
It is a dial—which points out
The sunset as it moves about;
And shadows out in lines of night
The subtle stages of time's flight;
Till all-obscuring earth hath laid
His body in perpetual shade.
It is a weary interlude-
Which doth short joys, long woes, include,
The world the stage, the prologue tears,
The acts vain hopes and varied fears ;
The scene shuts up with loss of breath,
And leaves no epilogue but death.

FRANCIS QUARLES.

BORN, 1592; DIED, 1644.

DELIGHT IN GOD ONLY.
I LOVE (and have some cause to love) the earth,

She is my Maker's creature, therefore good :
She is my mother, for she gave me birth ;

She is my tender nurse, she gives me food: But what's a creature, Lord, compar'd with thee? Or what's my mother or my nurse to me?

I love the air; her dainty fruits refresh

My drooping soul, and to new.sweets invite me; Her shrill-mouth'd choirs sustain me with their flesh,

And with their polyphonian notes delight me.
But what's the air, or all the sweets that she
Can bless my soul withal, compar'd to thee?

I love the sea ; she is my fellow-creature,

My careful purveyor, she provides me store;
She walls me round, she makes my diet greater,

She wafts my treasure from a foreign shore:
But, Lord of oceans, when compared with thee,
What is the ocean or her wealth to me?
To heaven's high city I direct my journey,

Whose spangled suburbs entertain mine eye ;
Mine eye, by contemplation's great attorney,

Transcends the crystal pavement of the sky: But what is heav'n, great God, compar'd with thee? Without thy presence, heav'n's no heav'n to me. Without thy presence, earth gives no refection;

Without thy presence, sea affords no treasure, Without thy presence, air's a rank infection ;

Without thy presence, heaven itself no pleasure: If not possess’d, if not enjoyed in thee, What's earth, or sea, or air, or heav'n to me? The highest honours that the world can boast,

Are subjects far too low for my desire;
Its brightest beams of glory are at most

But dying sparkles of thy living fire :
The proudest flames that earth can kindle, be
But nightly glowworms if compar'd to thee.
Without thy presence, wealth is bags of cares;

Wisdom, but folly ; joy, disquiet, sadness;
Friendship is treason, and delights are snares;

Pleasures, but pain; and mirth but pleasing madness: Without thee, Lord, things be not what they be, Nor have their being when compar’d with thee. In having all things, and not thee, what have I ?

Not having thee, what have my labours got ?
Let me enjoy but thee, what farther crave I?

And having thee alone, what have I not?
I wish nor sea nor land; nor would I be
Possess'd of heav'n, heav'n unpossess'd of thee.