Offended with my question, in full choir, | I answered: The all-potent, sole, imAnswered, "To find thy God thou must
Surpassing sense;
Unspeakable, inscrutable, eternal,
Lord over all;
The only terrible, strong, just, and true, Who hath no end, and no beginning knew.
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood:
Even such is man, whose borrowed light
Is straight called in, and paid to-night.
The wind blows out, the bubble dies;
The spring entombed in autumn lies;
The dew dries up, the star is shot;
The flight is past, and man forgot.
SLEEP on, my love, in thy cold bed,
Never to be disquieted!
My last good night! Thou wilt not wake
Till I thy fate shall overtake;
Till age, or grief, or sickness must
Marry my body to that dust
It so much loves, and fill the room
My heart keeps empty in thy tomb.
Stay for me there! I will not fail
To meet thee in that hollow vale.
And think not much of my delay:
I am already on the way,
And follow thee with all the speed
Desire can make, or sorrow breed.
Each minute is a short degree,
And every hour a step towards thee.
At night, when I betake to rest,
Next morn I rise nearer my west
Of life, almost by eight hours' sail,
Than when sleep breathed his drowsy gale.
Thus from the sun my vessel steers,
And my day's compass downward bears:
Nor labor I to stem the tide
Through which to thee I swiftly glide.
'Tis true, with shame and grief I yield,
Thou, like the van, first took'st the field,
And gotten hast the victory,
In thus adventuring to die
Before me, whose more years might crave
A just precedence in the grave.
But hark! my pulse, like a soft drum,
Beats my approach, tells thee I come:
And slow howe'er my marches be,
I shall at last sit down by thee.
The thought of this bids me go on,
And wait my dissolution
With hope and comfort. Dear, forgive
The crime, I am content to live
Divided, with but half a heart,
Till we shall meet, and never part.
Your heads must come
To the cold tomb;
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust.
EDWARD HERBERT, (EARL OF CHERBURY.)
WALKING thus towards a pleasant grove,
Which did, it seemed, in new delight
The pleasures of the time unite
To give a triumph to their love,
They stayed at last, and on the grass
Reposéd so as o'er his breast
She bowed her gracious head to rest,
Such a weight as no burden was.
Long their fixed eyes to heaven bent,
Unchangéd they did never move,
As if so great and pure a love
No glass but it could represent.
"These eyes again thine eyes shall see,
Thy hands again these hands infold,
And all chaste pleasures can be told,
Shall with us everlasting be.
Let then no doubt, Celinda, touch,
Much less your fairest mind invade;
Were not our souls immortal made,
Our equal loves can make them such."
THE night is come; like to the day,
Depart not thou, great God, away.
Let not my sins, black as the night,
Eclipse the lustre of thy light.
Keep in my horizon: for to me
The sun makes not the day, but thee.
Thou whose nature cannot sleep,
On my temples sentry keep:
Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes,
Whose eyes are open while mine close.
Let no dreams my head infest
But such as Jacob's temples blest.
Whilst I do rest, my soul advance;
Make my sleep a holy trance:
That I may, my rest being wrought,
Awake into some holy thought,
And with as active vigor run
My course, as doth the nimble sun.
Sleep is a death; O, make me try,
By sleeping, what it is to die:
And as gently lay my head
On my grave as now my bed.
Howe'er I rest, great God, let me
Awake again at last with thee.
And thus assured, behold I lie
Securely, or to wake or die.
These are my drowsy days; in vain
I do now wake to sleep again :
O, come that hour when I shall neve
Sleep thus again, but wake forever.
WHOE'ER she be,
That not impossible She
That shall command my heart and me;
Where'er she lie,
Locked up from mortal eye In shady leaves of destiny,
Till that ripe birth
Of studied Fate stand forth,
And teach her fair steps to our earth;
Till that divine
Idea take a shrine
Of crystal flesh, through which to shine:
Meet you her, my Wishes,
Bespeak her to my blisses,
And be ye called, my absent kisses.
I wish her beauty
That owes not all its duty
To gaudy tire, or glist'ring shoe-tie:
Something more than
Taffeta or tissue can,
Or rampant feather, or rich fan.
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