English

If with such passing beautie, choise delights,
The architect of this great round did frame
This pallace visible, which world we name,
Yet sillie mansion but of mortall wights;
How many wonders, what amazing lights,
Must that triumphing seate of glorie claime,
Which doth transcend all this great all's high hights,
Of whose bright sunne ours heere is but a beame?
O blest abode! O happie dwelling place,
Where visiblie th' Inuisible doth raigne!
Blest people, who doe see true beautie's face,

Soule, which to hell wast thrall,
Hee, hee for thine offence
Did suffer death, who could not die at all:
O soueraigne excellence,
O life of all that liues,
Eternall bountie, which all goodnesse giues,
How could death mount so hie?
No wit this point can reach;
Faith onely doth vs teach,
For vs hee died, at all who could not die.

Come forth, come forth, yee blest triumphing bands,
Faire citizens of that immortall towne,
Come see that king, who all this all commands,
Now, ouercharg'd with loue, die for his owne:
Looke on those nailes which pierce his feete and hands,
What a strange diademe his browes doth crowne!
Beholde his pallide face, his eyes which sowne,
And what a throng of thieues him mocking stands:
Come forth, yee empyrean troupes, come forth,
Preserue this sacred blood, which earth adornes;
Gather those liquide roses from his thornes,

To spreade the azure canopie of heauen,
And make it twinckle all with spanges of gold,
To place this pondrous globe of earth so euen,
That it should all, and nought should it vphold;
To giue strange motions to the planets seuen,
And Ioue to make so meeke, and Mars so bold;
To temper what is moist, drie, hote, and cold,
Of all their iarres that sweet accords are giuen,
Lord, to thy wit is nought, nought to thy might:
But that thou shouldst, thy glorie laid aside,
Come basely in mortalitie to bide,

Too long I follow'd haue my fond desire,
And too long painted on the ocean streames,
Too long refreshment sought amidst the fire,
And hunted ioyes, which to my soule were blames.
Ah! when I had what most I did admire,
And seene of life's delights the last extreames,
I found all but a rose hedg'd with a bryer,
A nought, a thought, a show of mocking dreames.
Hencefoorth on thee mine only good I'll thinke,
For only thou canst grant what I doe craue;
Thy naile my penne shall bee, thy blood mine inke,

Triumphing chariots, statues, crownes of bayes,
Skie-threatning arches, the rewards of worth,
Workes heauenly wise in sweet harmonious layes,
Which sprights diuine vnto the world set forth;
States, which ambitious mindes with blood doe raise,
From frozen Tanais to sunne-gilded Gange,
Giganticke frames, held wonders rarely strange,
Like spiders' webbes, are made the sport of dayes.
All only constant is in constant change,
What done is, is vndone, and when vndone,
Into some other fashion doth it range:

A PROLOGUE

As a young Child, whose Mother, for a jest,
To his own use a golden coin flings down,
Devises blythe how he may spend it best,
Or on a horse, a bride-cake, or a crown,
Till, wearied with his quest,
Nor liking altogether that nor this,
He gives it back for nothing but a kiss,
Endow'd so I
With golden speech, my choice of toys to buy,
And scanning power and pleasure and renown,
Till each in turn, with looking at, looks vain,
For her mouth's bliss,

" Good-morrow, Psyche! What's thine errand now?
What awful pleasure do thine eyes bespeak,
What shame is in thy childish cheek,
What terror on thy brow?
Is this my Psyche, once so pale and meek?
Thy body's sudden beauty my sight old
Stings, like an agile bead of boiling gold,
And all thy life looks troubled like a tree's
Whose boughs wave many ways in one great breeze."
" O Pythoness, to strangest story hark:
A dreadful God was with me in the dark — "

Darling, with hearts conjoin'd in such a peace
That Hope, so not to cease,
Must still gaze back,
And count, along our love's most happy track,
The landmarks of like inconceiv'd increase,
Promise me this:
If thou alone should'st win
God's perfect bliss,
And I, beguiled by gracious-seeming sin,
Say, loving too much thee,
Love's last goal miss,
And any vows may then have memory,
Never, by grief for what I bear or lack,
To mar thy joyance of heav'n's jubilee.
Promise me this;

From UNDER THE OLD ELM

Never to see a nation born
Hath been given to mortal man,
Unless to those who, on that summer morn,
Gazed silent when the great Virginian
Unsheathed the sword whose fatal flash
Shot union through the incoherent clash
Of our loose atoms, crystallizing them
Around a single will's unpliant stem,
And making purpose of emotions rash.
Out of that scabbard sprang, as from its womb,
Nebulous at first but hardening to a star,
Through mutual share of sunburst and of gloom,