SWEET Hope is soveraigne comfort of our life:
Our joy in sorrow and our peace in strife;
The dame of beggers and the queene of kings:
Can these delight in height of prosperous things
Without expecting still to keep them sure?
Can those the weight of heavy wants endure
Unless persuasion instant paine allay,
Reserving spirit for a better day?
Our God, who planted in His creature's brest
This stop, on which the wheeles of passion rest,
Hath rays'd, by beames of His abundant grace,
This strong affection to a higher place.
It is the second vertue which attends
That soule, whose motion to His sight ascends.
Rest here, my mind, thou shalt no longer stay
To gaze upon
these houses made with clay :
Thou shalt not stoope to honours or to lands,
Nor golden balles, where sliding fortune stands
If no false colours draw thy steps amisse,
Thou hast a palace of eternal blisse,
A paradise from care and feare exempt,
An object worthy of the best attempt.
Who would not for so rich a country fight?
Who would not runne that sees a goal so bright?
O Thou, who art our Author and our End,
On whose large mercy chaines of hope depend;
Lift me to Thee by Thy propitious hand,
For lower I can find no place to stand.
PRAYER TO THE HOLY SPIRIT.
O LIVING Spirit, O falling of God-dew, grace which does console us and renew, O vital light, O breath of angelhood,
generous ministration of things good, Creator of the visible, and best
Upholder of the great unmanifest
Power infinitely wise, new boon sublime
Of science and of art, constraining might,
In whom I breathe, live, speak, rejoice, and write,—
Be with us in all places, for all time!
MANUEL PHILE.
(Trs. E. Barrett Browning.)
OUT of my soule's depth to Thee my cryes have sounded:
Let Thine eares my plaints receive, on just feare
Lord, shouldst Thou weigh our faults, who's not confounded?
But with grace Thou censur'st Thine when they have erred,
Therefore shall Thy blessed Name be lov'd and feared. Ev'n to Thy throne my thoughts and eyes are reared.
Thee alone my hopes attend, on Thee relying;
In Thy sacred word Ile trust, to Thee fast flying, Long ere the watch shall breake, the morne descrying.
In the mercies of our God who live secured,
May of full redemption rest in Him assured;
Their sinne-sicke soules by Him shall be recured.
O THOU! the unseen, the all-seeing! Thou whose
Mantled with darkness mock all finite gaze,
Before whose eyes the creatures of Thy hand,
Seraph and man, alike in weakness stand,
And countless ages, trampling into clay
Earth's empires on their march, are but a day;
Father of worlds unknown, unnumbered! Thou
With whom all time is one eternal now,
Who know'st no past nor future Thou whose
Goes forth and bears to myriads life or death,
Look on us, guide us! wanderers of a sea
Wild and obscure, what are we, reft of Thee?
A thousand rocks, deep hid, elude our sight,
A star may set-and we are lost in night:
A breeze may waft us to the whirlpool's brink,
A treacherous song allure us-and we sink!
Oh! by His love who, veiling Godhead's light,
To moments circumscribed the Infinite,
And Heaven and earth disdained not to ally
By that dread union-Man with Deity;
Immortal tears o'er mortal woes who shed,
And, ere He raised them, wept above the dead;
Let Thy word control The earthquakes of that universe-the soul; Pervade the depths of passion-speak once more The mighty mandate, guard of every shore, "Here shall thy waves be stayed" in grief, in pain The fearful poise of reason's sphere maintain, Thou, by whom suns are balanced!—Thus secure In Thee shall Faith and Fortitude endure: Conscious of Thee, unfaltering shall the just Look upward still, in high and holy trust, And, by affliction guided to Thy shrine,
The first, last thoughts of suffering hearts be Thine.
AN HYMNE OF HEAVENLY BEAUTIE.
VOUCHSAFE, then, O Thou most Almightie spright!
From whom all guifts of wit and knowledge flow,
To shed into my breast some sparkling light
Of Thine eternall truth, that I may show
Some little beames to mortall eyes below
Of that immortal Beautie, there with Thee,
Which in my weak distraughted mynd I see;
That with the glorie of so goodly sight
The hearts of men, which fondly here admyre
Faire seeming showes and feed on vaine delight,
Transported with celestiall desyre
Of those faire formes, may lift themselves
up hyer, And learne to love, with zealous humble dewty, Th' Eternall Fountaine of that heavenly Beauty.
Then looke, who list thy gazefull eyes to feed
With sight of that is faire, looke on the frame
Of this wyde universe, and therein reed
The endlesse kinds of creatures which by name
Thou canst not count, much less their natures aime ;
All which are made with wondrous wise respect
And all with admirable Beautie deckt.
These thus in faire each other farre excelling,
As to the Highest they approach more near,
Yet is that Highest farre beyond all telling,
Fairer than all the rest which there appeare,
Though all their beauties joyned together weare;
How then can mortall tongue hope to expresse
The image of such endlesse perfectnesse?
Cease then, my tongue, and lend unto my mynd
Leave to bethinke how great that Beautie is,
Whose utmost parts so beautifull I fynd;
How much more those essentiall parts of His,
His truth, His love, His wisedome, and His blis,
His grace, His doome, His mercy, and His might,
By which He lends us of Himselfe a sight!
Those unto all He daily doth display
And shew Himselfe in th' image of His grace,
As in a looking-glasse, through which He may
Be seene of all His creatures vile and base,
That are unable else to see His face,
His glorious face! which glistereth else so bright,
That th' angels selves can not endure His sight!
But we, fraile wights! whose sight cannot sustaine
The sun's bright beames when he on us doth shyne,
But that their points rebutted backe againe
Are duld, how can we see with feeble eyne
The glory of that Maiestie Divine,
In sight of whom both sun and moone are darke,
Compared to His least resplendent sparke?
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