LORD, to my words incline thine ear, My meditation weigh:
My King, my God, vouchsafe to hear My cry to thee, I pray.
Thou in the morn shalt hear my mone, For in the morn will I
Direct my prayers to thy Throne,
And thither lift mine eye.
Thou art a God, whose puritie
Cannot in sins delight:
No evil, Lord, shall dwell with thee,
Nor fools stand in thy sight
Thou hat'st those that unjustly do,
Thou slay'st the men that lie;
The bloody man, the false one too,
Shall be abhorr'd by thee.
But in th' abundance of thy grace
Will I to thee draw near,
And toward thy most holy place
Will worship thee in fear.
Lord, lead me in thy righteousness,
Because of all my foes;
And to my dym and sinful eyes
Thy perfect way disclose:
For wickedness their insides are,
Their mouths no truth retain,
Their throat an open sepulchur,
Their flattering tongues do fain.
Destroy them, Lord, and by their own
Bad counsels let them fall
In height of their transgression;
O Lord! reject them all.
Because against thy Majesty
They vainly have rebell'd;
But let all those that trust in thee
With perfect joy be fill'd.
Yea, shout for joy for evermore,
Protected still by thee;
Let them that do thy name adore
In that still joyful be.
For God doth righteous men esteem,
And them for ever bless;
His favour shalt encompass them,
A shield in their distress.
PEACE, catiffe body, earth possest,
Cease to pretend to things too high:
'Tis not thy place of peace and rest,
For thou art mortall, and must die.
Poor soul, one Spirit made us both,
Both from the wombe of nothing came;
And though to yeeld ought thou art loth,
Yet I the elder brother am.
I, as at home, can heare and see,
And feele and tast of euery good;
But thou a stranger envy'st mee,
My ease and pleasure, health and food.
Then dream of shadowes, make thy coate
Of tinsel'd cobwebs; get thy head
Lyn'd with chymeras got by roate;
And for thy food eat fairy bread.
Stay, if thou can'st, thy mad career;
Represse the storme of fruitless words;
He that would by thy compasse steer,
Must hear what reason truth affords.
'Tis true thou elder brother art;
So wormes and beasts thy elder are;
Rude nature's first, then polisht art-
The chaos was before a starre.
My food and cloth are most divine;
The bread of angels, robes of glory:
Whilst all that sensuall stuff of thine
Is of a vaine life the sad story.
Sences I have, but so refined,
As wel become their mother soule,
Which sute the pleasures of the mind,
And scale the heavens without controule.
I little care for such a feast,
Which beasts can taste as well as I;
Nor am content to set my rest
On goods in show, in deed a lie.
Such cates and joyes do I bequeath
To thee, fond body, which must die;
For I pretend unto a wreath
Wherein is writ eternity.
Thou to thy earth must strait returne,
Whilst I, whose birth is from above,
Shall upward move, and euer burne
In gentle flames of heavenly loue.
But I one person am with thee,
And at the first was form'd by God;
Then must I needs for ever be
Dead ashes, or a senceless clod?
Or that, or worse: but quit thy sence
To boast all body; learne to fly
Up with me, and for recompence
At length thou blest shalt be as I.
Then farewel, pleasures; I nor care
What you pretend, or what you doe;
Ile henceforth feed on angels' fare,
For I an angell will be too.
And for the way I am prepar'd
To answer every ill with this;
"No way is long, or dark, or hard,
That leads to everlasting bliss."
Then w'are agreed; and for thy fare,
It wil be euery day a feast;
Love playes the cooke, and takes the care
Nobly to entertaine her guest.
As for the trouble of the way,
Which dark or streight, cannot be long,
Faith wil inlarge, turne night to day,
So wee'l to heaven goe in a song.
SHOW ME MORE LOVE.
SHOW me more love, my dearest Lord,
Oh turne away thy clouded face,
Give mee some secret looke or word
That may betoken love and grace;
No day or time is black to mee
But that wherein I see not thee.
Shew me more love, a clouded face
Strikes deeper then an angry blow;
Love mee and kill mee by thy grace,
I shall not much bewail my woe.
But even to bee
In heaven unlov'd of thee,
Were hell in heaven for to see.
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