An Ode which was præfixed to a little Prayer-book given to a young Gentle-woman
LO here a little volume, but great Book | |
| A nest of new-born sweets; | |
| Whose native fires disdaining | |
| To ly thus folded, and complaining | |
| Of these ignoble sheets, | 5 |
| Affect more comly bands | |
| (Fair one) from the kind hands | |
| And confidently look | |
| To find the rest | |
| Of a rich binding in your Brest. | 10 |
| It is, in one choise handfull, heavenn; and all | |
| Heavn’s Royall host; incamp’t thus small | |
| To prove that true schooles use to tell, | |
| Ten thousand Angels in one point can dwell. | |
| It is love’s great artillery | 15 |
| Which here contracts itself, and comes to ly | |
| Close couch’t in their white bosom: and from thence | |
| As from a snowy fortresse of defence, | |
| Against their ghostly foes to take their part, | |
| And fortify the hold of their chast heart. | 20 |
| It is an armory of light | |
| Let constant use but keep it bright, | |
| You’l find it yeilds | |
| To holy hands and humble hearts | |
| More swords and sheilds | 25 |
| Then sin hath snares, or Hell hath darts. | |
| Only be sure | |
| The hands be pure | |
| That hold these weapons; and the eyes | |
| Those of turtles, chast and true; | 30 |
| Wakefull and wise; | |
| Here is a freind shall fight for you, | |
| Hold but this book before their heart; | |
| Let prayer alone to play his part, | |
| But ô the heart | 35 |
| That studyes this high Art | |
| Must be a sure house-keeper | |
| And yet no sleeper. | |
| Dear soul, be strong. | |
| Mercy will come e’re long | 40 |
| And bring his bosom fraught with blessings, | |
| Flowers of never fading graces | |
| To make immortall dressings | |
| For worthy soules, whose wise embraces | |
| Store up themselves for Him, who is alone | 45 |
| The Spouse of Virgins and the Virgin’s son. | |
| But if the noble Bridegroom, when he come | |
| Shall find the loytering Heart from home; | |
| Leaving her chast aboad | |
| To gadde abroad | 50 |
| Among the gay mates of the god of flyes; | |
| To take her pleasure and to play | |
| And keep the devill’s holyday; | |
| To dance th’sunshine of some smiling | |
| But beguiling | 55 |
| Spheares of sweet and sugred Lyes, | |
| Some slippery Pair | |
| Of false, perhaps as fair, | |
| Flattering but forswearing eyes; | |
| Doubtlesse some other heart | 60 |
| Will gett the start | |
| Mean while, and stepping in before | |
| Will take possession of that sacred store | |
| Of hidden sweets and holy ioyes. | |
| Words which are not heard with Eares | 65 |
| (Those tumultuous shops of noise) | |
| Effectuall wispers, whose still voice | |
| The soul it selfe more feeles then heares; | |
| Amorous languishments; luminous trances; | |
| Sights which are not seen with eyes; | 70 |
| Spirituall and soul-peircing glances | |
| Whose pure and subtil lightning flyes | |
| Home to the heart, and setts the house on fire | |
| And melts it down in sweet desire | |
| Yet does not stay | 75 |
| To ask the windows leave to passe that way; | |
| Delicious Deaths; soft exalations | |
| Of soul; dear and divine annihilations; | |
| A thousand unknown rites | |
| Of ioyes and rarefy’d delights; | 80 |
| A hundred thousand goods, glories, and graces, | |
| And many a mystick thing | |
| Which the divine embraces | |
| Of the deare spouse of spirits with them will bring | |
| For which it is no shame | 85 |
| That dull mortality must not know a name. | |
| Of all this store | |
| Of blessings and ten thousand more | |
| (If when he come | |
| He find the Heart from home) | 90 |
| Doubtlesse he will unload | |
| Himself some other where, | |
| And poure abroad | |
| His pretious sweets | |
| On the fair soul whom first he meets. | 95 |
| O fair, ô fortunate! O riche, ô dear! | |
| O happy and thrice happy she | |
| Selected dove | |
| Who ere she be, | |
| Whose early love | 100 |
| With winged vowes | |
| Makes hast to meet her morning spouse | |
| And close with his immortall kisses. | |
| Happy indeed, who never misses | |
| To improve that pretious hour, | 105 |
| And every day | |
| Seize her sweet prey | |
| All fresh and fragrant as he rises | |
| Dropping with a baulmy Showr | |
| A delicious dew of spices; | 110 |
| O let the blissfull heart hold fast | |
| Her heavnly arm-full, she shall tast | |
| At once ten thousand paradises; | |
| She shall have power | |
| To rifle and deflour | 115 |
| The rich and roseall spring of those rare sweets | |
| Which with a swelling bosome there she meets | |
| Boundles and infinite | |
| Bottomles treasures | |
| Of pure inebriating pleasures | 120 |
| Happy proof! she shal discover | |
| What ioy, what blisse, | |
| How many Heav’ns at once it is | |
| To have her God become her Lover. | |
