| |
| TAMELY, fraile body, abstaine to-day; to-day | |
| My soule eates twice, Christ hither and away. | |
| Shee sees him man, so like God made in this, | |
| That of them both a circle embleme is, | |
| Whose first and last concurre; this doubtfull day | 5 |
| Of feast or fast, Christ came and went away. | |
| Shee sees him nothing twice at once, who is all; | |
| Shee sees a cedar plant itselfe and fall; | |
| Her Maker put to making; and the head | |
| Of life, at once, nor yet alive, yet dead. | 10 |
| She sees at once the virgin mother stay | |
| Reclus’d at home, publique at Golgotha. | |
| Sad and rejoyc’d shee’s seen at once, and seen | |
| At almost fiftie, and at scarce fifteene. | |
| At once a sonne is promis’d her, and gone, | 15 |
| Gabriel gives Christ to her—He her to John. | |
| Not fully a mother, shee’s in orbitie, | |
| And once the receiver and the legacie. | |
| All this, and all betweene, this day hath showne, | |
| Th’ abridgement of Christ’s story, which makes one | 20 |
| (As in plaine maps the furthest West is East) | |
| Of the angels Ave and Consummatum est. | |
| How well the Church, God’s court of faculties, | |
| Deales, in some times, and seldom, joyning these; | |
| As by the selfe-fix’d pole wee never doe | 25 |
| Direct our course, but the next starre thereto; | |
| Which showes where the other is, and which we say, | |
| Because it strayes not farre, doth never stray: | |
| So God by his Church, neerest to him wee know | |
| And stand firme, if wee by her motion goe; | 30 |
| His Spirit, as his fiery pillar, doth | |
| Leade, and his Church, as cloud, to one end both: | |
| This Church, by letting those daies joine, hath showne | |
| Death and conception in mankinde is one. | |
| Or ’twas in him the same humility, | 35 |
| That he would be a man, and leave to bee: | |
| Or, as creation he hath made, as God, | |
| With the last judgement, but one period, | |
| His imitating spouse would joyne in one | |
| Manhood’s extremes: He shall come, He is gone; | 40 |
| Or, as though one blood-drop, which thence did fall, | |
| Accepted, would have serv’d, He yet shed all; | |
| So though the least of his paines, deeds, or words, | |
| Would busie a life, she all this day affords. | |
| This treasure then in grosse, my soule, repay, | 45 |
| And in my life retaile it every day. | |
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