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Mors Christi.
AND am I here, and my Redeemer gone? | |
| Can he be dead, and is not my life done? | |
| Was he tormented in excesse of measure, | |
| And doe I live yet? and yet live in pleasure? | |
| Alas! could sinners finde out ne’r a one | 5 |
| More fit than thee for them to spit upon? | |
| Did thy cheekes entertaine a traytor’s lips? | |
| Was thy deare body scourg’d and torne with whips, | |
| So that the guiltlesse blood came trickling after? | |
| And did thy fainting browes sweat blood and water? | 10 |
| Wert thou (Lord) hang’d upon the cursed tree? | |
| O world of griefe! and was all this for me? | |
| Burst forth, my teares, into a world of sorrow, | |
| And let my nights of griefe finde ne’r a morrow: | |
| Since thou art dead (Lord) grant thy servant roome | 15 |
| Within his heart to build thy heart a tombe. | |
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Mors Tua.
CAN he be faire, that withers at a blast? | |
| Or he be strong, that ayery breath can cast? | |
| Can he be wise, that knowes not how to live? | |
| Or he be rich, that nothing hath to give? | 20 |
| Can he be young, that’s feeble, weake, and wan? | |
| So faire, strong, wise, so rich, so young is man: | |
| So faire is man, that death (a parting blast) | |
| Blasts his faire flow’r, and makes him earth at last; | |
| So strong is man, that with a gasping breath | 25 |
| He totters, and bequeathes his strength to death; | |
| So wise is man, that if with death he strive | |
| His wisdome cannot teach him how to live; | |
| So rich is man that (all his debts b’ing paid) | |
| His wealth’s the winding-sheet wherein he’s laid; | 30 |
| So young is man, that, broke with care and sorrow, | |
| He’s old enough to day to dye to-morrow. | |
| Why bragg’st thou then, thou worme of five foot long; | |
| Th’ art neither faire, nor strong, nor wise, nor rich, nor yong. | |
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Gloria Cœli.
WHEN I behold, and well advise upon | 35 |
| The wise man’s speech, There’s nought beneath the sun | |
| But vanitie, my soule rebels within, | |
| And loathes the dunghill prison she is in: | |
| But when I looke to new Jerusalem, | |
| Wherein’s reserv’d my crowne, my diadem, | 40 |
| O what a heaven of blisse my soule enjoyes, | |
| On sudden wrapt into that heaven of ioyes! | |
| Where (ravisht in the depth of meditation) | |
| She well discernes, with eye of contemplation, | |
| The glory of God in his imperiall seat; | 45 |
| Full strong in might, in majestie compleate, | |
| Where troops of powers, vertues, cherubims, | |
| Angels, archangel, saints and seraphims, | |
| Are chaunting praises to their heavenly King— | |
| Where Hallelujah they for ever sing. | 50 |
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