Why should men love

A wolf, more than a lamb or dove?

Or choose hell-fire and brimstone streams
Before bright stars and God's own beams?
Who kisseth thorns will hurt his face,
But flowers do both refresh and grace;
And sweetly living-fie on men !—
Are, when dead, medicinal then;
If seeing much should make staid eyes,
And long experience should make wise;
Since all that age doth teach is ill,
Why should I not love childhood still?
Why, if I see a rock or shelf,
Shall I from thence cast down myself?
Or by complying with the world,
From the same precipice be hurled?
Those observations are but foul,
Which make me wise to lose my soul.

And yet the practice worldlings call
Business, and weighty action all,
Checking the poor child for his play,
But gravely cast themselves away.

Dear, harmless age! the short, swift span Where weeping Virtue parts with man; Where love without lust dwells, and bends What way we please without self-ends.

An age of mysteries! which he Must live twice that would God's face see; Which angels guard, and with it play; Angels which foul men drive away.

How do I study now, and scan
Thee more than e'er I studied man,
And only see through a long night
Thy edges and thy bordering light!
O for thy centre and mid-day!
For sure that is the narrow way!

CORRUPTION

SURE it was so. Man in those early days
Was not all stone and earth;

He shined a little, and by those weak rays
Had some glimpse of his birth.

He saw heaven o'er his head, and knew from whence
He came, condemned, hither;

And, as first-love draws strongest, so from hence
His mind sure progressed thither.

Things here were strange unto him; sweat and till;
All was a thorn or weed;

Nor did those last, but-like himself-died still
As soon as they did seed;

They seemed to quarrel with him; for that act,
That fell him, foiled them all;

He drew the curse upon the world, and cracked
The whole frame with his fall.

This made him long for home, as loth to stay
With murmurers and foes;

He sighed for Eden, and would often say,

'Ah! what bright days were those !' Nor was heaven cold unto him; for each day The valley or the mountain

Afforded visits, and still Paradise lay

In some green shade or fountain.

Angels lay leiger here; each bush, and cell,
Each oak and highway knew them:

Walk but the fields, or sit down at some well,
And he was sure to view them.

Almighty Love! where art Thou now? mad man
Sits down and freezeth on;

He raves, and swears to stir nor fire, nor fan,
But bids the thread be spun.

I see Thy curtains are close-drawn; Thy bow
Looks dim, too, in the cloud;

Sin triumphs still, and man is sunk below
The centre, and his shroud.

All's in deep sleep and night: thick darkness lies
And hatcheth o'er Thy people-

But hark! what trumpet's that? what angel cries 'Arise! thrust in Thy sickle'?

THE NIGHT

THROUGH that pure virgin shrine,

That sacred veil drawn o'er Thy glorious noon,
That men might look and live, as glow-worms shine,
And face the moon :

Wise Nicodemus saw such light
As made him know his God by night.

Most blest believer he!
Who in that land of darkness and blind eyes
Thy long-expected healing wings could see
When Thou didst rise!

And, what can never more be done,
Did at midnight speak with the Sun!

O, who will tell me where

He found Thee at that dead and silent hour?
What hallowed solitary ground did bear
So rare a flower;

Within whose sacred leaves did lie
The fulness of the Deity?

No mercy-seat of gold,

No dead and dusty cherub nor carved stone,
But His own living works did my Lord hold

And lodge alone;

Where trees and herbs did watch, and peep,
And wonder, while the Jews did sleep.

Dear night! this world's defeat; The stop to busy fools; care's check and curb; The day of spirits; my soul's calm retreat

Which none disturb!

Christ's progress, and His prayer-time;
The hours to which high Heaven doth chime.

God's silent, searching flight;

When my Lord's head is filled with dew, and all
His locks are wet with the clear drops of night;
His still, soft call;

His knocking-time; the soul's dumb watch,
When spirits their fair kindred catch.

Were my loud, evil days

Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark tent,
Whose peace but by some angel's wing or voice
Is seldom rent;

Then I in heaven all the long year

Would keep, and never wander here.

But living where the sun

Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tire
Themselves and others, I consent and run
To every mire;

And by this world's ill-guiding light,
Err more than I can do by night.

There is in God-some say

A deep but dazzling darkness; as men here
Say it is late and dusky, because they
See not all clear.

O for that night! where I in Him
Might live invisible and dim!

THE ECLIPSE

WHITHER, O whither didst Thou fly,
When I did grieve Thine holy eye?
When Thou didst mourn to see me lost,
And all Thy care and counsels crossed?
O do not grieve, where'er Thou art!
Thy grief is an undoing smart,
Which doth not only pain, but break
My heart, and makes me blush to speak.

Thy anger I could kiss, and will;
But O Thy grief, Thy grief, doth kill!

THE RETREAT

HAPPY those early days when I

Shined in my angel infancy!

Before I understood this place

Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy ought