O let me still

Write thee great God, and me a child:
Let me be soft and supple to thy will,
Small to myself, to others mild,
Be-hither ill.

Although by stealth

My flesh got on; yet let her sister, My soul, bid nothing, but preserve her wealth: The growth of flesh is but a blister; Childhood is health.

SIN.

LORD, with what care hast thou begirt us round!
Parents first season us; then schoolmasters
Deliver us to laws; they send us bound
To rules of reason, holy messengers-

Pulpits and Sundays; sorrow, dogging sin;
Afflictions sorted; anguish of all sizes;
Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in;
Bibles laid open; millions of surprises;

Blessings beforehand; ties of gratefulness;
The sound of glory ringing in our ears:
Without, our shame; within, our consciences:
Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears :-

Yet all these fences and their whole array
One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away.

FAITH.

LORD, how couldst thou so much appease Thy wrath for sin, as, when man's sight was dim, And could see little, to regard his ease,

And bring by faith all things to him?

Hungry I was, and had no meat,

I did conceit a most delicious feast;
I had it straight, and did as truly eat,
As ever did a welcome guest.

There is a rare outlandish root, Which when I could not get, I thought it here: That apprehension cur'd so well my foot, That I can walk to heav'n well near.

I owed thousands, and much more: I did believe that I did nothing owe, And liv'd accordingly; my creditor Believes so too, and lets me go.

Faith makes me any thing, or all,
That I believe is in the sacred story:
And when sin placeth me in Adam's fall,
Faith sets me higher in his glory.

If I go lower in the book,

What can be lower than the common manger ? Faith puts me there with him, who sweetly took Our flesh and frailty, death and danger.

If bliss had lien in art or strength,

None but the wise and strong had gained it:

Where now, by faith, all arms are of a length;
One size doth all conditions fit.

A peasant may believe as much

As a great clerk, and reach the highest stature. Thus dost thou make proud knowledge bend and crouch,

While grace fills up uneven nature.

When creatures had no real light Inherent in them, thou didst make the sun Impute a lustre, and allow them bright;

And in this show what Christ hath done.

That which before was darken'd clean, With bushy groves, pricking the looker's eye, Vanish'd away, when faith did change the scene; And then appear'd a glorious sky.

What though my body run to dust? Faith cleaves unto it, counting ev'ry grain, With an exact and most particular trust, Reserving all for flesh again.

THE TEMPER.

How should I praise thee, Lord! how should my rhymes

Gladly engrave thy love in steel,

If what my soul doth feel sometimes,
My soul might ever feel!

Although there were some forty heav'ns, or more,

Sometimes I peer above them all;

Sometimes I hardly reach a score;
Sometimes to hell I fall.

O rack me not to such a vast extent;
Those distances belong to thee:
The world's too little for thy tent,
A grave too big for me.

Wilt thou meet arms with man, that thou dost stretch

A crumb of dust from heav'n to hell?
Will great God measure with a wretch?
Shall he thy stature spell?

O let me, when thy roof my soul hath hid,
O let me roost and nestle there :
Then of a sinner thou art rid,

And I of hope and fear.

Yet take thy way; for sure thy way is best:
Stretch or contract me, thy poor debtor :
This is but tuning of my breast,

To make the music better.

Whether I fly with angels, fall with dust,
Thy hands made both, and I am there.
Thy power and love, my love and trust
Make one place everywhere.

EMPLOYMENT.

IF as a flower doth spread and die,
Thou wouldst extend me to some good,

Before I were by frost's extremity
Nipt in the bud,—

The sweetness and the praise were thine;
But the extension and the room,

Which in thy garland I should fill, were mine
At thy great doom.

For as thou dost impart thy grace,
The greater shall our glory be.
The measure of our joys is in this place,
The stuff with thee.

Let me not languish then, and spend
A life as barren to thy praise

As is the dust, to which that life doth tend,
But with delays.

All things are busy; only I

Neither bring honey with the bees, Nor flowers to make that, nor the husbandry To water these.

I am no link of thy great chain, But all my company is as a weed. Lord, place me in thy concert, give one strain To my poor reed.

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

I.

OH Book! infinite sweetness! let my heart Suck every letter, and a honey gain