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Hearken! under pain of death,
Hands and breath,

Strive in this; and love the strife.

THE ELIXIR.

TEACH me, my God and King,
In all things thee to see;
And what I do in any thing,
To do it as for thee:

Not rudely, as a beast,

To run into an action;
But still to make thee prepossess'd,
And give it his perfection.

A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye;
Or, if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And then the heav'n espy

All may of thee partake:

Nothing can be so mean,

Which with his tincture, for thy sake, Will not grow bright and clean.

A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine:

Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,
Makes that, and th' action, fine.

This is the famous stone,
That turneth all to gold:

For that, which God doth touch and own,
Cannot for less be told.

A WREATH.

A WREATHED garland of deserved praise,
Of praise deserved unto thee I give;

I give to thee, who knowest all my ways,
My crooked winding ways wherein I live;
Wherein I die, not live; for life is straight,
Straight as a line, and ever tends to thee-
To thee, who art more far above deceit,
Than deceit seems above simplicity.
Give me simplicity, that I may live;

So live and like, that I may know thy ways;
Know them and practise them: then shall I give
For this poor wreath,—give thee a crown of praise.

DEATH.

DEATH, thou wast once an uncouth hideous thing, Nothing but bones,

The sad effect of sadder groans :

Thy mouth was open, but thou couldst not sing.

For we consider'd thee, as at some six
Or ten years hence;

After the loss of life and sense,

Flesh being turn'd to dust, and bones to sticks.

We looked on this side of thee, shooting short; Where we did find

The shells of fledge souls left behind;

Dry dust, which sheds no tears—but may extort.

But since our Saviour's death did put some blood Into thy face,

Thou art grown fair and full of grace, Much in request, much sought for as a good.

For we do now behold thee gay and glad,
As at doomsday;

When souls shall wear their new array,
And all thy bones with beauty shall be clad.

Therefore we can go die, as sleep; and trust
Half that we have

Unto an honest, faithful grave;
Making our pillows either down, or dust.

JUDGMENT.

ALMIGHTY Judge! how shall poor wretches brook Thy dreadful look,

Able an heart of iron to appal,

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What others mean to do, I know not well;
Yet I here tell,

That some will turn thee to some leaves therein
So void of sin,

That they in merit shall excel.

But I resolve, when thou shalt call for mine,
That to decline;

And thrust a Testament into thy hand.
Let that be scann'd :

There thou shalt find my faults are thine.

ANONYMOUS.

THE four poems which follow, were put into the Editor's hands, with a view to publication in the present volume, by his highly esteemed friend Mr. James Montgomery. He gladly makes this acknowledgment; both because it is pleasant to acknowledge a favour of this kind from such a quarter, and because he is thus enabled to bring them before his readers with the recommendation of a higher judgment than his own. "It is not known," Mr. M. observes, upon these pieces," that they have before been printed. They are copied from a manuscript of the early part of the seventeenth century, containing miscellaneous poems on sacred subjects; some of which, notwithstanding occasional harsh and quaint phrases, and the conceits which are characteristic of the age, are "beautiful exceedingly."

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