I.
Look vp, languisting soul! Lo, where the fair1
Badge of thy faith calls back thy care,
And biddes thee ne're forget
Thy life is one long debt
Of loue, to Him, Who on this painfull tree5
Paid back the flesh He took for thee.
II.
Lo, how the streames of life, from that full nest
Of loues, Thy Lord's too liberall brest,
Flow in an amorous floud
Of water wedding blood.10
With these He wash't thy stain, transferred thy smart,
And took it home to His own heart.
III.
But though great Love, greedy of such sad gain,
Vsurpt the portion of thy pain,
And from the nailes and spear15
Turn'd the steel point of fear:
Their vse is chang'd, not lost; and now they moue
Not stings of wrath, but wounds of loue.
IV.
Tall tree of life! thy truth makes good
What was till now ne're understood,20
Though the prophetick king
Struck lowd his faithfull string:
It was thy wood he meant should make the throne
For a more than Salomon.
V.
Large throne of Loue! royally spred25
With purple of too rich a red:
Thy crime is too much duty;
Thy burthen, too much beauty;
Glorious or greiuous more? thus to make good
Thy costly excellence with thy King's own blood.30
VI.
Euen ballance of both worlds! our world of sin,
And that of grace, Heaun-way'd in Him:
Vs with our price thou weighed'st;
Our price for vs thou payed'st,
Soon as the right-hand scale reioyc't to proue35
How much Death weigh'd more light then Loue.
VII.
Hail, our alone hope! let thy fair head shoot
Aloft, and fill the nations with thy noble fruit:
The while our hearts and we
Thus graft our selues on thee,40
Grow thou and they. And be thy fair increase
The sinner's pardon and the iust man's peace.
Liue, O for euer liue and reign
The Lamb Whom His own loue hath slain!
And let Thy lost sheep liue to inherit45
That kingdom which this Crosse did merit. Amen.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
These variations &c. as between 1648 and 1652, deserve record:
St. i. line 1. 'Languishing,' which is the reading in 1648.
Ib. line 2. Here, and in v. line 1, I have added 'e' to 'badg' and 'larg' respectively from 1648.
St. vi. line 2. Our text (1652) corrects a manifest blunder of 1648, which reads 'wag'd' for 'way'd' = weighed. In 1648, lines 3-4 read
'Both with one price were weighed,
Both with one price were paid.'
St. vii. appeared for the first time in our text (1652). In the closing four lines, line 4, 1648, reads noticeably
'That Kingdome which Thy blessed death did merit.'
The allusion in st. iv. is to the old reading of Psalm xcvi. 10: 'Tell it among the heathen that the Lord reigneth from the tree.' The reference to Solomon points to the mediæval mystical interpretations of Canticles iii. 9-10.
I place 'Vexilla Regis' immediately after the 'Office of the Holy Crosse,' as really belonging to it, and not to be separated as in 1648. G.
[THE LORD SILENCES HIS QUESTIONERS.][29]
'Neither durst any man from that day aske Him any more questions.'
St. Matthew xxii.
Mid'st all the darke and knotty snares,1
Black wit or malice can, or dares,
Thy glorious wisedome breaks the nets,
And treds with uncontroulèd steps;
Thy quell'd foes are not onely now5
Thy triumphs, but Thy trophies too:
They both at once Thy conquests bee,
And Thy conquests' memorie.
Stony amazement makes them stand
Wayting on Thy victorious hand,10
Like statues fixèd to the fame
Of Thy renoune, and their own shame,
As if they onely meant to breath
To be the life of their own death.
'Twas time to hold their peace, when they15
Had ne're another word to say;
Yet is their silence unto Thee,
The full sound of Thy victorie;
Their silence speaks aloud, and is
Thy well pronounc'd panegyris.20
While they speak nothing, they speak all
Their share, in Thy memoriall.
While they speake nothing, they proclame
Thee, with the shrillest trump of Fame.
To hold their peace is all the wayes25
These wretches have to speak Thy praise.
OUR B[LESSED] LORD IN HIS CIRCUMCISION TO HIS FATHER.[30]
1. To Thee these first-fruits of My growing death1
(For what else is My life?), lo! I bequeath:
2. Tast this, and as Thou lik'st this lesser flood
Expect a sea; My heart shall make it good.
3. Thy wrath that wades here now, e're long shall swim,5
The floodgate shall be set wide ope for Him.
4. Then let Him drinke, and drinke, and doe His worst
To drowne the wantonnesse of His wild thirst.
5. Now's but the nonage of My paines, My feares
Are yett but hopes, weake as my infant yeares.10
6. The day of My darke woe is yet but morne,
My teares but tender, and My death new-borne.
7. Yet may these unfledg'd griefes give fate some guesse,
These cradle-torments have their towardnesse.
8. These purple buds of blooming death may bee,15
Erst the full stature of a fatall tree.
9. And till My riper woes to age are come,
This knife may be the speare's præludium.
ON THE WOUNDS OF OUR CRUCIFIED LORD.[31]
O, these wakefull wounds of Thine!1
Are they mouthes? or are they eyes?
Be they mouthes, or be they eyne,
Each bleeding part some one supplies.
Lo! a mouth! whose full-bloom'd lips5
At too dear a rate are roses:
Lo! a blood-shot eye! that weeps,
And many a cruell teare discloses.
O, thou that on this foot hast laid
Many a kisse, and many a teare;10
Now thou shalt have all repaid,
What soe're thy charges were.
This foot hath got a mouth and lips
To pay the sweet summe of thy kisses;
To pay thy teares, an eye that weeps,15
Instead of teares, such gems as this is.
The difference onely this appeares,
(Nor can the change offend)
The debt is paid in ruby-teares
Which thou in pearles did'st lend.20