O you, your own best darts,
Dear, dolefull hearts!
Hail! and strike home, and make me see
That wounded bosomes their own weapons be.
Come wounds! come darts!75
Nail'd hands! and peircèd hearts!
Come your whole selues, Sorrow's great Son and mother!
Nor grudge a yonger brother
Of greifes his portion, who (had all their due)
One single wound should not haue left for you.80
IX.
Shall I, sett there
So deep a share
(Dear wounds), and onely now
In sorrows draw no diuidend with you?
O be more wise,85
If not more soft, mine eyes!
Flow, tardy founts! and into decent showres
Dissolue my dayes and howres.
And if thou yet (faint soul!) desert
To bleed with Him, fail not to weep with her.90
X.
Rich queen, lend some releife;
At least an almes of greif
To' a heart who by sad right of sin
Could proue the whole summe (too sure) due to him.
By all those stings95
Of Loue, sweet-bitter things,
Which these torn hands transcrib'd on thy true heart;
O teach mine too the art
To study Him so, till we mix
Wounds, and become one crucifix.100
XI.
O let me suck the wine
So long of this chast Vine,
Till drunk of the dear wounds, I be
A lost thing to the world, as it to me.
O faithfull friend105
Of me and of my end!
Fold vp my life in loue; and lay't beneath
My dear Lord's vitall death.
Lo, heart, thy hope's whole plea! her pretious breath
Pour'd out in prayrs for thee; thy Lord's in death.110
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
St. i. line 10. In 1648 the reading is
'Are more at home in her Owne heart.'