MARK IV. 26.
1 If this world's friends might see but once
What some poor man may often feel,
Glory and gold and crowns and thrones
They would soon quit, and learn to kneel.
2 My dew, my dew! my early love,
My soul's bright food, thy absence kills!
Hover not long, eternal Dove!
Life without thee is loose and spills.
3 Something I had, which long ago
Did learn to suck and sip and taste;
But now grown sickly, sad, and slow,
Doth fret and wrangle, pine and waste.
4 Oh, spread thy sacred wings, and shake
One living drop! one drop life keeps!
If pious griefs heaven's joys awake,
Oh, fill his bottle! thy child weeps!
5 Slowly and sadly doth he grow,
And soon as left shrinks back to ill;
Oh, feed that life, which makes him blow
And spread and open to thy will!
6 For thy eternal, living wells
None stained or withered shall come near:
A fresh, immortal green there dwells,
And spotless white is all the wear.
7 Dear, secret greenness! nursed below
Tempests and winds and winter nights!
Vex not that but One sees thee grow,
That One made all these lesser lights.
8 If those bright joys he singly sheds
On thee, were all met in one crown,
Both sun and stars would hide their heads;
And moons, though full, would get them down.
9 Let glory be their bait whose minds
Are all too high for a low cell:
Though hawks can prey through storms and winds,
The poor bee in her hive must dwell.