The Temple

Who would have thought my shrivel'd heart

Could have recovered greenness?

Whereas if the heart be moved,

Although the verse be somewhat scant,

God doth supply the want.

Thy rope of sands,

Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee

Good cable, to enforce and draw,

And be thy law,

While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.

Surely if each saw another's heart,

There would be no commerce,

No sale or bargain pass: all would disperse,

And live apart.

Most things move th' under-jaw; the Crocodile not.

Most things sleep lying; th' Elephant leans or stands.

I struck the board, and cry'd, No more.

I will abroad.

What? shall I ever sigh and pine?

My lines and life are free; free as the road,

Loose as the wind, as large as store.

Shall I be still in suit?

Have I no harvest but a thorn

To let me blood, and not restore

What I have lost with cordial fruit?

Sure there was wine

Before my sighs did dry it: there was corn

Before my tears did drown it;

Is the year only lost to me?

Have I no bays to crown it?

But as I rav'd and grew more fierce and wild

At every word,

Methought I heard one calling, Child!

And I reply'd, My Lord.

The fineness which a hymn or psalm affords

If when the soul unto the lines accords.

Throw away thy rod;

Though man frailties hath,

Thou art God:

Throw away thy wrath.

Let him be rich and weary, that at least,

If goodness lead him not, yet weariness

May toss him to my breast.

Call in thy death's head there: tie up thy fears.

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.

O who will show me those delights on high?

Echo: I.

Thou tarriest, while I die,

And fall to nothing: thou dost reign,

And rule on high,

While I remain

In bitter grief: yet I am styl'd

Thy child.

Then let wrath remove;

Love will do the deed:

For with love

Stony hearts will bleed.

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,

Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,

If I lacked any thing.

I gave to Hope a watch of mine; but he

An Anchor gave to me.

Religion stands on tip-toe in our land,

Ready to pass to the American strand.

Love is that liquor sweet and most divine,

Which my God feels as blood, but I as wine.

Do not beguile my heart,

Because thou art

My power and wisdom. Put me not to shame,

Because I am

Thy clay that weeps, thy dust that calls.

And now in age I bud again,

After so many deaths I live and write;

I once more smell the dew and rain,

And relish versing: O my only light,

It cannot be

That I am he

On whom thy tempests fell all night.

Throw away thy rod,

Throw away thy wrath:

O my God,

Take the gentle path.

A servant with this clause

Makes drudgery divine:

Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,

Makes that and th' action fine.

He would adore my gifts instead of me,

And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:

So both should losers be.

You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:

So I did sit and eat.

Grief melts away

Like snow in May,

As if there were no such cold thing.

With sick and famish'd eyes,

With doubling knees and weary bones,

To thee my cries,

To thee my groans,

To thee my sighs, my tears ascend:

No end?My throat, my soul is hoarse;

My heart is wither'd like a ground

Which thou dost curse.

My thoughts turn round,

And make me giddy; Lord, I fall,

Yet call.

Nothing wears clothes, but Man; nothing doth need

But he to wear them.

Man is one world, and hath

Another to attend him.

Drink not the third glass, which thou canst not tame,

When once it is within thee.

I got me flowers to strew Thy way,

I got me boughs off many a tree:

But Thou wast up by break of day,

And brought'st Thy sweets along with Thee.

Prayer the church’s banquet, angel’s age,

God’s breath in man returning to his birth,

The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,

The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth

Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner’s tow’r,

Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,

The six-days world transposing in an hour,

A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;

Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,

Exalted manna, gladness of the best,

Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,

The milky way, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,

The land of spices; something understood.

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,

Though foolishly he lost the same,

Decaying more and more,

Till he became

Most poor:

With thee

O let me rise

As larks, harmoniously,

And sing this day thy victories:

Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

Bibles laid open, millions of surprises.

Who goes to bed and does not pray,

Maketh two nights to every day.

Wit's an unruly engine, wildly striking

Sometimes a friend, sometimes the engineer.

By no means run in debt: take thine own measure.

Who cannot live on twenty pound a year,

Cannot on forty.

Let all the world in ev'ry corner sing,

My God and King.

Who says that fictions only and false hair

Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty?

Is all good structure in a winding stair?

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,

A box where sweets compacted lie.

The worst speak something good; if all want sense,

God takes a text, and preacheth Pa-ti-ence.

Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie:

A fault, which needs it most, grows two thereby.

My tender age in sorrow did begin:

And still with sicknesses and shame

Thou didst so punish sin,

That I became

Most thin.

With thee

Let me combine,

And feel this day thy victory:

For, If I imp my wing on thine,

Affliction shall advance the flight in me

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like season'd timber, never gives;

But though the whole world turn to coal,

Then chiefly lives.

Wouldst thou both eat thy cake and have it?

Chase brave employment with a naked sword

Throughout the world.

To write a verse or two is all the praise

That I can raise.

A broken ALTAR, Lord, thy servant rears,

Made of a heart, and cemented with tears;

Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;

No workman's tool hath touch'd the same.

A HEART alone

Is such a stone

As nothing but

Thy pow'r doth cut.

Wherefore each part

Of my hard heart

Meets in this frame,

To praise thy name.

That if I chance to hold my peace,

These stones to praise thee may not cease.

O let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine,

And sanctify this ALTAR to be thine.

Man is no star, but a quick coal

Of mortal fire:

Who blows it not, nor doth control

A faint desire,

Lets his own ashes choke his soul.

Like summer friends,

Flies of estate and sunneshine.

My soul's a shepherd too; a flock it feeds

Of thoughts, and words, and deeds.

Be useful where thou livest.

Be calm in arguing: for fierceness makes

Error a fault, and truth discourtesy.

By all means use sometimes to be alone.

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 ev'ry where.

A verse may finde him,who a sermon flies

And turns delight into a sacrifice.

Yet Lord restore thine image, hear my call:

And though my hard heart scare to thee can groan,

Remember that thou once didst write in stone.

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky;

The dew shall weep thy fall tonight,

For thou must die.

I cannot skill of these thy ways.

Lord, thou didst make me, yet thou woundest me;

Lord, thou dost wound me, yet thou dost relieve me:

Lord, thou relievest, yet I die by thee:

Lord, thou dost kill me, yet thou dost reprieve me.But when I mark my life and praise,

Thy justice me most fitly praise:

For, I do praise thee, yet I praise thee not:

My prayers mean thee, yet my prayers stray:

I would do well, yet sin the hand hath got:

My soul doth love thee, yet it loves delay.

I cannot skill of these my ways.

Man is God's image; but a poor man is

Christ's stamp to boot: both images regard.

Sundays observe; think when the bells do chime,

'Tis angels' music.