Decoration J
THE HYMN OF SAINTE THOMAS,
IN ADORATION OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT.[42]
Ecce panis Angelorum,
Adoro te.
With all the powres my poor heart hath1
Of humble loue and loyall faith,
Thus lowe (my hidden life!) I bow to Thee
Whom too much loue hath bow'd more low for me.
Down, down, proud Sense! discourses dy!5
Keep close, my soul's inquiring ey!
Not touch, nor tast, must look for more
But each sitt still in his own dore.
Your ports are all superfluous here,
Saue that which lets in Faith, the eare.10
Faith is my skill: Faith can beleiue
As fast as Loue new lawes can giue.
Faith is my force: Faith strength affords
To keep pace with those powrfull words.
And words more sure, more sweet then they,15
Loue could not think, Truth could not say.
O let Thy wretch find that releife
Thou didst afford the faithful theife.
Plead for me, Loue! alleage and show
That Faith has farther here to goe20
then
And lesse to lean on: because than
Though hidd as God, wounds with Thee man:
Thomas might touch, none but might see
At least the suffring side of Thee;
And that too was Thy self which Thee did couer,25
But here eu'n that's hid too which hides the other.
Sweet, consider then, that I
Though allow'd nor hand nor eye
To reach at Thy lou'd face; nor can
Tast Thee God, or touch Thee man,30
Both yet beleiue; and witnesse Thee
My Lord too and my God, as lowd as he.
Help, Lord, my faith, my hope increase,
And fill my portion in Thy peace:
Giue loue for life; nor let my dayes35
Grow, but in new powres to Thy name and praise.
O dear memoriall of that Death
Which liues still, and allowes vs breath!
Rich, royall food! Bountyfull bread!
Whose vse denyes vs to the dead;40
Whose vitall gust alone can giue
The same leaue both to eat and liue;
Liue euer bread of loues, and be
My life, my soul, my surer-selfe to mee.
O soft self-wounding Pelican!45
Whose brest weepes balm for wounded man:
Ah! this way bend Thy benign floud
To a bleeding heart that gaspes for blood.
That blood, whose least drops soueraign be
To wash my worlds of sins from me.50
Come Loue! come Lord! and that long day
For which I languish, come away.
When this dry soul those eyes shall see,
And drink the vnseal'd sourse of Thee:
When Glory's sun, Faith's shades shall chase,55
And for Thy veil giue me Thy face. Amen.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
The original title is 'A Hymne to our Saviour by the Faithfull
Receiver of the Sacrament.' As before in the title of 'The
Weeper' 'Sainte' is misspelled 'Sanite.'
Line 1 in 1648 reads 'power.'
" 8, 'sitt still in his own dore.'
" 9, 'ports' = openings or gates. So in Edinburgh the
'West-port' = a gate of the city in the old west wall.
Line 21, 'than' = 'then.' See our Phineas Fletcher, as
before.
Line 29, Turnbull leaves undetected the 1670 misprint of
'teach' for 'reach.'
Line 33, 1648 supplies 'my faith,' which in our text is inadvertently
dropped; 1670 continues the error, which of course
Turnbull repeated.
Line 36, 1670 edition reads 'Grow, but in new pow'rs to
name thy Praise.'
Lines 37-38 are inadvertently omitted in 1648 edition.
Our text, as will be seen, is arranged in stanzas of irregular
form. In 1648 edition it is one continuous poem thus printed:
——————————
——————————
——————————
—————————— G.
LAVDA SION SALVATOREM:
THE HYMN FOR THE BL. SACRAMENT.[43]
I.
Rise, royall Sion! rise and sing
Thy soul's kind shepheard, thy hart's King.
Stretch all thy powres; call if you can
Harpes of heaun to hands of man.
This soueraign subject sitts aboue
The best ambition of thy loue.
II.
Lo, the Bread of Life, this day's
incites
Triumphant text, prouokes thy prayse:
The liuing and life-giuing bread
To the great twelue distributed;
When Life, Himself, at point to dy
Of loue, was His Own legacy.
III.
Come, Loue! and let vs work a song
Lowd and pleasant, sweet and long;
Let lippes and hearts lift high the noise
Of so iust and solemn ioyes,
Which on His white browes this bright day
Shall hence for euer bear away.
IV.
Lo, the new law of a new Lord,
With a new Lamb blesses the board:
The agèd Pascha pleads not yeares
But spyes Loue's dawn, and disappeares.
Types yield to truthes; shades shrink away;
And their Night dyes into our Day.
V.
But lest that dy too, we are bid
Euer to doe what He once did:
And by a mindfull, mystick breath
That we may liue, reuiue His death;
With a well-bles't bread and wine,
Transsum'd and taught to turn diuine.
VI.
The Heaun-instructed house of Faith
Here a holy dictate hath,
That they but lend their form and face;—
Themselues with reuerence leaue their place,
Nature, and name, to be made good,
By a nobler bread, more needfull blood.
VII.
Where Nature's lawes no leaue will giue,
Bold Faith takes heart, and dares beleiue
In different species: name not things,
Himself to me my Saviovr brings;
As meat in that, as drink in this,
But still in both one Christ He is.
VIII.
The receiuing mouth here makes
Nor wound nor breach in what he takes.
Let one, or one thovsand be
Here diuiders, single he
Beares home no lesse, all they no more,
Nor leaue they both lesse then before.
IX.
Though in it self this soverain Feast
Be all the same to euery guest,
Yet on the same (life-meaning) Bread
The child of death eates himself dead:
Nor is't Loue's fault, but Sin's dire skill
That thus from Life can death distill.
X.
When the blest signes thou broke shalt see
Hold but thy faith intire as He
Who, howsoe're clad, cannot come
Lesse then whole Christ in euery crumme.
In broken formes a stable Faith
Vntouch't her precious totall hath.
XI.
So the life-food of angells then
Bow'd to the lowly mouths of men!
The children's Bread, the Bridegroom's Wine;
Not to be cast to dogges, or swine.
XII.
Lo, the full, finall Sacrifice
On which all figures fix't their eyes:
The ransom'd Isack, and his ramme;
The manna, and the paschal lamb.
XIII.
Iesv Master, iust and true!
Our food, and faithfull Shephard too!
O by Thy self vouchsafe to keep,
As with Thy selfe Thou feed'st Thy sheep.
XIV.
O let that loue which thus makes Thee
Mix with our low mortality,
Lift our lean soules, and sett vs vp
Con-victors of Thine Own full cup,
Coheirs of saints. That so all may
Drink the same wine; and the same way:
Nor change the pastvre, but the place,
To feed of Thee, in Thine Own face. Amen.
NOTES.
In 1648, line 3 has 'thou' for 'you:' line 4 'and' for 'to:'
line 6, 'ambitious:' line 19, 'Lord' is misprinted 'Law:' line
39, 'names:' line 42 spells 'one' as 'on:' line 55, our text
(1652) misprints 'shall:' line 75, 1648 reads 'mean' for 'lean.'
G.
Decoration G
PRAYER:
AN ODE WHICH WAS PRÆFIXED TO A LITTLE PRAYER-BOOK
GIVEN TO A YOUNG GENTLE-WOMAN.[44]
Lo here a little volume, but great book!1
(Feare it not, sweet,
It is no hipocrit)
Much larger in itselfe then in its looke.
A nest of new-born sweets;5
Whose natiue fires disdaining
To ly thus folded, and complaining
Of these ignoble sheets,
Affect more comly bands
(Fair one) from thy kind hands;10
And confidently look
To find the rest
Of a rich binding in your brest.
It is, in one choise handfull, Heauvn; and all
Heaun's royall host; incampt thus small15
To proue that true, Schooles vse to tell,
Ten thousand angels in one point can dwell.
It is Loue's great artillery
Which here contracts it self, and comes to ly19
Close-couch't in your white bosom; and from thence
As from a snowy fortresse of defence,
Against the ghostly foes to take your part,
And fortify the hold of your chast heart.
It is an armory of light;
Let constant vse but keep it bright,25
You'l find it yields
To holy hands and humble hearts
More swords and sheilds
Then sin hath snares, or Hell hath darts.
Only be sure30
The hands be pure
That hold these weapons; and the eyes,
Those of turtles, chast and true;
Wakefull and wise:
Here is a freind shall fight for you;35
Hold but this book before your heart,
Let prayer alone to play his part;
But O the heart
That studyes this high art
Must be a sure house-keeper:40
And yet no sleeper.
Dear soul, be strong!
Mercy will come e're long
And bring his bosome fraught with blessings,
Flowers of neuer-fading graces45
To make immortall dressings
For worthy soules, whose wise embraces
Store vp themselues for Him, Who is alone
The Spovse of virgins and the virgin's Son.
But if the noble Bridegroom, when He come,50
Shall find the loytering heart from home;
Leauing her chast aboad
To gadde abroad
Among the gay mates of the god of flyes;
To take her pleasure, and to play55
And keep the deuill's holyday;
To dance in th' sunshine of some smiling
But beguiling
Spheare of sweet and sugred lyes;
Some slippery pair60
Of false, perhaps, as fair,
Flattering but forswearing, eyes;
Doubtlesse some other heart
Will gett the start
Meanwhile, and stepping in before65
Will take possession of that sacred store
Of hidden sweets and holy ioyes;
Words which are not heard with eares
(Those tumultuous shops of noise)
Effectuall whispers, whose still voice70
The soul it selfe more feeles then heares;
Amorous languishments; luminous trances;
Sights which are not seen with eyes;
Spirituall and soul-peircing glances
Whose pure and subtil lightning flyes75
Home to the heart, and setts the house on fire,
And melts it down in sweet desire
Yet doth not stay
To ask the windows' leaue, to passe that way;
Delicious deaths; soft exalations80
Of soul; dear and diuine annihilations;
A thousand vnknown rites
Of ioyes and rarefy'd delights;
A hundred thousand goods, glories, and graces:
And many a mystick thing85
Which the diuine embraces
Of the deare Spouse of spirits, with them will bring,
For which it is no shame
That dull mortality must not know a name.
Of all this hidden store90
Of blessings, and ten thousand more
(If when He come
He find the heart from home)
Doubtlesse He will vnload
Himself some other where,95
And poure abroad
His pretious sweets
On the fair soul whom first He meets.
O fair, O fortunate! O riche! O dear!
O happy and thrice-happy she100
Deare silver-breasted dove
Who ere she be,
Whose early loue
With wingèd vowes
Makes hast to meet her morning Spouse,105
And close with His immortall kisses.
Happy indeed, who neuer misses
To improue that pretious hour,
And euery day
Seize her sweet prey,110
All fresh and fragrant as He rises,
Dropping with a baulmy showr,
A delicious dew of spices;
O let the blissfull heart hold it fast
Her heaunly arm-full; she shall tast115
At once ten thousand paradises;
She shall haue power
To rifle and deflour
The rich and roseall spring of those rare sweets
Which with a swelling bosome there she meets:120
Boundles and infinite ___________
___________ Bottomles treasures
Of pure inebriating pleasures.
Happy proof! she shal discouer
What ioy, what blisse,125
How many heau'ns at once it is
To haue her God become her Lover.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
The text of 1648 corresponds pretty closely, except in the
usual changes of orthography, with our text (1652): and 1670,
in like manner, follows that of 1646. 1646 edition furnishes
some noticeable variations:
Line 1, 'large' for 'great.'
" 2-4 restored to their place here. Turnbull gives them
in a foot-note with this remark: 'So in the Paris edition of
1652. In all the others,
Fear it not, sweet,
It is no hypocrite,
Much larger in itself, than in its book.'
This is a mistake. The only edition that omits the lines (5-13)
besides the first (1646) and substitutes these three is that of 1670.
Lines 5-13 not in 1646 edition: first appeared in 1648 edition.
" 14, 'choise' for 'rich.'
" 15, 'hoasts' for 'host.'
" 17, 'Ten thousand.'
" 20. Our text (1652) here and elsewhere misreads 'their:'
silently corrected.
Line 22. Our text (1652) misprints 'their' for 'the:' as
'the' is the reading of 1648 and 1670, I have adopted it.
Line 24, 'the' for 'an.'
" 27, 'hand' for 'hands.'
" 37, 1648 edition has 'its' for 'his.'
" 44. Our text (1652) oddly misprints 'besom' for 'bosome:'
the latter reading in 1646, 1648 and 1670 vindicates
itself. 1646 reads 'her' and 1648 'its' for 'his.'
Line 50, 'comes' for 'come.'
" 51, 'wandring' for 'loytering.'
" 54. The allusion is to one of the names of Satan, viz.
Baal-zebub = fly-god, dunghill-god.
Line 55, 'pleasures.'
" 57. Our text (1652) inadvertently drops 'in.' 1648
has 'i' th'.'
Line 59. Our text misprints 'spheares:' 1648 adopts
'spheare' from 1646 edition. 1670 misprints 'spear.'
Line 62, 'forswearing:' a classic word.
" 64, 'git' is the spelling.
" 65. All the editions save our text (1652) omit 'meanwhile.'
Line 66, 'the' for 'that.'
" 69, 'These' for 'Those,' by mistake.
" 78, 'doth' for 'does' I have adopted here.
" 83, 1648, by misprint, has 'O' for 'Of.'
" 84, 'An hundred thousand loves and graces.'
" 90. I have accepted 'hidden' before 'store' from 1646
edition.
Line 101. I have also adopted this characteristic line from
1646 edition. In all the others (except 1670) it is 'Selected
dove.'
Line 107, 'soule' for 'indeed.'
" 114, 'that' for 'the.'
" 121-122. In 1648 printed as supra, the lines probably
indicating a blank where the ms. was illegible. In our text
(1652) we have two lines, but no blank indicated.
Line 124, 'soul' for 'proof.'
" 127, 'a' for 'her.' G.
TO THE SAME PARTY:
COVNCEL CONCERNING HER CHOISE.[45]
Dear, Heaun-designèd sovl!1
Amongst the rest
Of suters that beseige your maiden brest,
Why may not I
My fortune try5
And venture to speak one good word,
Not for my self, alas! but for my dearer Lord?
You have seen allready, in this lower sphear
Of froth and bubbles, what to look for here:
Say, gentle soul, what can you find10
But painted shapes,
Peacocks and apes;
Illustrious flyes,
Guilded dunghills, glorious lyes;
Goodly surmises15
And deep disguises,
Oathes of water, words of wind?
Trvth biddes me say 'tis time you cease to trust
Your soul to any son of dust.
'Tis time you listen to a brauer loue,20
Which from aboue
Calls you vp higher
And biddes you come
And choose your roome
Among His own fair sonnes of fire;25
Where you among
The golden throng
That watches at His palace doores
May passe along,
And follow those fair starres of your's;30
Starrs much too fair and pure to wait vpon
The false smiles of a sublunary sun.
Sweet, let me prophesy that at last t'will proue
Your wary loue
Layes vp his purer and more pretious vowes,35
And meanes them for a farre more worthy Spovse
Then this World of lyes can giue ye:
Eu'n for Him with Whom nor cost,
Nor loue, nor labour can be lost;
Him Who neuer will deceiue ye.40
Let not my Lord, the mighty Louer
Of soules, disdain that I discouer
The hidden art
Of His high stratagem to win your heart:
It was His heaunly art45
Kindly to cross you
In your mistaken loue;
That, at the next remoue
Thence, He might tosse you
And strike your troubled heart50
Home to Himself; to hide it in His brest:
The bright ambrosiall nest
Of Loue, of life, and euerlasting rest.
Happy mystake!
That thus shall wake55
Your wise soul, neuer to be wonne
Now with a loue below the sun.
Your first choyce failes; O when you choose agen
May it not be amongst the sonnes of men.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
The first line, 'To Mistress M.R.
Dear, Heav'n-designed soul,'
as in 1670, is not to be considered as an unrhymed line, but as
the address or superscription, though so contrived as not to interfere
with the metre, but to make a five-foot line with the two
feet of the true first line of the poem. So Parolles prefaces
his verse with
'Dian, the count's a fool and full of gold.'
(All's Well that ends Well, iv. 3.)
and Longaville (Love's Labour Lost) prefixes to his sonnet,
'O sweet Maria, empress of my love.'
In fact, it is the 'Madam' of a poetical epistle brought into
metrical harmony with the verse. G.
DESCRIPTION OF A RELIGIOVS HOVSE
AND CONDITION OF LIFE.
(OVT OF BARCLAY.)[46]
No roofes of gold o're riotous tables shining1
Whole dayes and suns, deuour'd with endlesse dining.
No sailes of Tyrian sylk, proud pauements sweeping,
Nor iuory couches costlyer slumber keeping;
False lights of flairing gemmes; tumultuous ioyes;5
Halls full of flattering men and frisking boyes;
What'ere false showes of short and slippery good
Mix the mad sons of men in mutuall blood.
But walkes, and vnshorn woods; and soules, iust so
Vnforc't and genuine; but not shady tho.10
Our lodgings hard and homely as our fare,
That chast and cheap, as the few clothes we weare.
Those, course and negligent, as the naturall lockes
Of these loose groues; rough as th' vnpolish't rockes.
A hasty portion of præscribèd sleep;15
Obedient slumbers, that can wake and weep,
And sing, and sigh, and work, and sleep again;
Still rowling a round spear of still-returning pain.
Hands full of harty labours; paines that pay
And prize themselves: doe much, that more they may,20
And work for work, not wages; let to-morrow's
New drops, wash off the sweat of this daye's sorrows.
A long and dayly-dying life, which breaths
A respiration of reuiuing deaths.
But neither are there those ignoble stings25
That nip the blossome of the World's best things,
And lash Earth-labouring souls....
No cruell guard of diligent cares, that keep
Crown'd woes awake, as things too wise for sleep:
But reuerent discipline, and religious fear,30
And soft obedience, find sweet biding here;
Silence, and sacred rest; peace, and pure ioyes;
Kind loues keep house, ly close, make no noise;
And room enough for monarchs, while none swells
Beyond the kingdomes of contentfull cells.35
The self-remembring sovl sweetly recouers
Her kindred with the starrs; not basely houers
Below: but meditates her immortall way
Home to the originall sourse of Light and intellectuall day
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
In 1648 the heading is simply 'Description of a religious
house.' The original occurs in Barclay's Argenis, book v.
These variations include one important correction of a long-standing
blunder:
Line 3, 1648 misprints 'weeping' for 'sweeping.'
" 4, 'costly' for 'costlyer.'
" 6, 'flatt'ring' for 'flattering.'
" 19-20. Our text (1652), followed by 1670, strangely confuses
this couplet by printing,
'Hands full of harty labours; doe much, that more they may.'
Turnbull, as usual, unintelligently repeats the blunder. Even
in using the text of 1652 exceptionally, if only he found it confirmed
by 1670, there was no vigilance. The reading of 1648
puts all right.
Line 23. Our text misspells 'ding.'
" 26. Misprinted 'bosome' in all the editions, and perpetuated
by Turnbull. Line 27 that follows is a break (unrhymed).
Line 33. 1648 misreads 'keep no noise.' G.
ON MR. GEORGE HERBERT'S BOOKE INTITULED
THE TEMPLE OF SACRED POEMS.
SENT TO A GENTLE-WOMAN.[47]
Know you, faire, on what you looke?1
Divinest love lyes in this booke:
Expecting fier from your faire eyes,
To kindle this his sacrifice.
When your hands untie these strings,5
Think, yo' have an angell by the wings;
One that gladly would be nigh,
To waite upon each morning sigh;
To flutter in the balmy aire
Of your well-perfumèd praier;10
These white plumes of his hee'l lend you,
Which every day to Heaven will send you:
To take acquaintance of each spheare,
And all your smooth-fac'd kindred there.
And though Herbert's name doe owe15
These devotions; fairest, know
While I thus lay them on the shrine
Of your white hand, they are mine.
Decoration J
Decoration C
A HYMN TO THE NAME AND HONOR OF
THE ADMIRABLE SAINTE TERESA:
Fovndresse of the Reformation of the discalced Carmelites,
both men and women; a Woman for angelicall heigth of
speculation, for masculine courage of performance more
then a woman: who yet a child, out-ran maturity, and
durst plott a Martyrdome;
Misericordias Domini in Æternvm cantabo.
Le Vray portraict de Ste Terese, Fondatrice des Religieuses et
Religieux reformez de l'ordre de N. Dame du mont Carmel:
Decedee le 4e Octo. 1582. Canonisee le 12e Mars. 1622.[48]
The Hymne.
Loue, thou art absolute, sole lord1
Of life and death. To proue the word
Wee'l now appeal to none of all
Those thy old souldiers, great and tall,
Ripe men of martyrdom, that could reach down5
With strong armes, their triumphant crown;
Such as could with lusty breath
Speak lowd into the face of death,
Their great Lord's glorious name, to none
Of those whose spatious bosomes spread a throne10
For Love at large to fill; spare blood and sweat:
And see him take a priuate seat,
Making his mansion in the mild
And milky soul of a soft child.
Scarse has she learn't to lisp the name15
Of martyr; yet she thinks it shame
Life should so long play with that breath
Which spent can buy so braue a death.
She neuer vndertook to know
What Death with Loue should haue to doe;20
Nor has she e're yet vnderstood
Why to show loue, she should shed blood,
Yet though she cannot tell you why
She can love, and she can dy.
Scarse has she blood enough to make25
A guilty sword blush for her sake;
Yet has she a heart dares hope to proue
How much lesse strong is Death then Love.
Be Loue but there; let poor six yeares
Be pos'd with the maturest feares30
Man trembles at, you straight shall find
Love knowes no nonage, nor the mind;
'Tis love, not yeares or limbs that can
Make the martyr, or the man.
Love touch't her heart, and lo it beates35
High, and burnes with such braue heates;
Such thirsts to dy, as dares drink vp
A thousand cold deaths in one cup.
Good reason: for she breathes all fire;
Her white brest heaues with strong desire40
Of what she may with fruitles wishes
Seek for amongst her mother's kisses.
Since 'tis not to be had at home
She'l trauail to a martyrdom.
No home for hers confesses she45
But where she may a martyr be.
Moors
She'l to the Moores; and trade with them
For this vnualued diadem:
She'l offer them her dearest breath,
With Christ's name in't, in change for death:50
She'l bargain with them; and will giue
Them God; teach them how to liue
In Him: or, if they this deny,
For Him she'l teach them how to dy:
So shall she leaue amongst them sown55
least
Her Lord's blood; or at lest her own.
Farewel then, all the World! adieu!
Teresa is no more for you.
Farewell, all pleasures, sports, and ioyes
(Never till now esteemèd toyes)60
Farewell, what ever deare may bee,
Mother's armes or father's knee:
Farewell house, and farewell home!
She's for the Moores, and martyrdom.
Sweet, not so fast! lo thy fair Spouse65
Whom thou seekst with so swift vowes;
Calls thee back, and bidds thee come
T'embrace a milder martyrdom.
Blest powres forbid, thy tender life
Should bleed vpon a barbarous knife:70
Or some base hand haue power to raze
Thy brest's chast cabinet, and vncase
A soul kept there so sweet: O no,
Wise Heaun will neuer have it so.
Thou art Love's victime; and must dy75
A death more mysticall and high:
Into Loue's armes thou shalt let fall
A still-suruiuing funerall.
His is the dart must make the death
Whose stroke shall tast thy hallow'd breath;80
A dart thrice dip't in that rich flame
Which writes thy Spouse's radiant name
Vpon the roof of Heau'n, where ay
It shines; and with a soueraign ray
Beates bright vpon the burning faces85
Of soules which in that Name's sweet graces
Find euerlasting smiles: so rare,
So spirituall, pure, and fair
Must be th' immortall instrument
Vpon whose choice point shall be sent90
A life so lou'd: and that there be
Fitt executioners for thee,
The fair'st and first-born sons of fire
Blest seraphim, shall leaue their quire,
And turn Loue's souldiers, vpon thee95
To exercise their archerie.
O how oft shalt thou complain
Of a sweet and subtle pain:
Of intolerable ioyes:
Of a death, in which who dyes100
Loues his death, and dyes again
And would for euer so be slain.
And liues, and dyes; and knowes not why
To liue, but that he thus may neuer leaue to dy.
How kindly will thy gentle heart105
Kisse the sweetly-killing dart!
And close in his embraces keep
Those delicious wounds, that weep
Balsom to heal themselves with: thus
When these thy deaths, so numerous110
Shall all at last dy into one,
And melt thy soul's sweet mansion;
Like a soft lump of incense, hasted
By too hott a fire, and wasted
Into perfuming clouds, so fast115
Shalt thou exhale to Heaun at last
In a resoluing sigh, and then
O what? Ask not the tongues of men;
Angells cannot tell; suffice
Thy selfe shall feel thine own full ioyes,120
And hold them fast for euer there.
So soon as thou shalt first appear,
The moon of maiden starrs, thy white
Mistresse, attended by such bright
Soules as thy shining self, shall come125
And in her first rankes make thee room;
Where 'mongst her snowy family
Immortall wellcomes wait for thee.
O what delight, when reueal'd Life shall stand,
And teach thy lipps Heaun with His hand;130
On which thou now maist to thy wishes
Heap vp thy consecrated kisses.
What ioyes shall seize thy soul, when she,
Bending her blessed eyes on Thee,
(Those second smiles of Heau'n,) shall dart135
Her mild rayes through Thy melting heart.
Angels, thy old friends, there shall greet thee
Glad at their own home now to meet thee.
All thy good workes which went before
And waited for thee, at the door,140
Shall own thee there; and all in one
Weaue a constellation
Of crowns, with which the King thy Spouse
Shall build vp thy triumphant browes.
All thy old woes shall now smile on thee,145
And thy paines sitt bright vpon thee,
All thy sorrows here shall shine,
All thy svfferings be diuine:
Teares shall take comfort, and turn gemms
And wrongs repent to diademms.150
Eu'n thy death shall liue; and new-
Dresse the soul that erst he slew.
Thy wounds shall blush to such bright scarres
As keep account of the Lamb's warres.
Those rare workes where thou shalt leaue writt155
Loue's noble history, with witt
Taught thee by none but Him, while here
They feed our soules, shall clothe thine there.
Each heaunly word, by whose hid flame
Our hard hearts shall strike fire, the same160
Shall flourish on thy browes, and be
Both fire to vs and flame to thee;
Whose light shall liue bright in thy face
By glory, in our hearts by grace.
Thou shalt look round about, and see165
Thousands of crown'd soules throng to be
Themselues thy crown: sons of thy vowes
The virgin-births with which thy soueraign Spouse
Made fruitfull thy fair soul. Goe now
And with them all about thee, bow170
To Him; put on (Hee'l say) put on
(My rosy loue) that thy rich zone
Sparkling with the sacred flames
Of thousand soules, whose happy names
Heau'n keep vpon thy score: (Thy bright175
Life brought them first to kisse the light,
That kindled them to starrs,) and so
Thou with the Lamb, thy Lord, shalt goe,
And whereso'ere He setts His white
Stepps, walk with Him those wayes of light,180
Which who in death would liue to see,
Must learn in life to dy like thee.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
The original edition (1646) has this title, 'In memory of
the Vertuous and Learned Lady Madre de Teresa, that sought
an early Martyrdome;' and so also in 1648. 1670 agrees with
1652; only the Latin line above the portrait and the French
verses are omitted.
The text of 1646 furnishes a number of variations corrective
in part of all the subsequent editions. These are recorded
below. 1648 agrees substantially with 1652: but a few unimportant
readings peculiar to it are also given in these Notes.
Various readings from 1646 edition.
Line 3, 'Wee need to goe to none of all.'
" 4, 'stout' for 'great.'
" 5, 'ripe and full growne.'
" 8, 'unto' for 'into;' the latter preferable.
" 10, 'Of those whose large breasts built a throne.'
" 11-13,