DIVINE POEMS. TO THE EARL] OF D[ONCASTER]: WITH SIX HOLY SONNETS. SEE, sir, how, as the sun's hot masculine flame -For these songs are their fruits-have wrought the same. But though th' engend'ring force from which they came Be strong enough, and Nature doth admit Seven to be born at once; I send as yet But six; they say the seventh hath still some maim. I choose your judgment, which the same degree Doth with her sister, your invention, hold, As fire these drossy rhymes to purify, Or as elixir, to change them to gold. You are that alchemist, which always had ΙΟ Wit, whose one spark could make good things of bad, LA CORONA. 1. Deign at my hands this crown of prayer and praise, Weaved in my lone devout melancholy, Thou which of good hast, yea, art treasury, But what Thy thorny crown gain'd, that give me, The ends crown our works, but Thou crown'st our ends, For at our ends begins our endless rest. ΙΟ ANNUNCIATION, 2. Salvation to all that will is nigh; That All, which always is all everywhere, In prison, in thy womb; and though He there try. 1. 1. 2. So 1635; 1633, low 1. 10. So 1635; 1633, our end Ere by the spheres time was created thou NATIVITY. 3. Immensity, cloister'd in thy dear womb, See'st thou, my soul, with thy faith's eye, how He TEMPLE. 4. With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe, Joseph, turn back; see where your child doth sit, Blowing, yea blowing out those sparks of wit, Which Himself on the doctors did bestow. 3. 1. 6. 1669, his stall 1. 8. 1669, effect 1. 9. So 1635; 1633, eyes The Word but lately could not speak, and lo! It suddenly speaks wonders; whence comes it, That all which was, and all which should be writ, A shallow seeming child should deeply know? He in His age's morning thus began, By miracles exceeding power of man. ΙΟ CRUCIFYING. 5. By miracles exceeding power of man, For, what weak spirits admire, ambitious hate ; But the worst are most, they will and can, Whose creature Fate is, now prescribe a fate, Nay to an inch. Lo! where condemned He die. Now Thou art lifted up, draw me to Thee, 5. 1. 8. 1669, infinite 1. 8. St. MS., a span RESURRECTION. 6. Moist with one drop of Thy blood, my dry soul If in Thy life-book my name thou enroll. But made that there, of which, and for which it was; II May then sin's sleep and death soon from me pass, That waked from both, I again risen may Salute the last and everlasting day. ASCENSION. 7. Salute the last and everlasting day, Joy at th' uprising of this Sun, and Son, Ye whose true tears, or tribulation Have purely wash'd, or burnt your drossy clay. Behold, the Highest, parting hence away, Lightens the dark clouds, which He treads upon; Nor doth He by ascending show alone, But first He, and He first enters the way. 6. 1. 8. So 1635; 1633, little book 7. 1. 3. So 1635; 1633, just tears |