X. AN EPITAPH ON SHAKSPEARE. RENOWNED Chaucer, lie a thought more nigh For whom your curtains need be drawn again; SACRED PIECES. I. THE LITANY. 1. THE FATHER. FATHER of heaven, and him, by whom From this red earth, O Father purge away 2. THE SON. O Son of God, who seeing two things, Sin, and death crept in, which were never made, By bearing one, try'dst with what stings The other could thine heritage invade; O be thou nailed unto my heart, And crucified again, Part not from it, though it from thee would part, 3. THE HOLY GHOST. O Holy Ghost, whose temple I Am, but of mud walls, and condensed dust, And being sacrilegiously Half-wasted with youth's fires, of pride and lust, Must with new storms be weatherbeat; Double in my heart thy flame, Which let devout sad tears intend; and let (Though this glass lanthorn, flesh, do suffer maim) Fire sacrifice, priest, altar be the same. 4. THE TRINITY. O Blessed glorious Trinity, Bones to philosophy, but milk to faith, Most slipperiness, yet most entanglings hath, By power, love, knowledge be, Give me a such self-different instinct, Of power, to love, to know, you unnumb'red Three. 5. THE VIRGIN MARY. For that fair blessed mother-maid, Whose flesh redeemed us; that she-cherubin, Which unlocked paradise, and made One claim for innocence, and disseised sin, Our zealous thanks we pour. As her deeds were 6. THE ANGELS. And since this life our nonage is, And we in wardship to thine angels be, Native in heaven's fair palaces Where we shall be but denizened by thee, As the earth conceiving by the sun, Yet never knows which course that light doth run, Worthy their sight, though blind in how they see. 7. THE PATRIARCHS. And let thy patriarchs' desire (Those great-grandfathers of thy church, which saw More in the cloud, than we in fire, Whom nature cleared more, than us grace and law, May use our new helps right,) Be sanctified, and fructify in me; Let not my mind be blinder by more light, 8. THE PROPHETS. Thy eagle-sighted prophets too, Which were thy church's organs, and did sound One law, and did unite, but not confound; In rhythmic feet, in common pray for me, 9. THE APOSTLES. And thy illustrious zodiak Of twelve apostles, which ingirt this all, From whom whoso ever do not take Their light, to dark deep pits throw down, and fall*, May they pray still, and be heard, that I go The old broad way in applying; O decline Me, when my comment would make thy word mine. 10. THE MARTYRS. And since thou so desirously Did'st long to die, that long before thou could'st, Thou in thy scattered mystic body would'st In thine, let their blood come To beg for us, a discreet patience Of death, or of worse life: for O! to some 11. THE CONFESSORS. Therefore with thee triumpheth there • «Thrown down do fall;"-Anderson's Poets; but the word throw is here used in a neuter sense.-ED. They know, and pray, that we may know Hourly tempestuous persecutions grow; Is to himself a Diocletian. 12. THE VIRGINS. The cold white snowy nunnery, Which, as thy mother, their high abbess, sent As thou hadst lent them, clean and innocent, Should keep, as they, our first integrity, 13. THE DOCTORS. Thy sacred academe above Of doctors, whose pains have unclasped, and taught Both books of life to us (for love To know thy Scriptures, tells us, we are wrote That what they have misdone Or missaid, we to that may not adhere; Their zeal may be our sin: Lord, let us run Mean ways, and call them stars, but not the sun. 14. And whilst this universal quire, That church in triumph, this in warfare here, Warmed with one all-partaking fire Of love, that none be lost, which cost thee dear, (Since to be gracious Our task is treble, to pray, bear, and do) Hear this prayer, Lord, O Lord deliver us From trusting in those prayers, though pour'd out thus. |