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These two grand sins we join and act together,
Though blood and drunkenness make but foul, foul
weather.

Water, though both heaven's windows and the deep
Full forty days o'er the drowned world did weep,
Could not reform us, and blood in despite,
Yea, God's own blood, we tread upon and slight.
So those bad daughters, which God saved from fire,
While Sodom yet did smoke, lay with their sire.
Then, peaceful, signal bow, but in a cloud
Still lodged, where all thy unseen arrows shroud;
I will on thee as on a comet look,

A comet, the sad world's ill-boding book;
Thy light as luctual and stained with woes
I'll judge, where penal flames sit mixed and close.
For though some think thou shin'st but to restrain
Bold storms, and simply dost attend on rain;
Yet I know well, and so our sins require,
Thou dost but court cold rain, till rain turns fire.

THE SEED GROWING SECRETLY.

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.

10 Glory, the crowd's cheap tinsel, still
To what most takes them is a drudge;

And they too oft take good for ill,
And thriving vice for virtue judge.

11 What needs a conscience calm and bright Within itself an outward test?

Who breaks his glass to take more light,
Makes way for storms into his rest.

12 Then bless thy secret growth, nor catch
At noise, but thrive unseen and dumb;
Keep clean, bear fruit, earn life, and watch,
Till the white-winged reapers come!

CHILDHOOD.

I cannot reach it; and my striving eye
Dazzles at it, as at eternity.

Were now that chronicle alive,

Those white designs which children drive,
And the thoughts of each harmless hour,
With their content too in my power,
Quickly would I make my path even,
And by mere playing go to heaven.

Why should men love

A wolf more than a lamb or dove?
Or choose hell-fire and brimstone streams
Before bright stars and God's own beams?
Who kisseth thorns will hurt his face,
But flowers do both refresh and grace;
And sweetly living (fie on men!)
Are, when dead, medicinal then.
If seeing much should make staid eyes,
And long experience should make wise,
Since all that age doth teach is ill,
Why should I not love childhood still?
Why, if I see a rock or shelf,

Shall I from thence cast down myself,

Or by complying with the world,
From the same precipice be hurled?
Those observations are but foul,

Which make me wise to lose my soul.

And yet the practice worldlings call
Business and weighty action all,
Checking the poor child for his play,
But gravely cast themselves away.

Dear, harmless age! the short, swift span Where weeping virtue parts with man; Where love without lust dwells, and bends What way we please without self-ends.

An age of mysteries! which he

Must live twice that would God's face see;
Which angels guard, and with it play,
Angels which foul men drive away.

How do I study now, and scan
Thee more than ere I studied man,
And only see through a long night
Thy edges and thy bordering light!
Oh for thy centre and mid-day!
For sure that is the narrow way!

ABEL'S BLOOD.

Sad, purple well! whose bubbling eye
Did first against a murderer cry;
Whose streams, still vocal, still complain
Of bloody Cain;

And now at evening are as red
As in the morning when first shed.

If single thou,

Though single voices are but low,
Couldst such a shrill and long cry rear
As speaks still in thy Maker's ear,
What thunders shall those men arraign
Who cannot count those they have slain,
Who bathe not in a shallow flood,
But in a deep, wide sea of blood-
A sea whose loud waves cannot sleep,
But deep still calleth upon deep;
Whose urgent sound, like unto that
Of many waters, beateth at
The everlasting doors above,
Where souls behind the altar move,
And with one strong, incessant cry
Inquire How long?' of the Most High?
Almighty Judge!

At whose just laws no just men grudge;
Whose blessed, sweet commands do pour
Comforts and joys and hopes each hour
On those that keep them; oh, accept
Of his vowed heart, whom thou hast kept
From bloody men! and grant I may
That sworn memorial duly pay

To thy bright arm, which was my light
And leader through thick death and night!
Aye may that flood,

That proudly spilt and despised blood,
Speechless and calm as infants sleep!
Or if it watch, forgive and weep
For those that spilt it! May no cries
From the low earth to high heaven rise,
But what, like his whose blood peace brings,
Shall, when they rise, speak better things
Than Abel's doth! May Abel be

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