How she observes him in his daily walk,

Still bending towards him her small slender stalk;
How when he down declines, she droops and mourns,

Bedewed, as 'twere with tears, till he returns;
And how she veils her flowers when he is gone,

As if she scorned to be looked on

By an inferior eye; or did contemn

To wait upon a meaner light than him.
When this I meditate, methinks the flowers
Have spirits far more generous than ours,
And give us fair examples to despise
The servile fawnings and idolatries,

Wherewith we court these earthly things below,
Which merit not the service we bestow.

But, oh my God, though grovelling I appear,
Upon the ground, and have a footing here,
Which hales me downward, yet in my desire
To that which is above me I aspire;
And all my best affections I profess
To Him that is the Sun of Righteousness.
Oh! keep the morning of his incarnation,
The burning noontide of his bitter passion,
The night of his descending, and the height
Of his ascension,-ever in my sight:
That imitating Him in what I may,
I never follow an inferior way.

PSALM CXLVIII.

COME, oh! come, with sacred lays,
Let us sound the Almighty's praise;

Hither bring in true consent,

Heart and voice, and instrument.

Let the orpharion1 sweet,

With the harp and viol meet:

1 An ancient stringed instrument, somewhat resembling the guitar.

To your voices tune the lute:
Let not tongue nor string be mute:
Not a creature dumb be found,
That hath either voice or sound.

Let such things as do not live,
In still music praises give;
Lowly pipe, ye worms that creep
On the earth or in the deep;
Loud aloft your voices strain,
Beasts and monsters of the main;
Birds, your warbling treble sing;
Clouds, your peals of thunder ring;
Sun and moon exalted higher,
And you stars, augment the quire.

Come, ye sons of human race,
In this chorus take your place,
And amid this mortal throng,
Be you masters of the song.
Angels and celestial powers,
Be the noblest tenor yours.
Let in praise of God the sound,

Run a never-ending round,

That our holy hymn may be

Everlasting as is He.

From the earth's vast hollow womb,

Music's deepest base shall come.

Sea and floods from shore to shore

Shall the counter-tenor roar.

To this concert, when we sing,
Whistling winds, your descant bring:
Which may bear the sound above
Where the orb of fire doth move,

And so climb from sphere to sphere,
Till our song the Almighty hear.

So shall He from heaven's high tower On the earth his blessing shower;

All this huge wide orb we see,
Shall one quire, one temple be;
There our voices we will rear,
Till we fill it everywhere:

And enforce the fiends that dwell

In the air, to sink to hell.

Then, oh! come, with sacred lays,
Let us sound the Almighty's praise.

THE VIRTUOUS MAN.

The Emblem represents a flame upon a mountain, driven to and fro by tempestuous winds, yet continually gathering strength and brightness.

THUS fares the man whom virtue, beacon-like,

Hath fixed upon the hills of eminence;

At him the tempests of mad envy strike,

And rage against his piles of innocence;

But still the more they wrong him, and the more
They seek to keep his worth from being known,

They daily make it greater than before,

And cause his fame the further to be blown.
When, therefore, no self-doting arrogance,

But virtues covered with a modest veil,
Break through obscurity, and thee advance

To place where envy shall thy worth assail,
Discourage not thyself, but stand the shocks

Of wrath and fury. Let them snarl and bite,
Pursue thee with detraction, slander, mocks,

And all the venomed engines of despight.
Thou art above their malice, and the blaze

Of thy celestial fire shall shine so clear,
That their besotted souls thou shalt amaze,

And make thy splendours to their shame appear.

DIVERS PROVIDENCES.

WHEN all the year our fields are fresh and green, And while sweet showers and sunshine, every day, As oft as need requireth, come between

The heavens and earth, they heedless pass away. The fulness and continuance of a blessing

Doth make us to be senseless of the good;
And if sometimes it fly not our possessing,
The sweetness of it is not understood;
Had we no winter, summer would be thought
Not half so pleasing; and if tempests were not,
Such comforts by a calm could not be brought;

For things, save by their opposites, appear not.
Both health and wealth are tasteless unto some,
And so is ease and every other pleasure,
Till poor or sick, or grieved, they become,

And then they relish these in ampler measure. God, therefore, full of kind, as He is wise,

So tempereth all the favours He will do us, That we his bounties may the better prize,

And make his chastisements less bitter to us. One while a scorching indignation burns

The flowers and blossoms of our hopes away, Which into scarcity our plenty turns,

And changeth new mown grass to parched hay; Anon his fruitful showers and pleasing dews,

Commixed with cheerful rays, He sendeth down, And then the barren earth her crops renews,

Which with rich harvests hills and valleys crown;

For, as to relish joys, He sorrow sends;

So comfort on temptation still attends.

THE GLORY OF CHRIST UNDER THE FIGURE OF SOLOMON.

CANTICLES III.

WHAT'S he that from the desert there,

Doth like those smoky pillars come,
Which from the incense and the myrrh,
And all the merchant's spices fume?
His bed, which lo! is Solomon's,

Threescore stout men about it stand;

They are of Israel's valiant ones,

And all of them with swords in hand.

All those are men expert in fight,

And each man on his thigh doth wear

A sword, that terrors of the night

May be forbid from coming there.

King Solomon a goodly place

With trees of Lebanon did rear,

Each pillar of it silver was,

And gold the bases of them were.

With purple covered he the same,

And all the pavement, throughout,

Oh! daughters of Jerusalem,

For you with charity is wrought.
Come, Sion's daughters! come away,
And crowned with his diadem,
King Solomon behold you may.

That crown his mother set on him,
When he a married man was made,

And in his heart contentment had.