THE LITANY...

1. THE FATHER.

FATHER of heav'n, and him by whom
It, and us for it, and all else for us,
Thou mad'st and govern'st ever, come,
And re-create me, now grown ruinous ;
My heart is by dejection clay,
And by self,murder red.

From this red earth, O Father! purge away
All vicious tinctures, that, new fashioned,
I may rise up from death before I'm dead.

II. 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,
Q be thou nail'd unto my heart,
And crucify'd again:

Part not from it, tho' it from thee would part,
But let it be, by' applying so thy pain,

Drown'd in thy blood, and in thy passion slain.

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III. 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 weather-beat,

Double in my heart thy flame,

Which let devout sad tears intend, and let

(Tho' this glass lanthorn, flesh, do suffer maim) Fire, sacrifice, priest, altar, be the same.

IV. THE TRINITY,.

O BLESSED, glorious Trinity! 65
Bones to philosophy but milk to faith,
Which, as wise serpents diversly

Most slipp'riness, yet most entanglings hath,
As you distinguish'd (undistinct)

By pow'r, love, knowledge, be,
Give me such self-diff'rent instinct,

Of these let all me elemented be,

Of pow'r to love, to know you unnumb'red Three.^

V. THE VIRGIN MARY.

FOR that fair blessed Mother-maid,
Whose flesh redeem'd us, (that she cherubin,

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Which unlock'd Paradise, and made

One claim for innocence, and disseiz'd sin;
Whose womb was a strange heav'n, for there
God cloath'd himself, and grew)

Our zealous thanks we pour. As her deeds were
Our helps, so are her prayrs; nor can she sue
In vain who hath such titles unto you."

AND since this life our nonage.is,

And we in wardship to thine Angels be,
Native in heav'n's fair palaces,

Where we shall be but denizon'd by thee;
As th' earth, conceiving by the sun,

Yields fair diversity,

Yet never knows what course that light doth run;

So let me study that mine actions be

Worthy their sight, tho' blind in how they see.

VII. 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 clear'd more than us grace and law, And now in heav'n still pray that we

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May use our new helps right): X

Be satisfy'd, and fructify in me:

Let not my mind be blinder by more light,
Nor faith, by reason added, lose her sight.

THY eagle-sighted Prophets, too,
(Which were thy church's organs, and did sound
That harmony which made of two

One law, and did unite, but not confound;
Those heavenly Poets, which did see

Thy will, and it express

In rythmic feet) 'in common pray for me,

That I by them excuse not my excess

In seeking secrets or poeticness.

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IX. THE APOSTLES.

AND thy illustrious zodiac

Of twelve apostles, which ingirt this all,

(From whom who soe'er do not take

Their light, to dark deep pits thrown down do fall)
As thro' their prayers thou hast let me know

That their books are divine,

May they pray still, and be heard, that I go
Th' old broad way in applying; O decline
Me, when my comment would make thy word mine.

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X. THE MARTYRS.

AND since thou so desirously

Didst long to die, that long before thou couldst,
And long since thou no more couldst dye,
Thou in thy scatter'd mystic body wouldst
In Abel dye, and ever since

In thine, let their blood come

To beg for us a discreet patience

Of death, or of worse life; for, oh! to some
Not to be martyrs is a martyrdom, sit £167

XI. THE CONFESSORS.

THEREFORE with thee triumpheth there
A virgin squadron of white Confessors,
Whose bloods betroth'd, not married, were
Tender'd, not taken by those ravishers:
They know, and pray that we may know :
In every Christian

Hourly tempestuous persecutions grow.
Temptations martyr us alive. A man
Is to himself a Dioclesian.

XII. THE VIRGINS.

THE Cold white-snowy nunnery,

(Which, as thy mother, their high abbess, sent

Their bodies back again to thee,

As thou hadst lent them, clean and innocent)

Tho' they have not obtain'd of thee