Prayer

LO here a little volume, but great BookA nest of new-born sweets;Whose native fires disdainingTo ly thus folded, and complainingOf these ignoble sheets,5Affect more comly bands(Fair one) from the kind handsAnd confidently lookTo find the restOf a rich binding in your Brest.10It is, in one choise handfull, heavenn; and allHeavn’s Royall host; incamp’t thus smallTo prove that true schooles use to tell,Ten thousand Angels in one point can dwell.It is love’s great artillery15Which here contracts itself, and comes to lyClose couch’t in their white bosom: and from thenceAs from a snowy fortresse of defence,Against their ghostly foes to take their part,And fortify the hold of their chast heart.20It is an armory of lightLet constant use but keep it bright,You’l find it yeildsTo holy hands and humble heartsMore swords and sheilds25Then sin hath snares, or Hell hath darts.Only be sureThe hands be pureThat hold these weapons; and the eyesThose of turtles, chast and true;30Wakefull and wise;Here is a freind shall fight for you,Hold but this book before their heart;Let prayer alone to play his part,But ф the heart35That studyes this high ArtMust be a sure house-keeperAnd yet no sleeper.Dear soul, be strong.Mercy will come e’re long40And bring his bosom fraught with blessings,Flowers of never fading gracesTo make immortall dressingsFor worthy soules, whose wise embracesStore up themselves for Him, who is alone45The Spouse of Virgins and the Virgin’s son.But if the noble Bridegroom, when he comeShall find the loytering Heart from home;Leaving her chast aboadTo gadde abroad50Among the gay mates of the god of flyes;To take her pleasure and to playAnd keep the devill’s holyday;To dance th’sunshine of some smilingBut beguiling55Spheares of sweet and sugred Lyes,Some slippery PairOf false, perhaps as fair,Flattering but forswearing eyes;Doubtlesse some other heart60Will gett the startMean while, and stepping in beforeWill take possession of that sacred storeOf hidden sweets and holy ioyes.Words which are not heard with Eares65(Those tumultuous shops of noise)Effectuall wispers, whose still voiceThe soul it selfe more feeles then heares;Amorous languishments; luminous trances;Sights which are not seen with eyes;70Spirituall and soul-peircing glancesWhose pure and subtil lightning flyesHome to the heart, and setts the house on fireAnd melts it down in sweet desireYet does not stay75To ask the windows leave to passe that way;Delicious Deaths; soft exalationsOf soul; dear and divine annihilations;A thousand unknown ritesOf ioyes and rarefy’d delights;80A hundred thousand goods, glories, and graces,And many a mystick thingWhich the divine embracesOf the deare spouse of spirits with them will bringFor which it is no shame85That dull mortality must not know a name.Of all this storeOf blessings and ten thousand more(If when he comeHe find the Heart from home)90Doubtlesse he will unloadHimself some other where,And poure abroadHis pretious sweetsOn the fair soul whom first he meets.95O fair, ф fortunate! O riche, ф dear!O happy and thrice happy sheSelected doveWho ere she be,Whose early love100With winged vowesMakes hast to meet her morning spouseAnd close with his immortall kisses.Happy indeed, who never missesTo improve that pretious hour,105And every daySeize her sweet preyAll fresh and fragrant as he risesDropping with a baulmy ShowrA delicious dew of spices;110O let the blissfull heart hold fastHer heavnly arm-full, she shall tastAt once ten thousand paradises;She shall have powerTo rifle and deflour115The rich and roseall spring of those rare sweetsWhich with a swelling bosome there she meetsBoundles and infiniteBottomles treasuresOf pure inebriating pleasures120Happy proof! she shal discoverWhat ioy, what blisse,How many Heav’ns at once it isTo have her God become her Lover.