O give me, Thy slave, at length, And some gracious token show me, PARAPHRASE OF PSALM XIII. LORD, how long, how long wilt Thou Wilt Thou from thy sight reject me? How long shall I seek a way From this range of thoughts perplexed, Where my grieved mind, night and day, Is with thinking tired and vexed! How long shall my stormful foe, On my fall his greatness placing, Build upon my overthrow, And be graced by my disgracing? Hear, O Lord and God, my cries, Heavenly beams in them infusing. Lest my woes too great to bear, These black clouds will overblow, JOSEPH BRYAN WAS apparently a contemporary of Davison. There is much beauty in the following PARAPHRASE OF PSALM LXV. DWELLERS beyond Thule's bands, At thy signs shall be affrighted. Are with light and heat delighted. Are with blades and ears maintained. Pranking them with curious flowers; Sweet and soft descending showers. His dead-seeming seed reviving; And the tender bud, unless Thou didst bless, Blasts and frosts would keep from thriving. Fall, and fill With thy blessing barren places; Fresh and green, Decked with Flora's various graces. JOHN DONNE. JOHN DONNE was born in London, in 1573. He entered Hertford College at the early age of eleven, and became a prodigy of learning. He was bred a Catholic, but early in life he became a Protestant minister. He died, Dean of St. Paul's, in 1631. Without being in the strictest sense a sacred poet, Donne is one of those writers who have shown their reverence of religion with the warmth and sincerity of genuine feeling. He is frequently rugged and obscure, yet he displays a depth of sentiment and an originality of thought, which entitle him to a rank among the truest poets. THOU hast made me, and shall thy work decay? By thy leave I can look, I rise again; That not one hour myself I can sustain ; Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art, II. THIS is my play's last scene; here heavens appoint And gluttonous death will instantly unjoint Then as my soul, to heaven, her first seat, takes flight, To where they're bred, and would press me to hell. Impute me righteous, thus purged of evil, For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil. III. Ar the round earth's imagined corners, blow All whom the flood did, and fire shall, o'erthrow; Despair, law, chance, hath slain, and you whose eyes 'Tis late to ask abundance of thy grace When we are there; here, on this lowly ground, IV. DEATH, be not proud, though some have called thee For those whom thou thinkest thou dost overthrow, Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow: And soonest our best men with thee do Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. go, Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy or charms, can make us sleep as well, And better, than thy stroke; why swellest thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally; And death shall be no more; Death! thou must die. ODE. VENGEANCE will sit above our faults; but till We see her not, nor them. Thus blind, yet still Unhappy he whom youth makes not beware Enough we labor under age and care: Yet we, that should the ill we now begin (Strange thing!) perceive not; our faults are not seen, But past us; neither felt, but only in The punishment. But we know ourselves least; mere outward shows Our minds so store, That our souls, no more than our eyes, disclose But form and color; only he who knows Himself, knows more. HYMN TO CHRIST. AT THE AUTHOR'S LAST GOING INTO GERMANY. In what torn ship soever I embark, What sea soever swallow me, that flood Shall be to me an emblem of thy blood; |