Looks to his cattle, will not lose a horn,
Fells down his woods and falls unto his wedges,
And grinds his axes, and doth mend their edges,
And dearly sells that he good cheap hath
bought;

But all this while, God is not in his thought.

The sailor, he doth by his compass stand,
And weighs his anchor, and doth hoist his sails,
And longs for nothing but to get on land,
While many a storm his starting spirit quails,
And fear of pirates his poor heart assails:

But once on shore, carouse and casts off fear,
Yet scarcely thinks on God that set him there.

The worldly preacher talks of sacrifice,
Of sacraments, and holy mysteries:
Meanwhile he longs but for the benefice,
That should preserve his purse from beggaries,
Because he loves no worldly miseries :

For many a preacher that God's word hath taught,

Shows by his life, God lives not in his thought.

The worldly physician, that in sickness tries
The nature of the herbs and minerals,
And in his simples and his compounds spics
Which way to make the patients' funerals,
Or profit by his cures in generals;

Longs but to see how long they may endure;
But scarcely thinks on God in all the cure.

The worldly musician, that doth tune his voice, Unto such notes as music's skill hath set; Whose heart doth in the harmony rejoice, Where pleasing consorts are most kindly met: But still perhaps his spirit doth forget,

In all his hymns, and songs, and sweetest lays,

To think of God, or of his worthy praise.

The politician hath a world of plots,
In which his spirit hath especial spies;
Ties and unties a thousand sundry knots,
In which the substance of his study lies;
And many tricks his close experience tries,
How to deceive the world with many a wile;
But never thinks on God in all the while.

Th' artificer that hath a work to do,
And brings his hand unto his head's device,
Longs till he see what it will come unto,
And how his pains hath profit in the price,
And having cast it over twice or thrice,

Joys in his heart: but scarcely hath a thought,
To thank his God, that him the cunning taught.

The churl that sits and champs upon his chaff,
And will not stir a foot from his barn floor,
Except it be among his bags to laugh,
He can the poor so with his purse devour,
Longs but to use the poison of his power

T'enrich himself, to bring a world to naught;
Shows that God never dwells within his thought.

As for those beggarly conditions
Of basest trades, that like to miry hogs,
Do show their spirit's dispositions,
In digging with their noses under logs
For slime and worms, or like to ravening dogs,
Long but for that which doth the belly fill,
Most of them think on God against their will.

These are the worldlings, and their world's delights,

Whose longing, God knows, is not worth the loving:

These are the objects of those evil sights,
That Virtue hath from her fair eyes removing;
These are the passions of Corruption's proving:
But they that love and long for God his sight,
In worldly trifles never take delight.

The prince, anointed with the oil of grace,
Who sits with Mercy, in the seat of peace,
Will long to see his Saviour in the face,
And all his right into his hands release;
(Whose only sight would make all sorrow cease),
And lay both crown and kingdom at his feet,
But of his presence to enjoy the sweet.

The lawyer that hath read the laws of God,
And in his heart is touchèd with his love,
And knows the smart of the supernal rod,
Will one day work for silly souls' behove,
Who have their comfort in the heavens above,
Will leave all golden fees to see the grace,
That mercy's justice shows in Jesus' face.

The scholar that begins with Christ his cross,
And seeks good speed but in the Holy Ghost,
Finds by his book that silver is but dross,
And all his labor in his study lost;
Where faith, of mercy, cannot sweetly boast,
And love doth long for any other bliss,
Than what in God and in his graces is,

And such a poet as the psalmist was,
Who had no mind but on his master's love,
Whose muses did the world in music pass,
That only sung but of the soul's behove,
In giving glory to the God above,

Would all world's fictions wholly lay aside,
And only long but with the Lord to bide.

The cosmographer, that by rules of grace
Surveys the city of the heavenly saints,
Will never long for any earthly place,
That either pen prescribes, or painter paints;
But in the faith that never fails nor faints,
Will long to see in heaven's Jerusalem
The gracious God of glorious diadem.

The true astronomer that sees the sun,

And knows that God from whom it takes his light,

And in the course the moon and stars do run, Finds the true guider of the day and night, Longs but to see his only blessed sight,

Who sun, and moon, and stars their bright. ness gives,

And in whose face all brightness, glory, lives.

The mariner that oft hath past the seas, And in his perils seen the power of God, Whose only mercy doth the storms appease, And brings the ship unto his wished road, Will never long on earth to make abode;

But in the heavens to see that blessed hand, That at his beck so rules both sea and land.

The merchant that hath cast within his mind,
How much the spirit's gain the flesh surmounts,
And by his faith in mercy's love doth find
The joyful sum of such a soul's accounts,
As to salvation of the whole amounts;

Will leave the world but on Christ's face to look,

Which all the faithful make their living book.

The farmer that hath felt his neighbor's need,
And found how God and charity are one;
And knows there is a better kind of feed,
Than grass, or corn, or flesh, or blood, or bone,
Will wish himself from his world's treasure
gone,

Upon those joys to feed in mercy's bliss,

Where Christ his presence is heaven's para

dise.

The true physician that doth know the natures
And dispositions of each element,

And knows that God created hath all creatures
Beneath, and eke above the firmament,
And over all hath only government,

Will only long that glorious God to know,
That gives the sickness and doth cure it so.

The soul's musician that doth find the ground
Of truest music but in God his grace,
Will think all singing but an idle sound,
Where God his praise hath not the highest place,
And only longs to see that blessed face,

Which makes the virgins, saints, and angels sing

An hallelujah to their heavenly king.

The preacher, that doth in his soul believe
The word of God, which to the world he teach-
eth,

And in his spirit inwardly doth grieve,
He cannot live so heavenly as he preacheth,
While faith no further than to mercy reacheth;
Would wish in soul to leave his benefice,
To make himself to Christ a sacrifice.

The politician that hath plotted much
In worldly matters, greatly to his gain;
Will find, if God do once his spirit touch,
Zaccheus' heart will have another vein
To climb aloft, and to come down again;
And leave all plots to come but to that place,
Where he might see sweet Jesus in the face.

Th' artificer that hath a work in hand,
And feels the grace of God within his heart;
And by the same doth surely understand,
How God alone perfecteth every part,
And only is the giver of all art,

Will gladly leave his work and long to be,
Where he might Christ his soul's work-master

see.

The painter that doth paint a dainty image
So near the life, as may be to the same,
And makes an ass unto an owl do homage,
While shadows bring the senses out of frame,
If God his heart once with his love inflame,
His pictures all will under foot be trod,
And he will long but for the living God.

The traveller that walks the world about,
And sees the glorious works of God on high;
If God his grace once kindly find him out,
And unto heaven do lift his humble eye,
His soul in faith will such perfections spy,
That leaving all that he on earth can see,
His love will long but with the Lord to be.

The churl that never chaunc't upon a thought
Of charity, nor what belongs thereto;
If God his grace have once his spirit brought,
To feel what good the faithful almers do,
The love of Christ will so his spirit woo,

That he will leave barns, corn, and bags of coin,
And land and life, with Jesus' love to join.

Thus from the prince unto the poorest state,
Who seems to live as void of reason's sense,
If God once come, who never comes too late,
And touch the soul with his sweet quintessence
Of mercy's gracious glorious patience,

His soul will leave whatever it doth love,
And long to live but with the Lord above.

Now to the tenure of that longing time,
That loving spirits think too long will last;
The maid new married, in her pregnant prime,
Longs till the time of forty weeks be past,
And blameth time he makes no greater haste;
Till in her arms she sweetly have received
Her comfort's fruit, within her womb conceived.

Thus forty weeks she labors all in love,
And at the last doth travail all in pain:
But shortly after doth such comfort prove,
As glads her heart, and makes all whole again;
So in her infant's pretty smiling vein,

Pleasing herself, that all her grief is gone,
When she may have her babe to look upon.

Penelope, at her dear love's departing,
In sober kindness did conceal her care;
Though in her heart she had that inward smarting,
That Time's continuance after did declare;
Where constant love did show, without compare,
A perfect passion of true virtues vain,
Longing but for Ulysses home again.

How many years the story doth set down,
In which she felt the gall of absence, grief:
When constant faith on foul effects did frown,
Which sought to be to charity a thief,
Of Nature's beauty the true honor chief:
Long languishing in absence, cruel hell;
But when she saw his presence all is well.

But if I may in holy lines begin,
To speak of Joseph, and his longing love
Unto his brethren, but to Benjamin
To note the passion Nature did approve,
Which did such tears in his affection move,

That well from thence the proverb sweet might spring,

The love of brethren is a blessed thing.

Well may I see the notes of Nature's grief,
In absence of the object of affection;
And longing for the substance of relief,
In presence find the life of love's perfection,
While eye and heart are led by one direction;
Yet all this while I do not truly prove
The blessed longing of the spirit's love.

When Mary Magdalen, so full of sin,
As made her heart a harbor of ill thought,
Felt once the grace of God to enter in,
And drive them out that her destruction sought;
Her soul was then to Jesus' love so wrought,
As that with tears in true affect did prove
The pleasing longing of the spirit's love.

In grief she went all weeping to his grave,
Longing to see him or alive or dead;
And would not cease until her love might have
Her longèd fruit, on which her spirit fed,
One blessed crumb of that sweet heavenly bread
Of angels' food, but of her Lord a sight,
Whose heavenly presence proved her soul's
delight.

Midas did long for nothing else but gold,
And he was kindly chokéd for his choice;
Such longing love doth with too many bold,
Which only do in worldly dross rejoice.
But did they hearken to the heavenly voice,
Their diamonds should not so for dross be

sold,

And they would long for God and not for gold.

Zaccheus, too long, longèd for such dross,
Till Jesus came, his spirit's further joy;
And then he found his vain did yield but loss,
While sin in conscience bred the soul's annoy,
And unto heaven the world was but a toy;
He left it all and climbed up a tree,

To show his longing how but Christ to see.

And well he longed that so his love received, Who sweetly saw, and kindly called him down: His stature low, but his love high conceived, Who so was graced by Mercy's glorious crown, As having cause upon his sins to frown;

Forgave the works that did deserve damnation,

And filled his house with glory of salvation.

A blessing longing of a blessed love!
Would so all souls did love, and so did long;
And in their longing might so sweetly prove
The gracious ground of such a glorious song,
As kills all sin that doth the spirit wrong;

And sing with Simeon at his Saviour's sight, "Oh now my soul depart in peace, delight!"

Oh blessed Simeon, blessed was thy love,
And thy love's longing for thy Saviour so,
Who wrought so sweetly for thy soul's behove,
As from thy prayers would not let thee go,
Till to thy love he did his presence show,

Which made thee sing, when sorrows all did

cease,

"Lord, let thy servant now depart in peace!"

"For I, according to thy word, have seen The glorious substance of my soul's salvation; Thy word, in whom my trust hath ever been, And now hath found my comfort's confirmation!"

Thus did he make a joyful declaration

Of that sweet sight of his sweet Saviour's face,
That was the glory of his spirit's grace.

How many years he all in prayer spent,
For the beholding of his blessed love!
What was the issue of his hope's event,
And how his prayers did prevail above,
That so his God did unto mercy move,

As to his arms to send his only Son,
The story doth of all th' Apostles run!

He was well called, good Simeon, for that grace,
That God hath given the spirit of his love;
That love that longed but in his Saviour's face,
To see the blessing of his soul's behove,
And blessed prayer, that did truly prove

A blessed soul, that could not prayer cease,
Till Christ bis presence came to give it peace.

So should all souls their love's chief longing have,

All souls I mean of every Christian heart, That seek or hope both heart and soul to save From hell, damnation, and supernal smart; This is the love that, in the living part

Of mercy's power, shall find that blessedness,
That is the spirit's only happiness.

Nor can love look to limit out a time,
But now and then and evermore attend;
For he shall never to that comfort climb,
That will not all his life in prayer spend,
Until he see his Saviour in the end:

In whose sweet face doth all and only rest
The heavenly joy that makes the spirit blest.

Blest be the spirit that so longs and loves,
As did Zaccheus and good Simeon :
And from his faithful prayer never moves,
Until he find his life to look upon,
And in such love is all so over-gone,

That in such joy his heart and spirit dwells,
As having Christ, it cares for nothing else.

Oh blessed Christ, the essence of all bliss,
All blessed souls love's longings' chief delight!

The day that only springeth from on high,
That high daylight wherein the heavens do live;
The life that loves but to behold that eye,
Which doth the glory of all brightness give,
And from th' enlightened doth all darkness
drive:

Where saints do see, and angels know to be
A brighter light than saints or angels see.

In this light's love, oh, let me ever live!
And let my soul have never other love,
But all the pleasures of the world to give,
The smallest spark of such a joy to prove,
And ever pray unto my God above,

To grant my humble soul good Simeon's grace,
In love to see my Saviour in the face.

O face more fair than fairness can contain:
O eye more bright than brightness can declare:
O light more pure than passion can explain :
O life more blest than may with bliss compare:
O heaven of heavens where such perfections
are!

Let my soul live to love, to long to be
Ever in prayer, but to look on thee!

But, oh unworthy eye of such a sight;
And all unworthy heart of such a love;
Unworthy love, to long for such a light;
Unworthy longing such a life to prove;
Unworthy life, so high a suit to move!

Thus all unworthy of so high a grace,
How shall I see my Saviour in the face?

All by the prayer of true penitence,
Where faith in tears attendeth grace's time,
My soul doth hope in mercy's patience,
My heart all cleansèd from my sinful crime,
To see the springing of Aurora's prime,
In those bright beams of that sweet blessed

sun

Of my dear God, in whom all bliss begun.

And that my soul may such a blessing see, Let my heart pray, and praying never cease, Till heart and soul may both together be Blest in thy sight all sorrows doth release; And with good Simeon then depart in peace! Oh then but then, and only ever then, Blest be my soul, sweet Jesus say Amen.