The rosy hand, the radiant dart;
Leave her alone the flaming heart.

Leave her that; and thou shalt leave her

Not one loose shaft, but Love's whole quiver;
For in Love's field was never found
A nobler weapon than a wound.
Love's passives are his activ'st part,
The wounded is the wounding heart.

O heart! equal poise of Love's both parts
Big alike with wound and darts.

Live in these conquering leaves: live all the same; And walk through all tongues one triumphant flame.

Live here, great heart; and love, and die, and kill;
And bleed, and wound; and yield and conquer still.
Let this immortal life wher'er it comes

Walk in a crowd of loves and martyrdoms.
Let mystic deaths wait on't: and wise souls be
The love-slain witnesses of this life of thee.
O sweet incendiary! show here thy art,
Upon this carcass of a hard cold heart;
Let all thy scattered shafts of light that play
Among the leaves of thy large books of day,
Combined against this breast at once break in
And take away from me myself and sin;
This gracious robbery shall thy bounty be,
And my best fortunes such fair spoils of me.
O thou undaunted daughter of desires!

By all thy dower of lights and fires;

By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;
By all thy lives and deaths of love;
By thy large draughts of intellectual day
And by thy thirsts of love, more large than they;
By all thy brim-filled bowls of fierce desire,
By thy last morning's draught of liquid fire;
By the full kingdom of that final kiss

That seized thy parting soul, and seal'd thee His;
By all the heav'ns thou hast in Him
(Fair sister of the seraphim!)

By all of Him we have in thee;
Leave nothing of myself in me.
Let me so read thy life, that I
Unto all life of mine may die.

HENRY MORE

CHARITY AND HUMILITY

Far have I clambred in my mind
But nought so great as love I find;
Deep-searching wit, mount-moving might,
Are nought compar'd to that good sprite.
Life of delight and soul of bliss!
Sure source of lasting happiness!

Higher then Heaven! lower then hell!
What is thy tent?
My mansion hight humility,
Heaven's vastest capability.

Where maist thou dwell?

The further it doth downward tend
The higher up it doth ascend;

If it go down to utmost nought,
It shall return with that it sought.

Lord, stretch thy tent in my strait breast;
Enlarge it downward, that sure rest
May there be pight; for that pure fire
Wherewith thou wontest to inspire
All self-dead souls. My life is gone,
Sad solitude's my irksome wonne.
Cut off from men and all this world,
In Lethe's lonesome ditch I'm hurl'd;
Nor might nor sight doth aught me move,
Nor do I care to be above.

O feeble rayes of mentale light!

That best be seen in this dark night,
What are you? What is any strength
If it be not laid in one length

With pride or love? I nought desire
But a new life, or quite t' expire.
Could I demolish with mine eye
Strong towers, stop the fleet stars in skie,
Bring down to earth the pale-faced Moon,
Or turn black midnight to bright Noon;
Though all things were put in my hand,
As parch'd, as dry as th' Libyan sand
Would be my life, if Charity
Were wanting. But Humility

Is more than my poor soul durst crave
That lies entomb'd in lowly grave.
But if 'twere lawful up to send

My voice to Heaven, this should it rend.
“Lord, thrust me deeper into dust,
That thou maist raise me with the just."

JOSEPH BEAUMONT

THE HOUSE OF THE MIND

Seek no more abroad, say I,

House and Home, but turn thine Eye Inward, and observe thy Breast;

There alone dwells solid rest.

That's a close immured tower

Which can mock all hostile power.

To thyself a tenant be,

And inhabit safe and free.

Say not that this house is small,

Girt up in a narrow wall;

In a cleanly sober mind

Heav'n itself full room doth find.

Th' infinite Creator can

Dwell in it; and may not Man?

Here content make thy abode
With thyself and with thy God.

HENRY VAUGHAN

CHILDHOOD

I cannot reach it; and my striving eye
Dazzles at it, as at eternity.

Were now that chronicle alive,

Those white designs which children drive,
And the thoughts of each harmless hour,
With their content too in my pow'r,
Quick would I make my path ev'n,
And by mere playing go to heaven.

Why should men love

A wolf, more than a lamb or dove?
Or choose hell-fire and brimstone streams
Before bright stars and God's own beams?
Who kisseth thorns will hurt his face,
But flowers do both refresh and grace;
And sweetly living-fie on men!—
Are, when dead, medicinal then;

If seeing much should make staid eyes,
And long experience should make wise;
Since all that age doth teach is ill,
Why should I not love childhood still?
Why, if I see a rock or shelf,

Shall I from thence cast down myself?