FLIGHT OF A SINNER.

'Tis vain to flee! 'tis neither here nor there
Can 'scape that Hand, until that Hand forbear;
Ah me! where is He not, that's everywhere?

'Tis vain to flee, till gentle mercy show
Her better eye; the further off we go,
The swing of Justice deals the mightier blow.

Th' ingenuous child, corrected, doth not fly
His angry mother's hand, but clings more nigh,
And quenches with his tears her flaming eye.

Shadows are faithless, and the rocks are false;
No trust in brass, no trust in marble walls :
Poor cots are even as safe as princes' halls.

Great God, there is no safety here below;

Thou art my fortress, though Thou seem'st my foe, 'Tis Thou that strik'st the stroke must guard the blow.

Thou art my God; by Thee I fall or stand;
Thy grace hath given me courage to withstand
All tortures, but my Conscience, and Thy Hand.

I know Thy Justice is Thyself; I know,
Just God, Thy very self is mercy too;

If not to Thee, where,-whither,

should I go?

Then work Thy will-if passion bid me flee,

My reason shall obey; my wings shall be
Stretch'd out no further than from Thee to Thee.

Quarles,

LIFE.

I MADE a posy while the day ran by:
Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie
My life within this band.

But time did beckon to the flowers, and they
By noon most cunningly did steal away

And wither'd in my hand.

My hand was next to them, and then my heart;
I took, without more thinking, in good part
Time's gentle admonition,

Who did so sweetly death's sad taste convey,
Making my mind to smell my fatal day,
Yet sug'ring the suspicion.

Farewell, dear flowers, sweetly your time ye spent, Fit, while ye liv'd, for smell or ornament,

And after death for cures ;

I follow straight without complaints or grief,
Since, if my scent be good, I care not if
It be as short as yours.

Herbert.

Ir as a flower doth spread and die, Thou wouldst extend me to some good, Before I were by frosts' extremity

EMPLOYMENT.

The sweetness and the praise were Thine;
But the extension and the room,

Which in Thy garland I should fill, were mine
At Thy great doom.

For as Thou dost impart Thy grace,

The greater shall our glory be.

The measure of our joys is in this place,
The stuff with Thee.

Let me not languish then, and spend

A life as barren to Thy praise

As is the dust, to which that life doth tend
But with delays.

All things are busy only I

Neither bring honey with the bees,

Nor flowers to make that, nor the husbandry
To water these.

I am no link of Thy great chain,

But all my company is as a weed;

Lord, place me in Thy comfort; give one strain

To my poor reed.

Herbert.

THE PEARL.

MATT. XIII.

I KNOW the ways of learning; both the head
And pipes that feed the press, and make it run;
What reason hath from nature borrowed,

Or of itself, and like a good huswife, spun
In laws and policy; what the stars conspire,
What willing nature speaks, what forc'd by fire;
Both th' old discoveries, and the new-found seas,
The stock and surplus, cause and history:
All these stand open, or I have the keys:
Yet I love thee.

I know the ways of honour, what maintains
The quick returns of courtesy and wit:
In vies of favours whether party gains,
When glory swells the heart, and moldeth it
To all expressions both of hand and eye,
Which on the world a true-love-knot may tie,
And bear the bundle, wheresoe'er it goes:
How many drams of spirit there must be
To sell my life unto my friends or foes:
Yet I love thee.

I know the ways of pleasure, the sweet strains,
The lullings and the relishes of it;

The propositions of hot blood and brains;

What mirth and musick mean; what love and wit Have done these twenty hundred years, and more:

I know the projects of unbridled store:

My stuff is flesh, not brass; my senses live,

And grumble oft, that they have more in me

Than he that curbs them, being but one to five: Yet I love thee.