Prayer

LO here a little volume, but great Book  

 A nest of new-born sweets;  

 Whose native fires disdaining  

 To ly thus folded, and complaining  

 Of these ignoble sheets,          

 Affect more comly bands  

 (Fair one) from the kind hands  

 And confidently look  

 To find the rest  

Of a rich binding in your Brest.        

It is, in one choise handfull, heavenn; and all  

Heavn’s Royall host; incamp’t thus small  

To prove that true schooles use to tell,  

Ten thousand Angels in one point can dwell.  

It is love’s great artillery        

Which here contracts itself, and comes to ly  

Close couch’t in their white bosom: and from thence  

As from a snowy fortresse of defence,  

Against their ghostly foes to take their part,  

And fortify the hold of their chast heart.        

It is an armory of light  

Let constant use but keep it bright,  

 You’l find it yeilds  

To holy hands and humble hearts  

 More swords and sheilds        

Then sin hath snares, or Hell hath darts.  

 Only be sure  

 The hands be pure  

That hold these weapons; and the eyes  

Those of turtles, chast and true;        

 Wakefull 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 ô the heart        

 That studyes this high Art  

 Must be a sure house-keeper  

 And yet no sleeper.  

 Dear soul, be strong.  

 Mercy will come e’re long        

And bring his bosom fraught with blessings,  

Flowers of never fading graces  

To make immortall dressings  

For worthy soules, whose wise embraces  

Store up themselves for Him, who is alone        

The Spouse of Virgins and the Virgin’s son.  

But if the noble Bridegroom, when he come  

Shall find the loytering Heart from home;  

 Leaving her chast aboad  

 To gadde abroad        

Among the gay mates of the god of flyes;  

To take her pleasure and to play  

And keep the devill’s holyday;  

To dance th’sunshine of some smiling  

 But beguiling        

Spheares of sweet and sugred Lyes,  

 Some slippery Pair  

Of false, perhaps as fair,  

Flattering but forswearing eyes;  

Doubtlesse some other heart        

 Will gett the start  

Mean while, and stepping in before  

Will take possession of that sacred store  

Of hidden sweets and holy ioyes.  

Words which are not heard with Eares        

(Those tumultuous shops of noise)  

Effectuall wispers, whose still voice  

The soul it selfe more feeles then heares;  

Amorous languishments; luminous trances;  

Sights which are not seen with eyes;        

Spirituall and soul-peircing glances  

Whose pure and subtil lightning flyes  

Home to the heart, and setts the house on fire  

And melts it down in sweet desire  

 Yet does not stay        

To ask the windows leave to passe that way;  

Delicious Deaths; soft exalations  

Of soul; dear and divine annihilations;  

 A thousand unknown rites  

Of ioyes and rarefy’d delights;        

A hundred thousand goods, glories, and graces,  

 And many a mystick thing  

 Which the divine embraces  

Of the deare spouse of spirits with them will bring  

 For which it is no shame        

That dull mortality must not know a name.  

 Of all this store  

Of blessings and ten thousand more  

 (If when he come  

 He find the Heart from home)        

 Doubtlesse he will unload  

 Himself some other where,  

 And poure abroad  

 His pretious sweets  

On the fair soul whom first he meets.        

O fair, ô fortunate! O riche, ô dear!  

O happy and thrice happy she  

 Selected dove  

 Who ere she be,  

 Whose early love        

 With winged vowes  

Makes hast to meet her morning spouse  

And close with his immortall kisses.  

Happy indeed, who never misses  

To improve that pretious hour,        

 And every day  

 Seize her sweet prey  

All fresh and fragrant as he rises  

Dropping with a baulmy Showr  

A delicious dew of spices;        

O let the blissfull heart hold fast  

Her heavnly arm-full, she shall tast  

At once ten thousand paradises;  

 She shall have power  

 To rifle and deflour        

The rich and roseall spring of those rare sweets  

Which with a swelling bosome there she meets  

 Boundles and infinite  

 Bottomles treasures  

Of pure inebriating pleasures        

Happy proof! she shal discover  

 What ioy, what blisse,  

How many Heav’ns at once it is  

To have her God become her Lover.

An Ode which was præfixed to a little Prayer-book given to a young Gentle-woman