But when thou dost anneal in glasse thy storie,
Making thy life to shine within

The holy Preachers; then the light and glorie

More rev'rend grows, & more doth win;
Which else shows watrish, bleak, & thin.

Doctrine and life, colours and light, in one

When they combine and mingle, bring
A strong regard and aw: but speech alone
Doth vanish like a flaring thing,
And in the eare, not conscience ring.

George Herbert.

ΙΟ

Vertue.

Weet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
so so so

The dew shall weep thy fall to night;

For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angrie and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye:

Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet dayes and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie;

My musick shows ye have your closes,

And all must die.

ΤΟ

Onely a sweet and vertuous soul,
Like season'd timber, never gives;

But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

George Herbert.

Life.

Made a posie, while the day ran by:

I Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie

My life within this band.

But time did becken 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

Times gentle admonition :

Who did so sweetly deaths sad taste convey,
Making my minde to smell my fatall day;
Yet sugring the suspicion.

Farewell deare 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 sent be good, I care not, if

It be as short as yours.

George Herbert.

ΙΟ

JESU.

J

ESU is in my heart, his sacred name

Is deeply carved there: but th'other week
A great affliction broke the little frame,

Ev'n all to pieces: which I went to seek:
And first I found the corner, where was J,
After, where ES, and next where U was graved.
When I had got these parcels, instantly
I sat me down to spell them, and perceived
That to my broken heart he was I ease you,
And to my whole is JESU.

George Herbert.

I

The Collar.

Struck the board, and cry'd, No more.

I will abroad.

What? shall I ever sigh and pine?

My lines and life are free; free as the rode,

Loose as the winde, as large as store.

Shall I be still in suit?

Have I no harvest but a thorn

To let me bloud, and not restore

What I have lost with cordiall fruit?

Sure there was wine

Before my sighs did drie it: there was corn

Before my tears did drown it.

Is the yeare onely lost to me?

Have I no bayes to crown it?

ΙΟ

No flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted?
All wasted?

Not so, my heart: but there is fruit,

And thou hast hands.

Recover all thy sigh-blown age

On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute
Of what is fit, and not; forsake thy cage,

Thy rope of sands,

Which pettie thoughts have made, and made to thee
Good cable, to enforce and draw,

And be thy law,

While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.

Away; take heed:

I will abroad.

Call in thy deaths head there: tie up thy fears.

He that forbears

To suit and serve his need,

Deserves his load.

But as I rav'd and grew more fierce and wilde

Me thoughts I heard one calling, Childe:

And I reply'd, My Lord.

George Herbert.

Aaron.

Holinesse on the head,

Light and perfections on the breast,
Harmonious bells below, raising the dead
To leade them unto life and rest.

Thus are true Aarons drest.

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Profanenesse in my head,

Defects and darknesse in my breast,
A noise of passions ringing me for dead
Unto a place where is no rest.

Poore priest thus am I drest.

Onely another head

I have, another heart and breast,
Another musick, making live not dead,
Without whom I could have no rest:
In him I am well drest.

Christ is my onely head,

My alone onely heart and breast,

My onely musick, striking me ev'n dead;

That to the old man I may rest,

And be in him new drest.

So holy in my head,

Perfect and light in my deare breast,
My doctrine tun'd by Christ, (who is not dead,
But lives in me while I do rest)
Come people; Aaron's drest.

ΤΟ

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