First wash thy heart in innocence; then bring
Pure hands, pure habits, pure, pure every thing.
Next to the altar humbly kneel, and thence
Give up thy soul in clouds of frankincense.
Thy golden censers fill’d with odours sweet
Shall make thy actions with their ends to meet.
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One asked me where the roses grew:
But forwith bade my Julia showA bud in either cheek.
These springs were maidens once that loved,
My story tells, by Love they wereTurn’d to these springs which we see here:The pretty whimpering that they make,When of the banks their leave they take,Tells ye but this, they are the same,In nothing changed but in their name.
Time was upon
And I call’d onHim but awhile to stay;But he’d be gone,For aught that I could say.He held out thenA writing, as he went,And ask’d me, whenFalse man would be contentTo pay againWhat God and Nature lent.An hour-glass,In which were sands but few,As he did pass,He shew’d,–and told me tooMine end near was;–And so away he…
Why I tie about thy wrist,
For what other reason is’t,But to shew thee how in partThou my pretty captive art?But thy bond-slave is my heart;‘Tis but silk that bindeth thee,Knap the thread and thou art free;But ’tis otherwise with me;I am bound, and fast bound so,That from thee I cannot go;If I could, I would not so.
Bell-man of night, if I about shall go
Thou stop’st Saint Peter in the midst of sin;Stay me, by crowing, ere I do begin;Better it is, premonish’d, for to shunA sin, than fall to weeping when ’tis done.
For those my unbaptized rhymes,
For every sentence, clause, and word,That’s not inlaid with Thee, my Lord,Forgive me, God, and blot each lineOut of my book, that is not Thine.But if, ‘mongst all, Thou find’st here oneWorthy thy benediction,That one of all the rest shall beThe glory of my work, and me.