AW EDDING O DE

The mountain-air has grown so still,
The silence maketh audible
Your very hearts; and strange and new
Your lonely voices seem to you;
While to your eyes,
By Love made wise,
The earth, the skies,
The stars, the dew,
Seem merely symbols of the True.
Nay, all the outer world, I wis,
Is as an empty chrysalis,
Wherein ye dwelt ere Love ye knew,
The Love who with a summer kiss
Made your wings burn and blossom through
The hatching-place

Love is our Reason's Paradox, which still
Against the Judgment doth maintain the Will,
And governs by such arbitrary laws
It onely makes the Act our Liking's cause:
We have no brave revenge, but to forgo
Our full desires, and starve the Tyrant so.
They whom the rising blood tempts not to taste
Preserve a stock of Love can never waste;
When easie people who their wish enjoy
Like Prodigalls at once their wealth destroy.
Adam till now had stay'd in Paradise
Had his desires been bounded by his eyes:

My Saviour's risen from the Dead,
And lives enthron'd Above.
The Price of my Salvation's paid;
My Life is in His Love.

With holy Sabbaths and Peace
Hath me victorious Blest.
Lord, bring thou my Holiness,
To Victory and Rest.

Health, Bread , with Life , my God mee sends,
My Consort, Father, Friends;
Employment , with Free Speech and Fame ,
And Books to feed the Same.

For This , but most, for thy dear Son ,
My Thanks are now begun .
Help mee, Good God, to love and praise ,
And serve thee all my Dayes.

The Sin of my First Father is
Mine, the Just Law doth say,
The Sin of a Vile Nature , This
Doth unto me Convey.

Innumerable Sins I do
Hence madly Perpetrate;
Sins , which the Good I Have and Know;
Doth sadly aggravate.

But, O my Precious CHRIST, I see,
THOU art my Surety made:
A Full Obedience was by Thee
To Thy Great Father Paid.

Thy Vast Obedience is by Him

(Double ballade sur le mesme propos)

Go, love as much as love you will,
And forth to feasts and banquets stray,
Yet at the end there comes the bill,
And broken heads at break of day.
For light loves make men beasts of prey,
They bent towards idols, Solomon,
From Samson took his eyes away.
Happy is he not so undone.

For this did Orpheus, who could thrill
With pipe and flute the mountains grey,
Come near to death where stands to kill
Four-headed Cerberus at bay;
Also Narcissus, fair as May,
Who in a deep, dark pool did drown

For a song, or a dance, over all the gay plain,
Young Damon was justly esteem'd the best swain;
Yet a great imperfection his mind had impress'd,
He thought beauty a trifle and love but a jest.

As often young Collin to him wou'd repair,
And sighing relate all his anguish and care;
He laugh'd at his folly, and said from his breast,
He thought beauty a trifle, and love but a jest.

Sly Cupid determin'd to take down his pride,
Who impiously dar'd sacred love to deride;
An arrow well aim'd sent twang at his breast,

Recitative .

As on a flowry bank young Thirsis lay;
Thirsis the young, the airy, and the gay,
Who lov'd fair Phaebe with a constant heart,
Devoid of flattery, and devoid of art;
By love inspir'd, he thus unloos'd his tongue,
And to the Cyprian deity he sung.

AIR

Goddess of the Cyprian grove,
Queen of beauty, queen of love;
To thy shrine behold I bend,

What might be done if men were wise —
What glorious deeds, my suffering brother,
Would they unite,
In love and right,
And cease their scorn of one another?

Oppression's heart might be imbued
With kindling drops of loving-kindness,
And knowledge pour,
From shore to shore,
Light on the eyes of mental blindness.

All slavery, warfare, lies, and wrongs,
All vice and crime might die together;

Death is my doom, awarded by Disdain,
A ling'ring death that will not let me die:
This length of life is length'ning of my pain,
And length of pain gets strength of pain thereby:
And strength of pain makes pain of longer last;
Ah, who hath tied my life to pain so fast?

And yet I seem as if I did but feign,
Or make my grief much greater than I need,
Whenas the care to hide my burning pain,
With secret sighs, constrains my heart to bleed: