O love of God, how strong and true;
Eternal and yet ever new,
Uncomprehended and unbought,
Beyond all knowledge and all thought.

O love of God, how deep and great!
Far deeper than man's deepest hate;
Self-fed, self-kindled like the light,
Changeless, eternal, infinite.

O heavenly love, how precious still,
In days of weariness and ill!
In nights of pain and helplessness,
To heal, to comfort, and to bless.

O wide-embracing, wondrous love,
We read thee in the sky above,
We read thee in the earth below,

Lord with glowing heart I'd praise thee
For the bliss thy love bestows,
For the pardoning grace that saves me,
And the peace that from it flows:

Help, O God, my weak endeavor;
This dull soul to rapture raise:
Thou must light the flame, or never
Can my love be warmed to praise.

Praise, my soul the God who sought thee,
Wretched wand'rer far astray;
Found thee lost, and kindly brought thee
From the paths of death away:

Praise, with love's devoutest feeling,
Him who saw thy guilt-born fear,

Her hands were clasp'd, her dark eyes raised,
The breeze threw back her hair;
Up to the fearful wheel she gazed —
All that she loved was there.
The night was round her clear and cold,
The holy heaven above,
Its pale stars watching to behold
The might of earthly love.

" And bid me not depart, " she cried,
" My Rudolph, say not so!
This is no time to quit thy side,
Peace, peace! I cannot go.
Hath the world aught for me to fear,
When death is on thy brow?
The world! what means it? — mine is here —

1. Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today; And
2. Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white, Like
give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest;
nothing else by day, like ghosts by night; And make us happy
keep us here All simply in the springing of the year.
in the happy bees, The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

3. And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

4. For this is love and nothing else is love.

Weary of all this wordy strife,
These notions, forms, and modes, and names,
To Thee, the Way, the Truth, the Life,
Whose love my simple heart inflames,
Divinely taught, at last I fly,
With Thee, and Thine to live, and die.

Forth from the midst of Babel brought,
Parties and sects I cast behind;
Enlarged my heart, and free my thought,
Where'er the latent truth I find,
The latent truth with joy to own,
And bow to Jesu's name alone.

Redeem'd by Thine almighty grace,
I taste my glorious liberty,
With open arms the world embrace,

A poore soule sate sighing by a sicamore tree,
O willow, willow, willow;
His hand on his bosome, his head on his knee,
O willow, willow, willow;
O willow, willow, willow;
Sing, O the greene willow shall be my garland.

He sigh'd in his singing, and, after each groane,
"Adue to all pleasure, my true love is gone.

Oh, false is she turned; untrue she doth prove;
She renders me nothing, but hate for my love.

Oh, pitty me" (cride he), "you lovers each one,
Her heart's hard as marble, she rues not my moane."

Poets love nature, and themselves are love;
The scorn of fools, and mock of idle pride
The vile in nature worthless deeds approve
They court the vile, and spurn all good beside
Poets love nature, like the calm of heaven
Her gifts like heaven's love spread far and wide
In all her works there are no signs of leaven
Sorrow abashes from her simple pride
Her flowers like pleasures have their seasons birth
And bloom through region[s] here below
They are her very scriptures upon earth
And teach us simple mirth where e'er we go

Before this world's great frame, in which all things
Are now contained, found any being place,
Ere flitting Time could wag his eyas wings
About that mighty bound which doth embrace
The rolling spheres, and parts their hours by space,
That high eternal power, which now doth move
In all these things, moved in itself by love.

It loved itself, because itself was fair,
For fair is loved; and of itself begot
Like to itself his eldest son and heir,
Eternal, pure, and void of sinful blot,
The firstling of his joy, in whom no jot

A pity beyond all telling
Is hid in the heart of love:
The folk who are buying and selling,
The clouds on their journey above
The cold wet winds ever blowing,
And the shadowy hazel grove
Where mouse-grey waters are flowing,
Threaten the head that I love.

Phillis , why should we delay
Pleasures shorter than the day?
Could we (which we never can)
Stretch our lives beyond their span;
Beauty like a shadow flies,
And our youth before us dies;
Or would youth and beauty stay,
Love hath wings, and will away.
Love hath swifter wings than Time;
Change in love to Heaven does clime.
Gods that never change their state,
Vary oft their love and hate.
  Phillis , to this truth we owe,
All the love betwixt us two:
Let not you and I require
What has been our past desire;