The Love of Christ

Oh what unparaleld love was this
Christ left his fathers throne
And all the glory, that was his
What streames of love here ran

Now mortalls stand, & maze
Whilst angells pry, and Gaze
When sin for Justise cry'd aloud
Christ came on wings of love

He came with garments dipt in bloud
Love made him swiftly move,
Behold what Love is this I see
For Christ to come and dye for me

On fiery, flames of love he rode
This love made no delay

I

For she loved and lost, — sweet Uma
Did herself no longer prize, —
What is woman's winning beauty
If it please not lover's eyes?
She would move by lofty penance
If her graces failed to move, —
Win by worth and not by beauty
Life's fruition, — heart's true love!
Vainly strove the doting mother
To restrain the wayward child,
Held her in her loving bosom,
Spake to her in accents mild:

To get a Love and Beauty so divine,
(In these so wary times) the fact must be
Of greater fortunes to the world than mine;
Those are the steps to that felicity;
For love no other gate hath than the eyes,
And inward worth is now esteem'd as none;
Mere outsides only to that blessing rise,
Which Truth and Love did once account their own;
Yet as she wants her fairer, she may miss
The common cause of love, and be as free
From earth, as her composure heavenly is;
If not, I restless rest in misery,
And daily wish, to keep me from despair,

AIR.

HE.

A RISE , my fair! the doors unfold,
Receive me shivering with the cold.

RECITATIVE.

S HE. My heart amidst my slumbers wakes
And tells me my beloved speaks.

AIR.

H E. Arise, my fair! the doors unfold,
Receive me shivering with the cold;
The chill drops hang upon my head,

Oh Love! Thou art the sovereign good
To man! We mean not here t'allude,
By love, to amorous wiles,
We mean by love, that plastic will,
By which a human being still
With other's interest his own beguiles.

It is a fact: we know not why
A fact, but most assuredly
One that experience proves,
Where sensibility doth 'bide
(To passion, that, we mean, allied)
Seldom benevolence doth fix her loves.

Those who require love's genial heat
To cause their pulse with health to beat,
By dire fatality,
These, these will be the reprobates
On whom thy retribution waits,
For every hour of past felicity.

The windy hours through darkness fly—
CansThear them, little heart?
New loves are born, and old loves die,
And kissing lips must part.
The dusky bees of passing years—
Canst see them, soul of mine—
From flower and flower supping tears,
And pale sweet honey wine?

O flame that treads the marsh of time,
Flitting for ever low,
Where, through the black enchanted slime,
We, desperate, following go—
Untimely fire, we bid thee stay!
Into dark air above,
The golden gipsy thins away—
So has it been with love!

All round my that I wore a green ribbon,
All round my hat I wore a green ribbon,
All round my hat for a year and a day;
And if any one asks me the reason I wore it
I'll say that my true love went over the sea!

All in my hat I will stick a blue feather
The same as the birds do be up in the tree;
And if you would ask me the reason I do it
I'll tell you my true love is come back to me!

The third daies worke.

O Loue that liuest in that only light,
Which giues all seeing to all gratious Eies:
But keepest thy sence fro that vngodly sight,
That in the darknes of illusion dies:
Lighten my soule that it may cleerely see
How thou in Wisedome Wisedome liues in thee.

The Angels can in their Attonements tell,
How kindly thou do'st make them liue together:
And where the Saints and holy Martirs dwell
The holy Muses bring their Musique thither:
And while the Hoast of all the Heauens reioyce,