A SONG. ORD, when the sense of Thy sweet grace O Love! I am thy sacrifice, SECOND PART. Though still I die, I live again, TO MISTRESS M. R.* COUNSEL CONCERNING HER CHOICE. EAR, heav'n-designed soul! Amongst the rest Of suitors that besiege your maiden breast, My fortune try, And venture to speak one good word, Not for myself, alas! but for my dearer Lord? Peacocks and apes, Illustrious flies, Gilded dunghills, glorious lies, And deep disguises, Oaths of water, words of wind? Truth bids me say, 'tis time you ceased to trust Your soul to any son of dust. 'Tis time you listen to a braver love, Which from above Calls you up higher, * See antea, p. 61. Among his own fair sons of fire, Where you among The golden throng, That watches at his palace doors, May pass along And follow those fair stars of yours; Sweet, let me prophesy that at last 'twill prove Lays up his purer and more precious vows, And means them for a far more worthy spouse Than this world of lies can give ye, Ev'n for him with whom nor cost, Nor love, nor labour can be lost; Him who never will deceive ye. Let not my Lord, the mighty lover The hidden art Of His high stratagem to win your heart. It was His heav'nly art Kindly to cross you In your mistaken love, That, at the next remove, Thence He might toss you, And strike your troubled heart Home to Himself, to hide it in His breast, Of love, of life, and everlasting rest. That thus shall wake Your wise soul, never to be won Now with a love below the sun. Your first choice fails; O, when you choose again, ALEXIAS. The Complaint of the forsaken wife of Saint Alexis. THE FIRST ELEGY. LATE the Roman youth's loved praise and Whom long none could obtain, though Lo, here am left, alas! for my lost mate Nor can I tell, and this new tears doth breed, In what strange path my Lord's fair footsteps bleed. O, knew I where he wander'd, I should see Some solace in my sorrow's certainty; I'd send my woes in words should weep for me. Who knows my own heart's woes so well as I? way, To bear me harmless through the hardest things: O, live so rare a love! live! and in thee Farewell, and shine, fair soul, shine there above, THE SECOND ELEGY. HOUGH all the joys I had fled hence with thee, Unkind! yet are my tears still true to me; I'm wedded o'er again since thou art gone, Nor could'st thou, cruel, leave me quite alone. |