IL DIVOTO. DESCRIPTION OF A RELIGIOUS HOUSE AND CONDITION OF LIFE. 10 roofs of gold o'er riotous tables shining, Whole days and suns devour'd with endless dining: No sails of Tyrian silk proud pavements Nor ivory couches costlier slumbers keeping, Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep, Hands full of hearty labours: pains that pay And prize themselves-do much, that more they may. No cruel guard of diligent cares, that keep Crown'd woes awake, as things too wise for sleep : But reverend discipline, religious fear, And soft obedience, find sweet biding here; Silence and sacred rest, peace and pure joys Kind loves keep house, lie close, and make no noise: And room enough for monarchs, while none swells Beyond the limits of contentful cells. The self-remembering soul sweetly recovers Her kindred with the stars: not basely hovers Home to the source of light and intellectual day. CRASHAW. NOX NOCTI INDICAT SCIENTIAM. HEN I survey the bright Celestial sphere, So rich with jewels hung, that night My soul her wings doth spread, The Almighty's mysteries to read, In the large volumes of the skies. For the bright firmament So silent, but is eloquent In speaking the Creator's name. No unregarded star Contracts its light Into so small a character, Removed far from our human sight, But, if we steadfast look, We shall discern In it, as in some holy book, How man may heavenly knowledge learn. It tells the conqueror, That far-stretch'd power, Which his proud dangers grapple for, Is but the triumph of an hour. That from the farthest North Some nation may, Yet undiscover'd, issue forth, And o'er his new-got conquest sway. Some nation yet shut in With hills of ice, May be let out to scourge his sin, Till it shall equal him in vice. H And then it likewise shall For, as yourselves, your empires fall, Thus those celestial fires, Though seeming mute, The fallacy of our desires, And all the pride of life, confute. For they have watch'd, since first And found sin in itself accurst, And nothing permanent on earth. HABINGTON. ON A HERMITAGE. O the cold, humble hermitage, (Not tenanted but by discolour'd age, Or youth enfeebled by long prayer, And tame with fasts,) the Almighty doth repair But from the lofty gilded roof, Stain'd with some pagan fiction, keeps aloof; Nor the gay landlord deigns to know, Whose buildings are like monsters kept for show. O rather may I patient dwell In th' injuries of an ill-cover'd cell, 'Gainst whose too weak defence the hail, The angry winds, and frequent showers prevail; Be the sole taper to the tedious night. Diet enough to make me feel I live. And air dispeople, your proud taste to please, Who varies still his tribute with the day: While who, forgetting rest and fare, Watcheth the fall and rising of each star, Ponders how bright the orbs do move, And thence how much more bright the heavens above: Where, on the heads of Cherubins, The Almighty sits, disdaining our bold sins, HABINGTON. |