Her lamping sight: for she the same could wind Into the solid heart, and, with her ears,

The silence of the thought loud speaking hears, And in one hand a pair of even scales she wears.

No riot of affection revel kept

Within her breast, but a still apathy
Possessed all her soul, which softly slept
Securely without tempest; no sad cry
Awakes her pity, but wrong'd Poverty,
Sending his eyes to heav'n swimming in tears,
With hideous clamours ever struck her ears,
Whetting the blazing sword that in her hand she
bears.

The winged lightning is her Mercury,

And round about her mighty thunders sound:
Impatient of himself lies pining by

Pale Sickness, with his kercher'd head upwound,
And thousand noisome plagues attend her round.
But if her cloudy brow but once grow foul,
The flints do melt, and rocks to water roll,
And airy mountains shake, and frighted shadows
howl.

Famine, and bloodless Care, and bloody War;
Want, and the want of knowledge how to use
Abundance; Age and Fear, that runs afar
Before his fellow Grief, that aye pursues
His winged steps; for who would not refuse
Grief's company, a dull and raw-bon'd spright,
That lanks the cheeks, and pales the freshest sight,
Unbosoming the cheerful breast of all delight?

JUSTICE ADDRESSING THE CREATOR.

UPON two stony tables, spread before her,
She leant her bosom, more than stony hard;
There slept th' impartial judge and strict restorer
Of wrong or right, with pain or with reward;
There hung the score of all our debts-the card
Where good, and bad, and life, and death, were
painted:

Was never heart of mortal so untainted,

But, when that scroll was read, with thousand terrors fainted.

Witness the thunder that Mount Sinai heard,
When all the hill with fiery clouds did flame,
And wandering Israel, with the sight afear'd,
Blinded with seeing, durst not touch the same,
But like a wood of shaking leaves became.
On this dead Justice, she, the living law,
Bowing herself with a majestic awe,

All heaven, to hear her speech, did into silence draw.

MERCY BRIGHTENING THE RAINBOW.

HIGH in the airy element there hung
Another cloudy sea, that did disdain,

As though his purer waves from heaven sprung,
To crawl on earth, as doth the sluggish main;
But it the earth would water with his rain,

That ebb'd and flow'd as wind and season would ; And oft the sun would cleave the limber mould To alabaster rocks, that in the liquid roll'd.

Beneath those sunny banks a darker cloud,
Dropping with thicker dew, did melt apace,
And bent itself into a hollow shroud,
On which, if Mercy did but cast her face,
A thousand colours did the bow enchase,
That wonder was to see the silk distain'd
With the resplendence from her beauty gain'd,
And Iris paint her locks with beams so lively feign'd.

About her head a cypress heav'n she wore,
Spread like a veil upheld with silver wire,
In which the stars so burnt in golden ore,
As seem'd the azure web was all on fire :
But hastily, to quench their sparkling ire,
A flood of milk came rolling up the shore,
That on his curded wave swift Argus wore,
And the immortal swan, that did her life deplore.

Yet strange it was so many stars to see,
Without a sun to give their tapers light:
Yet strange it was not that it so should be;
For, where the sun centres himself by right,
Her face and locks did flame, that at the sight
The heavenly veil, that else should nimbly move,
Forgot his flight, and all incens'd with love,
With wonder, and amazement, did her beauty
prove.

Over her hung a canopy of state,
Not of rich tissue, nor of spangled gold,

But of a substance, though not animate,
Yet of a heavenly and spiritual mould,
That only eyes of spirits might behold:
Such light as from main rocks of diamond,
Shooting their sparks at Phoebus, would rebound,
And little angels, holding hands, danc'd all around.

CHRIST'S TRIUMPH AFTER DEATH.

BUT now the second morning from her bow'r
Began to glister in her beams, and now
The roses of the day began to flow'r

In th' eastern garden; for heav'n's smiling brow
Half insolent for joy begun to show;

The early sun came lively dancing out,

And the brag lambs ran wantoning about, That heav'n and earth might seem in triumph both to shout.

Th' engladden'd spring, forgetful now to weep,
Began t' eblazon from her leavy bed:

The waking swallow broke her half-year's sleep,
And every bush lay deeply purpured

With violets; the wood's late wint❜ry head
Wide flaming primroses set all on fire,

And his bald trees put on their green attire, Among whose infant leaves the joyous birds conspire.

And now the taller sons (whom Titan warms) Of unshorn mountains, blown with easy winds, Dandled the morning's childhood in their arms,

And, if they chanc'd to slip the prouder pines,
The under corylets did catch the shines,

To gild their leaves; saw never happy year
Such joyful triumph, and triumphant cheer,
As though the aged world anew created were.

Say, earth, why hast thou got thee new attire,
And stick'st thy habit full of daisies red?
Seems that thou dost to some high thought aspire,
And some new-found-out bridegroom mean'st to
wed:

Tell me, ye trees, so fresh apparelled,

So never let the spiteful canker waste you, So never let the heav'ns with lightning blast you: Why go you now so trimly drest, or whither haste you?

Answer me, Jordan, why thy crooked tide
So often wanders from his nearest way,

As though some other way thy stream would slide,
And fain salute the place where something lay.
And you, sweet birds, that, shaded from the ray,
Sit carolling, and piping grief away,

The while the lambs to hear you dance and play, Tell me, sweet birds, what is it you so fain would say?

And thou, fair spouse of earth, that every year
Gett'st such a numerous issue of thy bride,
How chance thou hotter shin'st, and draw'st more
near?

Sure thou somewhere some worthy sight hast spy'd,
That in one place for joy thou can'st not hide;
And you,
dead swallows, that so lively now
Through the fleet air your winged passage row,
How could new life into your frozen ashes flow?