Of soul; dear and divine annihilations;

A thousand unknown rites

Of joys, and rarified delights;

An hundred thousand goods, glories, and graces;

And many a mystic thing,

Which the divine embraces

Of the dear Spouse of spirits, with them will bring;
For which it is no shame

That dull mortality must not know a name.

Of all this store

Of blessings, and ten thousand more

(If when He come

He find the heart from home)

Doubtless He will unload

Himself some otherwhere,

And pour abroad

His precious sweets

On the fair soul whom first He meets.

O fair! O fortunate! O rich! O dear!
O happy and thrice-happy she,
Dear selected dove

Whoe'er she be,

Whose early love

With winged vows,

Makes haste to meet her morning Spouse,
And close with His immortal kisses.

Happy indeed who never misses

To improve that precious hour,

And every day

Seize her sweet prey,

All fresh and fragrant as He rises,
Dropping with a balmy shower
A delicious dew of spices;

O let the blissful heart hold fast

Her heavenly armful; she shall taste
At once ten thousand paradises;

She shall have power

To rifle and deflower

The rich and roseal spring of those rare sweets,
Which with a swelling bosom there she meets :
Boundless and infinite, bottomless treasures
Of pure inebriating pleasures.
Happy proof! she shall discover

What joy, what bliss,

How many heavens at once it is To have her God become her Lover.

:0:

TO THE SAME PARTY:

COUNSEL CONCERNING HER CHOICE.

Dear, Heaven designéd soul !

Amongst the rest

Of suitors that besiege your maiden breast

Why may not I

My fortune try

And venture to speak one good word,
Not for myself, alas! but for my dearer Lord?
You have seen already in this lower sphere
Of froth and bubbles, what to look for here :
Say, gentle soul, what can you find
But painted shapes,

Peacocks and apes,

Illustrious flies,

Gilded dunghills, glorious lies;
Goodly surmises

And deep disguises,

Oaths of water, words of wind?

Truth bids me say 'tis time you cease to trust

Your soul to any son of dust.

'Tis time you listen to a braver love,

Which from above

Calls you up higher

And bids you come

And choose your room

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;

Stars much too fair and pure to wait upon

-The false smiles of a sublunary sun.

Sweet, let me prophesy that at last 't will prove

Your wary love

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:

Even 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
Of souls, disdain that I discover
The hidden art

Of His high stratagem to win your heart :
It was His heavenly 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,
The bright ambrosial nest

Of Love, of life, and everlasting rest.
Happy mistake!

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

May it not be among the sons of men !

Alerías:

THE COMPLAINT OF THE FORSAKEN WIFE OF SAINT ALEXIS.

THE FIRST ELEGY.

I, LATE the Roman youth's loved praise and pride, Whom long none could obtain, though thousands tried; Lo, here am left (alas !) for my lost mate

T' embrace my tears, and kiss an unkind fate.

Sure in my early woes stars were at strife,

And tried to make a widow e'er a wife.

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 how powerful well-writ prayers would be?)
Sending's too slow a word; myself would fly.
Who knows my own heart's woes so well as I?
But how shall I steal hence? Alexis, thou,
Ah thou thyself, alas! hast taught me how.
Love too, that leads the way, would lend the wings
To bear me harmless through the hardest things
And where Love lends the wing, and leads the way,
What dangers can there be dare say me nay?
If I be shipwreck'd, Love shall teach to swim;
If drown'd, sweet is the death endured for him ;
The noted sea shall change his name with me;
I'mongst the blest stars a new name shall be ;