Blog

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; My sin was t…

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; My sin was too much hope of thee, lov’d boy. Seven years tho’ wert lent to me, and I thee pay, Exacted by thy fate, on the just day. O, could I lose all father now! For why Will man lament the state he should envy? To have so soon ‘scap’d world’s and flesh’s rage, And if no other misery, yet age? Rest in soft peace, and, ask’d, say, “Here doth lie Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry.” For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such, As what he loves may never like too much.

Lord, how can man preach thy eternall word?                 …

Lord, how can man preach thy eternall word?                   He is a brittle crazie glasse: Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford                   This glorious and transcendent place,                   To be a window, through thy grace.   But when thou dost anneal in glasse thy storie,                   Making thy life to shine within The holy Preachers; then the light and glorie                   More rev’rend grows, & more doth win:                   Which else shows watrish, bleak, & thin.   Doctrine and life, colours and light, in one                   When they combine and mingle, bring A strong regard and aw: but speech alone                   Doth vanish like a flaring thing,                   And in the eare, not conscience ring.