My God most glad to look, most prone to heare An Open eare O let my prayer find And from my plaint turn not Thy face away Behold my gestures, hearken what I say While uttring moanes with most tormented mind My body I no lesse torment and teare For lo, their fearfull threatnings wound myne eare Who greifes on greifes on me still heaping lay A mark to wrath and hate and wrong assign'd Therfore my heart hath all his force resignd To trembling pants; Deaths terrors on me prey I feare, nay shake, nay quivering quake with feare. Then say I, O, might I but cutt the Wind Born on the wing the fearfull Dove doth beare Stay would I not, till I in rest might stay Farr hence, O farr then would I take my way Unto the desert and repose me there. These stormes of Woe, these tempests left behind But swallow them O Lord in darkness blind Confound their Counsels, lead their tongues astray That what they meane by words may not appeare For Mother Wrong within their town each where And Daughter strife their ensigns so display As if they only thither were confin'd. These walk their Citty walls both night and day Oppressions, tumults, guiles of evry kind Are Burgesses and dwell the middle neare About their streets, his masquing robes doth weare Mischeife cloth'd in deceit with treason lin'd Where only hee, hee only beares the sway. But not my Foe with me this prank did play For then I would born with patient chere An unkind part, from whom I knew unkind Nor hee whose forehead envys mark had signd His Trophys on my ruins sought to reare From whom to fly I might have made assay. But this to Thee, to Thee impute I may My Fellow, my Companion, held most deare My soul, my other self, my inward friend Whom unto me, me unto whom did bind Exchanged secrets, who together were Gods temple wont to visit; there to pray O let a suddain Death work their decay Who speaking faire such cankred malice mind Let them be buryed breathing from their beere But purple Morn, black even and mid-day cleare Shall see my praying voice to God enclin'd Rousing him up, and naught shall me dismay. He ransom'd me, be for my safty find In fight where many sought my Soul to slay He still himself to no succeding heire Leaving his empire shall no more forbeare. But att my motion all these Atheists pay By whom still One, such mischeifes are designd Who but such Catives would have undermin'd Nay overthrown, from whom but kindness meere. They never found? Who would such trust betray? What butterd words? yet warr their hearts bewray Their speed more sharp, than sharpest sword or speare Yet softer flowes than balm from wounded rinde. But my oreloaden soul Thy self upcheare Cast^1^ on Gods shoulders what Thee down doth weigh Long born by Thee, with bearing paind and pin'd To care for Thee He shall be ever kind By him the just in safety held^2^ alway Changeless^3^ shall enter, love, and leave the yeare But Lord how long shall these men tarry here? Fling them in pitt of Death where never shin'd The light of Life, and while I make my stay On Thee, let who their thirst with blood allay Have their life holding thred so weakely twin'd That it half spun, Death may in sunder sheare. ^FOOTNOTES^ ^1^ @3Lay@1, expunged. ^2^ @3kept@1, expunged. ^3^ @3fearelesse@1, expunged. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ASIAN BIRDS by ROBERT SEYMOUR BRIDGES THE RUINED MAID by THOMAS HARDY SONNET by MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI THE ANGEL IN THE HOUSE: BOOK 2. CANTO 8. PRELUDE: THE KISS by COVENTRY KERSEY DIGHTON PATMORE THE SHOOTING OF DAN MCGREW by ROBERT WILLIAM SERVICE |