What I possess, or what I crave,
Brings no content, great God, to me,
If what I would, or what I have,

Be not possest and blest in Thee;
What I enjoy, O make it mine,
In making me, that have it, Thine!

When winter-fortunes cloud the brows

Of summer friends; when eyes grow strange; When plighted faith forgets its vows;

When earth and all things in it change;

O Lord, Thy mercies fail me never:
Where once Thou lov'st, Thou lov'st for ever.

Great God! whose kingdom hath no end,
Into whose secrets none can dive,
Whose mercy none can apprehend,
Whose justice none can feel and live,
What my dull heart cannot aspire
To know, Lord, teach me to admire.

GEORGE HERBERT.

Born, 1593; Died, 1632.

THE GIFTS OF GOD.

WHEN God at first made man,

Having a glass of blessings standing by;
Let Us (said He) pour on him all we can :
Let the world's riches, which disperséd lie,
Contract into a span.

So strength first made a way ;

Then beauty flow'd, then wisdom, honour, pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone, of all His treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay.

For if I should (said He)

Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of Me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature :
So both should losers be.

Yet let him keep the rest,

But keep them with repining restlessness:
Let him be sick and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast.

CONSTANCY.

WHO is the honest man?

He that doth still and strongly good pursue,
To God, his neighbour, and himself most true :
Whom neither force nor fawning can
Unpin, or wrench from giving all their due.

Whose honesty is not

So loose or easy, that a ruffling wind
Can blow away, or glittering look it blind :
Who rides his sure and even trot,

While the world now rides by, now lags behind.

Who when great trials come,

Nor seeks, nor shuns them, but doth calmly stay, Till he the thing and the example weigh:

All being brought into a sum,

What place or person calls for, he doth pay.

Whom none can work or woo

To use in anything a trick or sleight ;
For above all things he abhors deceit :
His words and works and fashion too
All of a piece, and all are clear and straight.

Who never melts or thaws

At close temptations: when the day is done,
His goodness sets not, but in dark can run :
The sun to others writeth laws,

And is their virtue; virtue is his sun.

Whom nothing can procure,

When the wide world runs bias, from his will
To writhe his limbs, and share, not mend, the ill.
This is the marksman, safe and sure,
Who still is right, and prays to be so still.

SIN.

LORD, with what care hast Thou begirt us round!

Parents first season us: then schoolmasters

Deliver us to laws; they send us bound
To rules of reason, holy messengers,

Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin,
Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes,
Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in,
Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,

Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness,
The sound of glory ringing in our ears:
Without, our shame; within, our consciences :
Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears.

Yet all these fences and their whole array
One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away.

JAMES SHIRLEY.
Born, 1596; Died, 1666.

DEATH'S FINAL CONQUEST.

THE glories of our birth and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate:
Death lays his icy hand on kings;
Sceptre and crown

Must tumble down,

And in the dust be equal made

With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,

And plant fresh laurels where they kill ;

But their strong nerves at last must yield,
They tame but one another still;

Early or late,

They stoop to fate,

And must give up their murmuring breath,
When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow;

Then boast no more your mighty deeds;
Upon death's purple altar, now,

See where the victor victim bleeds:

All heads must come

To the cold tomb;

Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust.

ASCRIBED TO NICHOLAS BRETON.

Age of Queen Elizabeth.

I WOULD I were an excellent divine,
That had the Bible at my fingers' ends,
That men might hear out of this mouth of mine
How God doth make His enemies His friends;
Rather than with a thundering and long prayer
Be led into presumption, or despair.

This would I be, and would none other be

But a religious servant of my God: And know there is no other God but He,

And willingly to suffer Mercy's rod,

Joy in His grace, and live but in His love,
And seek my bliss but in the world above.

And I would frame a kind of faithful prayer
For all estates within the state of grace;
That careful love might never know despair,

Nor servile fear might faithful love deface;
And this would I both day and night devise
To make my humble spirits exercise.