Richard Baxter.

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Born 1615.

Died 1691.

THIS eminent divine, though well known for his prose writings, especially his "Saint's Everlasting Rest," is scarcely known to have been a writer of verse, yet many of his pieces are exceedingly beautiful, and breathe the very essence of Christian piety.

FAITH AMIDST TRIALS.

I TURN'D my back on worldly toys,
And set my face towards glory's shore;
Where Thou hast promised highest joys,
And blessedness for ever more.

I took my leave of sin and earth;
What I had loved, I now did hate;
Ashamed of my former birth,
I gave my life a newer date.

But since that time, how I am tost!
Afraid of every storm and wave,
Almost concluding I am lost,

As if Thou wouldst not help and save.
If I look out beyond thine ark,
Nothing but raging floods I see;
On this side heaven all's deep and dark,
But I look farther unto Thee.

Spare Lord, and pity thy poor dust,
That fled into thy ark for peace;
O cause my soul on Thee to trust!
And do not my distress increase.
O keep up life and peace within,
If I must feel thy chastening rod!
Yet kill not me, but kill my sin;
And let me know, Thou art my God.

Why art thou, fainting soul, cast down?
And thus disquieted with fears?
Art thou not passing to thy crown,
Through storms of pain and floods of tears?
Fear not, O thou of little faith!
Art thou not in thy Saviour's hand?
Remember what his promise saith;
Life and death are at his command.

To Him I did myself intrust,
When first I did for heaven embark,
And he hath proved kind and just;
Still I am with him in his ark.
Couldst thou expect to see no seas?
Nor feel no tossing wind or wave?
It is enough that from all these
Thy faithful pilot will thee save.

Lord, let me not my covenant break;
Once I did all to Thee resign;
Only the words of comfort speak,
And tell my soul that I am thine.
It is no death when souls depart,
If Thou depart not from the soul:
Fill with thy love my fainting heart,
And I'll not fading flesh condole.

My God, my love, my hope, my life!
Shall I be loath to see thy face?
As if this world of sin and strife,
Were for my soul a better place?
O give my soul some sweet foretaste
Of that which I shall shortly see!
Let faith and love cry to the last,
Come, Lord, I trust myself with Thee.

Abraham Cowley.

Born 1618.

Died 1667.

COWLEY was exceedingly popular in his own times, though he is somewhat neglected now. He began to write poetry in early life, having published a volume of poems in his thirteenth year. It is said he was incited to poetical composition by having read Spenser's "Faery Queen," which used to lie on his mother's table. Cowley was born in London in 1618, and after receiving his early education at Westminister, he was sent to Cambridge, in which University he obtained a fellowship. He resided there till 1643, when he was ejected by the parliamentary visitors as being a royalist. He joined Charles II. in France, but was very coldly received. After the Restoration he was more kindly treated, and obtained a grant or lease of some lands, which yielded him £300 a-year. retired on this income to Chertsey, where he lived for seven years. died 28th July 1667.

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ON THE DEATH OF MR CRASHAW.

POET and saint! To thee alone are given
The two most sacred names of earth and heaven;
The hard and rarest union which can be,
Next that of Godhead, with humanity.

Long did the Muses banished slaves abide,
And build vain pyramids to mortal pride;

Like Moses thou-though spells and charms withstand--
Hast brought them nobly home, back to their holy land.

How well, blest swan, did Fate contrive thy death,
And make thee render up thy tuneful breath
In thy great mistress' arms! Thou most divine
And richest offering of Loretto's shrine,
Where, like some holy sacrifice t' expire,
A fever burns thee, and Love lights the fire.
Angels, they say, brought the famed chapel there,
And bore the sacred load in triumph through the air.
'Tis surer much they brought thee there, and they
And thou, their charge, went singing all the way.
Pardon, my mother-church, if I consent

That angels led him when from thee he went ;
For even in error sure no danger is,
When joined with so much piety as his.
Ah, mighty God, with shame I speak't and grief;
Ah, that our greatest faults were in belief!
And our weak reason were ev'n weaker yet,
Rather than thus our wills too strong for it.
His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right;
And I myself a Catholic will be,

So far, at least, great saint, to pray to thee.
Hail, bard triumphant, and some care bestow
On us the poets militant below,

Opposed by our old enemy, adverse chance,
Attacked by envy and by ignorance,
Enchained by beauty, tortured by desires,
Exposed by tyrant love to savage beasts and fires;
Thou from low earth in nobler flames didst rise,
And, like Elijah, mount, alive, the skies!

HEAVEN AND HELL.

(From the Davideis.)

SLEEP on! Rest, quiet as thy conscience, take,
For though thou sleep'st thyself, thy God's awake.
Above the subtle foldings of the sky,

Above the well-set orbs' soft harmony;
Above those petty lamps that gild the night,
There is a place o'erflown with hallowed light;
Where heaven, as if it left itself behind,

Is stretched out far, nor its own bounds can find:
Here peaceful flames swell up the sacred place,
Nor can the glory contain itself in th' endless space.
For there no twilight of the sun's dull ray
Glimmers upon the pure and native day.
No pale-faced moon does in stolen beams appear,
Or with dim tapers scatter darkness there.
On no smooth sphere the restless seasons slide,
No circling motion doth swift time divide ;
Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal Now does always last.
Beneath the silent chambers of the earth,
Where the sun's fruitful beams give metals birth,
Where he the growth of fatal gold does see-
Gold which above more influence has than he-
Beneath the dens where unfledged tempests lie,
And infant winds their tender voices try;
Beneath the mighty ocean's wealthy caves;
Beneath the eternal fountain of the waves,
Where their vast court the mother-waters keep,
And, undisturbed by moons, in silence sleep,
There is a place, deep, wondrous deep below,
Which genuine Night and Horror does e'erflow:
No bound controls the unwearied space but hell,
Endless as those dire pains that in it dwell.
Here no dear glimpse of the sun's lovely face
Strikes through the solid darkness of the place;
No dawning morn does her kind red display;
One slight weak beam would here be thought the day;
No gentle stars, with their fair gems of light,
Offend the tyrannous and unquestioned night.
Here Lucifer, the mighty captive, reigns,
Proud 'midst his woes, and tyrant in his chains,

Once general of a gilded host of sprites,
Like Hesper leading forth the spangled nights;
But down like lightning which him struck he came,
And roared at his first plunge into the flame.
Myriads of spirits fell wounded round him there;
With dropping lights thick shone the singed air.

HYMN TO LIGHT.

FIRST born of Chaos, who so fair didst come
From the old negro's darksome womb,

Which, when it saw the lovely child,

The melancholy mass put on kind looks and smiled.

Thou tide of glory which no rest doth know,

But ever ebb and ever flow!

Thou golden shower of a true Jove!

Who does in thee descend, and heaven to earth make love!

Say, from what golden quivers of the sky

Do all thy wingèd arrows fly?

Swiftness and power by birth are thine;

From thy great Sire they come, thy Sire, the Word Divine.
Thou in the moon's bright chariot, proud and gay,
Dost thy bright wood of stars survey,

And all the year dost with thee bring

Of thousand flowery lights thine own nocturnal spring.
Thou, Scythian-like, dost round thy lands above
The sun's gilt tent for ever move,

And still, as thou in pomp dost go,

The shining pageants of the world attend thy show.

THE SHORTNESS OF LIFE AND UNCERTAINTY

OF RICHES.

WHY dost thou heap up wealth, which thou must quit,

Or, what is worst, be left by it?

Why dost thou load thyself when thou'rt to fly,

Oh, man! ordained to die?

Why dost thou build up stately rooms on high,

Thou who art under ground to lie?

Thou sow'st and plantest, but no fruit must see,
For Death, alas! is reaping thee.