The Passion

2Ere-while of Musick, and Ethereal mirth,

3Wherwith the stage of Ayr and Earth did ring,

4And joyous news of heav'nly Infants birth,

5My muse with Angels did divide to sing;

6But headlong joy is ever on the wing,

7In Wintry solstice like the shortn'd light

8Soon swallow'd up in dark and long out-living night.

9II

10For now to sorrow must I tune my song,

11And set my Harpe to notes of saddest wo,

12Which on our dearest Lord did sease er'e long,

13Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse then so,

14Which he for us did freely undergo.

15Most perfect Heroe, try'd in heaviest plight

16Of labours huge and hard, too hard for human wight.

17III

18He sov'ran Priest stooping his regall head

19That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes,

20Poor fleshly Tabernacle entered,

21His starry front low-rooft beneath the skies;

22O what a Mask was there, what a disguise!

23Yet more; the stroke of death he must abide,

24Then lies him meekly down fast by his Brethrens side.

25IV

26These latter scenes confine my roving vers,

27To this Horizon is my Phoebus bound,

28His Godlike acts, and his temptations fierce,

29And former sufferings other where are found;

30Loud o're the rest Cremona's Trump doth sound;

31Me softer airs befit, and softer strings

32Of Lute, or Viol still, more apt for mournful things.

33Note: 22 latter] latest 1673.

34V

35Befriend me night best Patroness of grief,

36Over the Pole thy thickest mantle throw,

37And work my flatterd fancy to belief,

38That Heav'n and Earth are colour'd with my wo;

39My sorrows are too dark for day to know:

40The leaves should all be black wheron I write,

41And letters where my tears have washt a wannish white.

42VI

43See see the Chariot, and those rushing wheels,

44That whirl'd the Prophet up at Chebar flood,

45My spirit som transporting Cherub feels,

46To bear me where the Towers of Salem stood,

47Once glorious Towers, now sunk in guiltles blood;

48There doth my soul in holy vision sit

49In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatick fit.

50VII

51Mine eye hath found that sad Sepulchral rock

52That was the Casket of Heav'ns richest store,

53And here though grief my feeble hands up-lock,

54Yet on the softned Quarry would I score

55My plaining vers as lively as before;

56For sure so well instructed are my tears,

57They would fitly fall in order'd Characters.

58VIII

59I thence hurried on viewles wing,

60Take up a weeping on the Mountains wilde,

61The gentle neighbourhood of grove and spring

62Would soon unboosom all their Echoes milde,

63And I (for grief is easily beguild)

64Might think th'infection of my sorrows bound,

65Had got a race of mourners on som pregnant cloud.

66Note: This subject the Author finding to be above the yeers he had,

67when he wrote it, and nothing satisfi'd with what was begun,

68left it unfinish'd.