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No less Thou notest when I rise;
Yea, closest closet of my thought
Hath open windows to Thine eyes.

Thou walkest with me when I walk;
When to my bed for rest I
I find Thee there,

And everywhere;

go

Not youngest thought in me doth grow, No, not one word I cast to talk, But yet unuttered Thou dost know.

eye,

To shun Thy notice, leave Thine
O whither might I take my way?
To starry sphere ?

Thy throne is there.

To dead men's undelightsome stay? There is Thy walk, and there to lie Unknown, in vain I should essay.

O sun, whom light nor flight can match,
Suppose Thy lightful, flightful wings
Thou lend to me,

And I could flee,

As far as thee the evening brings; Even led to west He would me catch, Nor should I lurk with western things.

Do thou thy best, O secret night,
In sable veil to cover me;
The sable veil

Shall vainly fail;

With day unmasked my night shall be: For night is day, and darkness light, O Father of all lights, to thee.

COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE.

God's Eyen.

If our God we had forsaken,
Or forgot what he assign'd,
If ourselves we had betaken

Gods to serve of other kind,
Should not He our doubling find,
Though concealed and closely lurking?
Since his eye of deepest mind,
Deeper sinks than deepest working.

COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE.

Reality of a True Religion.

For sure in all kinds of hypocrisy
No bodies yet are found of constant being;
No uniform, no stable mystery,

No inward nature, but an outward seeming;
No solid truth, no virtue, holiness,

But types of these, which time makes more or less.

And from these springs, strange inundations flow,
To drown the sea-marks of humanity,

With massacres, conspiracy, treason, woe,
By sects and schisms profaning Deity;

Besides, with furies, fiends, earth, air and hell,
They fit, and teach confusion to rebel.

But, as there lives a true God in the heaven,
So is there true religion here on earth:
By nature? No, by grace; not got, but given;
Inspir'd, not taught; from God a second birth;
God dwelleth near about us, even within,
Working the goodness, censuring the sin.

Such as we are to Him, to us is He,
Without God there was no man ever good;
Divine the author and the matter be,

Where goodness must be wrought in flesh and blood: Religion stands not in corrupted things,

But virtues that descend have heavenly wings.

LORD BROOKE.

Religion.

FOR what else is religion in mankind,
But raising of God's image there decay'd?
No habit, but a hallowed state of mind
Working in us, that he may be obey'd;
As God by it with us communicates,
So we by duties must with all estates.

With our Creator, by sincere devotion;
With creatures, by observance and affection;
Superiors by respect of their promotion;
Inferiors, with the nature of protection;

With all, by using all things of our own
For other's good, not to ourselves alone.

And even this sacred band, this heavenly breath
In man his understanding, knowledge is ;
Obedience in his will; in conscience faith;
Affections, love; in death itself a bliss ;
In body, temp'rance; life, humility;
Pledge to the mortal of eternity.

Pure only where God makes the spirits pure :
It perfect grows, as imperfection dies;

Built on the rock of truth that shall endure;
A spirit of God, that needs must multiply;
He shows his glory clearly to the best,
Appears in clouds and darkness to the rest.

LORD BROOKE.

True Use of knowledge.

THE chief use then in man of that he knows,
Is his painstaking for the good of all,
Not fleshly weeping for our own made woes,
Not laughing from a melancholy gall,
Not hating from a soul that overflows
With bitterness, breath'd out from inward thrall;
"But sweetly rather to ease, loose, or bind,
As need requires, this frail, fall'n humankind."

Yet some seek knowledge, merely to be known,
And idle curiosity that is;

Some but to sell, not freely to bestow,

These gain and spend both time and wealth amiss;
Embasing hearts, by basely deeming so;

Some to build others, which is charity;
But these to build themselves, who wise men be.

And to conclude, whether we would erect
Ourselves, or others, by this choice of arts,
Our chief endeavour must be to effect
A sound foundation, not on sandy parts

Of light opinion, selfness, words of men,

But that sure rock of truth, God's word, or pen.

Next, that we do not overbuild our states,
In searching secrets of the Deity,

Obscurities of nature, casualty of fates,
But measure first our own humanity,
Then on our gifts impose an equal rate,
And so seek wisdom with sobriety :

"Not curious what our fellows ought to do,
But what our own creation binds us to."

Thus are true learnings in the humble heart,
A spiritual work, raising God's image, razed
By our transgression; a well-framed art,
At which the world and error stand amazed;
A light divine, where man sees joy; a heart
Immortal, in this mortal body placed;

A wisdom, which The Wisdom us assureth
With hers even to the sight of God endureth.

a Prayer.

LORD BROOKE.

PLANT, Lord, in me, the tree of godly life,
Hedge me about with Thy strong fence of faith;
If Thee it please, use eke Thy pruning-knife,
Lest that, O Lord! as a good gardener saith-
If suckers draw the sap from bows on high,
Perhaps in time the top of tree may

die.

Let, Lord, this tree be set within Thy garden wall Of Paradise, where grows no one ill spring at all.

SIR NICHOLAS BRETON.

Gloria in Excelsis Deo.

O HOLY essence of all holiness;
Grace of all glory; glory of all grace;
Perfection's virtue; virtue's perfectness;
Place of all beauty; beauty of all place;

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