dots-menu
×

Edward Farr, ed. Select Poetry of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. 1845.

Stanzas from “The Passions of the Spirit”

LXIII. Anonymous

COME all the world,

And call your wits together;

Borrow some pennes

Out of the angells’ wings;

Intreat the heauens

To send their muses hether,

To help your soules

To write of sacred things.

Prophane conceits

Must all bee cast away:

The night is past,

And you must take the day.

Speake not of sinne,

It beareth no part heere;

But write of grace

And whence hir glory grue.

Think of the loue

That to the life is deere,

And of the life

To whom all loue is due:

And then sit downe

In glory all to sing,

All to the glory

Of our glorious King.

First make your grounds

Of faithful holinesse;

Then your deuisions

Of deuine desires:

Let all your rests

Bee hopes of happinesse,

Which mercies musicke

In the soule requires:

Let all your sharps

Bee feares of faithfull harts;

And all your flats

The death of your desarts.

Yet rise and fall

As hope and feare directs

The nature of each note

In space or line:

And let your voices

Carry such effects,

As may approue

Your passions are deuine.

Then let your consorts

All in one agree,

To God alone

All onely glory bee.

Then let the dittie

Bee the deerest thought,

That may reuiue

The dying hart of loue;

That onely mercy

On the soule hath wrought

The happie comfort

Of the heauens to moue:

Then let your sound

Unto the heauens ascend,

And all your closes

All in glory end.

Glory to Him

That sitteth on the throne,

With all the hoast

Of all the heauens attended;

Who all things made,

And governes all alone,

Vanquisht his foes,

And all his flock defended;

And by his power

His chosen soules preserueth

To sing his praise,

That so all praise deserueth.

And whilst all soules

Are to him glory singing,

Let mee, poore wretch,

Not wholly hold my peace;

But let my teares,

From mercie glory springing,

Keepe time to that sweet song:

May they neuer seace,

That while my soule

Doth my God adore,

I may yet sing Amen,

Although no more.