William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. If I Could Shut the Gate against My Thoughts By John Danyel (1564–c. 1626)
IF 1 I could shut the gate against my thoughts And keep out sorrow from this room within, Or memory could cancel all the notes Of my misdeeds, and I unthink my sin: How free, how clear, how clean my soul should lie, 5 Discharged of such a loathsome company! Or were there other rooms without my heart That did not to my conscience join so near, Where I might lodge the thoughts of sin apart That I might not their clam’rous crying hear; 10 What peace, what joy, what ease should I possess, Freed from their horrors that my soul oppress! But, O my Saviour, who my refuge art, Let Thy dear mercies stand ’twixt them and me, And be the wall to separate my heart 15 So that I may at length repose me free; That peace, and joy, and rest may be within, And I remain divided from my sin.
Note 1. Songs for the Lute, Viol, and Voice, 1606. It is supposed that the author of this poem was a brother of Samuel Daniel. Little is known of him except that he was one of the court musicians of Charles I., and the publisher of his brother’s works in 1623. [back ]
