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Adored of all the powers of heavens bright!
Lo, where that head that bled with thorny wound,
Shines ever with celestial honour crowned!
That hand that held the scornful reed
Makes all the fiends infernal dread.
That back and side that ran with bloody streams
Daunt angels' eyes with their majestic beams;
Those feet, once fastened to the cursed tree,
Trample on Death and Hell, in glorious glee.
Those lips, once drenched with gall, do make
With their dread doom the world to quake.
Behold those joys thou never canst behold;
Those precious gates of pearl, those streets of gold,
Those streams of life, those trees of Paradise
That never can be seen by mortal eyes!
And when thou seest this state divine,
Think that it is or shall be thine.
See there the happy troops of purest sprites
That live above in endless true delights!
And see where once thyself shalt ranged be,
And look and long for immortality!
And now beforehand help to sing
Hallelujahs to heaven's king.
Polished as these are in comparison to those of Dr. Donne, and fine, too,
as they are intrinsically, there are single phrases in his that are worth
them all--except, indeed, that one splendid line,
Trample on Death and Hell in glorious glee.
George Sandys, the son of an archbishop of York, and born in 1577, is
better known by his travels in the east than by his poetry.
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